|  |
| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Tour Australia through American Writer's Eyes... Sep 16, 2009
"As I sped over the soft earth, the wind in my face, the colors crowding in around me, I felt fleeter and freer than I can ever remember. Such is the liberating quality of joy."
You could read Waltzing Australia by Cynthia Clampitt and thoroughly enjoy a great travel book. This highly recommended journal is full of the history, the beauty and the mystery of Australia. In fact, if you suffer from occasional wanderlust, you should keep this book on your permanent library shelf so that you can escape into the various parts of Australia whenever you wish! I personally would visit Tasmania more often since Cynthia immediately captured me through the stories of her travels there.
But if I told you only about traveling through Australia, you would not be prepared and perhaps not realize until it is later in the book, that there is a very personal story being told. It's about one of our present-day female role models we should share with our children. It's about a gutsy woman who, while being in a successful corporate career realized that it was not what she wanted for her life. She wanted a writing career. Leaving the security of her corporate role, she first chose to fulfill a lifetime dream. She spent six months touring Australia!
There is little that Cynthia writes about herself, but when she does add those personal comments, such as the one quoted above, I urge you to stop and consider those words about your own life--Can we say that we experience "the liberating quality of joy"? Let your heart decide whether Cynthia has a special message for you that will run throughout this book... If so, then sit back and enjoy waltzing along with Cynthia as she tests her limits, especially physically, and in many other ways!
"My spirit seemed to vibrate...in sympathetic response to...innocence, the fierceness, the solitude...I studied them a while longer, smiled..."
This lengthy journey covers approximately 20,000 miles as Cynthia toured Australia. The book has been easily divided into parts of the country so that you can hone in on that section if you are fortunate to have a few weeks to travel to a specific spot. It is written in a travel diary format that provides broad strokes as well as daily activities of events. There will be information about the history of the location being traveled, notes on wildlife as well as the land and water displays. To give you a taste, I'll share with you just some of the details that show the variety of information and that were especially interesting to me:
· Nearly everybody knows the old song about the Kookaburra. It is the largest member of the kingfisher family and is best known for its rollicking "laughter."
· Wages were once paid in "rum."
· "Beyond words" can only be used to describe the beauty of the rainforest.
· Everything, including cars, the weather, life...is referred to as "she."
· The riverboat postman on Hawkesbury River carries not only mail, but food, medicine and even people!
· Captain Cook traveled along the coast naming bays, islands and landmarks. He "peacefully changed the map of the world more than any other single man...."
· Rub a large stone...in the fertility cave to become pregnant, according to Aboriginal legend!
· The Stirling Bells grow nowhere else in the world other than the Stirling Ranges; each of the seven varieties has its own mountain, growing nowhere else in the ranges!
· Tasmania's Wallabies are only 2 to 3 feet and they grasp fingers to eat out of your hand.
· Wombats have short necks, making it impossible to look up, so they beg for food by trotting up and staring at your ankles.
· Tasmanian devils owe their names and reputations to the insanely wild screaming/choking/snarling/roaring sounds they make for normal conversation!
· Sydney's opera house cost $102M, raised mostly through lotteries.
With that last I must stop. There seems to be one overlying theme about Australia that is readily apparent. People are happy, friendly and proud of their country. People open their homes to strangers. When a car or bus is broken down, everybody stops to help. I love the Australia that I read about in Waltzing Australia by Cynthia Clampitt. I was 18 when I, too, thought of traveling to that country. If I never get to, though, Cynthia has given me a taste of that "heaven" that I missed. Perhaps you, too, have a dream...
"I wondered again, as I have wondered before, why this place moves me so. I am drawn to the remoteness, to the vigor, the fierceness...and its spirit whispers to my spirit..."
G. A. Bixler
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
A Journey Of Discovery - And Self-Discovery Apr 06, 2009
(Official Apex Reviews Rating: 4.5 Stars)
Waltzing Australia takes the reader on a journey through the heart and soul of the country & continent affectionately known as "Down Under." Comprised of chronological entries in an extemporaneous travel diary, Cynthia Clampitt's tome serves as a comprehensive guide to just what makes Australia one of the most unique and inviting places on earth.
Guided by Clampitt's masterful narration, the reader is treated to the vicarious thrills and excitement that she experiences on her sojourn through a land that she had long dreamed of but never visited. Along the way, she learns volumes of native history, sees breathtaking sights that others only read about in books, and becomes increasingly fascinated with the vast and sundry local wildlife. She also builds invaluable new friendships, through which she's introduced to the customs, mores, and folkways that bring the land to life.
Aside from its geographical and sociological appeal, Waltzing Australia's true power lies in the notable lessons that it can teach readers - lessons whose inherent value elevate them above those found in traditional history books. As a personal witness to the environment and living history of the country, Clampitt lends her already compelling account an added, deft touch of humanity, which makes it universally more appealing than a bland, sterile recapitulation of facts and information.
