Going Places with Ernie Dingo: Mark Coles Smith’s new adventure on the road
Actor and musician Mark Coles Smith had exactly a 15-day gap in his heaving schedule.
He was coming off one project and was about to start another when he got an offer: would he like to join the presenting ensemble for Going Places with Ernie Dingo, an NITV travel and lifestyle series now in its sixth season?
“I was like, ‘Oh, should I do this?’ and thought, you know what, this is such a great opportunity,” Coles Smith told The Nightly. “I love travelling, I’ve always been an adventurer, I’ve always been a nomad. I’ve done solo road trips across Australia.”
Sign up to The Nightly's newsletters.
Get the first look at the digital newspaper, curated daily stories and breaking headlines delivered to your inbox.
By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.The timing was fortuitous in both senses of the word — it fit into this hole but that was also going to be the only time he would have had off.
Coles Smith couldn’t leave the bait dangling there, even when his agent pressed him whether he was sure he wanted to give up that elusive thing we’re all chasing — time off. He was hook, line and sinker. “I was like, ‘Yes, I want to do that’, and no regrets,” he said.
“I couldn’t resist the opportunity to explore Australia,” he continued. “I’ve been doing it for a long time and there is still so much more to see. I haven’t seen it all yet. I still haven’t been up top into the cape. I’ve never been to Tasmania.”
Coles Smith was speaking from Pemberton in south-west Western Australia, about to finish rehearsals and start filming for a fourth season of Mystery Road, the gritty ABC crime series on which he plays the young version of Jay Swan.
All around there are lush forests, and it’s only the second time Coles Smith has been in the region. The first was for a segment on Going Places when he walked a section of the Bibbulman Track in Walpole, about an hour-and-a-half drive away.
“It was a really beautiful introduction to this area and I’d never seen any of the old-growth Karri trees before,” he recalled. “For anyone who hasn’t seen them, they’re magnificent there, they’re hundreds and hundreds of years old. They were here before this country was called Australia.
“They’ve seen so much, it’s something that’s been alive for that long. It’s a really beautiful experience. The train itself winds through a lot of that forest country and then out into some of the really rugged, picturesque coastlines of the great southern region of WA.”
Coles Smith spent two days on the track but it stirred in him a great desire to go back and complete the whole trail.
About nine hours inland from Walpole is Kalgoorlie, where Coles Smith was born, and it was there that he discovered a shack where the ANZAC Day game of Two-Up is legal not just on April 25th but every day of the year. It’s open country out there and as you flip those coins up, the flies are buzzing around.
“What’s special about that spot is not the natural landscape but the people. Being there was such a wild time for me, and it was so interesting to see how much of a multicultural portal this weird little Two-Up gambling ring had become. The Thai girls were betting against the farmers.
“That’s what it’s all about with Going Places, meeting and telling the stories of all people all throughout the country, all the amazing little stories that we’ve got.”
Going Places with Ernie Dingo has been on the road since 2016 and its presenting team this season also includes Dingo, Rae Johnston, Bianca Hunt and Aaron Fa’Aoso. Across episodes, the intrepid explorers will visit the likes of Ningaloo Reef, the Gulf of Carpentaria and the West MacDonnell Ranges.
Coles Smith said he never imagined himself on a travel show but having grown up watching Dingo, he also never thought he would ever get to share a credit with him on a project.
If there’s another season after this one, Coles Smith already has a bucket list experience he really wants to film.
“It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time, it’s a very special experience that’s rare and it’s somewhere remote in the country,” he revealed while not actually giving anything away.
If the producers can set that up, Coles Smith will 100 per cent be back. But even without that, you suspect he would anyway.
“Being able to visit these new places and to meet locals from those areas that have such a wonderful connection to that place, and to share it and want to invite the world to see what makes their home so special,” he said.
