At the age of 47 I found myself free of commitments. I decided the time had at last come to do what I had long
wanted, namely, to see something of the wilder regions of the
world. I had already discovered the eminent suitability of a bicycle for travel and exploration, and
so, with little more ado, I set out to see something of the Himalayas.
My first objective was Pakistan. I planned to ride from Karachi to Kathmandhu; going first
along the line of the Indus River, and then weaving my way in and out of the Himalayan Valleys of India and Nepal. Five months
and five thousand miles later I achieved my goal. Back home I set to
work on the account of this journey. I called it RIDING
THE MOUNTAINS DOWN, after a poem by e.e.cummings.
With the
book published and selling well,with various foreign translations, I was commissioned to write another book.
This was a very different undertaking. I decided to
make a journey from London to Jerusalem following the routes of the
Medieval Crusaders and early Christian pilgrims. As physically
challenging as the Himalayan journey, it was also one of the most
enjoyable long distance rides I ever made, and not just for the many
different countries and cultures I passed through, but particularly
for the numerous and amazing sites of antiquity that I had long
wanted to explore. RIDING TO JERUSALEM
is the account.
My third long journey was a far more
dangerous enterprise. I followed the course of the Nile from its
Delta on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, through the length of
Egypt and Sudan to the Mountains of the Moon in Uganda.
It was a journey that presented great contrasts - the most stunning
African landscapes and wonderful and diverse peoples on the one hand,
and on the other the terrible problems of drought, poverty,
desertification and the plight of refugees. And always there
was the problem of my own survival; of staying alive in the deserts;
of finding food and clean water; and of steering a way through the
skirmishes of the Sudanese civil war and the aftermath of the Ugandan
massacres. The account of this journey, published as 'RIDING
THE DESERT TRAIL', is available in German as 'AH AGALA'
A
second African journey centred on yet another of that continent's
great rivers. This time I followed the strange course of the Niger, which
bites deep into the Sahara Desert before turning back on itself, as Mungo Park first discovered,to flow through some of the poorest countries in West Africa. Through
the remote desert lands of the Sahel, home to the last of Africa’s
nomadic tribes, through Niger and Mali, I struggled with the sand and
the climate to get to Timbuktu. Again beauty and hardship were
the two poles of the experience. The terrible beauty of an inimical
desert terrain permeated by the ghosts of the past, of black empires
steeped in gold and the slave trade.`FRAIL
DREAM OF TIMBUKTU' is also available in a German translation as
`TIMBUKTU'
I have also written two books about my own
country. RIDING NORTH ONE SUMMER was
intended as a celebration of the English landscape seen through the
web of its history. It was as good a summer bicycle jaunt as I ever
took - three months of cycle/camping through the byways of
England, discovering a green and pleasant land that still existed
there, away from the motorways. Like all journeys, it produced its
own surprises.
My other `home book’, 'THE
FRAGILE ISLANDS', is about the Outer Hebrides - a string of small
remote islands off the North West coast of Scotland. I find them as
exotic as the remotest places I’ve travelled in, and even after
spending a very wet summer there in a very small tent, my love for
these Western Isles remains undimmed.
More recently I
travelled in Eastern Turkey, going by way of the little explored and
horrendously mountainous Black Sea Coast, before heading up into the
even more mountainous lands of Kurdistan and Armenia, and on through
the vast plains to Mount Ararat with its legends of Noah and
the Flood. Beyond the crossing of the ancient Silk Route I rode on to
the strange landlocked area of Lake Van - the central melting pot of
Western history and seemingly older than time itself. `BEYOND
ARARAT' is also available in German translation as `ARARAT'
A
quite different journey was one I made to the north-western corner of
Spain, exchanging wilder tracks for the well-beaten path of a
thousand years of pilgrimage to the shrine of Santiago de
Compostela. It proved to be a richly rewarding experience, and
also surprising in the unexpected demands it made upon me, and in the
insights it afforded into my own motives and feelings. It also gave
me a tremendous sense of rubbing shoulders with other pilgrims past
and present. PILGRIM’S ROAD is
published in German as JACOBSWEG
My most recent travel book is
also something of a departure in that it explores a political
situation. Up till then I had managed to keep clear of politics. But
`LIKE WATER IN A DRY LAND’ was, in a
real sense, a debt of honour, something I felt I had to write.
It is about present day Palestine. It begins in Cyprus and continues through Lebanon, Syria and Jordan to finish in Jerusalem, and my main
motive was to discover what the peace moves in the Middle East at the
time of the Oslo Agreement were really adding up to. I certainly did
not find the predicted peace, and much of what I did see was deeply
disturbing. Nonetheless, the journey was rewarding and proved
as much of a surprise as all real journeys should. Reviewers have
been kind enough to write that the book sheds light on a difficult
and complicated scenario. LIKE WATER IN A DRY LAND is at present only
available directly from ourselves at Mountain
House Publications.
*
* *
My long distance bicycling days are now at an
end. Nothing lasts forever, at least physical strength and stamina do
not. But I consider myself very fortunate in having had two good
decades of such satisfying travel and adventure.
Anyone who
reads my books and is at all inspired by them, especially if they are
moved to set out independently and explore the planet for
themselves, I wish them well.
I would also like
to take the opportunity to introduce my two tabby cats, Sappho and
Dido, who have recently persuaded me to assist them in publishing
their first book. They are cats with decided literary
pretensions and, living as they do in a house with computers,
have become computer literate and highly articulate. To find
out more click on:-
Two
Cats Walking