Stacey Dooley’s Australia sees presenter face her fear of being ‘boxed to death’ by kangaroos
Bushfire survivors, rescued joeys and a game of footy – Stacey Dooley’s Australia: Off the Beaten Track is anything but a holidayStacey Dooley is heading Down Under in her new Channel 4 series, and she’s skipping the Sydney Opera House in favour of the places most visitors never reach.
Stacey Dooley’s Australia: Off the Beaten Track sees the presenter, 39, travel across the country to meet the people living in some of its most remote communities. The series promises to show a side of Australia that few outsiders ever get to see.
It’s a big challenge, but if anyone can hold her own at a country football match, it’s Stacey!
Where was Stacey Dooley’s Australia filmed?
The series begins on Kangaroo Island, off the coast of South Australia, around 70 miles southwest of Adelaide.
Stacey explores the island’s wild landscapes and remarkable wildlife, and joins the locals for a game of country football.
Facing her fear of kangaroos
As the name suggests, Kangaroo Island isn’t short of its famous residents, which presents Stacey with a slight problem.
She arrives with a fear of being “boxed to death” by the island’s kangaroos. She has to overcome it as she gets up close to the wildlife!
An island that rebuilt after the bushfires
Kangaroo Island was devastated by the Black Summer bushfires of 2019 and 2020. They burned through around half of the island and killed huge numbers of animals.
In the first episode, residents tell Stacey how they coped with the fires and how the community has rebuilt in the years since.
She also meets a couple who set up a refuge for orphaned joeys after the fires left them feeling “a bit lost”. And she sees how the island’s wildlife is recovering.
Into the rainforest next week
In episode 2, Stacey travels north to the Daintree Rainforest in Queensland. There she meets a community living off the grid.
‘Engaging and versatile’
Stacey’s new series is already winning over the critics. Previewing the first episode, the Guardian’s Phil Harrison described her as “engaging and versatile”. He also praised the island’s “astonishing array of wildlife”.
Following in some famous footsteps Down Under
Stacey is far from the first famous face to head off around Australia for a TV travelogue.
Miriam Margolyes, who was born in England but has Australian citizenship, toured the country in a motorhome for Miriam Margolyes: Almost Australian, which aired on BBC Two in 2020. Her mission was to find out what it really means to be Australian, and she was as gloriously outspoken as you’d expect.
She went back for more in a follow-up series, Miriam Margolyes: A New Australian Adventure, which took her to Perth, Broken Hill and Byron Bay.
Simon Reeve crossed the country for BBC Two in 2013 in Australia with Simon Reeve, travelling from the Red Centre to Perth and joining a round-up of feral camels along the way.
And long before that, Billy Connolly took his stand-up across the country in Billy Connolly’s World Tour of Australia, filmed in 1995.
Unlike most of those, Stacey is skipping the big cities and the obvious stops, and heading for the places that rarely make it onto TV.
From Luton to the bush
Stacey first appeared on TV in 2008 in Blood, Sweat and T-shirts. The documentary took young British fashion fans to India to see how their clothes were made.
That led to her long-running documentary series Stacey Dooley Investigates. This began on BBC Three in 2009 and saw her report on everything from labour conditions to conflict zones.
She won Strictly Come Dancing in 2018 with her professional partner, Kevin Clifton, who is now her real-life partner. The couple have a daughter, Minnie, who was born in January 2023.
Since then, she has presented Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over, Glow Up and DNA Family Secrets. In 2024, she made her West End debut in 2:22 A Ghost Story.
How many episodes of Stacey Dooley’s Australia are there?
Stacey Dooley’s Australia: Off the Beaten Track is a six-part series. There is a new episode every Sunday night on Channel 4.
Stacey Dooley’s Australia: Off the Beaten Track starts tonight, Sunday, November 8, at 9pm on Channel 4.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI technology to synthesise source reporting and structured data. It has been reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by our human editorial team before publication.
