( 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 )
