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Wrong Way Round: One Country, One Camper Trailer, One Family, One Amazing Adventure
'Mate, I reckon you're going about this all wrong. For the first month, you're only going to be a day's drive from Melbourne. If it was me, I'd get her across the Nullarbor quick smart so she can't nick off home.' When Lorna Hendry, her husband James and young kids left Melbourne on a one-year trip around Australia in a 4WD with a camper trailer (having only been camping once before they left), they ignored all advice and drove across the Nullarbor and up the west coast of Australia .
They may have been travelling the wrong way around Australia, but it was the best decision they ever made. Lorna returned to Melbourne three years later, having crossed deserts and rivers, taken ill-advised short cuts in the most remote areas of the country, stood on the western edge and the northern tip of the country, stumbled onto its geographic centre, and lived in remote communities in Western Australia.
Wrong Way Round is a story about four people who had to get out of the city to become a family. It's about this beautiful and harsh country. And it's about the adventures that you can have if you step outside of your door and turn left instead of right.
They may have been travelling the wrong way around Australia, but it was the best decision they ever made. Lorna returned to Melbourne three years later, having crossed deserts and rivers, taken ill-advised short cuts in the most remote areas of the country, stood on the western edge and the northern tip of the country, stumbled onto its geographic centre, and lived in remote communities in Western Australia.
Wrong Way Round is a story about four people who had to get out of the city to become a family. It's about this beautiful and harsh country. And it's about the adventures that you can have if you step outside of your door and turn left instead of right.
- GenresTravelNonfictionMemoir
246 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2015
24 people are currently reading
73 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
September 28, 2015
"We were on our first day of a trip around Australia with our two sons, Oscar, eight, and Dylan, six. We had quit our jobs, rented out our house, enrolled the kids in Distance Education and left home to have an adventure."
What begins as an ambitious, year-long road trip through and around the heart of Australia for Lorna Hendry, her husband James and their two young sons from Fitzroy, Melbourne, turns into a three year long experience that completely changes their outlook on life and living in the 21st century. After three years of planning and saving, they think they are prepared for life on the road, but they learn the hard way that you can never plan for everything. Even their first night away tests them when Lorna discovers that all their kitchen supplies are infested with tiny black ants. It's easy enough to say you'll home school the kids - how hard can it be? - but the reality is: very hard. And it's months before they realise they've been erecting the camper trailer all wrong.
Alongside the interesting details of life on the road in a harsh, hot and sparsely populated environment - and anyone planning a road trip in Australia should make this compulsory reading, I'm sure - is the landscape itself, and their interactions with it and the people. The one that really sticks with you is their experience at Lake Eyre, the lowest point of Australia. A rough track, barely navigable by 4WD, leads to a salty plain that fills with water about four times every hundred years, but when it does it is the largest - and saltiest - lake in Australia. Hendry's description foreshadows the night to come:
There is nothing at Lake Eyre to support life, and the lack of birdsong, flies, ants - anything that moves, eats, breathes - is eery beyond anything Hendry has experienced. She hallucinates and sees mirages,and navigational equipment goes "haywire". At night, both Lorna and her husband James lie awake, imagining axe-murderers and serial killers, unable to sleep, trying not to vomit, unable even to tell when morning has come because there are no animal sounds to herald it: no birdsong.
Compared with that experience - made no less scarier by the cross marking the death of an Austrian tourist who tried to walk out, after her boyfriend became ill and their car got stuck. Hendry gets across the eeriness of this death when she mentions that the woman, Caroline, "was still carrying more than six litres of water." (p.52) Hendry ends the account with this insight:
There are many experiences, incidents and moments in Wrong Way Round that make this book both entertaining and educational. There is a lot of Australia that I have never seen, and while I don't envisage us ever doing anything quite like this - I would want one of us to know more about cars before taking on a journey like this, for a start - it would be a regret of mine if I didn't ever see the rest of my country. Lorna Hendry doesn't hide the difficulties or downplay the hard moments, the trials and the expense (and it IS an expensive road trip!), but she also makes clear the positive effects this experience had on them, especially her young sons. Other parents who had done similar journeys were in agreement: the travelling and being without luxuries and "stuff", spending time with white and Aboriginal peoples in small communities - sometimes staying for months to work and raise more money - has cause the boys to be more resourceful and flexible, able to hold adult conversations and a greater appreciation for things. For Lorna and her husband, they found out just how well they can survive without constantly spending money and acquiring stuff, two things that we do so much of in an urban environment, often without even realising it.
