Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

A few years after completing her desert journey, Robyn Davidson recounts her harrowing experiences on the page. In 1977, Davidson traveled to the remote town of Alice Springs to start preparing for her long-awaited walk across the Australian interior. In Alice, she planned to buy and train some camels and prepare for her adventure. On the way with her dog Diggity, she felt she was doing something right for the first time. However, fellow travelers scoffed at her when she revealed her plans. Their doubt made her change her mind about trying to camp with the Aborigines on the Todd River while looking for a job. She didn’t believe the dominating racist belief that Aboriginals were “lazy and unintelligent,” but she now doubted her capabilities (6).

Alice was a small, mostly white town. At a restaurant, Davidson chatted with some young people who gave her a place to stay. The next day, she got a pub job and met a camel-man named Sallay Mahomet. Davidson liked Sallay but he didn’t support her plan, so she moved on to another camel-man further up the Charles River.