Born in a Tent : How Camping Makes us Australian (Large type / large print ed)

Breathtakingly original, this book shows that the history of Australia can be told through a history of camping.

Bill Garner reminds us that Australia was settled as a campsite - the nation was born in a tent.

But while Europeans brought tents, they did not bring camping.

Australia had been a camping place for millennia. And so it continued to be. For more than a hundred years, settlers - women as well as men - colonised the country by living under canvas.

It changed them into a new sort of native Australian.

It gave them a feel for the place, a wry can - do attitude, and a lasting taste for equality. And it led to a sense of belonging. Born in a Tent takes the story from the campfire to the gas bottle, from a tarp slung on saplings to polymer tents and aluminium poles.

It reveals how deeply our camping holidays connect us to the land, to the past, and to one another.