The Singing Line: Tracking the Australian Adventures of My Intrepid Victorian Ancestors
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Book Overview
Following the tradition of Daisy Bates in the Desert and In Patagonia , Alice Thomson conjures up a country of unimaginable strangeness and beauty. In 1855, Charles Todd and his impetuous young bride Alice--for whom Alice Springs would be named--left the comfort of Victorian England for the wilds of South Australia, a place so isolated that letters from home took five months to arrive. It was Charles's dream to improve this situtaion. In 1870, Todd set out with an army of men, supplies, and Afghan camels to run a telegraph line--"the singing line"--from Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the north. Braving scorching sun, flies, mosquitoes, drenching rains, and all manner of terrible food, Alice Thomson and her husband retraced that trek more than a century later. The result is a wry and mesmerizing narrative--combining the delights of travel writing, family memoir, and colonial history in a thoroughly enjoyable tale.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0385497539
ISBN13:9780385497534
Release Date:October 2000
Publisher:Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Length:320 Pages
Weight:0.88 lbs.
Dimensions:0.8" x 5.0" x 7.6"
Customer Reviews
1 rating
Foundations!
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 23 years ago
This was truly an amazing book. The author involves you in the very foundations that build up the Australian telegraph system - you become part of the history as she takes you through the life of her great-great-grandmother and grandfather. It reveals, once again, how many people gave up so much so that we can have a secure foundation in our society. Well worth owning.
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