Dervla Murphy
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Dervla Murphy (born November 28, 1931, County Waterford, Ireland) is a female touring cyclist and author of adventure travel books.
In the midst of a record-setting blizzard in 1963, Dervla Murphy packed a pistol aboard Roz, her Armstrong Cadet bicycle and accomplished her first international bicycle tour - a completely self-supported solo trip from Ireland to India. In Yugoslavia, she began keeping a journal instead of mailing letters home. That journal was later published as her first book Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle. In Full Tilt, she describes her adventures through Persia, Pakistan and Afghanistan. She particularly enjoyed Afghanistan and wrote lovingly of that country.
In the forty years since, she has bicycled through, and published numerous books on, Africa, the Balkans, Tibet, and Siberia. Generally travelling alone and unaided, she offers compelling insights into the cultures and the lives of the people she meets.
She famously (citation needed) avoids computers and wordprocessors for her writing, preferring instead to take a typewriter with her on her travels. In an interview (citation needed) she mentions that she hates gadgetry and "convenience technology", and mentions that she still does all her washing in the bath rather than using a washing machine; saying something along the lines of "It just seems better that way".
[edit] Publications
- Full Tilt: Ireland to India With a Bicycle, 1965.
- Tibetan Foothold, 1966.
- The Waiting Land: A Spell in Nepal, 1967.
- In Ethiopia with a Mule, 1968.
- On a Shoestring to Coorg: An Experience of South India, 1969.
- Where the Indus is Young: A Winter in Baltistan, 1977.
- A Place Apart, 1978.
- Wheels Within Wheels (autobiography), 1979.
- Race to the Finish? The Nuclear Stakes, 1982.
- Muddling through in Madagascar, 1985.
- Changing the Problem: Post-forum Reflections, 1985.
- Ireland, Orbis, 1985.
- Eight Feet in the Andes: Travels With a Mule in Unknown Peru, 1986.
- Tales From Two Cities: Travels of Another Sort, 1987.
- Cameroon With Egbert, 1990.
- Transylvania and Beyond, 1993.
- The Ukimwi Road: From Kenya to Zimbabwe, 1995.
- Visiting Rwanda, 1998.
- South From the Limpopo: Travels Through South Africa, 1999.
- One Foot in Laos, 2001
- Through the Embers of Chaos: Balkan Journeys, 2003.
- Through Siberia by Accident, 2005.
