Crow eaters by Ben Stubbs

NewSouth Books, 2020. ISBN: 9781742236315.
(Ages: secondary/adult) Moving to a house in the Adelaide Hills, Ben Stubbs is intrigued to find shards of old bricks while digging in his backyard leading him to think about things under foot, the things others have left behind,  and he decides to see South Australia, his adopted home, from a different perspective.
You don't need to travel far to find a story, and with this in mind he sets off, wanting to talk and listen, and he comes across a range of stories about people as diverse as Chinese miners coming in via Robe to walk to Victoria, Aboriginal elders across the state, Afghan cameleers brought in with their animals to open the outback, grey nomads caravanning in convoys, searching for the 'real Australia', cave divers in the south east - each group reflecting a different way of life in South Australia, dismissed by outsiders as simply a place of festivals and beaches.
Fourteen chapters are filled with his adventures as he drives to Marree and Mount Gambier, Coober Pedy,  Wilpena Pound, Ceduna, Port Lincoln, Parachilna and Robe, and many in between, talking to strangers, gathering information, interviewing locals - experiencing things others do not see as they drive by. I found the references to the grey nomad convoys fascinating: it is amazing how so many people searching for something they think is out there, sell up and buy a rig, travelling around the backroads of this country (200,000 according to Stubbs). At Marree, the home of many of the Afghan cameleers who came to South Australia in the mid nineteenth century, Stubbs attends the camel cup, hoping to hear more of this early migrant group acknowledged by the organisers. He learns far more sitting around a camp fire with the descendants of these people, making an annual pilgrimage to the place their predecessors called home.
This absorbing chapter is followed by one that strikes fear into the hearts of any beach goer: sharks. The story of Rodney Fox is outlined then Stubbs ventures out to meet a great white in the seas off Port Lincoln. A chapter I read very quickly, although sharks reappear when he interviews a scallop diver, Paul, with a hairy story to relate. (And as if to further unnerve beach goers, a 5.3m shark was tagged and measured off Port Lincoln last weekend, 12 Dec 2020)
Many of the stories will intrigue those who underestimate South Australia. The stories he relates, the people he meets and travels with give a broader view of this state than other books reveal. We may have heard about icons like John Flynn, Rodney Fox, Reg Spriggs for example, but it is the conversations with people Stubbs meets along the way that are irresistible.
Theme: South Australia, Travel, Exploration, Afghan cameleers, Coober Pedy, Sharks.
Fran Knight