For a while I was a bit worried at the casual and brief treatment of Aboriginals in this travel memoir - mostly that Hendry seemed so awkward and self-conscious about being 'white' in a landscape that so clearly - more clearly than a city - does not really welcome you and yet you 'own' it, by dint of being white. Yet, towards the end of their travels, when they find themselves working in Aboriginal communities - running the shop, doing the school bus route - Hendry's greater understanding comes across. (Her boys don't hold back, but freely play and mingle with the local Aboriginal children, learning their dialect and stories.) There is a humorous moment (one among many), when, in Lombadina, WA, a couple arrive "in a shiny black Hummer." They pay for three nights in one of the new motel-style units, but return to the office looking sad. When Lorna asks what's wrong, the woman says, "Well, dear, it doesn't even have a TV!" "I managed not to laugh. 'Most people come here for the outdoor stuff. It is kind of remote.' 'But What doe you expect us to do at night? Sit and look at each other?' 'Play cards?' I suggested. She glared at me." (p.211) It's funny but also sad to think of people who don't know what to do with themselves and need the distraction of a television, rather than talk to each other or simply sit and relax. (There are also people, couples - you've seen them, or maybe you are one of them - who go out to a restaurant and spend the entire dinner looking at their mobile phones and never speak to each other. When did this become the new 'normal'?)
At the beginning of the book is a big, 2-page map of Australia, neatly labelled and covered with arrowed lines so that you can follow their journey in a visual-spatial way: this I loved. At the back are some photos, an example of their fuel consumption, and a page from a language lesson. Throughout her memoir, Hendry recounts the highs and lows, the small details and big concerns with an engaging, personable style that makes you feel like you've got to know her and can visualise it all. (There were a couple of spots that I had trouble following, but overall she writes with clarity and humour.) Most of all, you can vicariously travel around Australia with Wrong Way Round, and Hendry doesn't entirely put you off doing it for real, one day.
What begins as an ambitious, year-long road trip through and around the heart of Australia for Lorna Hendry, her husband James and their two young sons from Fitzroy, Melbourne, turns into a three year long experience that completely changes their outlook on life and living in the 21st century. After three years of planning and saving, they think they are prepared for life on the road, but they learn the hard way that you can never plan for everything. Even their first night away tests them when Lorna discovers that all their kitchen supplies are infested with tiny black ants. It's easy enough to say you'll home school the kids - how hard can it be? - but the reality is: very hard. And it's months before they realise they've been erecting the camper trailer all wrong.
Alongside the interesting details of life on the road in a harsh, hot and sparsely populated environment - and anyone planning a road trip in Australia should make this compulsory reading, I'm sure - is the landscape itself, and their interactions with it and the people. The one that really sticks with you is their experience at Lake Eyre, the lowest point of Australia. A rough track, barely navigable by 4WD, leads to a salty plain that fills with water about four times every hundred years, but when it does it is the largest - and saltiest - lake in Australia. Hendry's description foreshadows the night to come:
Around us, the landscape was a wasteland of black rock. Giant slabs sloped away, colliding with each other and shearing off, leaving edges as clean as a knife blade. There were no trees in sight and, even in April, it was hot. I couldn't imagine what it would be like in December. ... When we arrived, there was one elevated toilet block, a few information signs and no sign of life. We were the only people there. We might have been the only people in the world. (pp.48-9)
There is nothing at Lake Eyre to support life, and the lack of birdsong, flies, ants - anything that moves, eats, breathes - is eery beyond anything Hendry has experienced. She hallucinates and sees mirages,and navigational equipment goes "haywire". At night, both Lorna and her husband James lie awake, imagining axe-murderers and serial killers, unable to sleep, trying not to vomit, unable even to tell when morning has come because there are no animal sounds to herald it: no birdsong.
Compared with that experience - made no less scarier by the cross marking the death of an Austrian tourist who tried to walk out, after her boyfriend became ill and their car got stuck. Hendry gets across the eeriness of this death when she mentions that the woman, Caroline, "was still carrying more than six litres of water." (p.52) Hendry ends the account with this insight:
I think now that what I felt that night at Halligan Bay was not just about being alone. It was also that, after forty years of city life, I was surrounded for the very first time by a landscape that made no concessions at all to the requirements of human life. I had spent my entire life priding myself on my independence, when only a few days' drive from home there were places where my urban resourcefulness was totally inadequate. (p.53)
There are many experiences, incidents and moments in Wrong Way Round that make this book both entertaining and educational. There is a lot of Australia that I have never seen, and while I don't envisage us ever doing anything quite like this - I would want one of us to know more about cars before taking on a journey like this, for a start - it would be a regret of mine if I didn't ever see the rest of my country. Lorna Hendry doesn't hide the difficulties or downplay the hard moments, the trials and the expense (and it IS an expensive road trip!), but she also makes clear the positive effects this experience had on them, especially her young sons. Other parents who had done similar journeys were in agreement: the travelling and being without luxuries and "stuff", spending time with white and Aboriginal peoples in small communities - sometimes staying for months to work and raise more money - has cause the boys to be more resourceful and flexible, able to hold adult conversations and a greater appreciation for things. For Lorna and her husband, they found out just how well they can survive without constantly spending money and acquiring stuff, two things that we do so much of in an urban environment, often without even realising it.
