![]() ![]() His intimate images of the intrepid young woman – tenderly feeding her camels, or swimming in a rare watering hole – helped make it one of the most popular photo essays in the magazine’s history. ![]() The Aboriginals called Davidson the “desert woman,” and her epic journey caught the attention of National Geographic photographer Rick Smolan – who became both her documenter and lover. It’s no coincidence these punishing red plains are nicknamed the country’s “dead heart.” A place where temperatures can exceed a scorching 120F and the nearest town is often hundreds of kilometers away. “I disappeared but I’ve never felt so alive,” she says in her soft Australian accent. Above all else, it was pleasurable.”Īnd in an age of instant communication, where you are never far from a text message, tweet or Facebook post, perhaps Davidson has a lesson for us all. “At the time it just seemed like a perfectly sensible, good thing to do. “It’s only in hindsight that there’s any psychologizing of it,” Davidson tells me in between bites of her croissant, at a trendy inner-city London café on a humid spring morning. In 1977, Robyn Davidson trekked 2,700 kilometers from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean, armed with little more than a map and a rifle, in a landscape which had destroyed many a hardened explorer before her.Īdventurers are often asked why they push themselves to the human body’s limits. Click to expand Courtesy Bloomsbury Publishing ![]()
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