Shaun Donovan (Taffy's Travels')
After successfully completing his 12,000 mile bus ride around America, Shaun Donovan now embarks on his latest and greatest challenge - to circumnavigate the coastline of Australia, again by bus, but also to ride the famous 'Indian Pacific' and 'Ghan' trains from west to east and south to north of this vast continent - A 20,000 kilometre journey which must be completed in less than 50 days.
In a compelling story of determination, desperation and in some cases deprivation, read how Shaun and his fiancée, Sally are roasted alive in sizzling heat and stifling humidity, get drowned-out in tropical storms and flash-flooding and survive an onslaught of electrifying lightning bolts, devastating cyclones and bone-shaking earthquakes before their journey is finally at an end.
Add to this a lethal concoction of shark, stingray, and snake attacks they stumble upon during their trip and mix it up with crocodile, box jelly-fish, blue-ringed octopus and deadly stone-fish encounters and you've got yourself one hell of a story-line to tell.
Like his American voyage of discovery, many things were learned and achieved, but there was also despair as his dreams of scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef and visiting Ayres Rock were shattered due to weather conditions and personal circumstances, both of which he swears will be done on his return to one of the most diverse and exciting continents on the planet.
For more information please go to www.taffys-travels.com
Shaun Donovan was born in Cardiff, South Wales, on 9th August1959. The son of a carpenter, he joined his father in the building trade after leaving school at the age of 16, but was soon disillusioned and so changed careers, working first as an office clerk, before moving into the lucrative world of sales and marketing.
Being a keen motor-cyclist and also a travel enthusiast, he spent several holidays riding his bike around Europe and North Africa, spanning a distance of 10,000 miles and visiting 13 countries and several islands between 1981 and 1983.
In 1984, he married and became the father of three children, but after being made redundant in 1990 due to the recession, his marriage collapsed the following year.
After reading the best-selling paperback ‘Jupiter’s Travels´ by Ted Simon, Shaun transposed the book into a movie called ‘Freedom Run’ and spent a week with Ted at his home in California, where after lengthy discussions, they decided on promoting the idea to film and television companies on both sides of the Atlantic.
Because of the cost involved the BBC suggested a 6-part documentary series for television called “Steps of Jupiter – 20 years on” in which Shaun would re-create the journey himself and Ted would meet him at strategic points along the way, but unfortunately sponsorship was not forthcoming and so the project collapsed.
In 1998 Shaun moved to Tenerife and in 2000 he took his 3 children around America, into Canada and across to the Bahamas – just as he had promised them he would do when he had left them in the U.K. two years earlier.
In 2001 Shaun met Sally on the island and in 2007 they took off on another great bus ride – only this time around Australia.
With my pulse now back to normal, I made it the rest of the way without incident and apart from having to chase after my piece of paper, (containing the required telephone number), half-way down the street in the wind, I made my call and began my return back to our room. No sooner had I started my walk than this King Kong of doggies appeared again, only this time he is bounding towards me at a fast pace and will either stop and eat me - or flatten me in his wake - neither of which sounds appealing! Across the road I can see a group of lads climbing out of a parked camper-van, but they are too far away to save me and so I just stand still, like a frozen statue and wait for the inevitable to happen.
One of the lads calls out to me - or so I initially thought, until my assassin suddenly re-directed his route and went tearing across the road into the arms of his obvious owner, both of them simultaneously hugging and kissing/ licking each other like they were long-lost friends. It was time to get back to the safety of our room, our brick-built sanctuary where no-one, or nothing would be able to harm or even bother us. Sally was sat up in bed watching television when I arrived and soon afterwards I joined her, both of us hoping to fall asleep before ten o'clock, thus allowing us at least a few hours’ kip before the alarm would be waking us in the early hours of tomorrow morning.
Telling her of my escapades we both laughed in unison, then jokingly I pointed the index finger on my right hand to the ceiling and uttered the following 'immortal' words:- "There you are God; we've survived everything you've thrown at us. Cyclones, lightning bolts, floods and even carnivorous creatures - there must be nothing left you can do that's going to stop us finishing what we started - okay! – oh, by the way, please don't let the bus break down tomorrow!"
Sally was asleep long before me, as I saw eleven o'clock come and go on my watch, before finally dozing-off for a possible five-hour snooze, but to say we would both be in for a rude awakening would be an understatement! Our pleasant dreams were suddenly interrupted by an almighty bang, just as if something had exploded outside the building. This was immediately followed by a massive rumbling sound and vibrations all around us as the walls shook - all four of them trembling worse than I had done a few hours earlier. Then it stopped and all was silent, but only for a split second, as a second wave of violent shaking occurred - including Sally and me, who were by now holding each-other tightly in the middle of the bed, both in a state of shock and having several panic attacks as to what the hell was going on? Looking up at the ceiling, I shouted "Sorry God, I was only joking earlier!" At that precise moment it all stopped and the house was still.