For a welcome, first-hand account of a fascinating place of truly well-earned renown, readers would serve themselves well to peruse the pages of Waltzing Australia. In so doing, they may very well ignite the same fire within themselves as that which propelled Clampitt to visit the fabled mini-paradise - and feel just as fulfilled as a result.
Krystal Pearson
Apex Reviews
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Australia stole my heart Dec 17, 2008
I fell in love with Australia in 1993, when I made my first trip. It stole my heart then and continues to hold it now. I am fortunate to sell travel to this diverse and amazing country, so I have been back many times.
Cynthia Clampitt sees inside MY heart and puts on paper feelings I have yet been able to describe adequately
She paints vivid pictures of people, places and adventures. I can feel the sun, hear the crush of the bush beneath my feet and smell the salt of the sea.
I know I will go back again to Australia but I can revisit anytime just by picking up Waltzing Australia and reading a few pages.
I will treasure and keep this book for a very long time!
2 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Inspiring and Beautiful Oct 09, 2008
Cynthia's book wasn't at all what I expected when I first picked it up. I thought it would be a nice, light travelogue of some time she spent in Australia. Boy, was I surprised.
First, this was no travelogue - it's an intense love story between an American city-dweller and the vast continent of Australia. It starts with an infatuation from afar, and develops over the course of five months into a deep life-long love and respect.
Along the way, we are close witnesses to Cynthia's discovery of every nook and cranny of large cities, small towns, and hundreds of miles of outback. Each new experience is described in gorgeous detail from the joy of feeding flocks of wild parrots to the agony of sleeping on a bus. Each page is overflowing with adventures, and we get to meet each city, animal, plant, and person along with Cynthia as if we're right there with her.
"Waltzing Australia" is deeply emotional and personal. It's an inspirational read about a strong woman living out the dream of a lifetime, and we are very fortunate that she decided to take us all along.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 Waltzing Australia is a splendid travelogue that delivers in spades: Oct 02, 2008
I never knew what exactly enticed my daughter when in her late teens she was determined to travel for six months to Australia exploring a country that is called "Down Under." (If you are wondering why it is called "Down Under," it is because it is the only continent with a permanent population that is entirely below the equator and thus it has been given this name.) After all, wasn't she supposed to follow her friends and pursue the usual trip to Europe? However, after reading Cynthia Clampitt's Waltzing Australia, I well understood why this mesmerizing and enthralling country would lure anyone to explore it from one end to the other.
Clampitt is a freelance writer specializing in food, travel, and history. As her bio mentions, the life she now leads began with a dream that seduced her away from her corporate career and led her to Australia. In fact, since her dream took hold, she has traveled to China, Cambodia, Vietnam, India, Thailand, Mexico and several other countries. There is an old saying that no matter what happens, travel gives you a story to tell and this is exactly what Clampitt does as she permits us to relive with her an amazing six month twenty-thousand journey circling and crossing Australia.
Beginning in Queensland, readers follow Clampitt through the Northern Territory, Western and South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, Canberra & Environs, New South Wales, Sydney. Using comprehensive notes jotted down in log format, she effectively chronicles the pulse of her escapades and gives her readers one hell of a ride as she describes what she saw, smelled, heard and felt pertaining to some of the more interesting colorful and historical venues.
Just as an artist would have a sketch- book handy, Clampitt traveled with her journal recording intriguing scenes, descriptions of people and places. For example, the famous Great Barrier Reef is brought to life where we learn that it is 1,250 miles long and supports more animal life per square mile than any other region in earth. In addition, as mentioned, "it is the largest structure ever built by living creatures, constructed over thousands of years by tiny coral polyps." Clampitt leaves her readers with stunning and breath taking images when she describes the reef with its tiny, brilliant yellow fish darting among the channels of enormous, green brain corals. The giant clams, some of which measuring four feet across, turning on their mauve, purple, and green mantles to collect food.
With her keen sense of time and place, Clampitt has grasped the essential ingredients of good travel writing avoiding a common pitfall that some travel writers yield to in that they merely recycle factual information. However, such is not the case with Clampitt who manages to elegantly mix her own personal observations and musings while throwing in a little history and geography. Moreover, as we tag along with Clampitt, we notice how she places us firmly on the ground she describes. In other words, we perceive and experience the same venues as she does utilizing all of our senses in order to enjoy this alluring and captivating learning experience.
As for the people she met along the way, although she was travelling solo, she never felt alone due to the fact that Australia never gave her much opportunity to feel lonely.
Wherever she went, there was always someone to talk to, even Aborigines. Clampitt recounts when she stopped to photograph some beautiful pink flowers, a white-haired Aborigine with limited English stopped and told her about oleanders and picked a branch for her. They even managed carry on a conversation where she discovered various other plants.
Waltzing Australia is a splendid travelogue that delivers in spades and anyone contemplating a trip to "Down Under," or even armchair travelers, would be more than satisfied with its abundance of intriguing revelations. By the end of the book, I felt as if I actually sat beside Clampitt as she explored beautiful Australia.
Norm Goldman, Publisher & Editor Bookpleasures
|
| | |
|
|
