Much loved Struth! columnist and Highlands local David Ellis died on March 1. He had enjoyed a colourful and adventurous career, alongside wife of 55 years Gwenda, his three children and eight grandchildren. Here is a slice of his wonderful life...
David Ellis was an Australian travel writer and broadcaster, former print, radio and television journalist, and a former foreign correspondent in Rabaul (Papua New Guinea) and Jakarta (Indonesia) with ABC Radio News and Radio Australia.
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He had been writing and broadcasting travel for over 30 years, having travelled to most points of the globe – by snowmobile to the Arctic Circle, by plane over the South Pole, and by air, sea, road and rail through much of Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America, Canada and Alaska, and through the majority of the Pacific Islands and Carribean.
He included amongst his more-memorable experiences: travelling back with author James A Michener to where the novelist had 45 years earlier conceived and written his immortal “Tales of the South Pacific”, tracking down and interviewing Great Train Robber, Ronnie Biggs in Rio de Janeiro, finding and interviewing the original “Girl From Ipanema,” taking his three children to meet Santa Claus on the Finnish Arctic Circle one Christmas, and flying out of France aboard the first experimental version of the supersonic Concorde airliner.
For many years he looked after the media interests of groups such as the Tahiti Tourism Board, Anaheim Visitors Bureau, Finnair, Berlin Convention Centre, Vanuatu Tourism and a variety of Australian agencies, and at his passing was keeping his hand in as PR for the luxurious SeaDream Yacht Club.
David had been married to Gwenda for 55 years, and the father of three children: Bradley (who passed away in Burradoo in 2011 from cancer aged 43 years), Kimberley who lives in Bundanoon, and Steven who lives in Cincinnati, USA, and grandfather to Abigail, Naomi, Hugo, Oliver, Henry, Sophia, Alexander and Daniel.
David also owned and operated one of Australia’s most successful travel industry public relations companies from 1979 to his retirement from PR in 2012. He continued to travel and write weekly of his days on the road, in the air, and at sea.
He continued to travel and write of his days on the road, in the air, and at sea.
David died peacefully in his sleep on Friday, March 1 at his home in Burradoo, aged 79.
