AustLit

'Outsiders think of South Australia as being different, without really knowing much about it. Combining his own travel across the million-square kilometres of the state with an investigation of its history, Ben Stubbs seeks to find out what South Australia is really like.

In the spirit of the best travel writing and literary non-fiction, he lingers in places of quiet beauty and meets some memorable people. Along the way he debunks most of the clichés that plague the state. Travelling to Maralinga, Ceduna, Kangaroo Island, the Flinders Ranges, Coober Pedy, the storied Adelaide suburb of Elizabeth and the once-mighty river that is the Murray, Stubbs brings this diverse state to life. He even addresses head-on the question ‘Is South Australia weird?’

Readers will find it hard to resist the book’s implicit invitation to take a look at places much closer to home, to take the time to drink in dramatic landscapes that are slow, deep and speckled with unforgettable characters.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'On a dusty corner just before the Oodnadatta Track begins to unfurl across the centre of Australia, there is an unassuming mud-walled building on the edge of Marree, a town with a population of one hundred and fifty. Grey nomads pull up outside the general store across the road in their four-wheel drives to stock up on beer coolers and meat pies, and they barely notice the humble thatch-roofed structure. Behind them, young families clamber over the platform of the old Ghan railway, paying no attention to the building. The only identifying mark next to the dirt walls and old wooden beams is a small notice stuck on a stick in the ground, which looks like it is stencilled on in pen. It proclaims that this spot is ‘Dedicated to the memory of the pioneering Muslim cameleers and families of Hergott Springs (Marree)’. It is also the remains of the first mosque in Australia.' (Introduction)

'Ben Stubbs' chapter demonstrates the new depths possible within hy-brid travel memoir. He looks at its evolution from works by Mark Twain to Robyn Davidson and Don Watson, tracing the progression of the genre from Twain's self-centered imperialism to Davidson and Watson's cultural self-awareness.'

Source: Introduction, p.7

'In 1893, Australian journalist William Lane dreamed of creating a utopia where his socialist ideals could flourish, far away from his home in Queensland. He enlisted 238 followers and convinced them to sail across the Pacific with him to Paraguay, where he intended to create a paradise where brotherhood would be the order of the day and where hard work would reap its own rewards. And then reality set in.

'Expecting green and fertile fields, the New Australians found instead a dustbowl; expecting wine, women and song, they realised that their leader wanted them to remain abstemious and monogamous. This was not paradise but a kind of hell and Lane woudl face open rebellion from his followers.

'In 2010, Australian travel writer Ben Stubbs made his own trek to the wilds of central Paraguay to discover the remnants of New Australia and to search out the stories of those who stayed behind. He discovers a series of utopian colonies, including New Japan and New Germany, and their inhabitants, who lead strange double lives, caught between the countries they think of as home and the one they live in every day. Funny, unexpected and fascinating, this is an adventure travel story with a difference.' (From the publisher's website.)