Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

This is one of my favorite books! Great story, very inspiring, writes beautifully. very thought provoking. will make you want to travel!

Subtitled, "A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1,700 Miles of Australian Outback," this 1980 book by Robyn Davidson, then 30 years old, is now considered a classic. She did it alone, with four camels, a loyal dog, and all the self-doubt and introspection that make her very human. Ms. Davidson grew up in Adelaide, a city in Southern Australia, but she traveled to the Central Australian town of Alice Springs, arriving with just $6 in her pocket and a desire to learn about camels. She worked in a bar and apprenticed herself to a camel owner, performing menial jobs and learning all she could. It took two years and half the book, but finally she was ready to pursue her dream. She never was able to accumulate the funds needed to outfit her camels and so she applied for and received a grant from National Geographic. Throughout the book she questions that decision because this meant she had to meet with a photographer on several parts of her journey as well as an onslaught of unwanted publicity. In her mind, the trip became less the pure expedition she had envisioned and there is much soul searching about this. This is not the only thing she constantly reflects about though. Throughout her 7-month trip, she questions everything, even at times, her own sanity. I learned not only about the harsh Australian Outback, the pleasures and problems of living with camels, and the plight of the Aboriginal people she met along the way. I also shared every nuance of her fears and inner journey, which was as complex and richly landscaped as the harsh and beautiful land around her and found myself laughing out loud at times at her offbeat sense of humor. And I watched her change from self-conscious timidity to a woman who gives up so many trappings of civilization that towards the end of the book she walks naked next to her camels, her skin browned and thickened to a leather-like consistency, heavy calluses on sandaled feet from walking 20 or 30 miles a day, and so far from the former civilized accouterments, that she doesn't care that menstrual blood is dripping down her legs.There's little background information that explains why Ms. Davison undertook her journey and I never really understood her reasons for doing it. That didn't matter though. What did matter, however, is that she is a living example of someone who made choices to follow her own personal dream. And for that, she is an inspiration. Upon finishing the book I was left with the thought that if she could do this, anything is possible and I applaud this her for reminding me of this. Recommended.

It's a cliche to call books "inspiring," but this one really is -- not because Robyn Davidson is heroic, but because (as she points out repeatedly) she's an ordinary woman from a rather sheltered background, but with extraordinary determination, persistence, and resourcefulness. To her, the meaning of her journey is that anyone can achieve whatever they want to. But, she tellingly points out, many of the reporters who dogged her steps portrayed her as crazy because that blunted her message -- which, if women took it seriously, would rock the foundations of society. She's completely frank about her feelings, her doubts about her journey, and the excuses she makes to herself when she's tempted to quit; but, to me, this made her accomplishment even greater because she was fighting herself as well as external obstacles. The internal journey she underwent was as important as the external one, and those readers who complain that there's too much of the former and not enough of the latter are, I think, completely missing the point of the book.

I first discovered Tracks during the boring period of my life, when I was a bank manager. Since then, my whole life has changed, and with Robyn Davidson as inspiration, I am much more of an adventuress. What I like best about this book is the soulful, brave way Robyn shares her inner journey...her attitudinal shifts, the way in which she sheds the trappings and conventions of society for something more real, a life lived closer to the bone. It's a must-read on a number of levels...I still re-read it once a year just to remind myself that there are places left to travel and inner realms to be explored.