3.5 stars. ( )

Good first person account of Robyn Davidson's trek across Western Australia with camels. Also has good musings about courage, psychology, Aborigine rights, etc. I found and read this right after I saw the new movie about her (2013). ( )

Non-fiction about Robyn Davidson’s 1977-1978 trip across the Australian desert, accompanied by four camels and a dog. During this trip, she developed capabilities she did not know she possessed as she crossed over 1700 miles, mostly by walking and occasionally riding one of the camels. She started her trip in Alice Springs and ended at the Indian Ocean. Along the way, she interacts with various people, animals, and pests.

Filled with novelties such as:
- How to train your camel
- What it’s like to own a pet crow (not recommended!)
- Surviving in the Australian Outback

And more traditional themes such as:
- A woman confronting a machismo culture
- Finding the inner strength to deal with external perils
- Self-discovery through suffering
- The nature of solitude
- Transcending social and self-imposed limitations

One of my favorite parts of the book is her descriptions of how she adapted to the vastness of the desert, the isolation, and the dreamlike state induced by endurance in an extreme environment. She developed creative solutions to the setbacks that inevitably occurred. She seemed to intuit at some level that her journey into the desert would change her for the better. I recognized her evolution from a somewhat immature and vulnerable person to an agent in her own life. I enjoyed reading the reasons she undertook such a trip, what she learned, and how it changed her. One of her goals was to become more familiar with the Aboriginal people, and she cogently illuminates their plight. Although she was not an author at that point, the book is filled with striking imagery of the desert.

Be advised that it includes a significant amount of abuse and harm to animals, along with racism and sexism. Recommended to fans of memoirs about personal challenges, travel-related adventures, endurance tests, or self-discovery. Overall, I found it an inspirational tale of a remarkable journey, both physically and psychologically.

Memorable quotes:
"To be free is to test yourself constantly, to gamble. It is not safe. I had learnt to use my fears as stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks..."

"Capacity for survival may be the ability to be changed by environment."
( )

This book reminded me a lot of Wild, although the tone is very different there are similarities. A woman takes a very long walk across the landscape solo, to remake herself. Or so it seemed to me. That was a part of the story I couldn’t help being curious about at first, because it seemed such a strong undercurrent: what was the traumatic past Davidson was getting away from? or trying to heal from? but before many more pages I found myself respecting her privacy, especially seeing how she had to defend her need for solitude from so many people- local men in Alice Springs, tourists, National Geographic representatives . . . She was a woman who got along better being alone or with her animals, not people- so deciding to walk 1,700 miles across the Australian desert with just four camels and a dog made sense to her. First she had to work for men in Alice Springs in order to obtain the camels- had no money, and needed some know-how. The magazine heard of her plans and wanted to do a feature on her trip, so sent a photographer to accompany her for certain legs of the journey, and of course she used the much-needed money to fund her equipment and supplies. But bitterly resented having to do so. Wanted it to be all her own effort. I admit, reading the first part of the book was difficult for me. Not only about how brutally (by neccessity, it sounds) the wild-caught camels are treated during training, but also how rough the scene was at Alice Springs. It’s very different from the picture I got of Alice Springs in other accounts. Also upsetting to read how systematically the Aborigional people were oppressed, and how racist many of the people Davidson met were.

But once she gets out in the desert, alone with her camels, things change. And not at all in the manner I might have expected. She had a lot of mental turmoil to work through, and the solitude and stress of the desert also worked upon her. She met and sometimes stayed with Aborigional people along the way- encounters she’d looked forward to, but they weren’t always as expected either. In fact a lot of things didn’t turn out as she’d planned or hoped. The way she became in tune with the landscape and learned to recognize, appreciate and use the native plants was part I loved reading about- though nearly all the plant life was totally unfamiliar to me, so I had a hard time picturing it. Very little mention of wildlife- not sure if because she didn’t encounter many animals, or just didn’t think to write about them. Overall it just sounds like it was an amazing, life-altering, and very strenuous and difficult experience- but at the same time, became very easy once she got used to the routine and rigors of the journey. She talks about social mores and niceties falling away, and how hard it was to readjust when she left the outback.

A book I definitely want to read again someday. And watch the film, though I know it simplifies the story and probably makes more of her relationship with the photographer.

from the Dogear Diary ( )

Travel Lit FYS with Prof. Barickman. ( )