BOOK READING – ALL INVITED

Bray Library, Thursday, May 10^rd, 4.30pm

Well I was in Dubray Bookshop today on Bray Main Street near my home and had the great pleasure of seeing my books on the shelves for the first time. Nice little fillup to get on a Saturday morning!

But for those of you living in Bray or the vicinity, I look forward to seeing you all in Bray library (corner of Florence Rd & Eglinton Rd just off Bray Main St) on Thursday, May 10th, at 4.30pm for a reading – with a few short anecdotes. You’ll enjoy it, trust me!

Please tell all your friends!

Travels with Bertha was successfully launched on April 24th in the Gutter Bookshop, Dublin

We had an excellent turnout on the night with people travelling from Italy, Spain, Scotland and England to attend – many thanks to you all!

I am particularly grateful to award winning Irish Times journalist and keen traveller in her own right, Genevieve Carbery, who introduced the book. A video of her speech and a description of the evening and additional photographs are provided below.

Genevieve, Bob (Gutter Bookshop) and Paul

So don’t forgot to pass on the word! TWB is now available in all good bookshops and can also be purchased directly from www.libertiespress.com – packaging and post all free!!

Event description: http://libertiespress.blogspot.com/2012/04/launch-of-travels-with-bertha-by-paul.html

Genevieve Carbery’s Speech – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ5HMDh_sas

Event photos: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.366306780071108.75739.117184288316693&type=3

We’re delighted to confirm that award-winning Irish Times journalist and well-seasoned traveller, Genevieve Carbery, has agreed to be the main speaker at the launch in the Gutter bookshop on April 24th. You can read more about Genevieve on her blog: http://genevievecarbery.com/blog/

We’ve had a great reaction to news about the book launch on April 24th. People have already confirmed that they will be flying in from as far afield as England, Spain and Scotland to attend. So please keep passing on the word.

Many people were surprised to hear about Travels with Bertha, as they hadn’t even known I had completed it, let alone got it to publication stage. And so many seemed to echo my feelings – and my motivation for writing TWB in the first place i.e. that no convincing book seems yet to have been written about this mass exodus experience for so many 100,000s of people over the last two decades.

Graham Greene - reliable travel writer?

Graham Greene, famously, once went travelling in the 1930s with his first cousin to West Africa. Both wrote books about their journey and so different were their narratives it was as each had been to utterly different places. It only goes to illustrate how people’s character and motivations can so completely colour their emotional response to and perception of what are ostensibly the same experiences. I’m sure the same will be felt by those reading about Australia and their years in there when they pick up Travels with Bertha.

SO, WHAT THEN IS THE BOOK ALL ABOUT?!

Well here’s the blurb from the press release….so that’s one take on it (now whether Graham Greene’s cousin Barbara would agree or not……!)

“Travels with Bertha is the story of the real Australia. Extending a one-year working holiday visa into thirty months, Paul lived the colourful, precarious and occasionally solitary life of a ‘backpacker’ in various locations throughout Australia, travelling extensively through every State and Territory in Australia including a trip across the Bass Straits to Tasmania. In this and two other journeys across the continent, he travelled (and slept) in Bertha, encountering many fascinating characters and much of Australia’s hidden history and landscape. He also picked up fellow travellers of various nationalities: Australian, American, Canadian, Dutch, English, Finnish, Lebanese, Indonesian, German, Irish, Israeli and Swedish.

Travels with Bertha is the perfect book for not only those planning on or dreaming about visiting Australia, but also those who have returned and want to relive their years Down Under. A light-hearted travel book with strong historical content, Travels with Bertha details Paul Martin’s two years spent travelling through Australia in a 1978 Ford Falcon station wagon. Guaranteed to give you itchy feet!”

Travels with Bertha will be launched on Tuesday, April 24th at 6.30pm in the Gutter Book shop in Temple Bar, Dublin (http://gutterbookshop.com/)

The bookshop takes its name from the famous Oscar Wilde quotation – ‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars” – which seems very appropriate in the case of Travels with Bertha

It won’t be quite Brigid Jones launching “Kafka’s Motor cycle”. But we do have a most interesting speaker lined up whom we will be confirming over the coming days. So pass the word – tell your friends or colleagues who have travelled to Australia or are thinking of doing so. Tell your neighbour or relation who’s mad about travelling, history or politics. All are most welcome for a most enjoyable evening!

I don’t know which is more manic at the moment – work or my three energetic, little boys – but in any case it’s only at the weekend or at 10pm at night that I have headspace or free time to flick the switch and return to “writing mode”.

Australian culture - more than just Rolf Harris

So now that we’re preparing for the launch the week of Anzac Day (April 25th), this St Patrick’s day weekend finds me preparing for the upcoming publicity rounds.  I’ve written the book but now I’ve to tell people why they should be so kind as to read it. So now I’m working on the stories to convey why TWB so convincingly (and compellingly though I say so myself) recounts the experience of a young person working and travelling in Australia

In talking to some friends recently, one said that the ideas she had of the country before travelling down proved to be so completely misplaced. In almost all cases, she said the reality was much more intriguing and impressive than her original misconceptions. One person told me he was so taken with just how sophisticated and modern Sydney was. Its “wow” factor. Another told me how surprised he was at the level of culture and history there was in Australia when all he’d ever thought it could lay claim to were convicts, boomerangs and Rolf Harris.

Tropical Australia

What knocked the socks off me as I travelled so widely in Australia was just how different it was to the empty, red desert I’d always imagined. Being so large, Australia has three time zones, is cut by the Tropic of Capricorn and has vastly different temporal climates. The outback blooms and changes colours dramatically – from red to yellow and at times even to verdant green. And how could it possibly be as uniform as I’d thought given that the continent is the same size as the US and Tasmania is as large as Ireland? The very north of the country is tropical rainforest (Darwin is nearer to Indonesia than to any other Australia state capital) while Tasmania and the southern states have winds that come whipping up directly from the Antarctic.

Sunrise over Nullarbor desert (author's photo)

I found Australia endlessly fascinating, the landscape bewitching – so much so that on two occasions I had what can either be described as mirages or hallucinations while travelling.

But I’d love to hear what others think? And how did your conceptions of Australia match with the reality? What did others make of the fabled “land down under”?

Well the Australian Labor party is at it again, bitching and fighting. Julia Gillard, the current Prime Minister and Labor leader, has called a snap leadership election for Monday. Her intention is to draw out Kevin Rudd, her predecessor as both PM and party leader, and to kill off the in-fighting and what she perceives to be the undermining from Rudd she has suffered ever since he was ousted as leader in 2010.

Julia Gillard. Australia's PM - for now at least!

It ain’t going to be pretty in any case.

But it’s nothing new. Perhaps the greatest battle for power in recent decades among labor heavy-hitters was that between Bob Hawke and Paul Keating in the early 1990s. It had connotation of the Blair-Browne dust-up, in that Keating was of the opinion that a pact had been agreed that Hawke would step down after two terms and allow him to take over as premier. But when Hawke thought otherwise, things hotted up royally. (See the chapter “God’s Country” in TWB for more!).

Political fun and games

Whatever happens next week, in a country where “bastard” is considered a perfectly acceptable parlimentary word, it’s bound to quite produce some choice mud-slinging and unforgettable put downs.

Keating was particularly renowned for him high regard for political opponents. In fact the opposition once circulated a list of over fifty terms he had used to describe them inparliament. They included ‘harlots, sleazebags, piece of criminal garbage, scumbag, pigs, perfumed gigolos and stunned mullets’. He chided one member by saying that ‘like a dog, he returns to his own vomit’ and equated being chastised by another opponent as ‘like being flogged with warm lettuce’.

So I, for one, will be following event closely next week. It’ll make for great entertainment – so watch this space!

***Update 05 March***

Well it’s all over for now. Rudd should have known the game was up the day before the votes when he saw what happened in Darwin. There when Harry the Psychic Crocodile, the successful picker of three Darwin Cup winners, was presented with posters of Gillard and Rudd, each festooned with chunks of meat, he sunk his teeth firmly into Julia Gillard. From then it was a sure thing for Gillard who won by 71-30 wons.

But, as I predicted, it got rough – nasty even. According to Labor frontbencher Kate Ellis, Kevin Rudd denounced the prime minister as a ”childless, atheist, ex-communist”. Even by Australian parlimentary standards this was considered low. Doesn’t look like Rudd will be on too many Christmas card lists among his Labor colleagues this year.

…and some other things besides.

Well we all know that the Australian economy is thriving – certainly in comparison to most other countries – and that its currency is gaining ground. It might be good for Australia but it sure ain’t for travellers heading down and converting savings into local money.

The exchange rate is now about €1=$1.25 which is 100% worse than it was when I was in Oz in the mid to late ’90s. The exchange rate was then the equivalent of €1 = $2.5 so perhaps it’s no surprise that the cost of living is now so expensive Down Under.

The brother in law is still reeling from the cost in Sydney of a schooner (the New South Wales measurement for a beer – about 3/4 of a pint) at $5.50. So just for the heck of it…here’s a list of some of the prices I encountered at that time:

• Schooner (beer) = Often $2 (during the very frequent and very long happy hours) and $3.50 otherwise
• Petrol per litre = .70 cents (in Sydney) rising to the most exorbitant I came across at $1.15 (I won’t tell you where but as a hint..why not check out the chapter on the Kimberleys in Western Australia)
• Hostel = $15 at the top end going down to $12 pretty much anywhere on the continent
• Rent – $100 dollars a week for your own room in a shared house

But there’s still money to be made in them there hills in Australia and a good time to be had too so just work and play hard…and enjoy!