For a while I was a bit worried at the casual and brief treatment of Aboriginals in this travel memoir - mostly that Hendry seemed so awkward and self-conscious about being 'white' in a landscape that so clearly - more clearly than a city - does not really welcome you and yet you 'own' it, by dint of being white. Yet, towards the end of their travels, when they find themselves working in Aboriginal communities - running the shop, doing the school bus route - Hendry's greater understanding comes across. (Her boys don't hold back, but freely play and mingle with the local Aboriginal children, learning their dialect and stories.) There is a humorous moment (one among many), when, in Lombadina, WA, a couple arrive "in a shiny black Hummer." They pay for three nights in one of the new motel-style units, but return to the office looking sad. When Lorna asks what's wrong, the woman says, "Well, dear, it doesn't even have a TV!" "I managed not to laugh. 'Most people come here for the outdoor stuff. It is kind of remote.' 'But What doe you expect us to do at night? Sit and look at each other?' 'Play cards?' I suggested. She glared at me." (p.211) It's funny but also sad to think of people who don't know what to do with themselves and need the distraction of a television, rather than talk to each other or simply sit and relax. (There are also people, couples - you've seen them, or maybe you are one of them - who go out to a restaurant and spend the entire dinner looking at their mobile phones and never speak to each other. When did this become the new 'normal'?)
At the beginning of the book is a big, 2-page map of Australia, neatly labelled and covered with arrowed lines so that you can follow their journey in a visual-spatial way: this I loved. At the back are some photos, an example of their fuel consumption, and a page from a language lesson. Throughout her memoir, Hendry recounts the highs and lows, the small details and big concerns with an engaging, personable style that makes you feel like you've got to know her and can visualise it all. (There were a couple of spots that I had trouble following, but overall she writes with clarity and humour.) Most of all, you can vicariously travel around Australia with Wrong Way Round, and Hendry doesn't entirely put you off doing it for real, one day.
December 16, 2019
An enjoyable read about something I know nothing about as I have never been camping in a tent, nor travelled around Australia. Pretty sure I am not about to start now, but it was fun to read the adventure of this family.
July 25, 2021
Not sure I could follow in their footsteps, too hot and rugged for me - three years on a big, big lap around Australia. They were novice campers at the start, having only been camping once, but somehow managed to survive and when they'd finished, they knew all the tricks about camping and life on the road! Discovered a lot about themselves into the bargain. It’s a real Aussie tale.
November 5, 2016
Some people are made to be travel writers. They know just how to translate the mundane, outrageous, awful, funny and horrible events while on the road into compelling stories. Unfortunately, Hendry is not one of those people. She fails to instill any character into her sons, her husband, or even herself. The trick to enjoyable travel writing is to take the people and events and spin them with literary artistry into humorous and heartfelt essays. Mostly what we have here is flat and boring journal level writing. I walked away from this book knowing more about campground shower blocks than about the incredibly diverse and beautiful flora, fauna and cultures of Australia. Having a childhood spent in annual summer cross-country pilgrimages, where hotel rooms were a mythical beast, I know that there's way more material ripe for the picking than basic campsite descriptions and flat anecdotes. Australia is such a colorful place, it's a shame she failed to capture it.
December 21, 2015
Traveling around Australia with my wife and kids in a 4WD and a camper trailer is the top thing on my bucket list, so when I saw this book by a woman who did just that with her husband and boys I grabbed it straight away.
It's an enjoyable read and has completely cemented in me that I am going to do this trip. Her reflections on what their family got out of the trip align very much with why I want to do one myself.
It's an enjoyable read and has completely cemented in me that I am going to do this trip. Her reflections on what their family got out of the trip align very much with why I want to do one myself.
