Books

 

TIMELESS ON THE SILK ROAD

An Odyssey From London To Hanoi

244 pages. Published by Phonte, April 2019

ISBN: 9780648496908

An extraordinary journey. Astounding, inspiring – a testament to the human spirit.

'It's more than just a long motorcycle trip...' Tony Wheeler, author, travel writer, co-founder of Lonely Planet

After riding her motorcycle across Africa, Heather Ellis rides the fabled Silk Roads of antiquity from London to Hanoi. What unfolds is a journey of courage, hardship and immense natural beauty as she rides through Central Asia to Australia.

Believing this is her last adventure, her one last search for meaning, Heather’s journey ultimately becomes one of destiny. Infused with a deep spiritual power, it is also a story that leaves the reader considering their own ‘time less’ journey called life.

Heather travels into Central Asia after the fall of the Soviet Union where she crosses deserts and is touched by the ancient world of Islam. She rides into the land of the heavenly mountains and discovers the ancient traditions of the nomads. She ventures into the vastness of Siberia’s Altai Mountains where she is welcomed into the homes of Kazakhs and Russians alike. And in China, she is repeatedly told there will soon be a new world order.

Timeless On The Silk Road is the story of what happens next when Heather is diagnosed with HIV in London. She is thirty years old and is given five years to live. It is 1995 when death from AIDS is inevitable.

Timeless On The Silk Road is Heather’s eagerly anticipated second book and follows Ubuntu: One Woman’s Motorcycle Odyssey Across Africa (Nero, Black Inc. 2016).

$30 (inc. postage Australia)

Please advise name for signing if the book is a gift. Email: h.ellis (at) bigpond.com

Buy a signed copy of Timeless On The Silk Road for A$30 (inc. postage). Please email: h.ellis (at) bigpond.com for international postage.

 

 

 

 

UBUNTU: One Woman's Motorcycle Odyssey Across Africa

370 pages. Published by Nero (Black Inc. Books) April 2016

ISBN: 9781863958202

As you travel Africa, you will find the way of ubuntu – the universal bond that connects all of humanity as one.

At the age of twenty-eight, while sitting in a friend’s backyard in the remote mining township of Jabiru, Heather Ellis has a light-bulb moment: she is going to ride a motorcycle across Africa. The idea just feels right – no matter that she’s never done any long-distance motorcycle travelling before, and has never even set foot on the African continent. Twelve months later, Heather unloads her Yamaha TT600 at the docks in Durban, South Africa, and her adventure begins.

Her travels take her to the dizzying heights of Mt Kilimanjaro and the Rwenzori Mountains, to the deserts of northern Kenya where she is befriended by armed bandits and rescued by Turkana fishermen, to a stand-off with four Ugandan men intent on harm, and to a voyage on a ‘floating village’ on the mighty Zaire River. Everywhere she goes Heather is aided by locals and travellers alike, who take her into their homes and hearts, helping her to truly understand the spirit of ubuntu – ‘I am because we are’.

Ubuntu is the extraordinary story of a young woman who, alone and against all odds, rode a motorcycle to some of the world’s most remote, beautiful and dangerous places.

Heather Ellis has worked as a radiation safety technician, a motorcycle courier, a journalist for News Ltd. and in communications for an NGO. She lives near Melbourne with her three children, and is currently writing the sequel to Ubuntu while working as a freelance journalist and professional speaker. And she still rides motorcycles.

 

'As my journey progressed, the many coincidences which I grew to accept as being a natural occurrence of each day, only fed my positive attitude. No harm ever came to me and so I did not expect it to. My intuition, no longer being constrained by conformity, was allowed to develop. I learnt to trust in it, and it showed me that I only need to believe and it will happen.'

$30 (inc. postage)

Please advise name for signing if the book is a gift. Email: h.ellis (at) bigpond.com

Buy a signed copy of Ubuntu for A$30 (inc. postage to Australia). Please email: h.ellis (at) bigpond.com for international postage.

 

WATCH THE BOOK LAUNCH FOR UBUNTU