What do you think?
Rate this book
Swimming with Crocodiles: An Australian Adventure
Will Chaffey was eighteen in the late eighties when he boarded a plane in New York bound for Australia. Though he had recently graduated from one of Boston’s most prestigious private schools, a disastrous senior year meant that he hadn’t been accepted into college. Instead, he took what the college counsellors grimly called ‘time off’.Despite having no idea what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, Will had a plan for the next six to get as far away as possible from the dark New England winter and the stifling expectations of college and career.In Australia, Will met an enigmatic herpetologist and wanderer called Geoff. Together they formulated a plan to walk from the headwaters of the Prince Regent River to the falls of the King Cascade on the north-west coast of Western Australia – a hazardous journey never before attempted by white men. Along the way they would look for Australia’s rarest python and document their experience for Australian Geographic.Trekking through a harsh and seductive landscape, their expedition turned into a life-and-death struggle when the boat they expected to collect them at King Cascade never arrived. Stranded in the wildest of places and running out of supplies, Will is transformed in ways he could never have anticipated.A gripping adventure and a wise and funny meditation on the journey to adulthood, Swimming with Crocodiles brims with curiosity and insight. It is a book about forging your own path and discovering that the most valuable lessons are learned when you least expect it – and, sometimes, when you are a world away from the life you have known.
Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
5 people are currently reading
206 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
June 22, 2008
Swimming with Crocodiles is an interesting hybrid: a coming of age story, mingled with travelogue and Nat Geo styled adventure tale. Eighteen year old Will Chaffey was rejected by a number of universities after completing his High School diploma at the prestigious Milton school, and decided to take a trip overseas to Australia. It was there he met Geoff Cunningham, adventurer, nomad, and herpetologist, who took him along on a trip deep into the Kimberleys in Western Australia. It's a good story, gripping and thoughtful. Chaffey manages to successfully toe the line between providing the reader with a good deal of information on the flora and fauna – some of it magnificent – of the area, and creating an engaging plot with a deeper underlying theme.
With all the skills of a fiction writer, Chaffey presents a cast of interesting characters – students, scientists and hippies, from Bill, the grad student biologist from Berkeley who led his team of trappers and data collectors, to Peter, the South African farmer giving his land back to the forest. But the most interesting character is Geoff, the strange herpetologist who convinces him to join in and split the petrol for an exhibition into the remote Kimberly, ostensibly to find new reptile species, take photographs, and become the first white men to walk the headwaters of the Prince Regent River to the falls of the King Cascade. If they had succeeded without a hitch, it would have been an interesting story, full of Geoff's extensive knowledge of the land and its inhabitants, particularly reptilian and of Chaffey's observations and sometimes wide-eyed wonder. But there was a hitch. After forty days in the wilderness, they reached their end-point – The King Cascade. Then they sit down to wait for a boat to come in and collect them, but nothing comes. After weeks of waiting, no boat arrives, and they end up having to walk another 70kms to get out. The adventure becomes a life or death story where starvation is just around the corner, exhaustion threatens to overtake them, and the pair almost end up as croc food. What Chaffey discovers about himself and about the world he lives in during that close shave makes for an exciting read.
Throughout the book, Chaffey punctuates his rich descriptions of the land he is discovering, with his fears, his sense of the future, and his growing self-development. His sense of time and space changes, and he begins to see, everywhere, the bigger context of his role in the world and of its fragility.
This sense of both the fragility of nature, and the fragility of man within nature, becomes an underlying theme that carries the book beyond simply a travelogue. We begin to identify with Chaffey as a character, and his development becomes meaningful, but we also put his experience into our own context, and it therefore becomes meaningful to us. Not all of us will have to reach into crocodile infested waters to retrieve a lost fishing rod – our only means of obtaining food, and not all of us will come to the brink of starvation and death in an environment both beautiful and unforgiving. But most of us will experience things that will change us, force us to grow, and question what we knew about ourselves. In this way, as readers, we can identify with Chaffey's experience, and enjoy it as both a story and as an informative foray into one of Australia's most forbidding, and compelling landscapes.
