Jim Haynes on Great Australian Odysseys

Allen & Unwin
Oct 30
3 min read

Master storyteller Jim Haynes talks about his new book Great Australian Odysseys.

Australia has always been a land shaped by distance — vast, beautiful, and just a little bit daunting. From the First Fleet’s epic voyage across the seas to the truckies, pilots and railway workers who helped connect our country, travel and adventure are woven deep into our national story.

In his new book, Great Australian Odysseys: By Sea, Sky, Road and Rail, much-loved storyteller Jim Haynes celebrates the pioneers and larrikins who braved the elements, broke new ground, and turned isolation into inspiration.

In this exclusive blog, Jim reflects on how distance has shaped who we are — and why the journeys that brought us together still matter today. From daring aviators and heroic sailors to long-haul truckers crossing the Nullarbor, these tales remind us that the Australian spirit has always been about courage, curiosity and connection.

Read on for Jim’s reflections on The Importance of Distance in Australia’s History — and discover how the great odysseys of our past continue to inspire adventure today.

Long journeys make up a great part of our nation's story. For a start, we are a far away from the rest of the world and, until the advent of regular commercial flight in the mid-20th century, the only way to get here was to make a long sea voyage. Now we have the choice of a long sea voyage or a long flight.

The stories in this collection explore that unique aspect of Australia's history. It is something has always fascinated me.

The First Fleet carried 1500 people in eleven ships from Portsmouth to Sydney Harbour in 1788, the largest single maritime migration in history. A factor in the decision to establish a British convict colony in New South Wales was the 'tyranny of distance'. It was a place 'from whence it is hardly possible for persons to return without permission'. Mary Bryant and her companions, however, did just that, and she made it all the way back to Cornwall.

The histories of sea and air travel have similarities. Brave heroes venturing into the unknown and the obvious imminent danger involved. Ships can easily sink into the sea and planes can easily fall out of the sky. There are also, however, obvious differences. The pioneering age of aviation occurred in a brief time span and was exposed to media attention (well... newspapers at least). The pioneering age of sea travel and exploration lasted centuries and much of its history is lost, either on the bottom of the world’s oceans or in the mists of time, but we still have some amazing stories of exploration and adventure.

The ‘Tyranny of Distance’ for aviators was not just about flying over the world's oceans. In Australia, it was also about flying long distances over desolate, forbidding and uninhabited terrain. Truckdrivers, too, are faced with the perils of long distance travel.

Rod Hannifey runs the ‘TRUCKRIGHT Industry Vehicle’, in which he takes motoring journalists, politicians and bureaucrats for long hauls, so they can understand the issues facing the road transport industry. His adventures make for fascinating reading, as do the amazing and hilarious true tales told by ‘The Nullarbor Kid’, the late Ray Gilleland, a true pioneer of the trucking industry, and a very colourful character!

My previous book for Allen & Unwin, The Big Book of Australian Yarns and Amazing True Stories, included an entire section of railway stories and history. Luckily, however, there were a number of stories not included in that book, because they were more about 'journeys' than history. Therefore, I had a ready supply of 'great rail journey' stories yet to be told.

I think you will find (or I certainly hope you will) that the stories in the final part of the book, ‘By Rail’, are often about journeys from one stage of life to another. The final story in the collection is about the journey of one man from engine driver to much loved prime minister of our nation.