Tracks

"Robyn Davidson was a young woman living an urban life in Australia and came up with the idea that she’d really like to cross the desert in Australia by camel. The problem was that she had literally no experience of anything to do with camels, the outdoors or adventure and she had pretty much zero money. So that was the starting premise for her project. She took a train to Alice Springs as she figured that would be a good place to start. She spent a couple of years learning how to look after camels before she even began. So that’s an interesting part of the book, the commitment and effort needed to even get to the starting line of the trip. She has to overcome so many obstacles: not just all of the skills she needed, but also the tough male culture of The Outback: men thinking that she, being a Sheila, has got no chance of making it. There were all sorts of problems and disasters before she even began. He basically shafts her of everything in the end. He doesn’t keep his promise at all. He’s a horrible person and she has a terrible time. With No Picnic on Mt Kenya I love the story, but it’s not that well-written. Tracks is just fantastically well written. Also, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the photography for it? One of the comedy parts of the trip is that in order to fund it, she manages to persuade National Geographic to cover her story. She writes for them but they, quite understandably, insist on sending a photographer. He’s a bit of a bumbling young fool of a man who turns up every month or two. She’s always furious at him for invading her privacy. So that’s the comedy/romantic side of the trip, but the pictures he took are absolutely astonishing. She’s incredibly beautiful. He’s an amazing photographer and the landscape is extraordinary. When I first saw the pictures, I assumed they were fake and for a film, rather than the actual ones. It’s about 1700 miles. She goes from Alice westwards until she hits the Indian Ocean. She’s got a train of camels and they’ve never seen the ocean. When they get to the end, suddenly there’s more water than they’ve ever seen but they can’t drink it. So they’re quite uncertain about it. Yes, there are loads of them. They’re quite a problem. Wild feral male camels are big scary things and in the book they come along and try and take her female camels. She has to defend herself against feral camels a couple of times and even has to shoot one, at one point. They can be quite aggressive creatures, it seems."