With all the skills of a fiction writer, Chaffey presents a cast of interesting characters – students, scientists and hippies, from Bill, the grad student biologist from Berkeley who led his team of trappers and data collectors, to Peter, the South African farmer giving his land back to the forest. But the most interesting character is Geoff, the strange herpetologist who convinces him to join in and split the petrol for an exhibition into the remote Kimberly, ostensibly to find new reptile species, take photographs, and become the first white men to walk the headwaters of the Prince Regent River to the falls of the King Cascade. If they had succeeded without a hitch, it would have been an interesting story, full of Geoff's extensive knowledge of the land and its inhabitants, particularly reptilian and of Chaffey's observations and sometimes wide-eyed wonder. But there was a hitch. After forty days in the wilderness, they reached their end-point – The King Cascade. Then they sit down to wait for a boat to come in and collect them, but nothing comes. After weeks of waiting, no boat arrives, and they end up having to walk another 70kms to get out. The adventure becomes a life or death story where starvation is just around the corner, exhaustion threatens to overtake them, and the pair almost end up as croc food. What Chaffey discovers about himself and about the world he lives in during that close shave makes for an exciting read.
Throughout the book, Chaffey punctuates his rich descriptions of the land he is discovering, with his fears, his sense of the future, and his growing self-development. His sense of time and space changes, and he begins to see, everywhere, the bigger context of his role in the world and of its fragility.
This sense of both the fragility of nature, and the fragility of man within nature, becomes an underlying theme that carries the book beyond simply a travelogue. We begin to identify with Chaffey as a character, and his development becomes meaningful, but we also put his experience into our own context, and it therefore becomes meaningful to us. Not all of us will have to reach into crocodile infested waters to retrieve a lost fishing rod – our only means of obtaining food, and not all of us will come to the brink of starvation and death in an environment both beautiful and unforgiving. But most of us will experience things that will change us, force us to grow, and question what we knew about ourselves. In this way, as readers, we can identify with Chaffey's experience, and enjoy it as both a story and as an informative foray into one of Australia's most forbidding, and compelling landscapes.
September 30, 2013
Having already tried to read Jason Goodwin's nonfiction about walking the entire length of Turkey, as well as the one by Bill Bryson (an overweight, out of shape non-hiker) about hiking the Appalachian Trail, I KNOW how exhausting someone else's travel book can be if you just can't identify with their particular athletic fixation.
So imagine my surprise when I absolutely devoured this account of two young men hiking across the Australian wilderness for three months. After the food they packed (grains, ramen noodles) ran out, they subsisted (while still hiking determinedly toward their rendezvous, a beach on the West Coast of Australia) solely on fish that they caught in the rivers and creeks they encountered.
One fact that surprised me about this book was learning that you cannot subsist on mere protein; you need carbohydrates, especially if you are active. If you don't get your carbs, you become a skeleton. Which is what happend to them. By the end of their adventure, they had nearly starved to death and were a shadow of their former selves.
Unlike that movie about the guy who has to saw off his own arm when he gets stuck in a crevasse, THIS book was actually fascinating. The author (Will Chaffey, one of the two young men) had more on his mind than food, at least by the time he wrote the book. I learned a lot about Australia, and also a bit about human nature.
A really good book.
So imagine my surprise when I absolutely devoured this account of two young men hiking across the Australian wilderness for three months. After the food they packed (grains, ramen noodles) ran out, they subsisted (while still hiking determinedly toward their rendezvous, a beach on the West Coast of Australia) solely on fish that they caught in the rivers and creeks they encountered.
One fact that surprised me about this book was learning that you cannot subsist on mere protein; you need carbohydrates, especially if you are active. If you don't get your carbs, you become a skeleton. Which is what happend to them. By the end of their adventure, they had nearly starved to death and were a shadow of their former selves.
Unlike that movie about the guy who has to saw off his own arm when he gets stuck in a crevasse, THIS book was actually fascinating. The author (Will Chaffey, one of the two young men) had more on his mind than food, at least by the time he wrote the book. I learned a lot about Australia, and also a bit about human nature.
A really good book.
January 3, 2011
I almost did not rate this 5 stars. What held me back is that for the first 1/4 of the book I wasn't really enjoying the book. I found the writing style hard to embrace. What grabbed me was the content - the tale really is very interesting. What changed for me was that while his storytelling voice isn't that of a professional author, the experience is more of reading a journal. As you become more involved in the story and more familiar with the author's voice, all of those obstacles slip away.
