A Boys Own Adventure riding a motorbike through Africa – so says the byline.

When Jonny Bealby set out on his African Odyssey by motorcycle he was already an experienced motorcycle traveller. I tell you that because he was not someone looking for their first real motorcycle adventure but rather an ordinary chap who had been to a few places around the world on a motorcycle already and this trip to Africa was to help dispel a particular demon in his personal life that he was having trouble dealing with, namely the early death of his fiancee whilst they were travelling in Kashmir a couple of years before.

Jonny decided he wanted the journey to challenge him as much as anything to try and cast off the shadow that had blighted his life as a result of this personal tragedy, but he also had no desire for the journey to be easy.

Aside from anything else this trip is not your typical North to South of Africa, challenging though that certainly is, Jonny also decided to return up the East side of Africa. in addition riding a Yamaha Tenere for Jonny meant that a trip to and across the Tenere desert – a desert so remote and life threatening that only guided parties are permitted – was an essential challenge.

The journey certainly did provide challenges not least of which an accident right at the start of the trip which threatened its continuation. But determined not to drop back into the depths of despair that had dogged him for so long, Jonny carried on.

All through the book there are recollections of the fateful trip with Melanie and they certainly bring an understanding of why this journey needed to be a challenge, a cleansing and moving forward, if you will.

One of the things I really liked about the journey Jonny took was that he never took the easy option. If he could take a route that would provide him with new adventure and experiences such as not hooking up with other overlanders at regular stopping points then he would, instead seeking out alternate routes.

This resulted in some very interesting places where he stayed the night and also the friendship with a hotel receptionist, who later became much more significant in his life, as well as exciting illegal border crossings and heart stopping moments where discovery was only a breath away.

Jonny comes across in the book as a bloke that people seem to easily relate to and his story telling of the people he meets and the journey as a whole are told in a way that make the whole book very enjoyable indeed and I can certainly recommend it to you.

There is a happy ending to the story but you will have to read the book to find out what that is.