I like reading about solo journeys, and this was technically solo although having some camels and a dog as traveling companions threaten that definition.
Traveling across half of Australia with some tamed wild camels, the author explains in detail how she ended up doing this trip, which was featured in a 1978 issue of National Geographic magazine. There are always a lot of questions on why she did the journey, and this book has some answers. It seemed to be written as a response to people who were curious after reading the magazine article.
She seems like a pretty live wire back in the 1970s and there is definitely an agenda in this book – to point out the poor treatment of the Aboriginal people, call out misogyny, and to shock the audience a bit with the differences between the National Geographic experience and the more personal one that she went through.
I liked the book, and although I wasn’t as curious or interested in the traveling with camels aspect, it was interesting to read about travel in a wide open and dangerous place. In the afterword the author says that it is probably impossible to do the trip these days – there are fences and checkpoints to get in the way of a true solo experience.
She has a great writing style – startling to think that she was in her 20s when she wrote it – and although there was a little woo-woo in there I was following along on the journey with a lot of anticipation.
If there was any downside to this book for me, it would be all the time spent before the trip which was important to the success of the adventure but wasn’t as interesting for me. There wasn’t really a solid plan to go – so the reader has to watch her put up with a lot of crap with the possibility of no eventual payoff. Of course from the cover of the book we know it was a successful journey, but the is a lot of aimlessness in the beginning.
I was able to read the National Geographic story after finishing the book, and especially the photos were well done. I wouldn’t recommend reading the book without first flipping through the photos to whet the appetite.
Next I am reading The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab.