Will Chaffey has written a very good story of a lost period of his youth. Lost from the mainstream "off to college" track, and instead found within himself in the raw wilderness of the Outback. He has an interesting and honest mind which makes his adventures all the more fascinating. I highly recommend this book.
Will Chaffey has written a very good story of a lost period of his youth. Lost from the mainstream "off to college" track, and instead found within himself in the raw wilderness of the Outback. He has an interesting and honest mind which makes his adventures all the more fascinating. I highly recommend this book.
July 13, 2016
Cuando leí por primera vez en la solapa de qué se trataba este libro, me percaté de cierta regularidad estadística: cuando el departamento de marketing de una editorial trata de promover un autor, por lo general lo hace con el claim de que éste es el siguiente ‘X’. Es decir, que el autor es un heredero directo y consagrado de quien creó la obra más representativa, cumbre o que hizo escuela en tal o cual género.
El caso más obvio es en fantasía, donde todo clama ser ‘el siguiente Tolkien’. En ciencia ficción, si ésta es militar dicen ‘el siguiente Card o el siguiente Heinlein’. Y aquí, en los libros de no ficción que relatan historias de aventura verdadera, todo remite a ‘este autor es el siguiente Junger o Krakauer’. Para más señas, los referidos son dos colaboradores de la revista Outside que se hicieron famosísimos por escribir lo que llamamos ‘drama de supervivencia de la vida real’. El primero escribió ‘La tormenta perfecta’ y el segundo ‘Into Thin Air’ e ‘Into the Wild’.
Es a ‘Into the Wild’ a la que los editores buscan comparar esta historia. La tragedia de Chris McCandless es un ejemplo tan completo y tan perfecto de las últimas consecuencias de la mentalidad romántica, que es lógico que esta memoria de Will Chaffey busque emularla. Sin embargo, fuera de que el hecho de que ambos protagonistas sean estadounidenses de clase media alta (más alta que media) y que en sus cabezas se hayan considerado rebeldes al estilo Thoreau, ambos libros no pueden estar más separados uno del otro. Y en grado de ejecución, me temo que ocurre lo mismo.
Por principio de cuentas, y espero que esto no sea un . Pero sus motivaciones también son muy distintas: mientras que McCandless estaba casi poseído por un decimonónico espíritu romántico que le hacía ver a toda la gente que le rodeaba de un modo altivo y disociado, que su alienación de la sociedad estaba tan marcada como para rechazar toda norma y convencionalismo; Chaffey es sólo un estudiante de una academia tipo Pencey (El Guardián entre el Centeno) o Welton (La Sociedad de los Poetas Muertos), que por una razón tan leve que parece como sacada de esta última película que mencioné, le va mal en su carta recomendación y no consigue entrar a ninguna universidad de Ivy League cuando sale de la prepa. Nunca es su intención tirar todo (incluyendo el dineral de sus papás) por la borda para irse a vivir de la tierra. Es más el querer ‘hallarse a sí mismo’ en un episodio de angustia preppy y nunca el positiva y abiertamente buscar un episodio de suicidio romántico, como estoy seguro que era la motivación de McCandless. Otra gran diferencia es que McCandless era un inexperto solitario que cometió errores garrafales, y aquí Chaffey iba acompañado por Jeff, un poco más que experto en supervivencia y perfectamente aclimatado a un medio mucho más hostil que Alaska en verano.
Esto no quita que sea una aventura emocionante. Pese a que al principio despega lento (pasa la mitad del libro contando situaciones más o menos anodinas en su primer año en Australia), la memoria de Chaffey despega en el momento en que decide acompañar al más o menos mal dibujado Jeff en un viaje hasta las antípodas de las antípodas. Ahí nos vemos inmersos en la constante narración de las aves, de los insectos, los anfibios y reptiles y los colores de un lugar inaccesible para casi todas las personas, pese a hallarse en un muy decente país de Primer Mundo. Dado que esto es primera persona, Chaffey puede darse el lujo de embellecer la narración y añadir dramatismo, sobretodo en los episodios que tienen que ver con el cocodrilo y con la última marcha sin comida. ¿Ocurrió así en realidad? Habrá que confiar en el narrador.
