Category Archives: Books – Bus Travel

By Steve Walker

Take a Transit Minibus, a full-sized roof-rack loaded with camping equipment, 14 passengers, plus a driver armed with road maps of Europe, Asia and Africa and you have a phenomenon that was to be a character-forming and life-changing experience for a generation of travellers. That phenomenon was “overland”. For the first time, young people had an affordable way to travel in the relative safety of a group to what, for many, had previously been inaccessible, and possibly dangerous, places. Overland brought together larger-than-life characters, involved some epic journeys and created unforgettable memories. The late 60s and early 70s was a period of Woodstock, peace, love and flower power – and a feeling of freedom was in the air. The fruits of the post-war baby boom were discovering and celebrating this new-found freedom and the time was ripe for this travel phenomenon to take off.

This is a story of how a broken relationship and the urge to break out led the author, in his early twenties and raised on an Essex council estate in the 50s/60s, to take his first trip abroad as a passenger on an overland trip to Morocco in September 1969, (he admits to being so naïve at the time that he thought Morocco was somewhere in the South of France), encountering an individual who happened to be a master at concocting a cock-and-bull story which eventually landed him a job as an overland driver.

He suddenly found himself inducted into the University of Life, spending the next four years on a hectic, challenging and adventurous journey across three continents, travelling extensively through Europe, Asia, India and Africa; watching the sunrise over Mount Everest, driving overnight through winter blizzards in the Anatolian mountains of Eastern Turkey and waking in the Sahara just before dawn in a complete sound vacuum. Along the way, he met some amazing, interesting and colourful characters and made lifelong friendships – and went ten-pin bowling with the Prince of Afghanistan!

Tales From The Big Yellow: Unreliable Memoirs of a Tour Guide

by Simon Tobin

It’s the late 1970s and Simon Tobin knows he wants a life of adventure after he finishes college in England. But when he answers an ad in the paper to become a Tour Guide, he’s not sure what he’s getting into.

“Get your shit together, have a shave and a haircut, buy some clothes that don’t make you look like a stupid hippy,” his boss tells him after the training trip around Europe. “You take the first three-weeker leaving on Monday. Good luck, you’ve got potential. Don’t fuck up.’

Travelling in a coach painted with a big yellow sun across Europe, through Russia and down to North Africa until the early 80s, ‘Tobes’ survives both an earthquake in Montenegro and the traffic in Paris. He runs an Austrian ski resort and converts a chateau in the Beaujolais. He smuggles jeans in Russia, lunches (and lunches, and lunches…) in Tuscany and drinks tea at sunrise in the Moroccan desert.

Through it all, he makes friends – food-and-drink loving Italians, Austrian skiers, and a vast network of young, down-to-earth Aussie and Kiwi travelers and tour guides all with outlandish nicknames. Tobes’ life of adventure turns out to be above all, a life of friendship and fun, giving him more than a few ‘Big Yellow’ tales to tell.

by Neil Rawlins

In the late 1960s a young New Zealander, who had always known he would travel, first set out into the big wide wonderful world. His first journey was a voyage on the ‘banana’ boat which then regularly visited some of the smaller South Pacific Islands. It was the first step and the wider world beckoned. There was now no stopping him and the Asian Overland was the first magnet. At the time the route between Kathmandu and London was the ultimate adventure. Nepal was still a mysterious Himalayan kingdom at the end of the hippy trail, India and Pakistan were tolerating each other in an uneasy peace; Afghanistan was still a peaceful kingdom and Iran was under the tutelage of the Shah. It was a journey of discovery with a wealth of wonderful places to visit – great elaborate marble tombs, erotic temples, ancient ruins, underground cities, awe-inspiring cathedrals… Europe & particularly England was then the ideal venue for a working holiday, and for a kiwi who had never been near a farm, he soon had employment as a farm labourer! Other adventures followed – a visit to the Soviet Union, which, at the height of the Cold War, and mainly due to Western propaganda, was then thought to be a place to be avoided, after all you could disappear without trace into the maw of the KGB! There was grape-picking in France, and further travels in Spain, Morocco and throughout the United Kingdom before eventually the decision is made to return home, this time on another epic Overland journey – through Africa, travelling by truck to Nairobi then hitch-hiking south to Cape Town to catch a ship back to New Zealand. Again there were many the experiences. There was the vast fascinating expanses of the Sahara with wandering Tuaregs, the rainforests in the post-colonial Congo & the occasional glimpse of Pygmies, the game parks of Tanzania and the tranquil beaches of Portuguese Mozambique, then in the throes of a guerrilla war and of course much more.

