The Geography Files

You think you know Australia's towns. You've never seen what's under them.

The rock beneath the streets and how many millions of years it has been there. The reason each town is where it is, and what its name really means. What water, fire and ice did to the ground around it, and the places nearby that vanished. Thirty real towns and cities, state by state, in one book you can start reading tonight.

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The Geography Files
Instant PDF download One payment, no subscription 7 days to ask for your money back Every fact checked against the public record
30 Real towns and cities, from the bedrock up
8 States and territories, every one of them
10+ Years teaching Australian geography

Who I am

I'm Tom Ashworth, a geography teacher. I've spent more than a decade teaching Australian geography and years studying the landscapes, rivers, forests and forgotten corners of this country. Every week on The Geography Files I take one region and count down what even lifelong Australians have never been told about it.

This book is built on the lesson I keep coming back to. We tend to think the map is finished. But a map can show you where every town is without telling you what it stands on, why it is there at all, or what used to sit beside it.

One book. Thirty towns.

A map gives you the streets. This book gives you the ground beneath them.

Thirty real Australian towns and cities, grouped state by state, and the same seven questions asked of every one of them, from the oldest rock underneath to the story the town forgot to tell. Not a report written to order: one finished book, checked fact by fact, and yours the moment you pay.

The Geography Files

What's Under Your Town

Thirty real Australian towns and cities, state by state, from the bedrock up: the rock under the streets, why each town exists, what its name means and the places nearby that vanished.

  • Thirty real Australian towns and cities, grouped state by state, across every state and territory
  • The rock under each town's streets, and how many millions of years it has been there
  • Why each town is where it is: the river crossing, the harbour, the goldfield, the railway
  • What each name really means, the names that came before it, and the Aboriginal name where it is known
  • What water, fire and ice did to the ground around it
  • The places nearby that vanished: ghost towns, drowned towns, railway lines nobody runs any more
  • Each town on its earliest survey map, and one documented story it forgot to tell
  • Every fact checked against the public record
  • Instant PDF download, large type, yours to keep
US$47.00
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7

Seven days to change your mind

A wrong fact is the one thing a book like this can't afford. If you find one, write and tell me: I check it, and if I got it wrong, I fix it in the book. And if the book isn't what this page promised, write within seven days of buying and you get every cent back. No forms, no reasons asked.

Questions people ask

Is it written about my town?
No, and I'd rather say so plainly. This isn't a report written to order for one address. It's one finished book about thirty real Australian towns and cities, grouped state by state, each one taken from the bedrock up. If you live in one of them, grew up in one, or drive through one every Christmas, you'll find it there. If you don't, you'll still never look at your own town the same way.
Which towns are in it?
Thirty real towns and cities across every state and territory: capitals and country towns, river towns, mining towns and towns by the sea. They are chosen for what is under them, not for their size, so some you'll know well and some you've probably only driven past.
Aren't small towns too ordinary to write about?
Often they're the strangest. A town is usually small for a reason written in the ground: the river that floods, the goldfield that ran out, the railway that went elsewhere. In this book a town of a few hundred people gets the same seven questions as a capital city.
What does it tell me about each town?
The same seven things every time. The rock under its streets and how old it is. Why the town exists at all. What its name means, and the names it carried before. What water, fire and ice did to the ground around it. The places nearby that vanished. What its earliest survey map shows. And one documented story the town doesn't usually tell about itself.
How do you know any of this is right?
From the public record: geological survey maps, the state place-names registers, colonial survey plans, heritage registers and the work of named universities. Where sources disagree, the book says so, and where a figure is uncertain it is given as a range, not dressed up as a fact.
Is it about my family or my property?
No. It's about the documented geography and history of places, not of anyone's land or family. It isn't a land survey, a title search, a geotechnical report or a family history, and it can't tell you what is under your particular block.
Will it send me somewhere I shouldn't go?
No. Where a place can be visited, the book says how. Where it can't, or shouldn't be, it says that too: a closed track, a site the Traditional Custodians ask visitors to stay off, an old mine shaft, a sea cave at the wrong tide.
How does it arrive?
As a PDF you download as soon as your payment goes through, set in large type. Read it on your phone, tablet or computer, or print the pages for the next drive.
Can I give it as a gift?
Yes. Buy it with their email address at checkout and the download goes straight to them. It suits the person who never left their town, and the one who left and still talks about it.
Is the price in Australian dollars?
It's set in US dollars, so the exact amount in Australian dollars depends on the exchange rate on the day you pay. One payment, nothing to renew.
What if I don't like it?
Write within seven days of buying and you get your money back. No forms, no questions asked.

You'll drive through one of them again this summer.

On the way to the coast, or to Christmas, or to somewhere else entirely. The bakery, the war memorial, the pub on the corner, the river under the bridge, and twenty minutes later you're out the other side. You'll have crossed an old volcano, or a sea floor lifted out of the water, or the roof of a mine nobody has worked in a hundred years, or the spot where an older town was drowned to make a lake, and nobody will have told you it was there. A map shows you the towns. It has never shown you what they stand on.

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