Una última anotación: la estrella que le retiro a esta memoria viene por dos cosas: porque creo que en la narración de no ficción usar el in medias res confunde mucho al lector (ya me pasó dos veces este año); pero sobretodo porque Chaffey podrá ser un héroe por haber sobrevivido, pero eso no le quita una mentalidad de hombre blanco pelmazo. En más de una ocasión nos vemos bombardeados por las críticas a la sociedad industrial y al consumo y a la educación masificada de hoy día y loas a la sabiduría de los aborígenes y a la tierra fuera del tiempo; pero cuando las cosas se ponen feas la naturaleza saca el colmillo y la garra y lo único que se pasan haciendo Jeff y el autor es soñar con cerveza fría y comida enlatada y carne procesada y aire acondicionado y vehículos de motor. Buena parte de la ruina moral de muchos ambientalistas del día de hoy proviene de esta mentalidad tan visiblemente hipócrita. No olvidemos que cuando Thoreau se fue a Walden, siempre tuvo a la mano el confort de poder regresar cuando se le pegara la gana al pueblo más cercano.
El caso más obvio es en fantasía, donde todo clama ser ‘el siguiente Tolkien’. En ciencia ficción, si ésta es militar dicen ‘el siguiente Card o el siguiente Heinlein’. Y aquí, en los libros de no ficción que relatan historias de aventura verdadera, todo remite a ‘este autor es el siguiente Junger o Krakauer’. Para más señas, los referidos son dos colaboradores de la revista Outside que se hicieron famosísimos por escribir lo que llamamos ‘drama de supervivencia de la vida real’. El primero escribió ‘La tormenta perfecta’ y el segundo ‘Into Thin Air’ e ‘Into the Wild’.
Es a ‘Into the Wild’ a la que los editores buscan comparar esta historia. La tragedia de Chris McCandless es un ejemplo tan completo y tan perfecto de las últimas consecuencias de la mentalidad romántica, que es lógico que esta memoria de Will Chaffey busque emularla. Sin embargo, fuera de que el hecho de que ambos protagonistas sean estadounidenses de clase media alta (más alta que media) y que en sus cabezas se hayan considerado rebeldes al estilo Thoreau, ambos libros no pueden estar más separados uno del otro. Y en grado de ejecución, me temo que ocurre lo mismo.
Por principio de cuentas, y espero que esto no sea un . Pero sus motivaciones también son muy distintas: mientras que McCandless estaba casi poseído por un decimonónico espíritu romántico que le hacía ver a toda la gente que le rodeaba de un modo altivo y disociado, que su alienación de la sociedad estaba tan marcada como para rechazar toda norma y convencionalismo; Chaffey es sólo un estudiante de una academia tipo Pencey (El Guardián entre el Centeno) o Welton (La Sociedad de los Poetas Muertos), que por una razón tan leve que parece como sacada de esta última película que mencioné, le va mal en su carta recomendación y no consigue entrar a ninguna universidad de Ivy League cuando sale de la prepa. Nunca es su intención tirar todo (incluyendo el dineral de sus papás) por la borda para irse a vivir de la tierra. Es más el querer ‘hallarse a sí mismo’ en un episodio de angustia preppy y nunca el positiva y abiertamente buscar un episodio de suicidio romántico, como estoy seguro que era la motivación de McCandless. Otra gran diferencia es que McCandless era un inexperto solitario que cometió errores garrafales, y aquí Chaffey iba acompañado por Jeff, un poco más que experto en supervivencia y perfectamente aclimatado a un medio mucho más hostil que Alaska en verano.
Esto no quita que sea una aventura emocionante. Pese a que al principio despega lento (pasa la mitad del libro contando situaciones más o menos anodinas en su primer año en Australia), la memoria de Chaffey despega en el momento en que decide acompañar al más o menos mal dibujado Jeff en un viaje hasta las antípodas de las antípodas. Ahí nos vemos inmersos en la constante narración de las aves, de los insectos, los anfibios y reptiles y los colores de un lugar inaccesible para casi todas las personas, pese a hallarse en un muy decente país de Primer Mundo. Dado que esto es primera persona, Chaffey puede darse el lujo de embellecer la narración y añadir dramatismo, sobretodo en los episodios que tienen que ver con el cocodrilo y con la última marcha sin comida. ¿Ocurrió así en realidad? Habrá que confiar en el narrador.
