Caroline's Reviews > Down Under

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Contains spoilers



A wonderful read! From belly laughs to joy, from horror to disbelief….. in this book we have a riveting journey though this amazing and oh-so-different continent. Surely there are few authors who could begin to tackle the scope of this giant hunk of land, but Bryson is a master writer, and he tackles Australia superbly well - with enthusiasm, insight and bucket loads of his wonderful self-deprecating humour.

These were some of my favourite bits in the book:

* His trip to White Cliffs, in opal mining territory, where the temperature gets up to 110F, and people live in cave dwellings in order to keep cool.

* His drive in Victoria along the coast, an area famous for shipwrecks.“With its wild currents and famous fogs, the south Victorian coast was long notorious to mariners. If you took all the water away, you would see 1,200 ships lying broken on the seabed, more than almost anywhere else in the world.”

*His discussion of ‘acclimatization’ (the introduction of non-indigenous animals to Australia). The mad proliferation of rabbits – halted for a while by the introduction of the horrible illness Myxomatosis, but now numbers are increasing again. Other introductions include camels, donkeys and foxes. (There are now five million wild donkeys in Australia). ”The consequences for native species have been devastating. About 130 mammals are threatened. Sixteen have become extinct – more than in any other continent. And guess what is the mightiest killer of all? According to the National Parks and Wildlife Service, it is the common cat….there are twelve million of them out there, inhabiting every niche in the landscape.” Foreign plants have also been introduced. ”Prickly pear, a type of pulpy cactus native to America, was introduced in Queensland early in the twentieth century ….by 1925, thirty million acres were overrun with impenetrable groves of prickly pear up to six feet high. It is an almost absurdly dense plant – an acre of prickly pear weighs 800 tons, as against about fifteen tons for an acre of wheat – and a nightmare to clear.”

*His respect and awe for the Aborigines, who are likely to have come to Australia about 60,000 years ago. Their amazing capacity for survival in difficult environments. His disbelief in the way they were treated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (they were often hunted down and shot, like animals), and his concern for their well-being today.

*His description of the wonders of The Great Barrier Reef. I had no idea it was so big ”Depending on which sources you consult, the Great Barrier Reef covers 280,000 square kilometres or 344,000 or something in between; stretches 1,200 miles from top to bottom, or 1,600; is bigger than Kansas or Italy or the United Kingdom. Nobody can agree really on where the Barrier Reef begins and ends, though everyone agrees it’s awfully big. Even by the shortest measure, it is equivalent in length to the west coast of the United States”. Swimming over it was a scary experience. "At the top of the steps were large bins containing flippers, snorkels and masks. We kitted up and plopped in. I had assumed that we would be in a few feet of water, so I was taken aback – I am putting this mildly – to discover that I was perhaps sixty feet above the bottom. I had never been in water this deep before and it was unexpectedly unnerving – as unnerving as finding myself floating sixty feet in the air above solid ground. This panicky assessment took place over the course of perhaps three seconds, then my mask and snorkel filled with water and I started choking.”

*His stories about men obsessed with exploring the horrendously hostile interior of Australia. "It is almost not possible to exaggerate the punishing nature of Australia’s interior. For nineteenth-century explorers, it wasn’t just the inexpressible heat and constant scarcity of water, but a thousand other miseries. Stinging ants swarmed over them wherever they rested. Natives sometimes attacked with spears. The landscape was full of thorny bushes and merciless spinifex (plants) whose silicate pricks nearly always grew infected from sweat and dirt. Scurvy was a constant plague. Hygiene was impossible. Pack animals grew frequently crazed or lost the will to go on….” Some of these explorers returned from their adventures in the interior, but many didn’t.

*The degree to which he was bowled over and awed by Ayers Rock (now called Uluru, its Aborigine name). He writes very movingly about the experience of seeing it.

*His story about Kingsford Smith - an Australian pilot - who he reckons is the greatest aviator ever. Just a year after Charles Lindbergh made his famous flight across the Atlantic, Kingsford Smith became the first man to cross the Pacific – a far, far tougher challenge than the Atlantic… Bryson’s description of the trip is grip-the-edge-of-your-seat exciting.

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All in all a wonderful book. I feel I really got a taste of the flavour of Australia. Bravo Bryson! I enjoyed it tons.