In a Sunburned CountryDeliciously funny, fact-filled and adventurous, In a Sunburned Country takes us on a grand tour of Australia. It's a place where interesting things happen all the time, from a Prime Minister lost — yes, lost — while swimming at sea, to Japanese cult members who may (entirely unnoticed) have set off an atomic bomb on their 500,000 acre property in the great western desert. Australia is the only island that is also a continent, and the only continent that is also a country. Its aboriginal people, a remote and mysterious race with a tragic history, have made it their home for millennia. And despite the fact that it is the most desiccated, infertile and climatically aggressive of all inhabited continents, it teems with life. In fact, Australia has more things that can kill you in extremely nasty ways than anywhere else: sharks, crocodiles, the planet's ten most deadly poisonous snakes, fluffy yet toxic caterpillars, sea shells that actually attack you, and the unbelievable box jellyfish (don't ask). The dangerous riptides of the sea and the sun-baked wastes of the outback both lie in wait for the unwary. Australia is an immense and fortunate land, and it has found in Bill Bryson its perfect guide. In a Sunburned Country offers the best of all possible introductions to what may well be the best of all possible nations. Even with those jellyfish. |
Contents
Section 1 | 3 |
Section 2 | 21 |
Section 3 | 37 |
Section 4 | 47 |
Section 5 | 69 |
Section 6 | 112 |
Section 7 | 126 |
Section 8 | 141 |
Section 12 | 199 |
Section 13 | 219 |
Section 14 | 241 |
Section 15 | 262 |
Section 16 | 277 |
Section 17 | 293 |
Section 18 | 309 |
Section 19 | 357 |
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Common terms and phrases
Aborigines Adelaide Alice Springs Allan asked beach beer box jellyfish Broken Hill bush Cairns Canberra Carmel coast couple course crocodile Daintree Daly Waters Darwin desert drive earth empty Ernest Giles feet Games half Harold Holt highway hills hundred miles Indian Pacific Kalbarri kangaroos kilometers Kingsford Smith land landscape living look Melbourne Menindee million minutes morning museum named nation nearly never nodded Olympics once outback Park passed perhaps Perth place called Queensland realized reef road rock seemed seen sharks smile South Wales sport stand stood story street stroll stromatolites Sturt Highway Surfers Paradise swim Sydney television tell There's thing thought thousand tion took town track tralia trees turned Uluru Victoria visitors walked watched Western Australia wonder young