Robyn Davidson's opens the memoir of her perilous journey across 1,700 miles of hostile Australian desert to the sea with only four camels and a dog for company with the following words: “I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there's no going back." Enduring sweltering heat, fending off poisonous snakes and lecherous men, chasing her camels when they get skittish and nursing them when they are injured, Davidson emerges as an extraordinarily courageous heroine driven by a love of Australia's landscape, an empathy for its indigenous people, and a willingness to cast away the trappings of her former identity. Tracks is the compelling, candid story of her odyssey of discovery and transformation. “An unforgettably powerful book.”—Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild Now with a new postscript by Robyn Davidson.
Tracks on Amazon >
Ever had the desire to jump in your car and keep driving? Well, that is precisely what The Raven Brothers decided to do whilst stacking boxes of frozen oven chips in a -30 degrees freezer. With a squeaky foot pump and an SAS survival guide, the travel writing duo from the UK fired up their rusty Ford Sierra and headed east. After clocking up over 12,000 kilometres, quite literally living in the car, they miraculously arrived in the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan. What the brothers had in fact done was drive Russia’s new Trans-Siberian Highway, a staggering eight years before the road was completed. With only very limited skills of wilderness survival and, virtually zero knowledge of the internal combustion engine, Simon and Chris crossed ten time zones in the beat up petrol engine saloon they used for work. Driving through endless rivers and canyons in a bid to cross the notorious Zilov Gap in darkest Siberia, the hapless heroes capture the true spirit of overland travel during a life-altering journey across one of the world’s last frontiers. Along the way they rub shoulders with Chechen criminals, escape highway robbery, trade banana flavoured condoms with Russian cops, meet an eccentric cast of characters at truck stops in darkest Siberia, endure torturous road conditions and enter into a race to the finish with the Germans. Surviving the journey by the skin of their teeth, the brothers are forced to confront their worst fears in a toe-curling comedy of extreme road trip adventure. Priding themselves on going it alone, The Raven Brothers have been noted by Lonely Planet for their talent to portray an “accurate view of what to expect”.
