BOOKS
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A Bike Ride sounds like a short trip to the shops, but it is in fact an account of Anne's first cycle-ride around the world. It answers all the questions.....Why?.....When?.....How?... before going on to Where? It deals with the agonies of indecision, the preparations, the route-planning, the packing, the budgeting, all the doubts and problems of a wavering, unfit non-cyclist, embarking on a global ride.
Not being sporty, Anne needed an extra dimension to her travels, to keep her going. So she followed historical routes - the Roman road network across Europe, Greece to the Indus Valley with Alexander the Great, Pakistan and India with the Moghuls and the British Raj, Thailand, Malaysia to Singapore (the British Raj again) and those great pioneer trails, the California and Oregon, across the U.S.A. from San Francisco to New York, where she pedalled proudly up Broadway.
Undeterred by downpours, blistering heat, political turmoil, kidnappers and amorous waiters, Anne cycled across mountains and deserts, meeting with great kindness and hospitality wherever she went. Told with humour, keen observation and delight in every chance encounter, it is a story of self-discovery as much as a ride round the world.
Buy
'A Bike Ride' from Amazon.co.uk
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Lone Traveller is based on Anne's second ride round the world. Taking historical routes as her inspiration again, she followed the Roman roads from Rome to Lisbon, travelled across South America with the Conquistadors, chased Captain Cook over the Pacific to Australia and Indonesia and ended with the caravans along the fabled Silk Road from China back to Rome. On the way, she dealt with wild dogs, rats in the bedroom, arrest by the Chinese police and the threat of guerilla attacks.
The central chapters give a detailed day-to-day account of the four most challenging sections of the journey - the Australian Outback, the Gobi Desert, the Karakoram Highway and the voyage up the navigable length of the Amazon in small cargo boats. A useful appendix gives journey logs, with distances covered and overnight stops for remote stretches of road.
In the other chapters, Anne tries to make sense of the mass of incidents, problems, people and predicaments by grouping them together under subject headings such as Solitude, Company, Men and Other Animals, and Lessons learned.
It is a practical handbook, full of encouragement for all those people
who would love to go on a great adventure, but teeter on the brink, full
of self-doubt. Anne's advice is "Go for it!"
Buy
'Lone Traveller' from Amazon.co.uk
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Anne spent five winters on the Indian subcontinent, riding down from the mountains of Nepal through the heart of India to the highlands of Sri Lanka.
"I could have covered the distance in far less time," she writes in her introduction, "had I rushed about in cars and trains. But I chose my favourite means of transport, my well-travelled bicycle, because I value the insights that a bicycle brings ........ Everyone talks to a cyclist, especially in India, where the bicycle is the most common form of transport. Sharing the road, we somehow share a fellow-feeling that transcends barriers of race and wealth. My bicycle takes me through the countryside and brings me into contact with village people and their customs in a way which would not be possible if I swept through on four wheels; I find out much more and have more time to think about it as I wheel my peaceful way along country roads. For poking around, meeting people and learning the inside story, there is no introduction quite so effective as the modest bicycle."
The book is a catamaran because it is really two books in one - a book within a book. Its inspiration is the great Indian epic, The Ramayana.
Sita, the beautiful wife of Prince Rama, is abducted by Ravana, a demon king with ten heads, twenty arms, teeth like young moons and copper-coloured eyes. With the help of his devoted brother, Lakshmana, and one of India's most popular gods, the magical monkey-god, Hanuman, Rama tracks Sita down to Ravana's lair in Sri Lanka and kills the demon in single-handed combat. A stirring tale of the triumph of Good over Evil, it is India's favourite story.
Anne follows the wanderings of these heroic characters. Each short incident from The Ramayana is followed by a much longer account of Anne's own travels across the same landscape. The two accounts are printed in different typefaces, so that the epic can be read as one continuous adventure story, or omitted altogether, depending on the taste and interests of the reader.
It is Anne's most ambitious book to date, an exploration of India in
all its cultural and spiritual diversity, as well as a sympathetic look
at the funny side of life in that fascinating, complex, irritating, teeming,
breathtakingly beautiful land.
Buy
'Two Wheels in the Dust' from Amazon.co.uk
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One blustery April morning, Anne set off from Cleopatra’s Needle on the Thames Embankment to cycle to Heliopolis, the Needle’s original location in Egypt. And as the Needle came to London by water, she followed water - rivers, canals and sea coasts - all the way to the Valley of the Nile. It was an idyllic route, a gentle meander through rural France, along the Seine, the Burgundy Canal and the Rhone into Switzerland, through the great Renaissance cities of North Italy, across the Venetian Lagoon and round the dazzling shores of the Mediterranean. She even managed to cross the Alps without straying from mountain streams!
It was the sort of journey everyone dreams of making. Compared with Anne’s other rides, it should have been a doddle. Summer weather, wonderful scenery and no problems with food, accommodation or weird customs. But just about everything that could go wrong, went wrong - storms, floods, heatwaves, robbery, injuries, and the fright of finding herself in a jittery Muslim country on 11 September. There were so many misfortunes, both major and minor, that it almost turned into a comedy.
