Chapters 7-8 Summary and Analysis

After several days in scenic Canberra, Bryson sets out across more desolate land toward Adelaide. He tries to enjoy the confusing banter of cricket on the radio, and stops for the night in the desert town of Hay, where he looks in vain for kangaroos in the barren land surrounding the town. The land around Hay was not always barren. In the nineteenth century, a man named Thomas Austin unwittingly devastated millions of acres of greenery by releasing English rabbits to hunt for sport. This was followed by a decade-long drought, from which the region has never recovered. Bryson soon arrives in the verdant, rolling hills of the Barossa Valley, which makes quite a contrast to the barren land he has been driving through for days. He describes this land as almost Eden-like, with lush hills covered in citrus...