The Long Walk

George Morrison is perhaps best-known as an intrepid Australian journalist during the Boxer Rebellion, and for his walk across China. Well before this, at age 17, he started what he called his Long Walk - over 1200 kilometres from Queenscliff in Victoria to Adelaide from late December to the end of February. Morrison wrote a candid diary of his meeting with settlers and the difficulties he found, the drama of finding food and direction when tracks were often non-existent. All on a budget of 6 pounds 14 shillings and 6 pence! In a world of few signposts - and no GPS - Morrison performed the first of his several Long Walks around Australia. Also included herein is his walk across the Continent from 1883. The harshness of the environment he walks through coupled with the heat of the day, as he was walking in the hottest months of the year, makes Morrison's Long Walk especially noteworthy. He captures aspects of Australian life which on the surface appear to be quite different to life in Australia today, however fundamentally they are the same and very little has changed in the character of Australians since 1880 which I am sure Morrison would find gratifying. - Alan Ventress, from his Introduction.