A Long Way to Go

Late in 1930, a cricket team from the West Indies visited Australia for the first time. It arrived at precisely the time when Australia’s modern iconography was being forged: Don Bradman was in the ascendant, Phar Lap dominated the racetrack, Nellie Melba returned home, Charles Kingsford Smith was breaking aviation records and the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge was nearing completion. A Long Way to Go follows the tourists’ journey around this vast, unfamiliar country – which, battered by the Great Depression, may have been sliding into social and political chaos, but still managed to field the world’s most formidable cricket team.