Freelance travel writer and Lonely Planet guidebook contributor Tim Richards understands perfectly the interconnections between travelling and reading.
In his recent book, Heading South (Fremantle Press), Tim recounts his epic rail journey from far-north Queensland to Bunbury in Western Australia. Arriving in Fremantle, he finds himself wandering the harbour area and reflecting upon the contribution of colonial engineer C.Y. O’Connor to the development of the town’s port and railway.
Briefly considering joining daytrippers to Rottnest Island, he decides against this, writing:
My aim was instead to follow O’Connor’s work and life, to add some real life context to the biography I was reading. Or perhaps it was the other way around – to add literary context to the real-life spaces. Either way, there was something powerful about visiting places that you’d read about, travelling with a goal in mind. It magnified the significance of everything you saw.*
In this paragraph, Tim has also beautifully and succinctly captured our motivation for creating this literary map of WA. We believe passionately in the interconnectedness of reading and travelling and the ability of each to add value to the experience of the other.
*From the book Heading South by Tim Richards (Fremantle Press 2021)