Chapters 9-10 Summary and Analysis

Bryson takes his leave of Adelaide, as he has friends to meet in Melbourne. He takes a curving road known as the Princes Highway along the coast east. The terrain is more barren than he expected, as he feels he is driving into civilization by driving east toward Melbourne, and he amuses himself along the drive by playing with the lyrics of a favorite and frank Australian folk song. A sign promising the world's biggest lobster forces him to stop and examine a fifty-six-foot sheet metal crustacean. A man asks Bryson to take his picture with the monstrosity and Bryson quips that the man can tell his friends that it is an engagement photography.

The next day finds Bryson on the Great Ocean Road along the Mornington Peninsula. The road is a hair-raising 189 miles of sinuous turns along crumbling...