In a Sunburned Country
by Bill Bryson
from Broadway
Bill Bryson follows his Appalachian amble, A Walk in the Woods, with the story of his exploits in Australia, where A-bombs go off unnoticed, prime ministers disappear into the surf, and cheery citizens coexist with the world's deadliest creatures: toxic caterpillars, aggressive seashells, crocodiles, sharks, snakes, and the deadliest of them all, the dreaded box jellyfish. And that's just the beginning, as Bryson treks through sunbaked deserts and up endless coastlines, crisscrossing the "under-discovered" Down Under in search of all things interesting.
Bryson, who could make a pile of dirt compelling--and yes, Australia is mostly dirt--finds no shortage of curiosities. When he isn't dodging Portuguese man-of-wars or considering the virtues of the remarkable platypus, he visits southwest Gippsland, home of the world's largest earthworms (up to 12 feet in length). He discovers that Australia, which began nationhood as a prison, contains the longest straight stretch of railroad track in the world (297 miles), as well as the world's largest monolith (the majestic Uluru) and largest living thing (the Great Barrier Reef). He finds ridiculous place names: "Mullumbimby Ewylamartup, Jiggalong, and the supremely satisfying Tittybong," and manages to catch a cricket game on the radio, which is like
listening to two men sitting in a rowboat on a large, placid lake on a day when the fish aren't biting; it's like having a nap without losing consciousness. It actually helps not to know quite what's going on. In such a rarefied world of contentment and inactivity, comprehension would become a distraction.
"You see," Bryson observes, "Australia is an interesting place. It truly is. And that really is all I'm saying." Of course, Bryson--who is as much a travel writer here as a humorist, naturalist, and historian--says much more, and does so with generous amounts of wit and hilarity. Australia may be "mostly empty and a long way away," but it's a little closer now. --Rob McDonald
Every time Bill Bryson walks out the door, memorable travel literature threatens to break out. His previous excursion along the Appalachian Trail resulted in the sublime national bestseller A Walk in the Woods. In A Sunburned Country is his report on what he found in an entirely different place: Australia, the country that doubles as a continent, and a place with the friendliest inhabitants, the hottest, driest weather, and the most peculiar and lethal wildlife to be found on the planet. The result is a deliciously funny, fact-filled, and adventurous performance by a writer who combines humor, wonder, and unflagging curiousity.
Despite the fact that Australia harbors more things that can kill you in extremely nasty ways than anywhere else, including sharks, crocodiles, snakes, even riptides and deserts, Bill Bryson adores the place, and he takes his readers on a rollicking ride far beyond that beaten tourist path. Wherever he goes he finds Australians who are cheerful, extroverted, and unfailingly obliging, and these beaming products of land with clean, safe cities, cold beer, and constant sunshine fill the pages of this wonderful book. Australia is an immense and fortunate land, and it has found in Bill Bryson its perfect guide.
Compared to his Australian excursions, Bill Bryson had it easy on the Appalachian Trail. Nonetheless, Bryson has on several occasions embarked on seemingly endless flights bound for a land where Little Debbies are scarce but insects are abundant (up to 220,000 species of them), not to mention the crocodiles.
Taking readers on a rollicking ride far beyond packaged-tour routes, In a Sunburned Country introduces a place where interesting things happen all the time, from a Prime Minister who was lost at sea while swimming at a Victoria beach to Japanese cult members who managed to set off an atomic bomb unnoticed on their 500,000-acre property. Leaving no Vegemite unsavored readers will accompany Bryson as he dodges jellyfish while learning to surf at Bondi Beach, discovers a fish that can climb trees, dehydrates in deserts where the temperatures leap to 140degreeF, and tells the true story of the rejected Danish architect who designed the Sydney Opera House.
Published just in time for the Olympics, In a Sunburned Country provides a singularly intriguing, wonderfully wacky take on a glorious, adventure-filled locale.
Frommer's Australia 2008 (Frommer's Complete)
by Ron Crittall
from Frommers
Frommer's. The best trips start here.
Experience a place the way the locals do. Enjoy the best it has to offer.
