Book Reviews

I thought that it might be a good idea to have a place to share some of the reviews and honors Waltzing Australia is getting. (Because of course I like the book, but there’s no need for you to just take my word for it.)

HONORS

Waltzing Australia has been named a Mom’s Choice Awards® winner in the travel writing category. These awards “honor excellence in works that are inspiring and family friendly.”

REVIEWS

Clampitt’s warm, evocative and open-hearted writing soon won me over. She has a particular gift for describing the natural world and her accounts of rainforests, deserts, waterfalls, natural features such as Uluru in the Northern Territory and Wave Rock in Western Australia, and the myriad plants and animals she encounters are woven together into a rich tapestry…. Often she employs some joyously laugh-out-loud descriptive prose, revealing a unique way of seeing the world around her. Here, for example, is an encounter with wombats: “These delightful, funny little animals have short, thick muscular necks, which makes it impossible for them to look up, so when they beg for food, they simply trot up and stare at your ankles … They don’t look quite real – sort of a cross between a woodchuck, a bear cub, and a footstool” (p.277-8). I’d never thought of wombats quite in this way before, but the footstool analogy is both apt and hilarious!

By the end of the narrative, I felt I knew the author very well. Unafraid to honestly respond to her own emotions, and her surroundings, reading this book is as much about witnessing a person’s transformation through close contact with the natural world as it is about the places she visited in Australia…. This is an inspiring book, by an inspiring woman, whose appreciative writing made me want to invite her to my place on her next visit so I can show her the beauties of ‘my’ little pocket of Australian paradise.
Liz Hall-Downs, for The Compulsive Reader

Clampitt spent six months in the cities, small towns, and wild places of Australia. Her journey covered some 20,000 miles. And, happily for us, she recorded it all in the journal that became her wonderful book, Waltzing Australia.

Readers are invited to take the trip along with her. We see what she sees, meet the people she encounters, and by the end feel like we’ve not only gained a new understanding of the beauty of this nation continent, but also that we’ve gotten to know a new friend. We share in her frustrations and epiphanies as she pushes herself physically and emotionally on her wonderfully interesting and often grueling trip.
…
If you have any interest at all in Australia you will love this book. And, if you are sitting on a dream watching the years go by, Cynthia Clampitt’s Waltzing Australia just might inspire you to go for it too.
Paula Russell, Paula’s Book Talk and Kalön Women Magazine

[Waltzing Australia is] an intense love story between an American city-dweller and the vast continent of Australia…. Each page is overflowing with adventures, and we get to meet each city, animal, plant, and person along with Cynthia as if we’re right there with her. It’s an inspirational read about a strong woman living out the dream of a lifetime, and we are very fortunate that she decided to take us all along.
Barbara Kryvko, for Good Reads

This book is such a good intoxicating, interesting read. The author describes everything so well with such detail. You can almost feel the warmth and absorb the scented air. Cynthia writes so vividly you can easily imagine all the colours of the landscape and flowers that she writes about…. I have travelled with her on this journey and don’t want to leave her, please write another book Cynthia and thanks for sharing your dream.
Jessica Roberts, UK Book reviewer

I fell in love with Australia in 1993, when I made my first trip. It stole my heart then and continues to hold it now. I am fortunate to sell travel to this diverse and amazing country, so I have been back many times. Cynthia Clampitt sees inside MY heart and puts on paper feelings I have yet been able to describe adequately. She paints vivid pictures of people, places and adventures. I can feel the sun, hear the crush of the bush beneath my feet and smell the salt of the sea. I know I will go back again to Australia but I can revisit anytime just by picking up Waltzing Australia and reading a few pages.
B. MacKenzie, “Sellsdownunder”

Waltzing Australia takes the reader on a journey through the heart and soul of the country & continent affectionately known as “Down Under.” Guided by Clampitt’s masterful narration, the reader is treated to the vicarious thrills and excitement that she experiences on her sojourn through a land that she had long dreamed of. As a personal witness to the environment and living history of the country, Clampitt lends her already compelling account an added, deft touch of humanity, which makes it universally more appealing than a bland, sterile recapitulation of facts and information.
Krystal Pearson, for Apex Reviews

Cynthia Clampitt’s Waltzing Australia is a very enjoyable and enlightening read. It is a journey of adventure of more than 20,000 miles as she crisscrosses the continent for six months. Her writing is superb and the reader is drawn into every detail of her adventure. Reading it was like sharing the adventure with her.
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As the journey came to an end, the reader can’t help but feel sad that the adventure is over. As the tale comes to an end, one is left with the need to learn more about Australia. Perhaps one day, the author will publish a book of photographs as a companion to Waltzing Australia. It’s that good!
Claire Franek, for Review the Book

Waltzing Australia is a splendid travelogue that delivers in spades and anyone contemplating a trip to “Down Under,” or even armchair travelers, would be more than satisfied with its abundance of intriguing revelations. By the end of the book, I felt as if I actually sat beside Clampitt as she explored beautiful Australia.
Norm Goldman, for Book Pleasures