Travels in Outback Australia by Andrew Stevenson – A Book That Took Me Back Down Under

Some travel books make you dream of visiting faraway places. Others bring back memories of adventures you’ve already had. Andrew Stevenson’s Travels in Outback Australia did both for me, although it was his wonderful storytelling that made me want to read more of his books.

A Good Travel Book Is More Than Just a Journey

I’ve read quite a few travel books over the years, and one thing I’ve learnt is that an exciting destination doesn’t automatically make an exciting book.

You can travel to the most extraordinary places on Earth, meet fascinating people, survive all sorts of adventures and collect enough stories to entertain an entire pub for weeks. But if you can’t tell a good story, even the most spectacular journey can become about as entertaining as reading the instruction manual for your washing machine.

And that’s where Andrew Stevenson gets it right.

I genuinely enjoy his writing style. He’s observant, curious and entertaining, with a sense of humour that makes his experiences a pleasure to follow. He doesn’t simply tell you where he went and what he saw. He makes you want to turn the page to discover what happened next.

That, for me, is the difference between somebody who has travelled and somebody who can actually write about travelling. And it’s precisely why I kept buying his books.

I also enjoyed his accounts of travelling through New Zealand and trekking around Annapurna in Nepal. Both deserve their own reviews, but today we’re heading Down Under.

When a Book Takes You Back in Time

I read the German edition of Stevenson’s Travels in Outback Australia, titled Meine Reise durch das Outback.

And what made this particular book even more enjoyable was that I knew many of the places he was describing. Not from television documentaries or glossy travel brochures, but from my own experiences.

I’ve been fortunate enough to travel around Australia twice, both times for extended periods. I stayed in hostels, travelled by bus, met all sorts of interesting characters and experienced quite a few adventures along the way.

So, while reading Stevenson’s book, I frequently found myself thinking: “Hang on, I’ve been there!”

Or even better: “Good heavens, something very similar happened to me!”

Suddenly, memories that had been gathering dust somewhere in the back of my mind came flooding back. And some of them were rather entertaining.

My Own 72-Day Australian Adventure

My first extended Australian journey took place in 2002. I joined an overland tour organised by a company called Jarmbie Tours. The itinerary was described as Sydney to Sydney, which sounds rather straightforward.

Until you discover that the whole thing takes 72 days.

Australia, as it turns out, is quite a large country. Who would have thought?

Our journey took us north along the east coast, through the Hunter Valley, Byron Bay, Fraser Island, Airlie Beach and Cairns. Along the way, we also experienced life on a sheep station.

Eventually, we ventured into the vast Australian Outback, travelling towards the Gulf of Carpentaria. We passed the famous Purple Pub in Normanton, spent a night in tiny Kajabbi and continued through the Northern Territory, discovering extraordinary places such as Kakadu National Park and Katherine Gorge, where I treated myself to an unforgettable helicopter ride.

Then came the Red Centre, with Alice Springs, Uluru and Kata Tjuta, the rock formations also known as the Olgas.

Further south, we explored Wilpena Pound, Adelaide and the wine regions of South Australia, including the Clare and Barossa Valleys.

The Barossa Valley deserves a special mention. There was plenty of wine tasting, some very enjoyable company and quite a few young English ladies.

Let’s just say that my appreciation of Australian wine improved considerably, even if my ability to distinguish one grape variety from another became slightly less reliable as the day progressed.

Our journey eventually continued through Victoria, the Snowy Mountains, Canberra and Katoomba in the Blue Mountains before bringing us back to Sydney.

Seventy-two days on the road. An extraordinary amount of Australia. And enough memories to fill several books of my own.

But this is supposed to be a review of Andrew Stevenson’s book, not the complete confession of my Australian adventures. So, back to Andrew.

Why I Enjoy Stevenson’s Way of Travelling

What I particularly like about Stevenson is that he doesn’t treat Australia as a gigantic collection of tourist attractions that must be ticked off a list.

He wants to know more. He takes an interest in the people he encounters, their stories and the history behind the places he visits. And that is something I can relate to.

Of course, I love spectacular landscapes. Who wouldn’t be impressed by the sheer size of the Australian Outback, its seemingly endless roads, its red earth and those enormous skies?

But after years of travelling, I’ve come to realise that some of my most memorable experiences have very little to do with famous landmarks. They have to do with people. A conversation with a stranger, an unexpected invitation, a curious encounter in a little town or a situation that seemed rather unpleasant at the time but became hilarious when remembered years later.

These are the things that make travelling special. Stevenson understands that.

His book also explores Aboriginal Australia and some of the complicated questions surrounding the country’s history and its Indigenous peoples. I appreciate that he looks beyond the scenery and tries to understand the country he is travelling through.

He doesn’t always need an extraordinary event to keep the reader entertained. Sometimes, his observations and the way he describes ordinary encounters are entertaining enough. And that’s a talent not every travel writer possesses.

Uluru – Same Rock, Different Experiences

One of the places that immediately brought back memories was Uluru. When our group finally arrived there on day 46 of our journey, we were looking forward to the famous sunset.

Naturally, we weren’t alone. Several other tour groups had gathered at the viewing areas, and the whole experience felt rather more organised than I’d expected.

The guests from the nearby five-star hotel, Sails of the Desert, were enjoying their sunset with champagne and neatly arranged tables. Meanwhile, our little backpacker group was sitting on the ground, drinking whatever we’d managed to buy at the last bottleshop.

Same sunset, slightly different budget.

The next morning, some members of our group planned to climb Uluru. I decided against it. Even back in 2002, the Traditional Owners were asking visitors not to climb their sacred rock, and I wanted to respect that.

Besides, I had another perfectly reasonable argument.

If you’re standing on top of Uluru, you can’t actually see Uluru!

Instead, I decided to walk around its base. And what a wonderful experience that turned out to be.

I started early, before the heat became unbearable, and enjoyed the remarkable silence around the rock. The deep blue sky, the rusty red earth, the occasional eucalyptus tree and the fascinating shapes and crevices of Uluru made the walk one of my favourite memories of Australia.

Later that day, we met an Aboriginal guide who explained some of the traditional stories and ancient rock art. She even allowed us to take a group photograph but asked us not to publish it for cultural reasons. I respected her request, and I still do.

That encounter stayed with me because it reminded me that Australia is so much more than its famous landscapes. And it’s exactly this willingness to look beyond the obvious that I appreciate in Stevenson’s writing.

The Joys and Horrors of Travelling Together

Another thing that made Stevenson’s travel experiences familiar to me was the unpredictable nature of meeting people on the road.

Travelling independently can be wonderful, but sometimes joining a group makes an enormous amount of sense, particularly in a country as vast as Australia.

Our 72-day journey would have been considerably more expensive and complicated to organise on my own. Besides, travelling with others meant sharing experiences, meeting new people and occasionally learning things I might otherwise have missed.

But there is a downside. Put a group of people between the ages of 24 and 40 together in a bus for several weeks, and sooner or later you discover that not everyone is quite as charming as they appeared on the first day.

By the time we reached Uluru, the atmosphere in our group had become rather interesting. Two English girls had recently left us after a period of what I can only describe as considerable female drama.

And to make matters more entertaining, a brief romantic involvement between our driver and tour leader had ended rather badly.

Unfortunately, when two people who work together fall out while travelling across the Australian Outback, there aren’t many places to escape to. The nearest alternative accommodation might be several hundred kilometres away.

So everyone simply carries on, pretending that everything is perfectly normal. Which, of course, makes everything even more awkward.

I sometimes wondered whether travelling alone might have been easier. But then again, I would have missed all those wonderful opportunities to observe human behaviour.

And let’s face it, sometimes the people inside the bus are considerably more entertaining than the scenery outside.

That’s another reason I enjoy Stevenson’s books. He knows that travelling doesn’t always go according to plan, and that the unexpected moments often make the best stories.

Australia Beyond the Tourist Brochures

One of the strengths of Travels in Outback Australia is that it doesn’t present the country as one enormous holiday advertisement. Australia is a land of extraordinary beauty, but it is also a country of contrasts, enormous distances, isolated communities and a complicated history.

Stevenson takes an interest in those contrasts. His encounters and observations offer a perspective that goes beyond the beaches, kangaroos and famous landmarks. I particularly appreciate his interest in Aboriginal Australians and their experiences.

Of course, nobody can expect to understand an entire country simply by travelling through it, particularly one as enormous and culturally diverse as Australia. But being curious, asking questions and listening to people is certainly a good starting point. And it makes for much more interesting reading than another description of a beautiful sunset.

Even though I must admit that Australian sunsets can be rather spectacular. Especially when accompanied by a decent glass of Barossa Valley wine.

So, Is the Book Worth Reading?

For me, absolutely.

But not simply because Stevenson writes about places I’ve visited myself. That certainly made the book special to me, and I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting so many familiar locations through somebody else’s eyes.

What really won me over, however, was his storytelling.

An interesting subject alone isn’t enough to make a good book. I’ve come across travel accounts describing extraordinary adventures that somehow managed to be astonishingly dull. Page after page of places, distances, dates and descriptions, with very little personality in between.

Stevenson is different. His curiosity, observations and entertaining way of describing his experiences make his writing enjoyable even when nothing particularly dramatic is happening.

And that is probably the greatest compliment I can give a travel writer. He made me want to read another of his books. And then another.

His journeys through New Zealand and around Annapurna in Nepal eventually found their way onto my reading list as well. Those adventures will have their own place here on Lizz & Andi.

My Final Thoughts

Travels in Outback Australia is more than a book about somebody travelling through Australia. It’s an entertaining personal journey through a remarkable country, its landscapes, its people and some of its complexities.

I would particularly recommend it to readers who enjoy travel writing with personality, curiosity and a sense of humour.

And if you’ve already travelled around Australia yourself, you might find the book even more enjoyable. You may recognise some of the places, remember similar encounters or suddenly find yourself transported back to a hostel, a dusty Outback road or a little pub in the middle of nowhere.

That’s certainly what happened to me. Reading Andrew Stevenson’s book brought back wonderful memories of my Australian adventures in 2002 and my later travels through the country.

And it reminded me of something I’ve always believed:

A good journey gives you memories. A good storyteller brings them back to life.

And Andrew Stevenson certainly knows how to tell a story.

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About the Book

Title: Travels in Outback Australia
Author: Andrew Stevenson
German edition: Meine Reise durch das Outback
Genre: Travel literature / Travel memoir
My reading experience: German edition

Have you read any of Andrew Stevenson’s books? Or have you travelled through the Australian Outback yourself? Perhaps you’ve even experienced the peculiar joys of spending weeks on a bus with a group of complete strangers! I’d love to hear your stories in the comments.