Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis

Robyn Davidson is a young, inexperienced woman living in Queensland, Australia in the late 1970s. While daydreaming with her friends, she comes up with a plan to travel across the deserts of Australia alone, on four camels, which she plans to catch and train herself. The Australian desert is filled with wild camels roaming around, left over from herds imported by North Indians and Afghanis.

Robyn finally decides to put her plan into action, although she has few resources or skills for her journey. She takes a train five hundred miles to Alice Springs, the last civilized outpost before the huge desert. She has her dog, Diggety, with her, but little else and no money. Robyn quickly finds that "the Alice," as the town is called, is a seedy tourist trap filled with crazy people and racism. With no money even...