Review - Going as far as I can - Duncan Fallowell

I love travel memoirs - maybe its a hankering of my own to travel and to places I would like to go to but cannot and when I saw this cover I think I expected much more than I got. I fell in love with Peter Mayle and Frances Mayes ages ago and so I expected something like that. I got something different. Not bad but different.

When the author was left some money, he had a idea of travelling as far as he could, and that far meant New Zealand. Fallowell was looking for a utopian dream of the best place for exile which has led him to places of architectural interest, sexual interest and hitherto unknown painters!

The book was confusing to me - because so many things are thrown at one. Were the two men in tight shirts, and tighter jeans with beer bellies just farmers or were they sending a signal to him of their availability, the clarity of light in New Zealand which seemed strange, the pronounciation, the accents all differing and ranging from German to Polish to Indian, (this is common anywhere with an immigrant population - come to Melbourne for the worldwide experience not found anywhere else!),and what is always thrown at one that you are in God's own country. I found that a bit repetitive as I think most people think that their country would be God's own country, well the un-jaded ones anyway.

I was sorry that I found the book hard going - not an easy book to finish. It was only my sheer determination that kept me going till the end. 279 pages.