Travel History

I embarked on my first overseas trip in 1982 and over the last 30 years I’ve travelled in over 80 countries. I’m drawn to those places which have rich indigenous cultures and wild and remote landscapes, particularly mountain environments. I usually travel rough and try to explore off the beaten track. In the 1980’s and 1990’s I spent almost 7 years on the road, backpacking on six continents and trekking in wild terrain. Since a climbing accident in 2001, I’ve rediscovered the joys of cycling and now all my expeditions are by bicycle - or ‘rough road touring’ as I like to call it.

Travel - the Incurable Disease

It’s often difficult to describe wanderlust and the incessant desire to travel to unknown territories. I think the Polish traveller/correspondent Ryszard Kapuscinski summed it up perfectly in Travels with Herodotus (2007) –

“A journey, after all, neither begins in the instant we set out, nor ends when we have reached our doorstep once again. It starts much earlier and is really never over, because the film of memory continues running on inside of us long after we have come to a physical standstill. Indeed, there exists something like a contagion of travel, and the disease is essentially incurable”.


Here are some photo from the road (Jude took photos # 1,2,4,6&7 - stern copyright orders).

On  a boat trip in the Riau archipelago, Singkep Is, Indonesia 1991

Hiking in the Marojezy NP, Madagascar 1990

River walking in Hidaka Mts, Hokkaido, Japan

On the Star ferry, Hong Kong, 1990

Hiking in Cordillera Huayhuash, Peru 2008

Laguna Torre & Cerro Torre, Los Glaciares NP, Argentina

In the Labyrinth, Tasmania. Mt. Geryon is in the background.
I had a climbing accident on the peak to the left in 2000.

Return to the Karakoram

Here are some photos when I trekked for 3 months in the Karakoram in 1988.

Camping out on the Deosai Plateau, spring wildflowers carpeting the meadows. This area was only opened to foreign travellers in that year.

Being 'escorted' by Pakistani soldiers, after my failed attempt to get onto the disputed Siachen Glacier. Naughty boy!

At Masherbraum Base camp in my Ulimate tent

On the Gondogorah Glacier before the climb to Gondogorah Peak.