LOST ON EARTH.

A few weeks ago I promised Steve that when I finished reading his book I would whore it out in ode to its brilliance. Steve suggested that I just pass it on to its next reader, but I prefer to be a hooker of 21st Century non-fiction literature.

Steve Crombie is a futuristic adventurer. There are no plumes of feathers protruding out of a velveteen hat, no sign of a khaki clad body and not a pair of brass binoculars in hand; it’s just Steve and his motorbike.

LOST ON EARTH is his personal account of his epic 90,000km ride from Australia to the Arctic Circle. The journey takes him 2 years and within those 2 years he suffers from dehydration, starvation, disease and rebuilds his beloved motorbike ‘Wolverine’ 5 times over. At the beginning of his journey he declares to himself that the only way he is going home is by bike or by box.

Throughout the book, Steve has the ability to absorb you into his ride and when you can actually pull yourself away from it, you’re left with a zest that makes you want to bury your head back in the pages and carry on along with his adventure. About three quarters of the way through, Steve asked me if I’d finished reading it yet and I anxiously replied that I didn’t want to finish the book because then the adventure would be over, he cheerily answered “YOU CAN JUST READ IT ALL OVER AGAIN MILLS!!”, true, so I continued on.

There’s one particular passage in the book which I adore, where he meets a particularly extraordinary man who passes on these words to him ‘...Why stop? Whatever makes you happy. All your long and lonely days on the road are going to teach you more about life than any university. There’s no reason to feel guilty doing something you love. The best way to learn how or why you’re doing something is by actually doing it. You might not know what you’re working towards yet, but these experiences will shape your life. You might struggle at first, but eventually you’ll get the hang of it. You’ll work it out. Use your imagination to feed your hunger if you can’t afford it – and when the time’s right again, hit the road. But don’t rush; you’ve got a whole lifetime ahead of you’. From riding past delicious sunflower fields speckled in golden sunshine to resorting to licking bugs off the front guard of his bike to sustain his starving stomach to interacting with peculiar and beautiful characters along the road. His journey is saturated with epic highs and lows which ultimately become the fuel to light Steve’s thirst to continue.

My Dad picked up the book, mentally and emotionally devouring it within two days and is still rambling on to anybody who will listen as if it were he himself that rode 90,000km on a motorbike. Even if you aren’t the adventuring kind, this book makes it possible for you to experience the life of a man who dreamt of something and threw himself out into the world to pursue and live it. Maybe in turn rousing you to take your own steps towards that dream [whatever it may be] that’s always lingered in the back of your mind. Or maybe you can be refreshed by the fact that there are still adventurers in this world, which continue to chase the horizon and who relish in the calm and chaos of this amazing world.

Or maybe you should just read LOST ON EARTH because I’m a damn fine literary hooker. Either ways read LOST ON EARTH and remember that ‘Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all’.


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