As a young man, brought up in Belfast during the Troubles, I wanted to ride a motorcycle to Australia. But the Iranian revolution closed the road east.
Plans in tatters, I spent the next two years going from one frenzied life adventure to the next.
I blasted through Europe, to Israel which was a dead end. Then detoured through Syria and Jordan, a 21-year-old’s worst nightmare, being held up by soldiers wielding machine guns homosexual custom officers.
I made my way to Egypt still trying to get to Australia. I rode across the Sahara, and through the forests of Sudan, dodging Idi Amin in Uganda and civil war in Zimbabwe— Rhodesia, to South Africa. Which was still in the throes of apartheid.
From Cape Town, I bluffed my way onto an International Ocean yacht race back to Rotterdam, during which we had to save ourselves when our rudder broke.
I shipped the bike to Los Angeles, where I travelled around the USA with Hells Angels and enjoyed the excesses of the American dream.
Then, made my way through the Central American banana republics of Nicaragua, and Guatemala, to South America.
I contracted Hepatitis, ran out of money in Bolivia but struggled over the Andes to Argentina and Brazil.
The book is not about motorcycling, but more of a coming of age story, revealing how the stresses and strains of travelling on a shoestring affected a young man’s personality.
