MINI REVIEW: Down Under

This is my 50th post! Thankyou to everyone who has supported me over the last few years, all your comments and love means the world to me 🙂

Travel literature is not normally my scene.

But lockdown has us all doing things out of our comfort zone – be it having our hair cut by parents or running out of books published in this decade. But everything is working out okay because I have successfully warded off my mother so far – and because this book was pretty good!

Discovered in a box in the attic, Bill Bryson’s ‘Down Under’ was a pretty exciting find. I’ve always wanted to go to Australia and seeing as most flights have vbeen cancelled for the foreseeable future, why not travel there in a book?

I’m not entirely sure I want to visit anymore.

It wasn’t that Bryson didn’t paint the continent in a good light, it’s just that I’ve recently learnt exactly how many things can kill you in Australia. It’s terrifying. I knew there were a lot of sharks, but I have a newfound respect for all the Australians who haven’t been eaten alive by giant spiders (yet).

Normally, I’d be reviewing the plot points of this book but… I mean, there wasn’t a plot? It was just Bill Bryson wandering around making (admittedly hilarious) observations about the landscape and hotels and these tiny towns.

But this was a surprisingly interesting book (even the lists of deadly animals on every other page were interesting, just too frequent for my liking). Did you know that some Australian schools have catchment areas double the size of France? This is a massive country.

(This photo was one of the most terrifying I could find of said Australian animals).

Sooooo. ‘Down Under’ was hilarious, full of interesting facts but it took SO LONG to read. I don’t even know why, it wasn’t that long. I guess there was just so many jokes and quips on every page, it took forever. It was also pretty interesting to see what Australia was like when the book was published compared to now – although because it was from the 90s there was a lot less mention of Aboriginal culture than there might have been if the book was more recent. Like I said: interesting!