Una última anotación: la estrella que le retiro a esta memoria viene por dos cosas: porque creo que en la narración de no ficción usar el in medias res confunde mucho al lector (ya me pasó dos veces este año); pero sobretodo porque Chaffey podrá ser un héroe por haber sobrevivido, pero eso no le quita una mentalidad de hombre blanco pelmazo. En más de una ocasión nos vemos bombardeados por las críticas a la sociedad industrial y al consumo y a la educación masificada de hoy día y loas a la sabiduría de los aborígenes y a la tierra fuera del tiempo; pero cuando las cosas se ponen feas la naturaleza saca el colmillo y la garra y lo único que se pasan haciendo Jeff y el autor es soñar con cerveza fría y comida enlatada y carne procesada y aire acondicionado y vehículos de motor. Buena parte de la ruina moral de muchos ambientalistas del día de hoy proviene de esta mentalidad tan visiblemente hipócrita. No olvidemos que cuando Thoreau se fue a Walden, siempre tuvo a la mano el confort de poder regresar cuando se le pegara la gana al pueblo más cercano.
March 28, 2022
An interesting adventure book
I quite enjoyed this book as a bit of a page-turner that I used to take a breather from some slightly denser books. This book should have enough appeal to most readers and documents the author's adventures in Australia, culminating with a very serious trek through the remote landscape of northern Western Australia.
There were a few minor flaws: I felt Chaffey spent a bit too much time getting to the actual point where he talks about the trek that is the centrepiece of the story; I wish he'd spent more of that time on giving us even greater detail about what it was like to be there. What was their daily routine, how did they deal with the heat? What was going through their minds at night? Did they talk much? Although there was a lot of information, I felt I missed out on some aspects of the journey that might have given me a better feel for what it was like. Also, some kind of map to show where they walked (roughly) would have been useful).
Having said that, there is no doubting Chaffey and his travel bud Jeff's achievement, resourcefulness and determination in completing a journey that most of us wouldn't have the knowledge nor skills to accomplish. To a certain extent, they really were nuts to even consider such a wild undertaking but then I guess that's what being young and foolish is all about.
For me, the passages that go into detail about the Aboriginal culture and what it was like to be tracked by them where the highlight of the book and have left the most lasting impression on me. For that, I'm glad I read the book.
Overall, this is a good book that I'd recommend for light holiday reading.
I quite enjoyed this book as a bit of a page-turner that I used to take a breather from some slightly denser books. This book should have enough appeal to most readers and documents the author's adventures in Australia, culminating with a very serious trek through the remote landscape of northern Western Australia.
There were a few minor flaws: I felt Chaffey spent a bit too much time getting to the actual point where he talks about the trek that is the centrepiece of the story; I wish he'd spent more of that time on giving us even greater detail about what it was like to be there. What was their daily routine, how did they deal with the heat? What was going through their minds at night? Did they talk much? Although there was a lot of information, I felt I missed out on some aspects of the journey that might have given me a better feel for what it was like. Also, some kind of map to show where they walked (roughly) would have been useful).
Having said that, there is no doubting Chaffey and his travel bud Jeff's achievement, resourcefulness and determination in completing a journey that most of us wouldn't have the knowledge nor skills to accomplish. To a certain extent, they really were nuts to even consider such a wild undertaking but then I guess that's what being young and foolish is all about.
For me, the passages that go into detail about the Aboriginal culture and what it was like to be tracked by them where the highlight of the book and have left the most lasting impression on me. For that, I'm glad I read the book.
Overall, this is a good book that I'd recommend for light holiday reading.
April 6, 2024
Great book. Definite nail biter. Great information on the wilderness of Australia
November 15, 2025
Loved the nature imagery, connection with land, survival writing.... good stuff!
August 19, 2016
In the late 1980s Will Chaffey graduated from a prestigious prep school but mysteriously has been denied admission to every college he tried. Adrift and uncertain as to want he wants from life he takes his meager savings and flies to Australia to find himself. After several odd jobs, including memorably, balloon ballast, he accepts a new friend's invitation to join him on a perilous overland journey of exploration in remote Western Australia.
The pair spend six weeks hiking up one River drainage and crossing over to descend another while surveying the local fauna hoping to discover a rare python known from only a single specimen. The initial trek goes well enough as they revel in the beauty of the land, the rock art they discover, and the fact that they are first non-indigenous people to make this trip.
However the plan relied on there being yachts or sailing ships putting into the cove where their trip ended to restock their fresh water and presumably give the footsore and worn out travelers a lift back to civilization. Unbeknownst to them a typhoon had confined all of the pleasure craft to safe ports and they found themselves out of food and down to their last fish hooks with no help in sight. Their last leg out was a desperate overland hike with no maps and only slim hope.
I initially thought that I would dislike Chaffey, assuming he would come off as an oblivious rich kid tourist looking for a thrill. Instead I found a thoughtful memoir by an interesting introspective man with a deep respect for the land, the wildlife, and the indigenous people. And we eventually find out why those colleges didn't want him.
The pair spend six weeks hiking up one River drainage and crossing over to descend another while surveying the local fauna hoping to discover a rare python known from only a single specimen. The initial trek goes well enough as they revel in the beauty of the land, the rock art they discover, and the fact that they are first non-indigenous people to make this trip.
However the plan relied on there being yachts or sailing ships putting into the cove where their trip ended to restock their fresh water and presumably give the footsore and worn out travelers a lift back to civilization. Unbeknownst to them a typhoon had confined all of the pleasure craft to safe ports and they found themselves out of food and down to their last fish hooks with no help in sight. Their last leg out was a desperate overland hike with no maps and only slim hope.
I initially thought that I would dislike Chaffey, assuming he would come off as an oblivious rich kid tourist looking for a thrill. Instead I found a thoughtful memoir by an interesting introspective man with a deep respect for the land, the wildlife, and the indigenous people. And we eventually find out why those colleges didn't want him.
August 3, 2011
Story of an American high school graduate, still trying to find his place in the world, who travels to Australia to undertake an adventure of exploration within himself and the untapped regions of Australia. Through his travels, he reflects on his place in a world that has existed many centuries before him will exist many after. While he struggles with hunger, thirst, despair, guarded holy lands, and various wildlife. If you read this book expected a Crocodile Dundee adventure you will be sadly misled. The focus is more on a personal journey to find oneself.
March 7, 2010
Pretty good description of life in the out-back. I was interested in the planning and execution of the exploration, and the eventual return to civilization (and Massachusetts). I could feel myself there in the outback as the author detailed his adventure. Some compare this to "Into the Wild" but I found this more accessible, probably because it was written by a primary source.
July 15, 2011
This book has a heart and authenticity I don't often find. It's both a coming-of-age story and a meditation on our place in the world as individuals and as a species. Will Chaffey opened my heart to another aspect of the human condition.
April 26, 2012
This was recommended to me by a friend who knew one of the travelers in the book. Great life and adventure story. Interesting information about the many facets of living in Australia and its history.
March 14, 2025
If you have read Patricia Wolf’s books that take place in Australia, and loved them because of the Australia setting, then this book is for you. Only difference - this is not fiction. What it is, is an amazing story. I came by it quite accidentally - short version, my granddaughter Meghan is good friends with Will Chaffey’s daughter Melanie. If you are enthralled with Australia you will love this.
November 11, 2019
Having just sailed along the Kimberley coast I was interested to read the journey taken on land. This young man wrote of the beauty of the area but also the ugly side no matter how prepared you are.
Extremely well written and nail biting toward the end.
Extremely well written and nail biting toward the end.
July 26, 2022
Well, I was totally wrong in what I thought this book was about! I still liked it though. It was a mix of a memoir and a travelogue and quite interesting. Not only do you learn quite a bit about Australia and its wilderness, but you learn quite a bit about Will Chaffey. It’s also an easy read.
February 19, 2024
I suppose I am being somewhat unfair in that I am rating the book based on a audiobook. I am sure the written book itself is probably good, but the audio version is unlistenable to me. I find narrator diabolical and despite trying to persist with it, I am afraid I had to give up. Sorry.
February 14, 2018
I loved this book and the adventure. I loved learning about Australia through this young man's adventures in Australia. It was very interesting and a moving read.
January 8, 2022
This book is more a personal journey book than a travel book. It was slow going during the first half, second half much better with more descriptions of their journey.
December 19, 2025
Audiobook
February 1, 2016
Review: Swimming With Crocodiles by Will Chaffey.
