The Wandering Pilgrim: Tasmanian Bushwalk Diaries
Adventurer John Dunlop's first book in the Wandering Pilgrim series gave gripping accounts of his several journeys in the mountains of the Himalayas and New Zealand. In this second volume he turns his attention to escapades closer to home but none the less challenging.
Again he brings to the fore the contents of notebooks in which he recorded incidents, thoughts and impressions as he travelled.
They provide a unique on-the-spot record of walks undertaken over several decades. He tells it as it was - the now and then - rather than offering an unreliable memoir based on distant memory.
Fresh as when they were written, John Dunlop's diary notes tell of the highs and lows (literally and metaphorically) of facing the rigours of venturing alone into mountainous wilderness where few others have been.
There is no striving to impress in his commentaries. They are a highly personal record, almost chatty and straight to the point. The thoughts and experiences of a young man taking his first tentative steps into the mountains, as well as those of his older and more experienced self in the decades that followed.
The reality of the moment leaps off the page, whether it is the joy of scaling the heights in summer sun or being sleep deprived, cold and wet while tent-bound for several days as fierce storms batter his flimsy shelter.
The writer shares the joys and disappointments, the setbacks and the triumphs of conquering Tasmania's remotest peaks. And for those who may follow in his footsteps he provides useful lists of equipment and food as well as details of flora and fauna seen along the trails
As with his first book, these detailed accounts of his adventures provide a unique insight into the hows and whys of those who venture far from the beaten track.
It is a captivating read for fellow adventurers and armchair travellers alike, written by a quintessential wanderer, explorer and sometime alpinist who now lives in a solar powered pole house in the tropical rainforest of far north Queensland.
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