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Strange Country
"This book is about the people I met as I crisscrossed Australia by train and plane and L-plated the undefeated dreamers and wild-hearted romantics, the obsessed hobbyists and beautiful failures. It is about heroes and legends, illusions, delusions and hope, and one or two men with shit for brains who ought to be locked up."
As anyone who's ever read Mark Dapin's column and features in Good Weekend knows, he's an immensely funny, acute and vivid observer of Australian life. In Strange Country, he takes us on a journey through a very different Australia – a country that's eccentric, puzzling, big-hearted, small-minded, nostalgic and sometimes just plain mad.
From the last travelling boxing tent to feral urban sewer rats to Vietnam Veteran bikies and the annual Parkes Elvis Festival, his writing illuminates the stranger side of Australian life in a travel book like no other.
As anyone who's ever read Mark Dapin's column and features in Good Weekend knows, he's an immensely funny, acute and vivid observer of Australian life. In Strange Country, he takes us on a journey through a very different Australia – a country that's eccentric, puzzling, big-hearted, small-minded, nostalgic and sometimes just plain mad.
From the last travelling boxing tent to feral urban sewer rats to Vietnam Veteran bikies and the annual Parkes Elvis Festival, his writing illuminates the stranger side of Australian life in a travel book like no other.
370 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2008
4 people are currently reading
39 people want to read
About the author
Mark Dapin
21 books22 followersMark Dapin is the author of the novels King of the Cross and Spirit House. King of the Cross won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction, and Spirit House was long listed for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and shortlisted for the Age Book of the Year and the Royal Society for Literature's Ondaatje Prize.
His recent work of military history, The Nashos' War, has been widely acclaimed. He is a PhD candidate at the Australian Defence Force Academy.
His recent work of military history, The Nashos' War, has been widely acclaimed. He is a PhD candidate at the Australian Defence Force Academy.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 21, 2015
4.5 ★s
Mark Dapin is a travel writer and journalist, whose work has appeared in Lonely Planet guidebooks and in Good Weekend. In compiling the episodes which make up Strange Country he travelled extensively around the country seeking out the unusual and eccentric. His sharp and insightful observations are collected in this volume, which is a thoroughly entertaining expose’ of the weird and wonderful from the suburbs to the outback.
The Elvis Express left Central Station, Sydney, at the rather sinister time of 9:11. The six-carriage train had been booked out for months, the seats taken by an inexplicable collection of elderly women, Elvis impersonators, Priscilla impersonators, journalists and drunks. None of these groups were mutually exclusive. There was a journalist impersonating Elvis, for instance, and several elderly female drunks.
Since he is an experienced journalist, Dapin’s writing style is very smooth and easily accessible. Journalists have been trained to pare their work back to the essentials, so he tells quite remarkable stories in an economical way, while delivering some punchy insights into the places and people he meets on his journeys.
All of the stories are quirky, chosen to illuminate aspects of Australians’ lives outside the so-called mainstream. Dapin profiles lovable eccentrics like Peter Black, federal MP for the Broken Hill area, and Tim the Yowie Man. He visits a rodeo, a Country and Western Festival, the aforementioned Elvis Festival at Parkes, and, hilariously, the Adelaide V8 Supercars.
I approached four blokes who were dressed head to toe in Holden gear, carrying the Holden standard.
-They’re Holden then, aren’t they?
‘Just a little bit,’ said Byron Schultz…’Do you want to see our boxers?’
-No
Two of the boys dropped their pants to show their Holden silk underwear.
‘HSV all the way,’ said Schultz.
Apart from comical anecdotes, Dapin writes of serious issues affecting parts of Australia, for example, the grim Christmas Island Detention Centre, and the 1930s plan of Isaac Steinberg to establish a new Jewish homeland in the remote Kimberley, which ultimately gave rise to the Ord River Irrigation Scheme. His skill in blending the serious with the hilarious is abundantly displayed throughout the 26 stories in the book.
[Wyndham] is an end-of-the-line town, of which there were once many more in Australia. No scheduled transport runs from anywhere to Wyndham. Nobody visits casually, on the way between one place and another. A sun-dried stranger can still drift in from who knows where, hiding under a shag-tobacco beard and a blanched hat, and dissolve into a fog of grog.
