Book Review: Around Australia at 80ks by Meredith Schofield

As someone who has written a travel diary about driving across three states of Australia, and owning a frog van that became very much a character in touring my own state of South Australia at sometimes well below 80ks, I have some affinity for Meredith Schofield's book, Around Australia at 80k's.

I'll definitely tip my hat to Meredith and her husband Sean for going way further in a bright yellow, unairconditioned, mid 70's kombi van, than they were ever designed for.

Also kudos to them for traveling with their dog Bandit. My partner and I have also taken our dogs on our holiday adventures and, even though South Australia is likely the most dog friendly state in Australia, it's still a challenge planning a trip where you can all stay together. Particularly, your dog will keep you out of most national parks.

Meredith's book is a road trip adventure across five Australian states, NSW, SA, WA, NT, and Victoria (technically four states and one territory I guess). It's filled with Meredith's fantastic photography, and her written impressions of each location, along with travel tips, like the all important, best place to get coffee, followed by the best free places to camp (priorities!).

At just over 250 pages it's the kind of book you read once and then becomes a bit of a coffee table book to page through, or you buy it to help inspire your own adventure by getting a feel for places you may like to see for yourself.

I do get the sense that if you're a kombi van owner, that's a very special community of people who would absolutely love this book. It's no accident that the official book website is called 'Etta's Travels - Around Australia at 80ks'.

Etta is the name of their bright yellow kombi with a top cruising speed of 80ks. (I have no doubt she can go faster but if she's anything like my frog van any speed above 80ks feels like the wheels are going to fall off sooner rather than later - or at least the engine is going to overheat). There's probably more shots of Etta than either Meredith, Sean, or Bandit in the book... and, if not it, feels that way. Definitely an inspirational book for anyone thinking travelling Australia in a 70's classic is madness.

Personally I found a lot of the writing of the actual journey to be a little dry and didn't really capture the sense of adventure or being there in the moment. I know it's hard to write about every place with enthusiasm but there was a lot of we went here and did this without much history or anecdotes about the location.

By contrast I felt more excitement and enthusiasm in Meredith's Introduction, preparation for the trip, and closing chapters. I wouldn't be surprised if, although I'm sure Meredith took notes, most of the book was written after the journey - which can seem overwhelming while you're writing it (honestly I've been there with all my own travel diary entries in this blog).

The photography is great with some stunning images and great compositions. I did feel a bit of a disconnect with the photos and the text because there are no captions. I know the idea is for all the photos on each page to give a sense of the place being visited but with nothing to focus my attention on each photo I tended to focus on just those that caught my eye (usually photos with the kombi, or with Meredith, Sean, or Bandit in them) or ones specifically mentioned in the text.

Landscape photography, no matter how good, tends to blend into more of the same when you see a lot of it altogether. I feel I would have appreciated each photo more with captions or some kind of numerical reference within the text, directing me to specific photos.

Just quietly, I would've also liked to have seen photos of some of the towns they passed through as well for a bit of contrast. The distinct lack of people and towns. You don't do a journey this far in Australia and without meeting a few characters. Skipping the towns made it feel like outback Australia is a little more empty than it is.

As mentioned great for any kombi van owner, and also a nice coffee table book for any Aussie home. The book has a limited 10,000 copy print run that appears to be almost sold out. Visit the official website to find out where you can get hold of a copy if they're still available.

Comments

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices. My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe? Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...

Social Media: It's All Fake News - Even That News You Shared, That Proves the Thing, Because It's Backed Up By a Credible Expert, is Fake.

Social Media profiles need a peer based rating system that locks you out for 30 days if your feed is one long stream of depressing boredom that bums everyone out. I don't watch or read the news anymore (mainstream or otherwise). From time to time, if something filters through that piques my interest, I'll take a bit of a dive to find out more. The recent US election is a good example. I even wrote a few opinion pieces in this blog. The Daily Show Is Not News Note that I don't count The Daily Show as news, because I did watch quite a lot of that during the US election. While they lean quite a bit toward the left overall, it's not a show you look to for context, since much of their humor is based on reframing context to get a laugh. The one thing The Daily Show does well is highlight how both Liberal and Right wing media latch onto one or two bullet point messages each day and run them through the mouths of every on screen commentator like they're all wind up parro...

