GATHERING NO MOSS

John Holland

It's not everyday a 50-something corporate executive throws in his job, picks up a backpack and becomes a global wanderer.

It is even rarer that he heads for Bangladesh (where his tiny wooden canoe collides with a thousand tonne steel barge), Yemen (finding himself in an Arab brothel while searching for a cold beer with lunch) and Peru (having his shoelaces chewed by guinea pigs while he eats the rodents’ brothers and sisters).

John Holland brings you into a world where you will actually smell the perspiration soaked clothes while walking the Kokoda Track, laugh at George the cantankerous truck radiator which repeatedly strands travellers in Angola, and wonder at Phil, a left-over of the 1970s’ London beatnik scene still proclaiming “peace, man” while puffing Malawi Wawi in the middle of Africa.

Gathering No Moss is real life on the road: often humorous, sometimes life-threatening, always fascinating. Each chapter will leave you looking for the next adventure.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Holland was born to travel. When most boys think of becoming firemen, lawyers, football players or train drivers, all John wanted to do was see the world. While growing up in a small town in country Australia, he could not wait to leave home and go overseas.

Work got in the way occasionally, first as a daily newspaper journalist in Melbourne. But at the age of 23, with his wife he undertook his first major trip: 12 months through Asia and Europe, followed a couple of years later by six months around Africa.

For many years he was able to combine work with his love for travel as a senior corporate executive and expat stationed in Singapore, the USA and Hong Kong.

Annual holidays were taken to far-flung destinations such Sri Lanka, Malta, Borneo, Burma, Canada and Panama until a few years ago when he decided to resign from his job in Singapore and resume life as a global wanderer.

John is married and has two sons, both of whom also enjoy backpacking around the globe. When in Australia he lives in Melbourne.