Book cover titled 'Chasing Dreamtime' by Neva Sullaway. The cover has a red background with yellow and white text and illustrations, including a hiker walking near a boat with a red desert landscape in the background.

“…to be on your own…with no direction home…
like a rolling stone…”

I set out across the South Pacific to escape something undefined, in search of something unattainable—“freedom.” Instead, I ended up arrested twice, had one-on-one meetings with several sharks, suffered tropical fever, and fell innocently into a drug-smuggling scheme, and so the story goes….

From remote Pacific atolls to Australia’s outback, Chasing Dreamtime follows a young woman to the edge of endurance—and toward a profound understanding of the interplay of memory, myth, and the past she could no longer outrun.

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Part 1. Chasing

Tahiti, 1976, Prison!
Arrested for a visa violation, my rescuer arrives. I am bonded to his yacht Patience and must sail with the British skipper and his crew, but to where?

Penrhyn, Tomai
Delirious, I’m taken ashore on an island where few outsiders are welcome. Strange alchemies persist.

Suvarov, Tom Neale’s Island
The solitary man and the myth collide. We learn how to reef fish and what the devil incarnate looks like.

Fiji, Betrayal, The War Zone and The Cyclone
The romantic version of the South Pacific dissolves in a collision of forces. If the sea doesn’t kill me, the mad sailor will.

New Zealand, 1977
The land of beauty and myth-speaking, but the heart is a lonely hunter. I sail on…

A sailboat with two beige sails on the ocean under a blue sky with white clouds, with a person sitting on the deck.

Part 2. The Land of Oz

Brisbane, Australia
“Aye, mate, Welcome to Austraaalya,” blast the Customs Officials preparing to board our drug-laden yacht.

Riding a second-hand “pushbike” 2,000 kms. from Brisbane to Bundaberg, Mackay, Proserpine, Townsville, Innisfail to Cairns… I could escape what others could not…couldn’t I?

A historical map of the Pacific Ocean with islands labeled, a compass rose at the center, and an illustration of a sailboat with a person on board near some palm trees.

Part 3. Dreamtime

Cairns, North Queensland, 1977
Yank, Sheila, Deckie, Cook… Who the hell am I?

Weipa and the Gulf of Carpentaria

Where do we come from?
What are we?
Where are we going?

A nautical-themed map with an orange and red color scheme. It features a sailing boat in the water at sunset in the lower left corner, and a detailed map of the South Pacific and Australia with island and country names.