'Ever since I was old enough to think about my life, I'd thought that it would be nice to be rich or to do something important, but I knew that wasn't likely to happen. What I could control however, were two things. How I would live and where. I decided I would never stay doing one job all my life, and that I was going to live away from my home town, far away.' Wayne McLennan tells the story of his utterly extraordinary life through a series of adventures after he leaves his home town in Australia, desperate to avoid following his father and grandfather into the mines. Travelling from the Australian outback to London, to Spain, McLennan has skippered a fishing boat off the coast of Nicaragua, become a professional boxer, mined for gold in Costa Rica and made a gruelling six-month journey - by rowing boat - along the 1,000 miles of coast from Seattle to Alaska. He tells the stories of the compelling characters he encounters along the way: men who refuse to give in to the conformity and comforts of modern life, choosing instead lonely and, often, dangerous occupations. A wonderfully vivid, 'Hemingway-esque' memoir by a talented and honest writer.