’The thing that Bryson most loves about Australia- its "effortlessly dry, direct way of viewing tlie world" - is, in fact, his own. They’re a perfect fit’

--NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

’Bryson is the perfect travelling companion...when it comes to travel’s peculiars the man still has no peers’

--THE TIMES

’He arrives at his destination, finds a hotel, checks in, meanders around the neighbourhood, visits any rnuseums or public monuments he happens to encounter, has a couple of drinks, eavesdrops on a conversation or two, then goes to bed. A year later, people on three continents are hospitalised as a result of ruptures caused by laug!fing so hard at his account of the experience’

--THE AGE,MELBOURNE

It is the driest, flattest, hottest, most infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents and still Australia teems with life - a large portion of it quite deadly. In fact, Australia has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way than anywhere else.

Ignoring such dangers - and yet curiously obsessed by them - Bill Bryson journeyed to Australia and promptly fell in love with the country. And who can blame him? The people are cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted and unfailingly obliging: their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water; the food is excellent; the beer is cold and the sun nearly always shines. Life doesn’t get much better than this...

Acknowledgements

Part One INTO THE OUTBAGK

Part Two CIVILIZED AUSTRALIA(The Boomerang Coast)

Part Three AROUND THE EDGES

Bibliography