Jacket Notes
For 25 years I had published books on South Africa, and on the continent beyond. Then in 2009 my thoughts found a broader stage on which to dance. Thanks to changing family circumstances, I was obliged to visit Australia for the first time. That was the start of a new adventure which culminated with the publication of this new book of mine. My only grandson now lived in Australia. What was it that might link his new continent with my own? I found myself thinking about the way the Aboriginal people had come to Australia. When had they arrived? I became embroiled in the science and the conjecture. The answer was probably more than 60 000 years ago. Where had they come from? Initially, like all human beings, from Africa. So humanity had drifted east from the Red Sea to Australia, and it seemed they had taken 20 000 years to do so. At the same time they had laid the foundations for many ancient civilisations and religions of the world.
That was the link between Africa and my grandson’s new continent. But my chief excitement would be in actually travelling along this ancient route. Hence my book’s subtitle: “21st century excursions into humanity’s greatest migration”.
What a framework for a modern travel book! I would be writing about the development of humanity from the complexities and animosities of now; and from places like Iran and India, Cambodia and Sumatra, Timor and Australia itself. The idea bit deeply into me and would not let go.
Every year I read about where I planned to go, and then went, and then came home and wrote. This was the pattern for six years. I made nearly 50 separate flights, and travelled extensively by road as well. How could I have afforded all this? I could not have without a generous gift from a special friend who died at 94, not long after I had launched myself into the project.
To save time while travelling, I made use of tour guides. In Djibouti, Max was designing a tour which he hoped to call “Birth of the Earth” because he had fallen in love with volcanology and earthquakes. In Iran, my guide was a woman whose scarf kept slipping off her cascading hair. Polly in India was a Parsi whose ancestors had come from Persia. He took me to his Zoroastrian guru who had two doctorates from universities in Europe. Janaka, a young Buddhist, was kind to me when I fell down a mountain in Sri Lanka. And in Timor, I went to church with a woman named Leni who had brought an English New Testament Bible in her handbag so I could follow the readings.
The more I travelled the more I realised that despite our differences, our basic impulses are the same. I have written what I hope is a celebration of humanity.
Walking to Australia is published by The Book Guild, R250