Adventurers are a breed apart. Mere mortals regard their extreme activities with awe and amazement. Why do they put themselves through such hardship and pain, facing needless risk and injury?

"Because it's there" is the simple time-worn answer provided by one of their breed quoted in The Wandering Pilgrim. But this thrilling selection of one man's sixty years of travels does much more than that - it takes us into some of the world's wildest and most remote places.

Culled from diaries written during his journeys, John Dunlop's detailed accounts of his adventures provide a unique insight into the hows and whys of those who venture far from the beaten track.

It is a heady mix of exhilaration, joy, injury and illness. The challenges presented by fearsome weather, impenetrable terrain, dehydration and hunger are presented clearly and unadorned. So too is the sheer delight of the journey and the discovery of new horizons.

It is an explanation amply and extensively delivered by John Dunlop as he describes an enticing selection.

The Wandering Pilgrim focuses on some forty years of alpine mountaineering, including four Himalayan expeditions and mountain climbs in New Zealand.

A thrilling read for armchair travellers written by a. quintessential wanderer, adventurer and sometime alpinist who now lives in a solar powered pole house in the tropical rainforest of far north Queensland.