Click below to see me talk about Travels with Bertha on the TV3 Morning Show broadcast on Friday, 5th May 2012. After the advertisements, advance 14.35 minutes into the video file of the show to see the start of my interview

http://www.tv3.ie/3player/show/155/48188/1/The-Morning-Show

TV3 Morning Show

Please pass the word to all your friends in Australia that I will be talking with Barry Mack on Syndey Irish Radio this Saturday, May 5th (Irish time at 9.30pm) and on Sunday May 6th (Sydney time) at 8.30am.

Barry Mack, Sydney Irish Radio

You can all listen live online wherever you are in the world at http://www.2ser.com/

For more about Sydney Irish radio check out http://www.sydneyirishradio.com/

See my new guest entry on the Liberties Press’s blog as I ask myself an apparently obvious question:

If between the ages of 18 and 31, I spent a total of eight years outside Ireland either living in, or visiting, 24 countries on six continents – why did I persist for so long in writing a book about working and travelling in Australia while in my ‘20s?  Why has that time and place held such a fascination with me for so long?

http://libertiespress.blogspot.ie/search?updated-max=2012-05-16T17:01:00%2B01:00&max-results=10

(If you scroll down further you can also read more about my comments on Anzac Day which I talked about at the book launch on April 24th)

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”?