Kindle Edition Download to your Nook (eBook) Amazon Waltzing Australia Category:  Travel Publisher: BookSurge ISBN-10:  1419663062 Type: Non-Fiction Pages: 508 Copyright: June 22, 2007 ISBN-13: 9781419663062 Waltzing Australia is a captivating tale of adventure and personal discovery—and a vivid portrayal of Australia, its history and legends, its wonders, its people, and its enduring beauty. Does a sensible, successful woman in her mid-30s walk away from money, security, career just to make a dream come true? Absolutely! Cynthia Clampitt wanted to write—and she wanted to get as far away as she could from the temptation to rejoin the corporate world. Australia was a lifelong interest, and it seemed to be the best, and farthest, place to start over. Clampitt circled and crossed the continent, covering nearly 20,000 miles, many of them rugged. As she traveled she changed—and she wrote. The child of that journey is the book Waltzing Australia, a journal that recounts six months of joy and adventure. It is a story of adventure, change, and personal discovery. But above all, it is about Australia: the history, legends and art, both European and Aboriginal; the beauty, the challenge, the people, the land. Best-selling author Richard Lederer wrote of Waltzing Australia, “Cynthia Clampitt’s luminous chronicle of her love affair with Australia resonates to the heart’s deep core.” Others have compared her to Annie Dillard and Bill Bryson. Author/reviewer Helen Gallagher wrote, “Cynthia Clampitt surprises us with a writing talent and story-telling technique that is tough to master, yet she is consistently compelling to read.” Waltzing Australia will encourage those who dream, as well as those who travel. It will delight those who know Australia and enchant those who do not. Readers will come to know Australia intimately, as the author leads them across the often-surprising landscape. Waltzing Australia is available on Amazon.com. The book is supported by a blog at http://www.waltzingaustralia.com.         Excerpt It is almost beyond words to describe the beauty of the rainforest. It is harder still to express how that beauty affected me. My reaction was almost physical—an intense serenity, an elated peacefulness poured through me, like cool water in a dry land. The forest is rejoicingly beautiful and incredibly green. As one descends, the trees close overhead, so even the sunlight filtering in seems green. Water trickles over moss-covered rocks, joins with other trickles, forms streams that end in waterfalls and great, deep pools that spill endlessly down the mountainside, disappearing and reemerging from the fabulous tangle of undergrowth. Fig trees with fantastic aerial root systems twist into weird, intricate shapes. Palms, mahogany trees, figs and gum trees stretch high overhead. Ferns attain amazing sizes. Trees drip with vines. We could hear the calls of wild birds and see an occasional flash of vivid color, but the only creature we saw clearly was a brush turkey building its nest. Most of the trees grow straight and tall, trying to reach above the green canopy and into the sunshine. Some grow at precarious angles, wedged into gaps in the mountain’s side, clinging to boulders for support. Fallen trees have become gardens of moss, ferns and shelf-like, orange fungus, but even the living trees support mosses and ferns. Creeping vines carpet the forest floor in green. Climbing vines, some with thorns, twist up, over and around, hanging in festoons from tree to tree. Small, subtly colored flowers peek through the leaves of many bushes. The rich beauty of the place is almost overwhelming. By the time we had descended to Cedar Creek Falls, we were breaking out of the rainforest and getting back into eucalypt forest. There, a great slash of bare, gray rock cuts through the trees, where Cedar Creek bursts through a broad cleft and falls to a series of deep pools connected by cascades and rapids. Stained, stone walls rose up on the far side of the pools, but the slope on the side where we stood was like giant, uneven steps, broken and worn. We climbed down through the rocks for a better view, balancing along stone ledges paralleling the rushing water, hopping across boulders. There were people swimming in one of the lower pools, and boys diving from the cliffs into the deep water below. “Idyllic” was the first word that came to mind, but it is not strong enough. This, to me, this whole day was far more wonderful than “rustic contentment.” It was a revelation. I wanted to stay, and my gaze clung to everything around me, trying to hold me there. I am beginning to understand that the nice landscaping around the office and the occasional sunset during the drive home are not enough, at least for me. This beauty, this wildness, this everything real and alive is something I must have as part of my life. My mind may be well served indoors, but what my starving spirit craves can only be found outside. I need culture, but I need nature, too—and maybe more.