This is a true story of adventure and survival. The first half of the book was slow pace and not really exciting as the second half which was worth the read. Will Chaffey starts his story about the last two years of high school and how he liked to pull pranks, joke around, and just getting fair grades to be able to graduate. He had sent applications out to many colleges but didn 19t get any response, which the reader will find out why near the end of the book. Many of his friends were accepted and were all heading to different colleges after the summer break. Will wasn 19t really in a hurry to go to college and his parents were disappointed especially when he announced he was going to Australia hoping to find a purpose in life and have some fun along the way.
Once he got to Australia he worked odd jobs for spending money and after a couple of months he met Jeff, an enigmatic older wanderer, who was an expert on reptiles and plants. With funding from an Australian Geographic magazine, Will and Jeff devised a travel plan to explore the remote Prince Regent River, Australia 19s Grand Canyon, on a dangerous expedition to photograph animals of near distinction and try to find a King Cobra, known to man but never photographed before. Their journey took them to the hard outback of Australia where Rain Forest is so dense and vast with death looming around every corner, between every step, hanging from trees and vines, and whatever lingers on the saltwater shores and what submerges secretly in the river beds may be the cause of the last breath they take. They needed to be well prepared for the climate, the terrain with provisions as; water, food, clothing and foot gear. However, Will was not taking this journey seriously until the second month when they were lost, running out of food, and having a hard time finding good water.
Will Chaffey style and twist of humor does enhance the story at times. They always tried to stay near water but sometime they got sidetracked. Will loved the water and every chance he got he went swimming with the crocodiles like the title of the book says. However, a large saltwater crocodile will kill you given the chance but freshwater crocodiles are not man eaters, but they might bite you just out of curiosity, but rarely molest a human. So, this was new information for me but I still won 19t swim with the creatures 26.
Will was also informative about Aboriginal life that once inhabited this area, the information on the herpetology, botany, the Australian history, and his perception of the beauty of life and the natural world was fascinating to read about. However, the story should have started with the second half because of adventure through the Outback 19s of Australia was exciting, intriguing, and a straightforward seriousness of being prepared to take a journey of this nature. Will Chaffey went back to America after a year in Australia.
This is a true story of adventure and survival. The first half of the book was slow pace and not really exciting as the second half which was worth the read. Will Chaffey starts his story about the last two years of high school and how he liked to pull pranks, joke around, and just getting fair grades to be able to graduate. He had sent applications out to many colleges but didn 19t get any response, which the reader will find out why near the end of the book. Many of his friends were accepted and were all heading to different colleges after the summer break. Will wasn 19t really in a hurry to go to college and his parents were disappointed especially when he announced he was going to Australia hoping to find a purpose in life and have some fun along the way.
Once he got to Australia he worked odd jobs for spending money and after a couple of months he met Jeff, an enigmatic older wanderer, who was an expert on reptiles and plants. With funding from an Australian Geographic magazine, Will and Jeff devised a travel plan to explore the remote Prince Regent River, Australia 19s Grand Canyon, on a dangerous expedition to photograph animals of near distinction and try to find a King Cobra, known to man but never photographed before. Their journey took them to the hard outback of Australia where Rain Forest is so dense and vast with death looming around every corner, between every step, hanging from trees and vines, and whatever lingers on the saltwater shores and what submerges secretly in the river beds may be the cause of the last breath they take. They needed to be well prepared for the climate, the terrain with provisions as; water, food, clothing and foot gear. However, Will was not taking this journey seriously until the second month when they were lost, running out of food, and having a hard time finding good water.
Will Chaffey style and twist of humor does enhance the story at times. They always tried to stay near water but sometime they got sidetracked. Will loved the water and every chance he got he went swimming with the crocodiles like the title of the book says. However, a large saltwater crocodile will kill you given the chance but freshwater crocodiles are not man eaters, but they might bite you just out of curiosity, but rarely molest a human. So, this was new information for me but I still won 19t swim with the creatures 26.
Will was also informative about Aboriginal life that once inhabited this area, the information on the herpetology, botany, the Australian history, and his perception of the beauty of life and the natural world was fascinating to read about. However, the story should have started with the second half because of adventure through the Outback 19s of Australia was exciting, intriguing, and a straightforward seriousness of being prepared to take a journey of this nature. Will Chaffey went back to America after a year in Australia.
