In the same amount of time it will take his wife to have a baby, inveterate backpacking author Andrew Stevenson publishes three books!

His latest, `Travels in Outback Australia: Beyond the Black Stump', has just arrived on local bookshelves and will doubtless make fascinating reading because this travel writer is not your average tourist-at-large who swans around in comfort, bunking down in plush hotels, and picking delicately at the caviar and shrimps.

Rather, he is a backpacker whose mission is to experience the real fabric of a country, its culture, peoples and cuisine.

`Travels in Outback Australia: Beyond the Black Stump' is the culmination of Mr. Stevenson's long-held desire to visit the Antipodean continent, which he did for three months in 1998.

That it took so long to complete the book of his journey is due, in part, to an accident in 1999 which left him with a broken back. In fact, much of its text was written on a laptop resting on his stomach while he recuperated.

Recalling his quest to see "the real Australia" the author says: "Although I spent two weeks travelling up the East Coast, it wasn't until I reached Cairns and headed west into the Outback that I felt as if I had arrived in the Australia I had imagined. The Outback, and in particular the aboriginal people, fascinated me."

To visit them, however, was not simply a question of turning up on their turf.

Instead, it often took weeks to complete the requisite administrative paperwork.

"The easiest place to meet the aboriginals was in the bars, although towards the end of my trip I was invited onto an aboriginal mission," he says.

Drawing on his stock-in-trade of an enquiring mind, keen powers of observation, and sense of compassion, Mr. Stevenson ended up with what has been termed "an extraordinary account of an Australia that we have not seen before".

Asked to list his most memorable impressions of Australia, the travel writer says: "Definitely, staying with the aboriginals was a highlight, as was flying with the Flying Doctors north of Cairns in Queensland. Also The Centre (central Australia), Alice Springs, and Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock).

"I loved western Australia, which reminded me much more of how I imagined the country to be. Then there was Monkey Mia, with the wild dolphins who come to shore every day; the Ningaloo Reef where, unlike the Great Barrier Reef, you just pad into the water from the beach. It is like an underwater Persian carpet, so thick that there are few patches of empty sand, and the sea is teeming with fish and turtles; and Exmouth, where you can swim with the whale sharks, although I didn't see any.

"The emptiness of the Kimberly, the salties, sea water crocodiles... and of course the Australians. It's impossible to walk into an Australian bar and not walk out with new friends."

With his fifth book now published, and another travelogue and a novel completed, Mr. Stevenson is poised to take off again - this time on a six-week return trip to the Himalayas to make a documentary film.

If it seems an odd time of year to undertake such a rugged journey when the area is in the grip of winter, and the terrain will be inhospitable, and the Maoists are causing trouble, it is because he and his wife, Dr. Annabel Carter, are expecting their first child at the end of May, and this is the only opportune time for him to go, albeit with his wife's blessing.

"This will be my sixteenth trip to the Himalayas, my seventh to the Annapurnas, and my fourth right around them," the travel writer says. "Although I had never held a video camera until last year this is something I decided I wanted to do. Annabel did the Annapurna Circuit some years before I did, and was the doctor on two Everest marathons, so she knows the territory well.

"Because of her passion for the area she understands why I want to make this documentary. As for the Maoists, they are a definitely bit of a worry, but I know the Annapurna Circuit well, and I also know well the villagers in each of the villages along the way."

`Travels in Outback Australia: Beyond the Black Stump" is available at the Bookmart, the Bermuda Bookstore, and the Book Cellar in St. George's. Photographs can be seen on this website: www.awstevenson.com

Mr. Stevenson's travelogue, `Annapurna Circuit', has been translated into German, and the second German edition will be published by National Geographic Germany in July this year. His photographic book, `A Nepalese Journey: On Foot Around the Annapurnas', was recently selected as one of four finalists at the Banff Mountain Book and Film Festival.