My Adopted Country: Australia

About the Book

The book begins with a chapter on homeland memories, followed by the author’s and his wife’s first experiences in Australia in 1954. For the first decade they moved from place to place, finally settling down in Canberra. These adventures are expressed in chapters on Tasmania, Darwin, a 15month stay in Canberra, Grafton, and finally Canberra again. The family, now with five daughters, settled in the National Capital where Mr Feeken became permanently employed as a draftsman and cartographer with the Bureau of Mineral Resources (now Geoscience Australia). Being interested in Australian Exploration, the family travelled year after year, checking out explorers’ discoveries, culminating in the publication of The Discovery and Exploration of Australia in 1970. Afterwards, the family still travelled, year after year, the vast expanses of the Australian Continent, often checking out explorers’ routes. After the untimely death of Mrs Feeken in 2005, the author was encouraged by friends to write up this story. The fascination for travelling the outback continued into the next generation. In 2007, Mr Feeken travelled with his granddaughter Kiah around Australia and to the centre, covering nearly 30 000 km in 6 months.

About the Author

Erwin Feeken was born in Germany in 1930 and migrated with his wife Gerda to Australia in 1954. Soon after he joined various organisations in his field as survey- or cartographic draftsman and later, as cartographer. This brought him, with his family, to Hobart, Darwin, Canberra, Grafton and finally back to Canberra. At the Australian National University, where he was cartographer in the Geography Department he happened to come upon the original journals of explorer Sir Thomas Mitchell. This discovery became a life-long passion in Australian Exploration for Mr Feeken and his wife, culminating in the publication of The Discovery and Exploration of Australia in 1970. Associated travels did not end then but continued to this day.