I giggled most of the way through this book and at several stages cracked up with laughter. The story of the Parkes Elvis Festival was particularly amusing for me. While the author may be inclined to exaggerate a little, the scary thing about this book is that all the stories are in fact true! It makes for fascinating reading.
Mark Dapin is a travel writer and journalist, whose work has appeared in Lonely Planet guidebooks and in Good Weekend. In compiling the episodes which make up Strange Country he travelled extensively around the country seeking out the unusual and eccentric. His sharp and insightful observations are collected in this volume, which is a thoroughly entertaining expose’ of the weird and wonderful from the suburbs to the outback.
The Elvis Express left Central Station, Sydney, at the rather sinister time of 9:11. The six-carriage train had been booked out for months, the seats taken by an inexplicable collection of elderly women, Elvis impersonators, Priscilla impersonators, journalists and drunks. None of these groups were mutually exclusive. There was a journalist impersonating Elvis, for instance, and several elderly female drunks.
Since he is an experienced journalist, Dapin’s writing style is very smooth and easily accessible. Journalists have been trained to pare their work back to the essentials, so he tells quite remarkable stories in an economical way, while delivering some punchy insights into the places and people he meets on his journeys.
All of the stories are quirky, chosen to illuminate aspects of Australians’ lives outside the so-called mainstream. Dapin profiles lovable eccentrics like Peter Black, federal MP for the Broken Hill area, and Tim the Yowie Man. He visits a rodeo, a Country and Western Festival, the aforementioned Elvis Festival at Parkes, and, hilariously, the Adelaide V8 Supercars.
I approached four blokes who were dressed head to toe in Holden gear, carrying the Holden standard.
-They’re Holden then, aren’t they?
‘Just a little bit,’ said Byron Schultz…’Do you want to see our boxers?’
-No
Two of the boys dropped their pants to show their Holden silk underwear.
‘HSV all the way,’ said Schultz.
Apart from comical anecdotes, Dapin writes of serious issues affecting parts of Australia, for example, the grim Christmas Island Detention Centre, and the 1930s plan of Isaac Steinberg to establish a new Jewish homeland in the remote Kimberley, which ultimately gave rise to the Ord River Irrigation Scheme. His skill in blending the serious with the hilarious is abundantly displayed throughout the 26 stories in the book.
[Wyndham] is an end-of-the-line town, of which there were once many more in Australia. No scheduled transport runs from anywhere to Wyndham. Nobody visits casually, on the way between one place and another. A sun-dried stranger can still drift in from who knows where, hiding under a shag-tobacco beard and a blanched hat, and dissolve into a fog of grog.
I giggled most of the way through this book and at several stages cracked up with laughter. The story of the Parkes Elvis Festival was particularly amusing for me. While the author may be inclined to exaggerate a little, the scary thing about this book is that all the stories are in fact true! It makes for fascinating reading.
July 6, 2019
I used to love Mark Dapin's newspaper columns. This book is a collection which is basically more of the same, so I enjoyed it - but there is a "but". As I read, I was conscious that all these articles were written more than ten years ago. Some things about Australia haven't changed in that time, but a lot of things have.
March 21, 2018
The book gives a very interesting and niche perspective examine the culture and landscape of Australia.
June 29, 2019
For anyone not Australian - THIS IS the book for you. It's about the REAL Australia and Australians. An interesting look into our psyches.
April 21, 2011
Note - this is not a travel guide. It is a journey through some of the more eccentric places in Australia where some strange people dwell!
Mark Dapin is a journalist and many of the pieces were commissioned by newspaper weekend magazines. It's an amusing read.
Mark Dapin is a journalist and many of the pieces were commissioned by newspaper weekend magazines. It's an amusing read.
December 14, 2015
An enjoyable look at some of the more odd parts of Australian culture. Written as a series of vignettes, the book introduces people who are into camels, Elvis, train-timetables, underground drains, New Age spiritualism, space ports, yowies and other oddities.
August 4, 2009
Interesting and different take on travel in Australia although I didn't care too much for the writer's "voice"
March 16, 2010
Laughed me fucking head off. Love your work Dapin!
April 1, 2012
Hilarious so far!
May 19, 2013
Ho hum.
June 30, 2019
Just an easy and fun read while traveling in Australia!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews