THE WALLABY TRACK WITH LIONEL MUSSELL

Many years ago , I set up a website to answer caravanning queries and to sell my books .

Recently , there was an update done at the server and my website missed out . After a couple of frustrating days trying to get it fixed ,

I decided Caravanning and RVing in Australia

had reached the end of its useful service and decided to scrap it . There were a lot of broken

links and updates needed and I didn ' t have the energy to fix it .

NOSTALGIA !

Looking back at some of the website content , I found a few articles about trips I had done and one in particular brought back some great memories .

I had a contract with a publisher for a new book and decided I needed to do a trip around Australia again to make sure everything was as I remembered it , and so I set off on what turned out to be a 37-day epic . I followed the

coast clockwise for most of the way , but went down to Alice Springs and back up to Three Ways before heading west from Katherine .

From Broome , I followed the coast to Port

Augusta , where I headed north to Uluru and back to the coast to finish my journey home .

The publisher had agreed to finance the trip but after returning home and spending three weeks putting the finishing touches on the manuscript , I received a phone call from the editor I was working with . Bad news . It seemed every department of the publishing firm was making a profit except his so he and his boss were told to clear their desks and not to come in on Monday !

The really bad news was that they were not going to pay the agreed expenses ! Two unanswered letters prompted me to engage a solicitor and the lady who took on my case received a positive response . They said they would pay the expenses but would retain the copyright for the book .

She very quickly told them that the copyright belonged to the author so they couldn ’ t retain what wasn ' t theirs in the first place .

I successfully published the book , Australia Calling , myself !

+ READ FULL STORY

68 \