News from Jupiter
From My Notebooks In 1975: Hair From An Elephant’s Tail
March 11, 2024
Early on my journey, when I was passing through Kenya I became friends, briefly (all my friendships were necessarily brief) with a man whose brother had married and gone to live in Australia. When he heard that Australia was on my route he asked me to take along two bracelets woven with the hair from an elephant’s tail. They were remarkable objects. The hair was […]
From My Notebooks in 1975: Rollingstone Creek
March 3, 2024
When I read what I’d written half a century ago, I found it so harsh that I almost skipped over this episode, but it’s a long time ago, things have changed and Australians reading this will know how much they’ve changed. You left me last week as we were recovering from a downpour in the night. Friday, December 26th At first the prospect seemed […]
From My Notebooks in 1975: Christmas in Oz
February 25, 2024
After that extraordinary interlude with the truckies the rest of Australia seemed rather dull at first. In fact the word “dull” crops up too often in my notes. But before I get into Christmas in Oz, here’s a picture that somehow got away last week. Tuesday 23rd December We rode on. Felt like making time. Doubtful weather. In Mackay looked for waterworks and Mr. Cooley’s […]
From My Notebooks in 1975: Horror Road to Sarina
February 18, 2024
Before we get down to the pleasures of Australia in the Seventies, I want to say something about Putin, in the light of what has just happened. Like most people, I suppose, I have found it hard to imagine a human being of evident intelligence, acceptable appearance and in comfortable circumstances (to say the least) . . . it is hard to imagine such a […]
From My Notebooks in 1975: Leaving Brisbane, Australia
February 11, 2024
G’day, everyone. How are you this Sunday morning? Perhaps like me you start the day looking for good news and not finding any. Us humans having pretty much obliterated one small country and decimated its population, and done a similar job on 20% of another, much larger country, it looks like the only survivors in the long run will be the cockroaches and the arms […]
From My Notebooks in 1975: Leaving Sydney, Australia
February 4, 2024
From the outset of my journey, I was very clear about several promises I made to myself. First: I would do it in one single, unhurried journey and then write a book about it. Second: It would be a complete journey, overland, uninterrupted, visiting as many countries as I could on the way round. Third: I would travel as frugally as possible in order […]
More Old News From Jupiter
January 28, 2024
Still following the story as it happened, my next stop had to be Australia. As idylls go, my idyllic time on the commune in Northern California lasted longer than most, but after almost four months I had to move on. The Sunday Times had engineered a free crossing of the Pacific for me and my bike on the P&O cruise liner SS Oriana. In return […]
The (Old) News from Jupiter
January 21, 2024
In July of 1975 I left Los Angeles with a fully functioning motorcycle (and the same silly paper air filter) and made my way to some new friends who lived south of San Francisco, and then, after a week or two, travelled North on Highway 101 to get to the commune that Bob and Annie had told me about. I lived on the commune for […]
Things On My Mind
January 14, 2024
Dear friends and virtual acquaintances, It would be nice to hear that you’ve had a wonderful few days or weeks of festive joy. I’ve certainly stretched my holiday out as long as I could, but I daren’t cut out any longer in case it becomes permanent. When you last heard from me I was writing about my arrival in Los Angeles, and if I were […]
The End Days of Triumph LA
December 17, 2023
This may well be the last bulletin from Jupiter in 2023, so here’s hoping you aren’t hiding in the ruins of Gaza or freezing in the trenches of Ukraine, and I can wish you a warm and happy Christmas holiday – whatever your religion, even if, like me, you don’t have one. At the end of last week’s piece I offered a ten-dollar […]