Australian dame goes back to southern mountains (5)
I believe the answer is:
andes
'mountains' is the definition.
(I've seen this in another clue)
'australian dame goes back to southern' is the wordplay.
'australian' becomes 'A' (common abbreviation).
'back' says to take the final letters (the letter at the back).
'to' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other) (I've seen this in other clues).
'southern' becomes 'nd' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
The final letters of 'dame goes' are 'es'.
'es' after 'nd' is 'ndes'.
'a'+'ndes'='ANDES'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for andes that I've seen before include "Major mountain range" , "Mountains of 6 dn" , "Peak District" , "Mounts" , "danes found in mountains" .)