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Waltzing Australia
By Cynthia Clampitt
ISBN-10: 1419663062
ISBN-13: 978-1419663062
I have been to Australia three times, from East to West. At least I thought I had been to Australia until reading Cynthia Clampitt’s Waltzing Australia.
Waltzing Australia is Cynthia Clampitt’s record of a long trip she took to the world’s largest island, the driest continent – the only nation that is a continent. Through her record we share this trip. This book is not your normal travel story…
First of all Cynthia didn’t go to Australia for vacation. She didn’t go for altruistic reasons, to help the locals. And she damned sure didn’t go for business opportunities.
She had an obsession.
Cynthia quit her job and off she was for five months in Australia. Starting out in Queensland she headed in a westerly direction then looped back around and headed East until she got to Sydney. And she soaked up everything. Nature. History. Geology. People.
Waltzing Australia is a well written account of this trip, written almost as if it were a lengthy personal journal (just over 500 pages). But I say “almost as if” this were a journal because Cynthia didn’t just keep track of her experiences – she kept track of the essence of this large, dry continent.
When reading Waltzing Australia I got the distinct feeling that Cynthia Clampitt and I have lots in common. Well, then again, maybe not. I have traveled the world but have done it in a much different way. Cynthia started with Australia out of college. I started with the Navy after high school. Cynthia moved back into “normal life” in the United States. After a few decades, I, on the other hand, am still overseas. Cynthia chose a location to know well and chose to live frugally. I chose to build my businesses around an area so that coming and going were up to me. But we have that wanderlust in common. In reading her opening chapters I understood this obsession of Clampitt’s. I had the same obsession growing up in rural Arkansas, wanting for the life of a world traveler. And of all the enchanting places that I have been, whether I lived there or only visited, I share the sentiment of the bittersweet description Cynthia Clampitt gave of leaving Australia.
It will always still be there…
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