Errant Magazine - The Wandering Witness

'The legend of Dervla Murphy generally begins in December 1941, her tenth birthday, when she received a bicycle and an atlas. She fell in love with both and, looking out from a hill near her home in Lismore, Ireland, she decided to cycle to India. Twenty-one years later, she set out for Delhi—cycling through France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan and Pakistan—alone but for her bike and a pistol. The notes she took during this journey were turned into Full Tilt, a wonderful book that won her well-deserved recognition as one of the best travel writers of her generation. Many more books followed. About Tibet, Nepal, and trekking through Ethiopia with a mule. Then, after her daughter Rachel was old enough (5 years old, to be exact), she continued her work with a couple books about their travels in India.

But I would argue that the true legend of Dervla Murphy began in 1978 . . .

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