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From the Outback to the Great Barrier Reef and everywhere in between, let our expert authors guide you around Down Under.
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Outspoken opinions on what's worth your time and what's not.
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Exact prices, so you can plan the perfect trip whatever your budget.
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Off-the-beaten-path experiences and undiscovered gems, plus new takes on top attractions.
Australia (Country Guide)
by Justine Vaisutis
from Lonely Planet
Discover Australia
Feel the wind in your hair as you cruise the world's longest road; tips for driving across this magnificent, monster country.
Find out where Lonely Planet's favorite Australians would rather be.
Seek refuge in Cape Tribulation's Wet Tropics where the rainforest greets the sea.
Join the dots; hear about Aboriginal culture from Australia's first people.
In This Guide:
12 intrepid authors, over 70 weeks on-the-road research, 204 maps, one possum in a tent.
Wine regions boxed and packaged, brilliant food in every state, decent coffee every 300kms!
Visit lonelyplanet.com for reviews, daily updates and traveler suggestions.
Australia (EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE)
by DK Publishing
from DK Travel
As the name implies, the Eyewitness Travel Guides bring you the world in full living color. In the Australia edition, each information-packed page is splashed with enticing photographs of the people, animals, plants, rock formations, deserts, and ocean vistas that make the country Down Under famous the world over. On the practical side, there are thousands of details to help you find your way to the must-see spots, plus full-color maps and useful at-a-glance tables that make it easy to sort through and locate food and accommodation choices.
The introduction offers an overview of Australia's world-heritage sites, aboriginal culture and art, artists and writers, wines, surfing and beach culture, climate, annual events, flora and fauna, landscape, as well as a detailed history section. --Kathryn True
Recognized the world over by frequent flyers and armchair travelers alike, Eyewitness Travel Guides are the most colorful and comprehensive guides on the market. With beautifully commissioned photographs and spectacular 3-D aerial views revealing the charm of each destination, these amazing travel guides show what others only tell.
Sydney (EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE)
by DK Publishing
from DK Travel
Recognized the world over by frequent flyers and armchair travelers alike, Eyewitness Travel Guides are the most colorful and comprehensive guides on the market. With beautifully commissioned photographs and spectacular 3-D aerial views revealing the charm of each destination, these amazing travel guides show what others only tell.
Americans' Survival Guide to Australia and Australian-American Dictionary
by Rusty Geller
from Virtualbookworm.com Publishing
This is the Operator's Manual for Australia. This book covers the basic and essential information the author and his family learned in order to survive their first few years living in Australia. It will help you avoid making the same embarrassing mistakes and asking the same dumb questions they did. Includes a 1,500 word Australian-American Dictionary. An essential tool for tourists, business travelers and migrants.
The Rough Guide to Australia 8 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)
by Margo Daly
from Rough Guides
The Rough Guide to Australia, now in its eighth edition, is your indispensable guide to one of the most unforgettable countries on earth. The guide opens with the full- colour introduction bursting with ''what not to miss'', from travelling the magnificent great ocean road to catching the Manly ferry across Sydney harbour. The main chapters of the guide, arranged by region, provide detailed coverage of all the attractions from glamorous Sydney to the rugged grandeur of the Red Centre. Throughout there are “author picks” highlighting the top places to eat, drink and stay to suit every budget. You’ll find expert background on everything from wine tasting in the Hunter Valley to scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef. There are practical tips on activities, from sailing the Whitsundays to four-wheel driving around Fraser Island and getting the most out of Sydney''s Mardi Gras. The guide also takes a comprehensive look at Australia’s history, wildlife, cinema, fascinating aboriginal culture and comes complete with the clearest maps and plans of any guide.
The Rough Guide to Australia is like having a local friend plan your trip.