February 8, 2016
Really liked Swimming with Crocodiles by Will Chaffey. I am curious to know when it was set, I'm sure it was prior to the digial age, yet I sometimes like to know the year that true stpries are set so i can relate these experiences to whatever else was happening in the world.
I felt like this book is slightly similar to another book I'd read this year - Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback although very different in the sense that Will spoke more about the landscape, flora and fauna and the Aboriginal history of the land and creation and Robyn spoke more about her personal feelings and experiences while traveling across the land.
I am lucky to have read two incredibly inspiring and true stories set in the magical Australian outback this year. I am a really big fan of stories set in Australia and Will described the places and animals and relationships in a easy way with great feeling.
The narrative in Swimming with Crocodiles is good, filling you with wonder, awe, anxiety, joy and relief throughout.
I often forgot that Will was so young and that he was an American as the book is filled with such knowledge of Aboriginal and Australian history, as well as the scientific references relating to the animals they encountered or planned on coming across.
I felt like this book is slightly similar to another book I'd read this year - Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback although very different in the sense that Will spoke more about the landscape, flora and fauna and the Aboriginal history of the land and creation and Robyn spoke more about her personal feelings and experiences while traveling across the land.
I am lucky to have read two incredibly inspiring and true stories set in the magical Australian outback this year. I am a really big fan of stories set in Australia and Will described the places and animals and relationships in a easy way with great feeling.
The narrative in Swimming with Crocodiles is good, filling you with wonder, awe, anxiety, joy and relief throughout.
I often forgot that Will was so young and that he was an American as the book is filled with such knowledge of Aboriginal and Australian history, as well as the scientific references relating to the animals they encountered or planned on coming across.
May 19, 2016
In this book, author Will Chaffey relates his time spent in Australia during his "gap years" between high school and college in the late 1980s. The latter part of the book is devoted to his hike, with a friend, along the Prince Regent River. It turns into a story of survival when things don't go quite as planned. While I don't doubt that Chaffey was genuinely, and justifiably, worried about his survival, his tale isn't nearly as harrowing as others that I've read. (Louis Zamperini's story in Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption is the first of quite a few that come to mind.)
So although his story wasn't the most dramatic ever, it was still worth reading. I appreciated his American take on Australia. (In my current binge-reading of Australia books, most of the authors have been Australian themselves, which is great, but getting the perspective of someone from my own country and culture also has some value.) Chaffey also does a nice job of describing the landscape and the flora and fauna of the areas he visited.
So although his story wasn't the most dramatic ever, it was still worth reading. I appreciated his American take on Australia. (In my current binge-reading of Australia books, most of the authors have been Australian themselves, which is great, but getting the perspective of someone from my own country and culture also has some value.) Chaffey also does a nice job of describing the landscape and the flora and fauna of the areas he visited.
June 2, 2015
There were a few places in this book where the narrative lost me, but overall I really enjoyed it because it made me think. Apart from being an interesting travel memoir, this book asks important questions about the way we educate ourselves and our consumer culture. I haven't been to the Kimberly (yet) but a lot of other places that the author talks about are dear to me so that might make me a little bit biased. That said, there is nothing like the Australian outback, especially regarding its vastness. I am from the Intermountain West where there are some pretty wide open spaces, but the outback makes anywhere in the USA look like a sprawling metropolis. There are things that we can learn from these places. And there are things that we can learn about ourselves by spending time in nature wherever it may be.
July 19, 2016
Swimming with Crocodiles is a fun memoir that serves doubly as a coming of age account and adventure tale. The author/narrator and his older, scrappier, travel companion embark on an Australian overland crossing in which they lose their way, endure severe hunger, and confront their greatest fear: Australia's man-eating crocodiles.
Read
August 16, 2011As an outdoorsy/adventurous girl who is starting freshman year of college. I thought the book was insightful and his experience sounds amazing!!! Plus made me want to learn more about Australia and Aborigines. :) wish he would of put more pictures in there and at times the book got confusing.
January 24, 2014
Thoroughly enjoyable. Its always good to get an overseas persons perspective of your country, especially when its more than superficial. Great yarn about the optimistic enthusiasm of youth and nice spiritual reflection on our place in this world and in time. Liked it lots.
December 21, 2024
Audiobook
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews