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Name: In a Sunburned Country
Rating: 4.7 (21 reviews)
Author: Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson

Discover the delights of “down under”

4.7 (21 Bewertungen)

34 Min.

Kurz zusammengefasst

In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson is an entertaining travelogue that explores the vast and unique continent of Australia. Bryson’s witty writing style and detailed observations provide an insightful and humorous perspective on the Land Down Under.

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In a Sunburned Country
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What’s in it for me? Discover the delights of “down under.”

Imagine a country so vast the commute between two major cities takes days rather than hours! Where a group of people could buy half a million acres of land and carry out secret bomb tests without anyone noticing…

Well, such a place exists – it’s called Australia! But it’s not just Australia’s sheer size that’s breathtaking. From tropical rainforests to barren deserts, modern cities to the famously rugged “outback,” it’s a stunningly diverse place teeming with life and history.

That’s something Bill Bryson – Anglo-American travel writer and connoisseur of the curious and captivating aspects of Australia – knows better than most. In a Sunburned Country recounts his time traveling the country from north to south and east to west.

Displaying his trademark ability to dig out the tastiest tidbits, it’s a brilliant travelogue full of fascinating facts that’ll have you checking tickets for the next plane to Oz.

In the following blinks, you’ll find out

why Cook went down in history as the discoverer of Australia;
how nineteenth-century gold rushes changed the country’s fortunes; and
why a former prime minister refused to live in the capital.

Australia is often forgotten about, despite the fact that it’s a truly unique place.

What do you really know about Australia? If you’re not from “down under,” probably not a lot. It’s a massive country that leaves a comparatively small footprint in the global consciousness. Even the most bizarre events there barely make international news.

Take the seismic activity that baffled experts in 1993.

The disturbances took place in the Great Victoria Desert. An earthquake was ruled out, which left a couple of possibilities. It couldn’t have been a meteorite strike as there wasn’t a crater, and the activity was too intense to be blamed on a mining accident. In the end, the tremors were chalked up as an unsolvable mystery.

Later, in 1995, the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult achieved notoriety after killing 12 commuters in a nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway. Subsequent investigations turned up a massive 500,000-acre property owned by the group near the site of the previously unexplained seismic activity.

When the authorities investigated, they found a sophisticated laboratory and evidence that members of the group had been mining uranium. More disturbingly still, the group was known to have nuclear engineers among its members. Apparently, its aim of putting an end to the world included secret bomb tests in the desert!

How did the world respond to this shocking news? The New York Times ran just one story, in 1997, four years after the actual event. That’s a pretty good snapshot of the kind of place Australia is – a country so vast that covert nuclear bomb tests can go unnoticed for years!

There are hundreds of other fascinating stories waiting to be discovered in Australia, and that alone makes it worth exploring. You can also see that in its nature. Around 80 percent of all animal and plant life is native to the continent, and given that it’s such a hostile, hot and flat environment, there’s a stunning abundance of it.

But the country’s vastness makes an exact headcount difficult. It’s estimated there could be around 100,000 species of insects, but the true number could be double that. A good 30 percent of all insects are entirely unknown, while for spiders the number is closer to 80 percent!

Bryson first came to truly appreciate Australia’s history and vastness while traversing it by train.

The first leg of Bryson’s exploration began in Sydney, on Australia’s eastern coast. Accompanied by photographer Trevor Ray Hart, he took the transcontinental Indian Pacific railroad to Perth, on the very western edge of the country. The epic journey covers 2,720 miles and crosses three states – New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia.

One day into their journey, the two intrepid travelers disembarked at the small town of Broken Hill in New South Wales. A settlement firmly ensconced in the outback, it was the perfect launching pad for a two-day excursion through Australia’s famously rugged wilderness.

James Cook is often hailed as Australia’s discoverer, but he wasn’t the first there by a long shot.

Australia’s indigenous people, the Aborigines, first arrived on the continent thousands of centuries ago. Current evidence suggests that they’ve been there for around 45,000 to 60,000 years.

Europeans, by comparison, are recent arrivals. They “discovered” Australia only a few centuries ago after roaming the Pacific in search of the fabled southern continent they called Terra Australis Incognita – the “unknown land of the south.” But despite being so vast, it was a difficult place to find. A couple of European explorers came close but ended up missing the huge continent entirely.

In the eighteenth century, Britain started transporting its prisoners to Australia. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing.