One for the Road: Revised Edition
by Tony Horwitz
from Vintage
After a year working an office job in Sydney, author and Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaperman Tony Horwitz finds himself longing for the open road. Spurred on by a colleague's "Aren't you a little too old for this game?" he sets off on a 7,000-mile adventure around Australia, hitchhiking to Alice Springs and beyond: through desolate mining towns, sheep stations, countless bush pubs (do not attempt to match his beer intake), and the forbidding, Martianesque emptinesses of Australian deserts. On the way he encounters hostile, friendly, and downright strange natives; jumps a train; survives a harrowing accident; and uses his relentless sense of humor to face down a cyclone:
I prop my pack against the fence as a windbreak. Huddled behind it, I pull on two pairs of pants, three shirts, four pairs of socks--my entire wardrobe in fact, except for the dung-covered shirt and five pairs of elastic-waisted underwear. No room for dignity here, at the center of a cyclone. I put the jockey shorts over my head, one pair at a time, fitting the fly over my nose to let a little oxygen in.A wily melange of tenderness, eye-popping lunacy, and occasional white-knuckled fear, One for the Road will leave you yearning to have the never-ending-blue Oz sky above, the flavor of that red, red dust in your mouth, and a tinnie to wash it all down with. --Jhana Bach
"A high-spirited, comic ramble into the savage Outback populated by irreverent, beer-guzzling frontiersmen." --Chicago Tribune
"A fascinating insight into what we're all about on the highways and byways along the outback track." --The Telegraph (Sydney)
Swept off to live in Sydney by his Australian bride, American writer Tony Horwitz longs to explore the exotic reaches of his adopted land. So one day, armed only with a backpack and fantasies of the open road, he hitchhikes off into the awesome emptiness of Australia's outback.
        What follows is a hilarious, hair-raising ride into the hot red center of a continent so desolate that civilization dwindles to a gas pump and a pub. While the outback's terrain is inhospitable, its scattered inhabitants are anything but. Horwitz entrusts himself to Aborigines, opal diggers, jackeroos, card sharks, and sunstruck wanderers who measure distance in the number of beers consumed en route. Along the way, Horwitz discovers that the outback is as treacherous as it is colorful. Bug-bitten, sunblasted, dust-choked, and bloodied by a near-fatal accident, Horwitz endures seven thousand miles of the world's most forbidding real estate, and some very bizarre personal encounters, as he winds his way to Queensland, Alice Springs, Perth, Darwin--and a hundred bush pubs in between.
        Horwitz, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of two national bestsellers, Confederates in the Attic and Baghdad Without a Map, is the ideal tour guide for anyone who has ever dreamed of a genuine Australian adventure.
"Lively, fast-paced and amusing . . . a consistently interesting and entertaining account." --Kirkus Reviews
"Ironical, perceptive and subtle . . . will have readers getting out their maps and itching to follow Horwitz's tracks. . . . The internal journey is his finest achievement; he allows the reader into his heart, to go travelling with him there, sharing his adventures of the spirit." --Sunday Times (London)
Tracks
by Robyn Davidson
from Vintage
A cult classic with an ever-growing audience, Tracks is the brilliantly written and frequently hilarious account of a young woman's odyssey through the deserts of Australia, with no one but her dog and four camels as companions. Davidson emerges as a heroine who combines extraordinary courage with exquisite sensitivity. 16 pages of photos.
Fodor's Australia 2008 (Fodor's Gold Guides)
by Fodor's
from Fodor's
Explore the richest underwater kingdom on earth, cuddle with a koala, sail past the world's most photographed opera house, gaze over the rain forest from a private balcony, break in your board shorts at a legendary beach, or see towering rock formations carved by the ocean—Fodor's Australia 2008 offers all these experiences and more! Our local writers have traveled throughout the country to find the best hotels, restaurants, attractions and activities to prepare you for a journey of stunning variety. Before you leave for your trip be sure to pack your Fodor's guide to ensure you don't miss a thing.
The San Francisco Chronicle sums it up best — "Fodor's guides are saturated with information."
- We update our Australia guide every year. You won't find a more accurate, current guidebook anywhere.
- Unlike other travel books, Fodor's guides rely heavily on local experts who know the territory best—so you know you're seeing the real Australia.
- We give you the planning tools you need to tailor your trip. We give options for all budgets. You make the choices.
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