Australia is big. Really big.
One marginally effective way to get across it is by hitchhiking. But hitchhiking is never just hitchhiking, a theory solidly proven by Tony Horwitz in his book One for the Road.
Early in this travel narrative, he notes that hitchhiking east to west across Australia is the country’s “answer to Route 66 and the Appalachians.” And then: “I found myself crawling along a scar of used-car lots connecting one smoggy suburb to another.” This is all before he even leaves Sydney.
But once he hits the outback, Horwitz’s tale becomes a hilarious foray into body-biting bugs, relentless heat, dead kangaroos, sketchy travel companions, beer, beer and more beer. He catches a ride with a woman intent on wiping out the kangaroo, wombat and Tasmanian devil populations through the Nullarbor Plain. In Coober Pedy, he chats it up with folks hoping to strike it rich with opal mining. On the western coast, he attempts to lend a hand aboard a crayfish boat, but with the rough waters splashing over the side, Horwitz does nothing but spend the day “calling Earl.“