April 12, 2018
I loved this book soooo much!!! My husband and I just started talking about the possibility of doing a trip around Australia with our kids. I started following people doing it on social media and this book was suggested as a good read. I loved the realities of adjusting to life on the road, the challenges of Family life in a small space and being together all the time, but also the rewards, the surprises and ultimately the life changing impacts of such a journey. It has inspired me into planning and stepping past the fears and what if’s I have into a “just do it” attitude!!
September 23, 2020
A beloved camper trailer travel companion for us. We've travelled Australia twice, once the right way round, the other the wrong, and both times we loved meeting other tracvellign families. We never met Lorn and her crew, but we appreciated the time they took to capture their experiences and Lorna's realistic and honest accounts of what their own camper trip demanded of them, and shaped them throughout. This stays on the top shelf of the travel reads for us.
July 2, 2019
It was very inspiring
It was such an entertaining book to read as I did a prelimary trial of camping arou d Queensland with husband. Very interesting and some common interesting experiences as we lived and worked in communities.
It was such an entertaining book to read as I did a prelimary trial of camping arou d Queensland with husband. Very interesting and some common interesting experiences as we lived and worked in communities.
February 4, 2024
Despite its exceptional qualities, this book remains unjustly underrated, deserving a prominent place in both large and small Australian libraries to be discovered and appreciated by readers of all ages.
August 4, 2020
Fast pace, light reading. Makes me want to get a 4x4 and drive around Australia!
January 7, 2024
I was surprised how much I loved this as it’s my first “travel memoir”. It was very easy to read and the detail given to remote and varied places visited was stunning and vivid. The family dynamic was also beautiful.
April 25, 2016
Perhaps not the best book ever for a readathon, as it was rather slow reading, but man, I loved it! This is one of the best travelogues I've read in a long time, and I loved living vicariously through the experiences of Lorna and her family. It made me want to go back to Australia and explore more of the country (I've seen depressingly little of it), although I'm not quite sure I could be as loosey-goosey with the planning as they were ;) Still, it made for fascinating reading.
My only complaint was that there weren't enough photos! There were a few pages at the end, but that was it. I would have appreciated seeing more of those - although Lorna did do an excellent job of putting them into words.
I can't even imagine how difficult it must be to come back to 'every day life' after an adventure like that.
My only complaint was that there weren't enough photos! There were a few pages at the end, but that was it. I would have appreciated seeing more of those - although Lorna did do an excellent job of putting them into words.
I can't even imagine how difficult it must be to come back to 'every day life' after an adventure like that.
September 14, 2020
This book made me so happy, I just couldn’t put it down, it was rollicking good fun from beginning to end, even though it often made me nervous, astonished, sad, tearful, and terrified - such is the art of good story telling. The people they met and the places they visited really came alive for me: I learned so much about my own country, I thought I had seen a lot of it, but I realise now, reading this, that my experiences have been, largely, vanilla, while Lorna’s family definitely went through the full ice-cream shop, flavour by flavour, tasting each one to the full. I’m sure her boys are growing up to be A Class citizens, and except that it would clog the roads and potentially devastate the beautiful pristine areas they visited, I would recommend that every family does this kind of trip, Australia would be a much better country.
September 9, 2015
A thoughtful, perceptive, open and honest novel about a family with two boys aged 6 and 8 who spent "1000 days, driving 90,000 kilometres and setting up our camp nearly 200 times" in travelling around Australia in their 4WD and tent-trailer. They covered most of Australia, stayed and worked at two aboriginal settlements for an extended periods. Home schooling and the education of the trip combined to teach much and mature all. Heartwarming and recommended, not the least also for great spots to visit (or not) and cultural sensitivities.
November 15, 2015
A rambling, warmhearted, well-observed and at key moments quietly thought-provoking account. I loved getting an outside-insider's view of so many parts of Australia, and especially some of its remote aboriginal communities. The dynamics of a family of sons - stuck at close quarters but with all the time in the world - are beautifully captured.
April 22, 2015
Loved it. Great to hear the perspective of camping from the female in the family. Loved how she even retold the tense, stressful and scary stages of the trip.
December 30, 2015
Tim wants to read this. How long till he thinks we should do it? ?
January 5, 2016
Wrong Way Round was an interesting travelogue. I’m curious to visit some of the places depicted in the book.
November 6, 2017
Loved this book, felt like I was travelling around Australia with them.
June 8, 2016
Great read, wish i not done this with my family
November 9, 2016
Great book. After reading it, I started to think of taking a camping trip around Australia.
I will recommend this to anyone who like to travel around Australia or even to some part of it.
I will recommend this to anyone who like to travel around Australia or even to some part of it.
January 28, 2017
Lorna describes the adventures and hardships faced with such beauty and humour its hard to put the book down!
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews