“Thank God for being a writer, because you do sort of find out what you
think by the process of writing. I'm not
one of those true writers who can't bear not to be writing. Yet it's one of the
most important things in my life.” – Robyn Davidson
While her career of
traveling and writing about her travels has spanned 35 years, this
Australian anthropologist and writer is best known for her book Tracks,
about her 1,700-mile trek across the deserts of west Australia using camels.
Born this date at Stanley
Park, a cattle station in Miles, Queensland, she is the second of two girls.
Her mother died by suicide when Davidson was 11. After going to boarding school in Brisbane,
she earned a music scholarship to college but decided she was more interested
in biology and zoology. After moving to
Alice Springs, she started working with camels and developed the idea that
would become her best selling book (and eventually movie). For two years she trained camels, learned
how to survive while trekking the desert, and developed a deep interest in the
nomadic lifestyle. 
The
majority of Davidson's work since then has been traveling with and studying
nomadic peoples. She has studied different forms of the nomad lifestyle—including
those in Australia, India, and Tibet – and either written about them or is
planning to do so in the near future.
“If you think of all
the enduring stories in the world, they're of journeys,” she said. “Whether
it's 'Don Quixote' or 'Ulysses,' there's always this sense of a quest - of a
person going away to be tested, and coming back.”
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