This narrative has been compiled from diaries, personal articles, photographs and memories of the happy days of my first travels. This book is also serving as a background to another book which will recount my experiences as a tour leader on the Asian Overland routes to Europe and the later years as a special interest tour leader/guide in India, Turkey and the Middle East in the days before terrorism, international politics and vicious local wars have made many of these fascinating regions no-go areas to the average traveller. All the photographs in this edition were all taken at the time of the events narrated. The photos have helped me immensely in recalling many of the events that took place. This book is a cameo of the golden days of travel before international politics destroyed or restricted many of the places I feel fortunate to have visited in happier days. I know my sentiments are shared by many of my peers.

by Neil Rawlins

By the late 1970’s & early 1980s the classic Overland tours between London and Kathmandu, which had had their beginnings in the mid-1960s, were drawing to a close. The Soviets had occupied Afghanistan, the Shah of Iran had been deposed and an Islamic State established. In Iraq Saddam Hussain was about to embark on a devastating war with Iran and the seeds of unrest were lying latent in Syria. This was the scenario when the author embarked upon his career as a tour guide on the Overland routes across Asia to Kathmandu. This book is a continuation of the author’s previous Kindle book – One Foot in Front of the Other – First Steps, which recounts his experiences travelling the Overland routes in Asia, Europe and in Africa in the halcyon days of the early ’70s.

After 3 years back in New Zealand & a year working on a uranium exploratory drilling-rig in Wyoming, the author completed a training trip with Sundowners in Europe then, as a rooky tour leader headed to Istanbul with coach & driver to collect clients flying in from Kabul before setting off for the Middle East. It was a memorable trip and a precursor for further tours and the Overland routes to and from Kathmandu.For the next 3 years there were the ups and downs of political vagaries to content with, the frustration of border crossing and the sudden introduction of visa requirements. There were happy times and sad times although the happy times always outweighed the sad.
Moving on to Explore Worldwide, the author became involved in operating Camel safaris across the Thar Desert in Rajasthan, leading tours to Kashmir and Ladakh, to Darjeeling and Sikkim as well as Turkey, Jordan and Tunisia.
This book documents the highs & lows of tour leading: the funny incidents and the, not-so-frequent sad episodes. The frustrations dealing some passengers and with bureaucracy on borders, at embassies and elsewhere. But also an insight into the information a tour leader/guide was expected to impart on the places visited.

by Gerald Davis

In the late 1970s, adventure bus journeys were the most exciting form of international travel. Buses crossed continents to the fabled cities of Asia, Europe, Africa and South America, carrying adventurous travellers across scenic lands and harsh deserts. Many of the passengers were Australians and New Zealanders, going to and from Britain and Europe.

Tours lasted weeks and months and crossed borders freely – until they were blocked by unrest and warfare in the late 1970s, and the golden age of overland travel came to an abrupt end.

Faraway Places with Strange Sounding Names brings this magical era back to life, thanks to Gerald Davis’s determined efforts to gather people’s stories, photos, maps and mementos.

His book tells the story of the leading operator at the time, the Penn Overland Company, which pioneered the Asian and African overland travel routes in the 1950s, and spread to five continents and 50 countries, taking people on the journey of a lifetime.

This book is a window into that time, and for the thousands who travelled, a chance to relive their journeys. Drawing on memories and mementos of former Penn staff and passengers the world over, Gerald Davis has saved the story from disappearance, and told it in this evocative book.