Waltzing Australia
Reviewed by Norm Goldman
I never knew what exactly enticed my daughter when in her late teens she was determined to travel for six months to Australia exploring a country that is called “Down Under.” (If you are wondering why it is called "Down Under," it is because it is the only continent with a permanent population that is entirely below the equator and thus it has been given this name.) After all, wasn’t she supposed to follow her friends and pursue the usual trip to Europe? However, after reading Cynthia Clampitt’s Waltzing Australia, I well understood why this mesmerizing and enthralling country would lure anyone to explore it from one end to the other.

Clampitt is a freelance writer specializing in food, travel, and history. As her bio mentions, the life she now leads began with a dream that seduced her away from her corporate career and led her to Australia. In fact, since her dream took hold, she has traveled to China, Cambodia, Vietnam, India, Thailand, Mexico and several other countries. There is an old saying that no matter what happens, travel gives you a story to tell and this is exactly what Clampitt does as she permits us to relive with her an amazing six month twenty-thousand journey circling and crossing Australia.

Beginning in Queensland, readers follow Clampitt through the Northern Territory, Western and South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, Canberra & Environs, New South Wales, Sydney. Using comprehensive notes jotted down in log format, she effectively chronicles the pulse of her escapades and gives her readers one hell of a ride as she describes what she saw, smelled, heard and felt pertaining to some of the more interesting colorful and historical venues.

Just as an artist would have a sketch- book handy, Clampitt traveled with her journal recording intriguing scenes, descriptions of people and places. For example, the famous Great Barrier Reef is brought to life where we learn that it is 1,250 miles long and supports more animal life per square mile than any other region in earth. In addition, as mentioned, “it is the largest structure ever built by living creatures, constructed over thousands of years by tiny coral polyps.” Clampitt leaves her readers with stunning and breath taking images when she describes the reef with its tiny, brilliant yellow fish darting among the channels of enormous, green brain corals. The giant clams, some of which measuring four feet across, turning on their mauve, purple, and green mantles to collect food.

With her keen sense of time and place, Clampitt has grasped the essential ingredients of good travel writing avoiding a common pitfall that some travel writers yield to in that they merely recycle factual information. However, such is not the case with Clampitt who manages to elegantly mix her own personal observations and musings while throwing in a little history and geography. Moreover, as we tag along with Clampitt, we notice how she places us firmly on the ground she describes. In other words, we perceive and experience the same venues as she does utilizing all of our senses in order to enjoy this alluring and captivating learning experience.

As for the people she met along the way, although she was travelling solo, she never felt alone due to the fact that Australia never gave her much opportunity to feel lonely.

Wherever she went, there was always someone to talk to, even Aborigines. Clampitt recounts when she stopped to photograph some beautiful pink flowers, a white-haired Aborigine with limited English stopped and told her about oleanders and picked a branch for her. They even managed carry on a conversation where she discovered various other plants.

Waltzing Australia is a splendid travelogue that delivers in spades and anyone contemplating a trip to “Down Under,” or even armchair travelers, would be more than satisfied with its abundance of intriguing revelations. By the end of the book, I felt as if I actually sat beside Clampitt as she explored beautiful Australia.

Waltzing Australia
Reviewed By Krystal Pearson

Waltzing Australia takes the reader on a journey through the heart and soul of the country & continent affectionately known as “Down Under.” Comprised of chronological entries in an extemporaneous travel diary, Cynthia Clampitt’s tome serves as a comprehensive guide to just what makes Australia one of the most unique and inviting places on earth.

Guided by Clampitt’s masterful narration, the reader is treated to the vicarious thrills and excitement that she experiences on her sojourn through a land that she had long dreamed of but never visited. Along the way, she learns volumes of native history, sees breathtaking sights that others only read about in books, and becomes increasingly fascinated with the vast and sundry local wildlife. She also builds invaluable new friendships, through which she’s introduced to the customs, mores, and folkways that bring the land to life.

Aside from its geographical and sociological appeal, Waltzing Australia’s true power lies in the notable lessons that it can teach readers – lessons whose inherent value elevate them above those found in traditional history books. As a personal witness to the environment and living history of the country, Clampitt lends her already compelling account an added, deft touch of humanity, which makes it universally more appealing than a bland, sterile recapitulation of facts and information.

For a welcome, first-hand account of a fascinating place of truly well-earned renown, readers would serve themselves well to peruse the pages of Waltzing Australia. In so doing, they may very well ignite the same fire within themselves as that which propelled Clampitt to visit the fabled mini-paradise – and feel just as fulfilled as a result.