Sunday 20 October 2013

Discovery Road - Book Review


I have just finished Discovery Road and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is very much in the same vein as Why Don't You Fly and the excellent Thunder & Sunshine / Moods of future joys. The difference being that this is written by two guys (three of them started the trip) and the real joy is that they seemed to enjoy it and really took the adventurous nature of it in.

The challenge was to cycle across three continents unaided and therefore cycle around the world. They may not have ridden unaided but they didn't camp out in the open quite as often as Alistair in Thunder and Sunshine but that's just sensible isn't it. I guess I could relate to these guys a lot more (if you can relate to someone who gives up work and cycles around the world). Even when there was a lot of conflict during the the first stretch as they cycled across Australia with one of their ex-girlfriends (when did they ever think that was a good idea) they still portrayed a sense of adventure and enjoyment to the reader. There was humour throughout the book and they found joy in so many different situations. It's a big book (it took them each 6 months to write it) yet I still didn't want it to end. It was like a Team Pannier coast to coast to trip amplified by one million times.

I recommend you read this if you like travel and cycling, it's a corking read to dream to...