Cynthia Clampitt

“As I sped over the soft earth, the wind in my face, the colors crowding in around me, I felt fleeter and freer than I can ever remember. Such is the liberating quality of joy.”

You could read Waltzing Australia by Cynthia Clampitt and thoroughly enjoy a great travel book. This highly recommended journal is full of the history, the beauty and the mystery of Australia. In fact, if you suffer from occasional wanderlust, you should keep this book on your permanent library shelf so that you show more can escape into the various parts of Australia whenever you wish! I personally would visit Tasmania more often since Cynthia immediately captured me through the stories of her travels there.

But if I told you only about traveling through Australia, you would not be prepared and perhaps not realize until it is later in the book, that there is a very personal story being told. It’s about one of our present-day female role models we should share with our children. It’s about a gutsy woman who, while being in a successful corporate career realized that it was not what she wanted for her life. She wanted a writing career. Leaving the security of her corporate role, she first chose to fulfill a lifetime dream. She spent six months touring Australia!

There is little that Cynthia writes about herself, but when she does add those personal comments, such as the one quoted above, I urge you to stop and consider those words about your own life—Can we say that we experience “the liberating quality of joy”? Let your heart decide whether Cynthia has a special message for you that will run throughout this book... If so, then sit back and enjoy waltzing along with Cynthia as she tests her limits, especially physically, and in many other ways!

“My spirit seemed to vibrate...in sympathetic response to...innocence, the fierceness, the solitude...I studied them a while longer, smiled...”

This lengthy journey covers approximately 20,000 miles as Cynthia toured Australia. The book has been easily divided into parts of the country so that you can hone in on that section if you are fortunate to have a few weeks to travel to a specific spot. It is written in a travel diary format that provides broad strokes as well as daily activities of events. There will be information about the history of the location being traveled, notes on wildlife as well as the land and water displays. To give you a taste, I’ll share with you just some of the details that show the variety of information and that were especially interesting to me:

· Nearly everybody knows the old song about the Kookaburra. It is the largest member of the kingfisher family and is best known for its rollicking “laughter.”

· Wages were once paid in “rum.”

· “Beyond words” can only be used to describe the beauty of the rainforest.

· Everything, including cars, the weather, life...is referred to as “she.”

· The riverboat postman on Hawkesbury River carries not only mail, but food, medicine and even people!

· Captain Cook traveled along the coast naming bays, islands and landmarks. He “peacefully changed the map of the world more than any other single man....”

· Rub a large stone...in the fertility cave to become pregnant, according to Aboriginal legend!

· The Stirling Bells grow nowhere else in the world other than the Stirling Ranges; each of the seven varieties has its own mountain, growing nowhere else in the ranges!

· Tasmania’s Wallabies are only 2 to 3 feet and they grasp fingers to eat out of your hand.

· Wombats have short necks, making it impossible to look up, so they beg for food by trotting up and staring at your ankles.

· Tasmanian devils owe their names and reputations to the insanely wild screaming/choking/snarling/roaring sounds they make for normal conversation!

· Sydney’s opera house cost $102M, raised mostly through lotteries.

With that last I must stop. There seems to be one overlying theme about Australia that is readily apparent. People are happy, friendly and proud of their country. People open their homes to strangers. When a car or bus is broken down, everybody stops to help. I love the Australia that I read about in Waltzing Australia by Cynthia Clampitt. I was 18 when I, too, thought of traveling to that country. If I never get to, though, Cynthia has given me a taste of that “heaven” that I missed. Perhaps you, too, have a dream...

“I wondered again, as I have wondered before, why this place moves me so. I am drawn to the remoteness, to the vigor, the fierceness...and its spirit whispers to my spirit...”

G. A. Bixler show less

It’s everywhere!

Midwest Maize: How Corn Shaped the U.S. Heartland by Cynthia Clampitt (University of Illinois Press, $19.95)

Corn is in almost everything–what we eat, what we put in our cars, occasionally even the clothes we wear–and yet this ubiquitous grass hasn’t had nearly the cultural attention outside of food books that it deserves.

Long ago, the word “corn” simply meant the grain staple of an area; the actual grain in question might be wheat, barley, or rice, but its role show more gave it the designation “corn.” That all changed when the grass grain from Mexico, cultivated throughout the American continent, was introduced to the rest of the world. In Midwest Maize: How Corn Shaped the U.S. Heartland, Cynthia Clampitt provides a thumbnail history of the evolution and development of maize—our corn—and then focuses on what that means for the Midwestern U.S., the Corn Belt, where there is quite literally corn as far as the eye can see.

It’s become our most important crop, used as feed for our meat livestock, turned into biofuel, used to make plastic—and, of course, as high-fructose corn syrup, added to damn near everything. If the persistence and spread of this monoculture throughout a wide swath of the U.S. is of interest to you, this book is required reading.

Reviewed on Lit/Rant: www.litrant.tumblr.com show less

Cynthia Clampitt had a secure job with a steady paycheck and decided to leave it all behind to pursue her dream of becoming a writer. She packed up her stuff and headed to Australia where she spent the next 6 months recording everything she saw, did and felt. She spent time in the cities but really connected with the country and bush areas of the continent. She did everything from hiking, climbing, and horseback riding to shopping, eating great food, and relaxing. She experienced as much as show more she could in those 6 months and turned those experiences into, "Waltzing Australia", one of the best travel books I have ever read.

Within the pages of this fabulous travelogue Ms. Clampitt manages to express the beauty of the places she visits in a way that makes it easy for the reader to picture. She also throws in a little history here and there which made it even more interesting to me. However, what I enjoyed the most were her descriptions of her encounters with the people of Australia. When I was there I found the people to be extremely friendly and helpful and it was nice to see that Ms. Clampitt had the same experience with those she met throughout her journey.

Whether you have been to Australia or not, I highly recommend "Waltzing Australia" as either a great introduction to one of the most spectacular places on Earth or as a wonderful reminder of your past trip. Either way, this beautifully written book that will have you planning a first trip or a return visit in no time! show less

Waltzing Australia is a perfect book for the armchair traveler. The “Land Down Under” is a land of mystery and intrigue. Most of us are not familiar with the country of Australia. The little most of us know about this continent could fit into a thimble. Movies have given us a glimpse of it and many of us are familiar with the tune “Waltzing Mathilda”, a folk song made famous by Banjo Paterson. Some of us might even know what a billabong is (a small water hole in a dry area).

Cynthia show more Clampitt’s Waltzing Australia is a very enjoyable and enlightening read. It is a journey of adventure of more than 20,000 miles as she crisscrosses the continent for six months. Each day of her journey is described in great detail. Her writing is superb and the reader is drawn into every detail of her adventure. Reading it was like sharing the adventure with her.

Her six month journey is divided into ten sections, each of which describes the incredible beauty of each region of this country. Bits and pieces of the history of Australia are incorporated into the journey and add significantly to the adventure. The Land Down Under comes alive and will leave the reader wanting to learn more. A ten page glossary of Australian lingo/sayings, mostly aboriginal and Aussie, found at the end of the journal are well defined and add to the overall quality of the book.

As the journey came to an end, the reader can’t help but feel sad that the adventure is over. As the tale comes to an end, the reader is left with the need to learn more about Australia. Perhaps one day, the author will publish a book of photographs as a companion piece to Waltzing Australia. It’s that good! show less