Wanderer Sorrel Wilby has finally found her forever home after a lifetime of travel, settling on a Norfolk Island clifftop overlooking the Pacific. From the eastern-most house in Australia, surrounded by whispering pines, the former Getaway presenter marvels at pearly dawns as she enjoys a bird’s-eye view of humpbacks playing in the ocean.
For Sorrel and her husband Chris Ciantar, 67, this was meant to be a retirement retreat.
“I guess that might suit some people, but the classic definition was never going to sit well with me. I still needed to express myself in a creative way,” explains Sorrel, an award-winning writer, photographer, explorer, environmentalist, documentary maker, and the turbo-charged mother of two adult children, Aden, 25, and Ruby, 21.
For a few months after her 60th birthday, Sorrel was quietly content simply watching the world go by through her “beautiful” windows, burned out by years of unrelenting work. But the best-selling novel Where the Crawdads Sing inspired the one-time art student to explore her love of the natural world through her first passion, drawing.
“I read that book and thought, you know what? I need a project,” she laughs. “I needed to reinvent myself as an artist and then use my art to express my connections with the natural world.
“It took a year before we built a studio and another year for me to stop gazing languidly off into space before I put pen to paper. But when I did, it was with the express purpose of creating an archive of original drawings celebrating Norfolk’s biodiversity.
“And you know, taking that time to wallow on the lounge looking at the sky was far from a waste. I really gave myself an opportunity to slow down and tune in. From that came the desire to create this record of Norfolk’s native species and for it to be my legacy.”
For Sorrel, this wild, green “paradise found” is the most special place on Earth. And she should know, having spent a lifetime travelling off the beaten track on her own behalf and for the Nine Network’s top-rating Getaway.
She was the first female westerner to trek 3000km solo across Tibet and became part of Australia’s Bicentennial expedition to Everest. She cycled 17,000km through Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China and Thailand, climbed Africa’s highest peaks and, with cameraman Chris, notched up another first — crossing the Himalayas on foot.
“But in some ways, the biggest and grandest adventure of them all was shifting from mainland Australia to live on this tiny, crazy little island,” chuckles the vibrant 63-year-old, who grew up in big city Sydney. “There’s nothing I don’t love about Norfolk.”
Sorrel and Chris first moved to this remote speck of land with their family back in 2001, when they bought the local TV station. Leaving for three-and-a-half years, while the kids studied in Canberra, was a bigger wrench than they could ever have imagined. “Honestly, I pined for the island every day we were away, no pun intended.”
And since her return, that connection to the island has grown even stronger. “Even though the island has this incredibly harsh convict history, I’m super pulled in by its natural environment,” she says. “There’s a sense of calm and peace here which I’ve not found anywhere else. As the world gets more and more erratic, Norfolk makes more and more sense. I feel connected to this place in a way that I don’t feel, or hadn’t felt, anywhere else.”
Growing up in Sydney’s leafy Epping — daughter of an accountant and a ceramicist-turned-nurse — Sorrel’s inquiring mind drove her to become a globetrotter.
“I always needed to know what was over the next horizon and what made things tick,” she recalls. “So I was constantly asking questions and trying to delve deeply into what the world was all about. I was absolutely restless and just wanting to travel. Then I guess I never stopped!
“Life has that weird way of taking you down paths you didn’t anticipate and throwing up obstacles, but also opportunities. Sometimes they’re one and the same thing, aren’t they?
“I’ve always been adept at thinking the glass is half full, rather than half empty, and acted accordingly. I never really take hardship on the chin. I get over it and move on and build on it and try to do better next time. It’s a good skill for an adventurer to have because it’s pretty dire if you give in halfway up a mountain. You never get to the top, never find your way back down again …
“You learn courage and resilience if you want to go on. You can’t just collapse in a little heap. You have to find that inner strength to keep going. And having done that through so many adventures, you do feel set up for life. Nothing fazes you. It takes a lot to upset me.”
Sorrel even stayed calm — Chris, not so much — when son Aden went trekking through Jordan, despite the war in the Middle East. Having encouraged her kids to be sensible risk-takers, she is content to see them off on their own expeditions while she stays home.
But Sorrel still has one big quest to complete, courtesy of the prestigious Churchill Fellowship she won in 2023. Her project — inspired by the work of Colonial artists — will see her complete around 300 drawings celebrating her island’s endemic, native, endangered or extinct wildlife.
The artwork will be complemented by interviews recorded around the world with scientists who have contributed to the study and conservation of Norfolk’s biodiversity.
“It’s another mad journey I devised, but it was travel with a purpose,” she chuckles. “Of course, there are a million nature photographs but as we move into a world increasingly dominated by AI, I think we’re going to value the handmade, hand-drawn, poetic and lyrical more and more.
“I don’t want to sell my drawings. I want them to stay as a record on the island. When I started researching the species we have lost, I realised that all the specimens got sold off or taken back to natural history museums in Europe. I think the people of Norfolk deserve to see a local archive in future.”
It’s a voyage of rediscovery — of the island, her art and her passion for wildlife conservation.
“I just hope this inspires people to explore their own backyard, really,” she says. “Come to Norfolk, yes, but just get out there and fall in love with the environment around you. You can’t save what you don’t love, or save it for future generations.”
