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( intro music )

Rick Smolan: This sort of

underlying message

that you're as powerful

as you allow yourself to be

is one of the things I think

has resonated with people

for years about Robyn's trip.

That she doesn't

describe herself as a hero,

she doesn't say

she's courageous.

She actually talks about

her fears very openly

but she does it anyway,

which is I think the thing

that people have admired

so much about her.

( applause )

Rick Smolan: I...

was given an assignment

by Time magazine in 1977,

to go to
the outback of Australia,

and to shoot a cover story

about Aborigines.

And the writer had

already written the story

and my job was to

go out and illustrate

the story that he had written,

a wonderful gentleman named

Roy Rowan.

He had worked with

a social worker

who had taken him

into the Aboriginal camps
to get him permission
to take photographs.

And so I called this woman

before I got to Alice Springs,

and I said,
"Could you also take me out

to some of the same places

you took the writer?"

And she said,

"Sure, meet me at this

little pub down the street

from this hotel,"

she suggested I stay at.

So, I checked into my hotel,

I walked out of the hotel

and there washing

the window of my hotel

was the most beautiful woman

I had ever seen in my life.

And so I took
a few photographs,

and she got really angry.

And she said,

"Put your damn cameras down!

Who the hell are you?"

And I said, "I'm really sorry,

I didn't mean to get you

upset."

And I left
and I then took a turn and

went to the place I should've

gone in the first place

and I met the social worker.

And she said,

"Well, a group of us

who work with Aborigines

are going to get together

tonight for dinner.
You might want to come
and meet some of the

other social workers,

people involved

in the
Aboriginal Rights Movement,"

and so she gave me

the address.

And of course,
who opens the door

but the woman

who had been washing

the windows of the hotel,

who was not at all pleased

to see me.

And she said, you know,

"What are you doing here?"

And I said,
"Well, your friend,

Jenny, invited me."

And she said,

"You can't photograph

my friends."

I said, "Okay, so..."

She said,
"Put your cameras down!"

So I put the cameras, like

leave your guns at the door,

you know.

So... so, I put

my cameras down

and I walked into this house,

which was literally

falling apart,

there was no back

to the house.

And in the backyard

she had four camels tied up.
And I said,
"Why do you have camels?"

She says,
"None of your business." So...

( audience laughing )

So I found Jenny and said,

"Why does she have camels

in the backyard?"

And she said,

"Oh, she's this odd girl

that showed up here a year ago.

We don't really know

where she is from...

what she is doing here

but she... we bring her food,

we come out here

and we visit her.

We're kind of worried

about her,

but she has this crazy idea

that she is going to walk

2,000 miles from here,

Alice Springs,

the heart of the desert,

through the Gibson Desert,

out to the Indian Ocean."

And I said,

"Okay, well it's pretty crazy."

So throughout the week

I worked with Jenny,

at the end of the week

she said,

"Robyn wrote to
National Geographic

a year ago and

never got any answer at all.

She asked them

if they would like,
underwrite her trip.

And she thought maybe

you might know someone there

or she could use your name,

because

she is just so tired of

washing windows

and waiting on jerks

in pubs and..."

I said,
"She wants to use my name,

fine, you know, whatever."

And I thought
that would be the end of it,

and I flew back to the States.

And a week later

the phone rings,

and it's Bob Gilka,

who was then

Director of Photography here

at the Geographic.

He said, "We got this letter

from this woman in Australia

and she's describing

this fascinating idea

of crossing the desert

with camels and...

but you know,

we don't want the headline

'National Geographic explorer

dies in week two.' ( laughter )

You know, in the outback,

is she a nutcase,

is she for real..."

( audience laughing )

I said,
"Well, she is very intense.

I've seen her camels,

I've seen her maps,

I mean... you know,

she is very focused."

And he said,
"Well, since you guys are

such good friends,

would you like..."

( audience roaring
with laughter )

I'm serious.

"Would you like to be the

photographer that we send out

to meet her five times

in the desert,

to document her trip?"

And it's like,

I remember having
two reactions,

which is "This is so cool,"

and like, "Oh my God,"

you know... ( laughter )

Be careful what you wish for.

So, there's always been

sort of a mystery

to Robyn's trip, which is...

why did she do this,

why did she want to go

on this journey?

And a lot of her friends

were worried

that this was a

weird form of suicide.

Robyn's mother had died

when she was 11-years old,

and a lot of her friends

thought

this was some kind of

echo of that.
And it was a
bizarre form of it.

I never thought that,

and Robyn certainly doesn't...

didn't think that,

and doesn't think it.

No one at the time knew that

she was an
unbelievable writer.

She is now sort of like the

J. D. Salinger of Australia.

Everyone reads her book,

Tracks , in high school now.

It's actually required reading

and they have study guides

about it.

So, Robyn got funding

from National Geographic ,

and it's funny because they

flew me back to Australia,

when Bob Gilka interviewed her

to make sure that

they really wanted to do this.

And we went out

and had a drink afterwards

and after the third drink,

she looked at me and said,

"What are you doing here?"

And I said, "What?"

She said,
"What are you doing here?"

And I thought "Oh my God,

the woman is actually

really nuts."

And she said, "No,"

she said like,

"I've just completely

sold out my whole trip."

I said,
"What are you talking about?"

She said, "I don't want

my friends to come,

I don't want you coming,

and now I've got to write

a story for this magazine."

I said, "Robyn,
they're across the street

at the hotel,
go back and tell them

you don't want the money."

I mean

you haven't done anything yet,

if you really feel

this is something that's

going to destroy your trip..."

And she said, "I can't,

I can't spend another year,

you know, doing odd jobs."

And this was sort of her

conflict from the beginning,

of wanting to do this all

by herself

but also needing some help,

and it's something that

sort of went on throughout...

the whole trip.

She had this wonderful dog

named Diggity,

that was her daughter,

her companion, her friend.

So much of this trip was

her relationship
with this dog.

She said that two years before

she came to Alice Springs,
she got a job at a hospital
as a janitor,

basically, you know,

emptying out trash bins.

And she said,

one night, this first week

she was working

at this hospital,

she heard these terrible cries

coming from the basement.

And she went downstairs

and found out they were

basically taking strays

and doing experiments

on these animals.

You know testing them

for cosmetics,

if it burned their eyes

and stuff.

She said it was just

absolutely horrible

she couldn't stand it.

So the second night

she waited until

all the other janitors left

and she went back in

with the keys,

opened up all the cages

and let all the animals loose,

opened up all the doors

and one little puppy

had been brought in that day,

that was Diggity.

I have goose bumps

telling the story.

And, so Diggity became

like her companion.

And Diggity saved her life

so many times during the trip,

it was unbelievable.

If... if a snake or centipede

had crawled into her

sleeping bag,

Diggity would bark

and tell her

there is something
in the sleeping bag.

If she got lost Diggity

could lead her back to

where she'd left the camels.

But one night,

it was a full moon,

we were by Ayers Rock,

called "Uluru"

by the Aborigines.

And she was snuggling

with Diggity,

one of my favorite pictures

from the trip.

Obviously the Geographic

for the most part uses color,

so this picture just sat

in my archives for years

and then this picture

just became

Robyn's official portrait

in the National
Portrait Gallery in Australia,

which is wonderful. I just...

I love the picture of her

and Diggity together.

The first time

Robyn saw the Rock,

I mean, you hear

about these things
 and you think it's like
a tourist attraction.

But it's actually

the middle of the desert.

And you realize

that this was actually

once the bottom of the ocean.

Circumference of this is
five miles,

if you actually ride

around the outside of it.

But there is a little cave

up there at the top.

And in the next picture

you're going to see...

It's Robyn inside that cave.

( audience gasping )

So, one of the things that was

challenging on this trip

is that

Robyn didn't wear

clothes a lot.

( audience laughing )
And...

it was challenging for

lots of reasons

as you can imagine, but...

( audience laughing )

Ah, so, I decided

I didn't want to send

pictures of Robyn,

who I was falling

in love with,

back to the Geographic,

because I just didn't feel

comfortable

sharing these pictures.

So, I would only send

the pictures that I wanted

the Geographic to see.

And the Geographic got

really angry at me,

because you are not supposed

to do that.

And I... they basically said,

"You're never going to work

for us again."

And I was sort of committing

professional suicide,

because this, you know,

I was 28 years old

at that point and I was,

you know, my loyalties,

to be honest,

were to Robyn
and not to my career,

and not to the Geographic.

I just felt like, you know,

the more the trip went on,

the more concerned

I was about her,

the more fond I was of her,

and the more worried

I was that

something's going to
happen to her.

Every time I left her...

I remember I would look in the

rear-view mirror of my car

and wonder if that

would be the last time

I'd ever see her.

She had brought

a cassette player

with Aboriginal
 language tapes,

to speak "Pitjantjatjara".

I'm not sure

I am saying that correctly.

Most tourists, most people

that go out there

treat Aborigines like

they want to learn about them,

they are anthropologists.

Robyn really wanted to

actually...

she felt that there was

something

that they could teach her

and I think...

She sort of become...

became a legend.

Whenever
I would ask Aborigines,

"Have you seen

the camel lady?"

Which is what they called her,

they had such fondness and

respect for what she was doing

because she was taking

the time to slowly travel

through the places

where they lived.

And she wanted to spend time

with them

and learn from them.

She said that,

you know, people...

said wasn't it hard,

wasn't it frightening?

and she actually talks about it

with a sense of wonder.

She said it was so beautiful

and so quiet.

I remember at night

when you looked up

at the stars,

it was... you know,

there was no visual pollution,

no traffic lights,
there were no street lights,

no buildings and
so the clarity of the heavens

were just amazing there.

And she said

on one of these trips,

and I was actually there

when this happened...

She was travelling

with the camels,

she was in a really good mood,

everything seemed to be going

really, really well.

And then it started raining.

When it rains camels will

stop dead in their tracks,

and they won't move

because they have no traction.

She was trying to get to

a place called Docker River,

which is about ten miles away

from where we were

at that point.

And so she kept going

in the rain,

and kind of forcing the camels

to walk.

Right after I took

this picture,

one of her camels,

Dookie, fell.
And camels are like horses.
If they break a leg,

you basically have to

put them down,

because they...
it doesn't heal.

And he laid
on the ground groaning

and she thought

he had broken his leg.

He wouldn't move.
It took...for about six hours.

So, I drove ahead

to the Aboriginal Mission

and we called a vet who we

actually flew out.

The vet said it looked like

he had just sprained his leg,

but it was going to take

six weeks to heal.

So, she ends up living

at Docker River for six weeks.

You know, sort of life

is what happens

while you are busy making

other plans.

This ended up becoming

a great experience for her

because she got to spend time

in this one Aboriginal Mission

instead of stopping

and travelling on.

One of the things

that was so wonderful

about the Aboriginal kids

is that they were so excited

whenever she showed up

in these villages.
 This is probably one of
my favorite pictures

from the whole trip.

I just love that.

You can just see

all the body language,

all the excitement

of the kids.

"The camel lady is here,

the camel lady is here."

It's just wonderful.

It was nice to see her

happy too and the kids

really kind of brought her

out of herself,

in wonderful ways.

I would show up sometimes and

I remembering showing up
once and she said...

"You Americans treat

friendship like Valium."

It was like, you know,

"Really?"

( audience laughing )

It's like it's an insult

or challenge of the day.

Robyn was doing this

to herself as well

but I thought
at a certain point

we had sort of gotten over

the initial hostility

and I said, "Okay, what's that

supposed to mean?"

She said, "Well, every time

I see Americans together,

they're all saying,

'Don't worry,
everything will be fine.
It will all work out'."

And I said,
"And that's a bad thing?"

She says, "Yeah, because

if you care about somebody

and they are doing

something stupid,

if they are marrying

the wrong person,

they have an abusive boss,

they are doing,

they are taking drugs,

whatever it is, you hit them

over the head

with a two-by-four.
You risk your friendship

to be a friend and maybe

you lose them as friends."

But, she said,

"You are all cowards.

Like you won't actually...

be friends to each other

because you are afraid

you'll lose the friendship."

And I...

I remember thinking,
"Wow, that's... I mean,

that's a really
interesting thought,"

I had never, you know...

I said, "You know,

you're right, I mean,

I am not speaking
for all Americas but I mean..."

There were so many

conversations like

that where she had a

really different way of like,
approaching things.

And it was sort of my year

of growing up too.

I mean,
I was 27, 28 years old, but

emotionally,
I was like 19 years old.

Every girlfriend I had had

lasted a week and then,

somebody gave me an
assignment and I could leave.

( audience laughing )

We'll work it out

when I come back

and I would never come back.

So...

( audience laughing )

You know...
this experience with Robyn,

who was like so much older

and wiser than her 26 years.

I mean it was like,

literally like,

spending time with a really

interesting, profound person

that wouldn't let you get away

with anything.

So, I mean, I was constantly

having to either defend

or think or be challenged,
it was just...

the whole thing was

so fascinating.

So, at one point

during the trip...

Early in the trip,

one morning she woke up

and she said,

"I had this dream

about this Aboriginal man

that came out of nowhere

and travelled with me."

And I had a journal,

I was keeping a journal

throughout the whole trip.

And I came back, you know,

like the third time out there

and she was with this

little Aboriginal man.

I said, "Who is this?"

She said, "This is Mr. Eddie."

And she said,

"He came out of nowhere

and he is travelling with me."

I said, "Just like your dream."

She said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "Don't you remember

the dream you had

at the beginning of the trip?"

She says, "I didn't have

a dream about..."

I showed her in my journal...

you dreamt this guy.

Mr. Eddie travelled

with her for six weeks.

He was incredible.
He was a tribal elder.

He didn't speak
a word of English,

and travelled with her

for six weeks.

Came out of nowhere,

taught her how to find food

in the outback,
took her to sacred areas

that no one was

supposed to go to.
 Mr. Eddie became one of her
most cherished memories

of her whole journey.

One day I got a telegram

from her, I was in Hong Kong,

And the telegram said,

"Could you please

bring me a rifle?"

And it was the same rifle

I knew she already had.

And the reason is because

when male camels are in heat,

if you have a female camel,

they will kill you

to get to your female.

So, I said to her

when she was telling me

about it on the trip,

how would a camel kill you?

You know... chew you to death

or something?

I am trying to figure out.

And she said, "No, actually,

it's pretty frightening."

They... you know, camels

have necks that are so strong,

that... they can lift 15

grown men on their neck.

So what a camel will do is

come over and knock you over

with its neck and it will sit

on you and suffocate you.

These are very

intelligent animals.

I mean, it's very interesting

that they've actually

figured out
to kill human beings, right?

But when they are in heat,

they... they have this bladder

that comes out of their mouth

and foam and...

It's like a lot of animals

in heat

and if you have a female,

they will kill you

to get to the female.

And if they lure

the female off, she is dead.

She... These camels

carried all of her food,

all of her water,

all of her gear.

So, if they ran away,

she was dead out there.

So, she actually was attacked

at one point,

by a group of wild camels.

So when I... And she had to

kill two of them,

which was heartbreaking to her

because she obviously,

you know, she loves animals.

So I had this
horrible thought,

"Oh my God, she's lost

her gun somewhere."

So I, you know,
when I drove out there,

I thought, "My God, I'm going

to bring her the gun,"

and it turned out

it was a gift for Mr. Eddie.

She had her gun, she was fine,

but Mr. Eddie just loved

 this gun of hers

and so he was so excited

when I got out of the car

and I had this gun.

On one of the trips

I came out,

I was sitting by the fire

and Robyn said,

"When are you going to

get here?"

And I had come in

about four hours before

and I was sitting there

and I was talking about

something I had just done

somewhere else and she said...

I said, "Excuse me?"

She said, "When are you

going to get here?"

I thought okay now she's

actually now flipped out.

I said,
"Robyn, I am sitting here

across the fire from you.

Hello!"

She said, "No, you're not here!"

She said, "You are talking

about your Time cover story,

where you're going to leave

the car in three weeks,

did your film get x-rayed..."

She said,

"You know, you come out here

and you spend the entire time

talking about
something you did

or something
you're going to do.
And if you are
going to be here,

then God damn it, be here.

And don't be lost in your head

the whole time."

It's... again it's one of

those things

where somebody kind of...

goes like that.

And you go, you know what,

how many of you now

have looked at people

in restaurants,

where there is a couple

in a restaurant

and they are both doing

this...

And they are talking to

everybody except

the person they are...

with, right?

I mean, if...
I was going to say,

"Robyn, if you thought

it was bad back then...

( audience laughing )

The whole world is now

turned to that,"

but again it was...

it was so,

not to say refreshing,

but it was so...

fascinating to have someone

constantly call you on things.

And you say, "You know what,

you're absolutely right.

You know, I am totally

thinking about what I did
or what I am going to do."

It's sort of be here now,

it's that old

Zen-kinda thing, right?

So, as I said before,

every time I left her

I always worried that...

each time I left her I'd look

in the rear-view mirror

as I drove away and wonder

if that would be
my last memory of her

or something terrible
would happen to her out there.

So... I was sitting

in Hong Kong one day

and a writer, I was working

with a writer named

Richard Bernstein
from New York Times

and he was at breakfast,

I met him for breakfast.

And I walked into the

Hilton Hotel and he said,

"You better sit down."

And I said, "What?"

He said, "Just sit down."

So, I sit down, he is really

pale looking and he

hands me the local paper

and the paper says,

"Mysterious 'Camel Lady'

Missing in Gibson Desert,

Desperate Search Underway."

And I go completely cold,

"Oh my God,
this... it's happened.
You know, the thing I was
most afraid of."

So, I rented a plane,

I flew out to
this little desert town

near where I thought

I was going to meet her

the next time,

and there were journalists,

there were trackers,

there were helicopters,

there were like

80 paparazzi out there.

And, I... was so flummoxed

and so upset

and so freaked out that I...

it never occurred to me

that I was leading

all of them to her.

I assumed she was dead.

So, I got my car, I drove

to where she would have been

if every...

if she had been on schedule

and there she was.

( audience laughing )

And I now have all these guys

and cars following me.

With film crews and...

And before I can say a word,

they are thrusting

the newspapers in her face,

with my pictures on the cover.

And you know the whole time...

You know,
this is what they thought
 the camel lady looked like,
by the way.

( audience laughing )

So, before I can say

a word to her,

I mean, my first thought is

she is going to think

I've sold her out.

You know, because I always

worried that she thought

that I was... that...

my career came first,

the Geographic
came first and...

You know, I finally

got her away from them

and we were trying to

figure out what happened, like

why did people think

you were missing.

I said, "Has anything

happened, I mean,

what would have done this?"

And she said, "Oh my God!"

I said, "What?" And she said,

"I know what happened."

I said, "What?" She said,

"Two weeks ago,

this guy shows up

in the middle of the night

in a racing car."

I said, "What?" I thought

she really has gone nuts,

right?

She said, "No, no,

in the middle of the night,

I hear this motor.

I see these lights
coming towards me.

I hadn't seen anybody

for like three weeks.

And this guy screeches up

with a racing car,

with big fat tires."

And she said his pupils

were the size of pinpricks.

This guy was so obviously

on speed or something,

And she said, "He hit on me."

And she told him to piss off

and he drove to Sydney.

And she said, "He was breaking

the world record of driving

from one side of Australia

to the other."

And we found out

that he had a press conference

in Sydney

and one of the

journalists said,

"What was the most

interesting thing

about you breaking

the world's record of driving

from one side of Australia

to the other?"

And he said,
"Oh, I spent a romantic night

in the moonlight
with a naked camel lady."

( audience laughing )

So, all of a sudden

they have made up this story

of this naked camel lady

in the moonlight in the desert
 with a racing car driver.
She knew nothing about this.

And so all these people

were out there

they had made up this story

that she was missing.

She was never missing

and then like, what do you do?

Now you've got 80 people

in the desert like,

how do you hide,

how do you get rid of them?

So, one night I said to her...

"After everybody
goes to sleep,

get in my car and hide, like,

you know, in the back seat.

And I am going to
tell the guys

I am going for beer."

And so, I basically we drove

to the next town.

Her camels were fine

because they are camels,

they can survive for three

or four days without water.

And we went to town and

I had one of my friends send

a telegram saying that

Robyn has decided to call

the trip off

because of
all the journalists.

And that she is sending

a truck to pick up the camels.

And basically all the guys

gave up and they left.

We waited three days,

we didn't come back
for three days.
Their budgets ran out.

Basically there is nothing

to do out there.

So, it's sort of

a funny scene.

This is when she is looking

at the newspapers

with pictures of herself.

It's just insane.

They were even doing

cartoons about her.

( audience laughing )

I am not going to give you all

the ins-and-outs of the trip.

She had an unbelievable

experience

but she finally did make it

to the ocean.

It took her nine months,

originally it was supposed

to be a six month trip.

The day before we got

to the ocean she said,

"I don't want you there

when I get to the ocean.

I really, just need to be

by myself."

I said,
"Robyn, I have to be there."

So I managed to talk her

into it

and now she loves

these pictures.

She took the camels

into the water.

They thought this was like

 the biggest drinking fountain
they had ever seen.

( audience laughing )

They didn't like

the salt water very much.

This sort of underlying

message

that you are as powerful

as you allow yourself to be

is one of the things I think

has resonated with people

for years about Robyn's trip.

That she doesn't describe

herself as a hero,

she doesn't say

she is courageous.

She actually talks about

her fears very openly

but she does it anyway,

which is I think the thing

that people have admired

so much about her.

One of things I think

that stunned everybody

at the end of the trip

was that she decided

to write a book about it.

And I think to
everybody's astonishment

the book resonated with

people all over the world.

So the story was,

this was commissioned

by and for
National Geographic .

After it ran in the Geographic

many other magazines

around the world picked it up,
 I think there was over
a 100 publications.

They told the story in many,

many different languages.

Tracks has now been

published in 18 languages.

It's sold
over a million copies.

As I said,
it's sort of a cult book

in certain places
in the world.

I think one of the

strangest things,

it was the most stolen book

the year it was published

in Australia.

I don't know
how they determine that.

And I don't know why it's a

sort of an odd honor to win.

I am sure the booksellers

are really happy about that.

So about every seven years

I get a call

from somebody in Hollywood

saying we are doing this movie

and can we talk to you

about Robyn

and what it was like

to be there.

And I'd go out and

have these meetings

and nothing would ever happen.

So, when these guys

called this time saying

we're making the movie.

It was sort of like, you know,

crying wolf, okay, been there

done that 4,000 times already.

They said,
"No, we've actually cast

this wonderful young actress

Mia Wasikowska."

So this is a little trailer

for the movie

and I want to just quickly

show you, kind of,

some of the scenes

that they built

on the still photographs.

"Dear Sir

I am planning to walk
across the Australian Desert

from Alice Springs

to the Indian Ocean,

a distance of 2,000 miles.

And when people ask me

why I am doing it,

my usual answer is, 'why not?'"

Your plan is ridiculous.

( dramatic music plays )

You must be mad, girlie.

You know it's about

2,000 miles,

six months of hard walkin'.

You want to die out there

or something?

( dramatic music continues )

Leave us alone!

Go away!

I am so alone.

We all are.

( dramatic music continues )

( applause )

Thank you all very much.

Thank you.

( applause )

( outro music )