So what did the British do once they’d staked their claim to Australia? They started sending huge numbers of felons and working-class Brits there to build a new colony. Australia became the first country to begin life as an open-air prison.

The decision was made after Britain lost its American colonies in 1783. The country needed a new colony, and Australia seemed perfect. The decision was soon made to begin shipping “undesirables” – mostly convicted criminals and members of its underclass – to the continent.

Sydney is a charming city with plenty of attractions, but it’s ashamed of its humble origins.

The second leg of Bryson’s tour of Australia saw him exploring Sydney, the capital of New South Wales. He was in for some surprises.

What struck him most was the city’s denial of its origins. It really doesn’t like the idea that it started out as a prison camp.

The nineteenth century gold rushes transformed Australia, helping to unify the nation.

After exploring Sydney, Bryson headed to Canberra, the capital. In a country as huge as Australia, it’s only a relatively short 180-mile hop south.

It’s a storied route that passes through the country’s old gold mining hub. The industry really took off in the 1850s – a turning point in Australian history.

Canberra isn’t easy to reach and Bryson didn’t think the effort to get there was worth it.

So why did Australia choose Canberra as its new capital over prominent and well-established cities like Melbourne or Sydney?

Well, splitting the difference was just too difficult. In the end, the country decided it’d be easier to build a new city.

On the third leg of his Australian adventure, Bryson saw the Great Barrier Reef and found out about the deadly box jellyfish.

Bryson teamed up with pal and television producer Allan Sherwin for the third leg of his tour of Australia. Together, they flew to Cairns in Far North Queensland, which would be their base for a string of adventures in the country’s desert regions.

Walking along a beach, the two travelers noticed that no one was swimming. There was a good reason for that – it was box jellyfish season!

The city of Darwin is a little drab, but the enormous emptiness of the Northern Territory makes up for it.

Next on Bryson and Sherwin’s itinerary was the Northern Territory.

Tucked between Queensland and Western Australia, this vast area was confirmed to be a territory by a referendum in 1998. The territory’s inhabitants were offered the chance to become Australia's seventh state. But the locals, known as Territorians, weren’t having any of it. They seem to like being outsiders.

Alice Springs is a surprisingly lively town, and “nearby” Uluru a stunning sight.

The drive to Alice Springs took Bryson and Sherwin two days. Once they finally got there, they found a surprisingly lively town.

That’s hardly a given for a place situated right in the middle of Australia. It started life as a much smaller settlement. In the 1950s, it had a population of just 4,000 people. Since then it’s boomed and now has around 25,000 permanent residents, while 350,000 tourists make the trek there every year.

Australia has a sinister past when it comes to the treatment of its Aboriginal people, the repercussions of which endure.

While in Alice Springs, Bryson and his travel companion noticed the social divide between European-descended white Australians, and indigenous Australians – the Aboriginal people. They just didn’t interact very much.

You don’t have to spend much time in the country to realize that something’s amiss when it comes to the way Australia’s earliest inhabitants are treated.

Perth is a wonderful city, and its park and botanical garden are a great reminder of Australia’s natural fecundity.

Bryson completed the last leg of his journey alone and wrapped up his tour with a stay in Western Australia. Flying from Alice Springs to Perth, he ended up in the far west of the western state.

Despite being incredibly remote, Bryson found it a charming and welcoming place. He could see why people thought it was a good idea to build a settlement here. The weather’s great, and it’s bright and sunny. People are naturally disposed to be in a good mood – smiles are part and parcel of everyday life.

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Worum geht es in In a Sunburned Country?

In a Sunburned Country (2000) is Bill Bryson’s personal account of his time traveling around Australia. With stopovers in major cities, out-of-the-way mining towns and treks through the vast wilderness, it’s a travelogue packed with insights into the history, culture and wildlife of this unique nation.

Bestes Zitat aus In a Sunburned Country

In 1967, Harold Holt, the Australian prime minister at the time, plunged into the ocean somewhere along the coast of Victoria and was never seen again.

—Bill Bryson

Wer In a Sunburned Country lesen sollte

Globetrotters
Historians
Lovers of nature and wildlife

Über den Autor

Bill Bryson is an Anglo-American author best known for his witty and informative travel writing. His previous books included the acclaimed A Walk in the Woods (1997) and Notes from a Small Island (2015). Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Bryson spent many years living in the UK before returning to the States. He is currently based in Hanover, New Hampshire.

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