Hit the Road, Jac!

by Jacqui Furneaux, Jacqui Furneaux (Illustrator)

Overview

Jacqui Furneaux takes you riding for 7 years around the world, on a Royal Enfield Bullet which she bought in India. The front cover makes it clear that this is a story with no journey plan, and how excellent is that - few deadlines, and lots of taking advantage of opportunities. The story has romance, landscapes, riding, culture, sounds and smells, fear, frustration, humour, people and she is a repeat offender with something that I think is vital. The times of joy sing at you! As for the fear, she describes these moments in such a way that you can almost feel the hair rising on your arms. People? Her descriptions are show a wonderful reality of the world. As for the sounds and the smells, it's almost as if she has captured them in this book, and releases them as you turn the pages.

Follow her travels across the globe from the UK to India to Southeast Asia to Australia and New Zealand to South America to Central America and Mexico and home.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940162151715
Publisher:	Lost Classics Book Company dba Road Dog Publicatio
Publication date:	06/08/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Seven years, twenty countries, no plan.
How it started . . . 

In 1998, after bringing up a family and enjoying a lifetime career as a nurse and health visitor in the UK, I set out on a year’s journey, on my own for the first time ever, having always been someone’s daughter, little sister, or wife. I started backpacking in Thailand and explored many South East Asian countries armed only with wide-open eyes and a guide book. Six months into the trip and feeling quite the adventurous explorer, I went to Pakistan and then to Rajasthan, India, where I met a Dutchman who was travelling on an Enfield Bullet motorbike. He fired my imagination with tales of the open road.

I returned to the UK, but I found it hard to settle down, as I really liked travelling, and although at my age I really should have known better, I set off again, this time combining my love of travel with my other passion . . . motorcycling. I’d owned various Japanese motorbikes over the years since passing my test at the age of twenty-four but had never had an Enfield!

Exchanging guide books for road maps, for my fiftieth birthday I bought a brand new 500cc Enfield Bullet in India and rode it, initially alongside the Dutchman who had suggested the idea. He was seventeen years younger than me, and I thought the adventure might last six months, at most. None of it was planned. I would not have dreamed I’d be having this chance of a lifetime when I should have been saving for my retirement. But life’s too short not to take a chance.

Editorial Reviews

Told with understated, matter-of-fact candour, Jacqui's heart-warming story is one of self-discovery at a time when the world is in flux just as much as she is.

Overland Magazine - Nich Brown

Jacqui certainly knows a thing or two about pushing boundaries having spent seven years circumnavigating the globe by motorcycle, something, she adds, that was partly inspired by her elderly mother who told her, "Do my travelling for me."

Verve Magazine - Jamie Desplaces