Between 1788 and 1880 some 1.3 million free emigrants arrived in Australia from the British Isles. It was a huge transition, both geographically and culturally, and one way of dealing with this appears to have been to write a diary. The surviving diaries offer snapshots of the lives of and experiences of many ordinary people who emigrated. In this study the author analyzes these journals and diaries to attempt to answer the question how did writing a diary help diarists make sense of such a momentous and absolutely alien experience as emigration by boat to a continent bout which they probably knew almost nothing? The stories which emerge are as much to do with the process of life-writing as they are a historical snapshot of a bygone time.