Travel to Australia

One for the Road: Revised Edition

Format: Paperback
Author: Tony Horwitz
ReleaseDate: 05 October, 1999
Publisher: Vintage
Rating:

I want to buy Tony a beer...if he still needs one.


He started out like many, seduced by life in megalopolitan Sydney, thinking that the superficial similarites between two essentially suburban cultures mean that there's little for an American to learn from his adopted home. As another American who lived in Australia for many years, let me assure any prospective buyer of this book that the author really gets the place.

Life on the road teaches him otherwise.

There's a certain melancholy to life in Australia, which Horwitz comes to understand over his journey; the physical journey across a forbidding continent contrasts with his internal journey as a moden young man, a lapsed rebel, a faithful husband and a sentimentally observant Jew (Is this trip his own wandering in the desert, perhaps?)

I was moved by the story of Horwitz's passage across the northwest of Western Australia (beginnning on page 136). It's here that he surrenders his obsession with getting to the next town, and begins to understand the weft and weave of his surroundings.

The story of finding a Jewish family in Broome with whom to celebrate Passover--an Akubra sunhat acting as a makeshift yarmulke--warmed my heart, simply because I know that any true Australian would be equally welcoming to a displaced stranger.

And the story of Anzac Day the following morning. . . well, I've never heard anyone capture the curious mixture of joy and pain that marks the Australian Memorial Day as succinctly as Tony did. An ostesnsible victory witout glory--what kind of a nation does this make? He summed it up in three paragraphs or so.

Buy it, even if you never intend to visit Australia. It will help you understand the mind of an eventual Pulitzer Prize winner, and the experiences that opened his mind.

Oh, by the way, Tony, I'm serious about the offer of a beer.



.

Let's See. 5 Hours To The Next Town = 24 Cans Of Beer!!!
On his journey he gets enough rides from strangers to "fill a Rehab Clinic " 3 times over. In this book we see Pulitzer Winning writer Tony Horwitz hit the open road hitchiking around Australia. Tony is introduced to an Outbackworld where distance are measured in beers consumed. , i. e. a short trip is known as a "six pack of beer" whereas a long journey is refered to as 24 cans of beer!!!. The author describes how hitchiking can be a very jarring way to travel as you are stranded alone for hours trying to get a ride and in the next breath you are trying to reassure the driver who picked you up that you are not a Serial Killer. Luckily the author remains lucid and coherant throughout the book otherwise it would have all just been a blured memory of visting one pub (Hotel) after another!!It is a testament to the author' writing ability that he can make a simple ride through the Australian Outback so entertaining and a joy to read. Strewth, this guy was chockers full of beer on his way to the Black Stump but he only did his lolly once and didn't skite to anybody about how much beer he could drink even though he was surrounded by Piss Artists!!! If you didn't understand that last sentence I suggest you buy this book and all will be revealed. Well done Tony!!!.

Fair dinkum
After reading Tony Horwitz's "One for the Road", you'll find yourself thinking you can speak in Aussie slang. When you go to a good movie about boxing, like Rocky, you come out of the theatre thinking you could be a boxer and you shadowbox your way across the parking lot. Same effect is people will look at you like you're a blithering idiot.

This is the first book by Horwitz that I've read and I will be reading his others soon enough. As for this one, I truly enjoyed the book in its simpleness and easy flow of readability. The author takes a break from his job and decides he's going to finger it across the bush and outback of Australia. You join Horwitz as he gets ride after ride from small towns (usually nothing much more than a pub) and encounters a wide blend of personalities and lifestyles as he hitchhikes through the land.

The lightness of Horwitz's writing is enjoyable and relaxing. His adventures through Australia consists of continuous short rides in which distance is measure in how many beers you need to drink to fight off the heat. He takes the circuitous route to get from Sydney to Darwin, travelling up the east coast, going inland, coming south through the middle of the continent, swinging over to Perth, and then coast crawling the west coast up to Darwin. Through it all he survives a nasty car wreck near Uluru (Ayers Rock), delves into the spiritual status of Uluru among Aboriginies, meets desperate opal miners, sleeps in a ditch with underwear over his head during a cyclone, peaks at Halley's comet, rides with a complaining Tassie family, endures the roadside junkyards of dead vehicles, fears to be the only Jew in the land during Passover, manages to realign himself with 'Nor'west Time', and strives to push through his dwindling interest in hitchhiking as he rounds the northern coast of Australia.

Overall, "One for the Road" is an expression of survival by travelling through the central deserts of the land down under. It's a pleasureable read and a good introduction into what will become a favored author in travelogues in the form of Tony Horwitz. Whew, I made it throuw the review and only used one Aussie term in the title so as not to look like a mug, ocker, or cockie so now she'll be jake.

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