Tracks: A Woman’s Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback: Chapter 10  Summary & Analysis

Davidson leaves Warburton on her own, expecting that she’ll be completely alone for about a month. She feels a little nervous about having to rely on her survival skills, but she is also physically fit and feels prepared for the difficulty. Rick drives along her route ahead of her and leaves some water barrels along the way for her. After a few hours, she decides to leave the track and cross the sandhills. She notices once again that her awareness of the land is completely different than it was at the beginning of the trip and relishes the “openness and emptiness” that used to frighten her.

 As she continues noticing all the nuance and interconnection of the desert’s many forms of life, Davidson begins to perceive the land itself as “an animate being of which [she is] a part.” She recognizes her previous feelings of madness as an attempt to reject this reality, which she now realizes she has no choice but to accept. Davidson walks on, loving the feeling that she is part of something limitless and perfectly balanced. Although she often talks to herself or the camels and Diggity, she finds that she is not at all lonely.

After many miles of crossing the dunes, Davidson decides that the terrain is rough enough that she should return to the track. She falls into a new routine and enjoys every new geographic feature she sees, in part because so much of the desert is completely the same. At one point, she finds a dust bowl and joyfully joins Diggity and the camels in rolling naked in the dirt, laughing and thinking about how the modern world has forgotten what it feels like to simply play. The next morning, she leaves her clock behind on a tree stump near the dust bowl, calling it an “insidious little instrument.”

Davidson continues along the track, thinking about how unacceptable she must look to outside society, and how meaningless conventional rules of female attractiveness are. She tells herself to remember these lessons, yet worries that she will forget them as soon as she leaves the desert. Suddenly, four wild bull camels appear from the landscape. Davidson dreads having to kill them, but shoots anyway, not knowing what else to do. Her gun jams and she fights back panic, running in circles to avoid them and throwing rocks to frighten them away. Eventually, all four get bored and wander back into the desert, leaving Davidson still frightened but relieved that none of them actually attacked.

Although Davidson knows that she should be wishing for protection from such dangers, she thinks that night that in reality, she wouldn’t switch places with anyone back home. She enjoys relying on her wits and having her abilities truly tested. She writes letters to friends at home, which she doesn’t send and rather likens to a diary. Davidson includes the full text of one letter, which rambles freely from one detail of her daily life to another, expressing both the challenges she faces and her joy at dealing with them. The letter also describes encountering a peaceful heard of wild camels and finding a beautiful claypan area that looks different from any other place she’s ever been. She expresses some loneliness and longing for creature comforts, but she is also overwhelmingly happy to be having the experience she is.

After the letter concludes, Davidson reflects on the ways that the letter both expresses her complete joy during this part of the journey and also obscures how hard things really were. For example, the herd of wild camels actually frightened her camels and led two of them to get lost for several hours, and she also describes getting lost in the desert and needing to have Diggity guide her back to camp. Davidson notes that Diggity has always seemed like more than just a dog and that she considers her a close and beloved friend.

One day, a car drives down the track, the first Davidson has seen in a long time. It turns out to belong to a white man trying to break a driving record, and he wants to camp with Davidson. Eventually he leaves when she is rude to him, but she is irritated at the interruption and his assumption that she wants his company. As she gets closer to her next stop, Carnegie, she wonders about her habit of walking naked and feels genuinely confused about how she will ever be able to relearn rules of social etiquette.

Davidson arrives in Carnegie to find it abandoned, the surrounding landscape destroyed by overgrazing cattle. She is depressed at the devastated land, but soon encounters two friendly young men who offer her food and company. After resting with them briefly, she decides to head for a station called Glenayle, which means following a route that she has heard is especially difficult. She knows that she and the camels all need a rest and also worries that the camels might not be getting enough food. Zeleika is especially skinny, as she nurses the greedy Goliath almost constantly.

One night, Diggity chases and catches an elderly kangaroo. Davidson considers eating it, but remembers Eddie’s warning and decides not to. Soon thereafter, she arrives at Glenayle and stays for a week with generous hosts, who live happily despite their lack of resources and the harsh landscape. With the help of her hosts, Davidson plans out the next stretch of her trip, to a town called Wiluna, and feels slightly disappointed that it will be the last one she completes totally alone.

Although the countryside that follows is rough, it is also beautiful in what Davidson calls “a fossilized primordial sort of way.” She worries about Diggity because of the poison baits in the area, which are set to kill dingos, but she does not make the dog wear her muzzle, which she hates. Eventually, they reach a gorgeous view of a mountain range and sand dunes, a place Davidson calls “the heart of the world, paradise.” She thinks back over how far she has come during the trip and hopes that she can remember everything she’s learned about rejecting structures and habits in favor of freedom and loving engagement with others and the world at large.

Just as Davidson feels that she has generated a true sense of magic, she learns what she calls the “most profound and cruel lesson of all.” One night, she rations Diggity’s food instead of shooting fresh game for her, and Diggity sneaks away from camp and eats a poison bait. Davidson is stricken as she witnesses her beloved Diggity sicken and, eventually, she has no choice but to shoot her. Davidson feels so panicked and devastated that she thinks she is dying too, and awakens the next day feeling completely numb as she says goodbye and continues walking.