Tracks

Question 1

quote on rob describing her society

Answer 1

‘characterised by an aggressive masculine ethic and severe racial tension’

Question 2

rob rape case quote

Answer 2

‘one of the bar’s kinder regulars said ‘you’ve been nominated by some of these blokes as the next town rape case.’

Question 3

rob middle class delusion

Answer 3

‘The middle-class delusion that everyone was a good guy at heart’

Question 4

rob on the ‘aussie male’

Answer 4

Aussie male’ is someone who is ‘biased, bigoted, boring and above all brutal’

Question 5

Rob on shedding burdens

Answer 5

No more loved ones to care about, no more ties, no more duties”

Question 6

rob on being by herself

Answer 6

“be alone, to test, to push, to unclog my brain of all its extraneous debris”

Question 7

rob on freedom

Answer 7

“For someone like me, nothing was as important as freedom”

Question 8

Rob on not wanting rick

Answer 8

‘How can you tell a nice person that you wish they were dead, that they’d never been born, that you wish they would crawl away into some hole and expire?’

Question 9

rob aloneness jewel quote

Answer 9

aloneness [is] a treasure which [she guards] like a jewel,”

Question 10

robs description on desert

Answer 10

the desert is bountiful and teeming with life in the good seasons. It is like a vast untended communal garden, the closest thing to earthly paradise I can imagine.’

Question 11

rob not planned to be

Answer 11

‘this trip would not, could not, be what I had planned and wanted it to be.’

Question 12

rob life before trip

Answer 12

so much of my life previous to it had been boring and predictable

Question 13

rob on adapting

Answer 13

‘Far from being deficient, this diet made me so healthy, I felt like a cast-iron amazon; cuts and gashes vanished in a day, I could see almost as well at night as I could in sunlight, and I grew muscles on my shit.’

Question 14

Rob suicide

Answer 14

I thought: of course, the perfect way out - suicide

Question 15

rob trip like job

Answer 15

‘I was treating the trip like a nine-to-five job.’

Question 16

rob on being cool and calm on surface

Answer 16

‘It is amazing to me how human beings can remain calm, controlled and sensible on the surface, when internally they are cracking up, crumbling.’

Question 17

rob on killing camels

Answer 17

‘it seemed that each bullet caused me almost as much pain. It was terrible, shocking, to see such proud beasts fall. How people kill for pleasure is outside my realm of understanding. And then the remorse

Question 18

chaos rob

Answer 18

‘There was nothing but chaos and the voices.’

Question 19

rob on loving the trip

Answer 19

‘My mind was rinsed clean and sparkling and light. Everything around me was bursting with life and vibrance. The colours danced and glistened in the crisp dawn light. Early morning birds, hundreds of them. My spirits high,’

Question 20

rob on rules of game

Answer 20

‘play it safe, that’s the rules of this particular game.’

Question 21

rob missing people

Answer 21

I desperately needed to talk in depth with someone.

Question 22

rob and eddie on his misso

Answer 22

We walked off and he continued to smile that special happy smile to himself. I asked him who it was, and he turned to me beaming, and said, ‘That was Winkicha, my wife.’ There was such pride and pleasure in his face. I had never seen that particular quality of love shown so openly between a man and wife before.

Question 23

rob on impossible

Answer 23

‘it was impossible for me to leap outside the limitations imposed by description of what is possible’

Question 24

rob on liking the perosno she has become

Answer 24

‘I liked, still like, the person who emerged from that process far better than the one who existed before it – or since it. In my own eyes, I was becoming sane, normal, healthy

Question 25

Eddie making rob relax

Answer 25

‘I relaxed into Eddie’s time. He was teaching me something about flow, about choosing the right moment for everything, about enjoying the present. I let him take over.’

Question 26

rob on routine built

Answer 26

‘My routine was built around their needs and never my own.’

Question 27

trip and expectations

Answer 27

‘none of it had lived up to my expectations… In fact, most of it had been simply tedious and tiring.’

Question 28

rob on removal from society

Answer 28

‘when there is no one to remind you what society’s rules are, and nothing to keep you linked to that society, you had better be prepared for some startling changes.’

Question 29

rob on going crazy

Answer 29

Have I gone bush-crazy? Am I moon-struck? Probably both and I don’t care.

Question 30

rob human face

Answer 30

‘right now I’d give anything for a friendly face. Even an unfriendly face.

Question 31

if rob was to die

Answer 31

‘If I do depart this world out here, let it be known that I went out grinning will you, and loving it. LOVING IT.’

Question 32

a combo of..

Answer 32

‘a combination of sixth sense, knowledge … and practice.’

Question 33

rob on responsibilities being far away

Answer 33

‘responsibilities were so far away from me now, so remote, I didn’t give them a moment’s consideration.’

Question 34

rob learning to love

Answer 34

I had learnt what love was. That love wanted the best possible for those you cared for even if that excluded yourself

Question 35

rob resiliance

Answer 35

To be free is to learn, to test yourself constantly, to gamble. It is not safe. I had learnt to use my fears as stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks, and best of all I had learnt to laugh

Question 36

rob on the trip ending %

Answer 36

‘the trip had ended itself; had reached some psychological conclusion, had simply become complete, like the last page of a novel.’

Question 37

robyn becoming something she never wanted to

Answer 37

‘I was now public property. I was now a feminist symbol. I was now an object of ridicule for small-minded sexists, and I was a crazy, irresponsible adventurer’

Question 38

rob on camel trips

Answer 38

they do not begin or end, they merely change form

Question 39

ada baxter and rob relo

Answer 39

Ada calls rob ‘Daughter’

described by Robyn as a woman with ‘a warm and generous heart’

Question 40

capacity of survival rob

Answer 40

“Capacity for survival may be the ability to be changed by the environment.”

Question 41

rob on ab refusal

Answer 41

refuses to view Aboriginals through a “dog window.”

Question 42

mr eddie pleasure

Answer 42

Mr. Eddie as a “sheer pleasure to be with,’