The book has two heroines: Cleopatra, the queen of a magnificent empire, and Anne’s constant companion, water. As she pedalled through floods and quagmires, there was often more of the second than she had bargained for - water above and below her, as well as alongside! But the fascinating story of her first heroine kept the wheels turning through sun-baked Greece and the ports of the Mediterranean, where Cleopatra acted out the drama of her short life and doomed love. Despite some seriously uncomfortable moments, Anne still rates it a fantastic ride. Ever the optimist, she might even make it again one day and hope for better weather!
Buy
'Cleopatra's Needle' from Amazon.co.uk
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The British winter. Icy winds, pouring rain, leaves on the line, cancelled trains, “the wrong kind of snow.” Since she gave up full-time employment in 1987, Anne has escaped all these miseries by spending every winter abroad, sometimes riding her bicycle and sometimes just sitting happily in the sun.
“Wintering abroad” used to be the preserve of the seriously rich. But in these days of cheap flights and economy packages, anyone who is free from the 9 - 5 can spend the worst months of the year in a glorious location, and even save money in the process. And it is not simply the young and the old who can benefit. With a lap top and a mobile phone, many businesses can be run just as easily from a beach bungalow in Goa. So why shiver at home?
Most people dream of a place of their own in the sun, a fashion fuelled by the spate of books and TV programmes about buying and renovating properties abroad. But the capital outlay is daunting and the problems huge. Anne’s book is based on the far simpler risk-free, hassle-free option of spending the winter months in a comfortable hotel.
Drawing on her own travels and her practical experience as an independent travel agent, Anne has put together a comprehensive, down-to-earth guide. In Part I, she covers everything you need to know about planning your winter escape. There are useful check-lists to ensure the right accommodation at the right price, advice on financial and legal matters, the pros and cons of letting your home, insurance, health, packing for a long stay, getting around, making new friends, keeping in touch with home and generally making the most of the opportunities on offer. In Part II she gives essential information on a number of recommended destinations, ranging from the well-known resorts of the Mediterranean coast to far-away Australia and California, with a few more exotic locations for the brave, such as Brazil, Goa and Thailand. There is also a very useful section on cruises, which takes in budget cargo ships and tramp steamers, as well as the luxury Cunards; and a section on long-haul overland journeys.
If the thought of another British winter fills you with dread, this
is the book for you.
Buy
'Escaping The Winter' from Amazon.co.uk
By her usual standards, these are three short, easy rides, the longest a mere 2,000
miles, but they are all journeys rich in history, made through spectacular landscapes and cities. Amber
is the oldest jewel known to man, prized for its magical and medicinal powers as well as its beauty. The
Santa Fe Trail is part of the legend of the Old West, of gold prospecting and the trade in furs. In
mediaeval times the journey to the shrine at Santiago de Compostela was known as "taking the cockle," and
the cockleshell of St. James is still carried by today's pilgrims to the site.
Battling against ferocious winds in Jutland, blizzards in the Rockies, traffic-jams
of cyclists along the Danube and menus in Czech, Hungarian and Basque, Mustoe survives with her usual fortitude
and wry humour, even when she is knocked off her bike by a short-sighted nonagenarian in a Fiat Panda. |
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Buy
'Amber Furs and Cockleshells' from Amazon.co.uk
Che Guevara and the Mountain of SilverHer previous global expeditions have certainly earned her intrepidness stripes, but enjoyably her tone is still that of Enthusiastic Brit Abroad as she explores a varied, tempestuous and vital continent.
The Observer
In this multi-faceted adventure, Anne sets out from Buenos Aires and cycles in the wheel-tracks of the aristocratic Argentine, Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, and his friend, Alberto Granado, on their ramshackle 500cc. Norton. Battling against the notorious Patagonian winds and crossing the Andes by the magical Three Lakes Route, she follows the high-spirited pair into Southern Chile and travels north with them to the scene of Ernesto's political awakening at the copper mines of Chuquicamata. There he takes the first steps in his conversion from carefree medical student to the revolutionary icon, Che Guevara.
While Che and Alberto travel on to Peru, to the leper colonies of the Amazon Basin, Anne swaps her bike for the train and rides the great Nineteenth Century British-built Antofagasta to Bolivia Railway (FCAB), which snakes its way up in an amazing series of twists and turns from sea level to 3,665m (12,024 ft) and crosses the glittering expanse of the world's largest Salt Lakes. She explores the Mountain of Silver, Potosi's fabulous Cerro Rico, once the major source of the Conquistadors' wealth, before riding the Spanish Silver Road from the Bolivian Altiplano back to the port of Buenos Aires.
Anne's captivating story is steeped in the history, politics and breathtaking scenery of this potentially wealthy continent, and the rich variety of people she meets along the way.
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