TV Series Review: The Penguin (2024) No Spoilers

W hile we wait for an eternity (well an eternity in movie fan years anyway) for The Batman Part 2 , sequel to Matt Reeves acclaimed, The Batman (2022), we have, what is essentially a direct sequel with The Penguin , a limited. eight episode, TV Series set within a week or two of the end of the first film. Unfortunately it's a direct sequel to Colin Farrell's Penguin rather than Robert Pattinson's, Bruce Wayne/Batman. Fortunately that's the only real disappointment I have with this series. Right from the first episode The Penguin establishes itself as a show for grown ups who enjoy actual character development, that hooks you in, is thought provoking, and raises questions that you expect will be answered as the story unfolds. After the events of The Batman, there is something of a power vacuum left in Gotham's crime world that Oswald 'Oz' Cobb a.k.a. The Penguin, sets out to fill using his experience, quick thinking, and his ability to hustle his way into...

Movie Review: The Fall Guy (2024) Minor Spoilers

W hen I initially heard they were making a movie version of the TV series, The Fall Guy (1981-86) , I was definitely interested, as a person who tuned in to that series, weekly, when it originally aired. I had intended to see The Fall Guy in the cinema but, for whatever reason, didn't get there, and didn't prioritize seeing the film as the reviews, and more importantly, general information about the movie came out. Specifically, The Fall Guy makes no effort to capture whatever magic it was the TV show had that made it the show it was. A fact that is driven home by the reworked TV series theme song, played over the end credits and behind the scenes footage of stunts in the film, that removes all references to real world actors and replaces iconic line of "I'm the unknown stuntman who made Redford such a star" with the nonsensical "I'm the unknown stuntman who tries to win your heart." - sure... I guess... I mean, the original song is about never gett...

Movie Review: Memory (2023)

S omething a little different for me in terms of movies I usually review, Memory is a film I was invited along to see by my partner, and both of us didn't know much about the movie going in, other than it was a film where one of the leads has dementia. The basic premise follows adult, special needs social worker, Sylvia (Jessica Chastain), who leads a simple and structured life. When Saul (Peter Sarsgaard) follows her home from their high school reunion the surprise encounter profoundly impacts both of their lives. The film starts out very awkward and disjointed to some degree, which I feel is intentional, to reflect that Sylvia, who is also a struggling single mother, is fairly resilient, she is, in many ways, just barely holding everything together because she doesn't have any other option. When Saul sees Sylvia at their high school reunion it seems like some unpleasant memories from her past are fast tracked into the forefront of her life, and things move forward fro...

Boom Crash Opera Born Classic But Not Again

Boom Crash Opera are an Australian Band that reached the peak of their popularity in the mid to late nineteen eighties. They are a band that I knew about at that time but was never really excited by until they released their ill fated double album Born and Born Again in 1995 (Album cover pictured). At the time of its release I was very much into emerging Australian musical acts and was also looking out for new sounds that were different and had kind of a futuristic/electronic sound. Artists that I was buying at the time included; Swoop , Nine Inch Nails and Pop Will Eat Its Self . As well as a really interesting release by David Bowie, the concept album, Outside . Born was a fairly radical departure for Boom Crash Opera (BCO). The first single, Gimme , was often compared to the sounds of Gary Glitter, particularly his single, Rock n Roll part 2 , because of the pounding drum loops. Watch the video below. My favorite single from the album is dissemble which probably went now...

Movie Opinion: Love Actually (2003) Actually has Aged Just As It Should

S creen Rant ran an article by Bisma Fida , Love Actually: The 8 Storylines That Aged Badly, Ranked (Published Dec 10, 2021), which obviously was regurgitated into one of my newsfeeds because Love Actually (2003) is still one of the best Christmas movies ever made, that's why it's still topical in 2024. Bisma, who completely failed to get their profile page pro-nouns in order. Something that should be a priority for anyone commenting on what is accepted by modern audiences, who are all completely comfortable accepting preferred pro-nouns without question, because we're just that enlightened in 2024. F**K Screen Rant Full disclosure, I hate Screen Rant to the point that, if I do click on their click bait titles because I didn't see it was a Screen Rant story, I'll close the browser window almost immediately once I see what it is (which is why I'm not providing any links to their homepage). It's not because I dislike their articles. I would actually like to...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog