I had always felt like I was looking for 'more' in my life. I couldn't quite define what this 'more' was, but I knew the camels
were a part of it.
In 2020, at the age of thirty-one, Sophie Matterson set out to walk her five camels from Shark Bay in Western Australia to
Byron Bay on the east coast. At a time when most of her friends were getting engaged or starting families, Sophie longed
for adventure, independence and purpose. She broke up with her long-term boyfriend, packed all her belongings into
saddlebags and trained her wild camels to follow her lead.
Her eighteen-month solo crossing was the ultimate test of resilience and self-sufficiency – with each state in various forms
of lockdowns, Sophie would often walk for weeks without seeing another soul. She crossed harsh, remote deserts,
navigated treacherously beautiful salt lakes, and visited country towns and isolated cattle stations. Along the way she
survived life-and-death situations, fell in love in the middle of the Outback, and slowly began to trust herself and her own
abilities.
With echoes of Cheryl Strayed's Wild, The Crossing is an empowering memoir about giving up a conventional life in the
pursuit of something more.


An epic story of leaving everything behind to find purpose, adventure and love by crossing 4750km of rugged Australian terrain with five wild camels, from the winner of the 2022 Australian Geographic Spirit of Adventure Award