In August 1975, Michael Murphy left his home in Stevenage determined to travel around the world by bicycle. Over the next two years, he was robbed by Yugoslavian peasants, stoned by Afghani tribesmen, and nearly frozen to death in a Mongolian snowstorm.

‘Maybe I’m crazy,’ he told a journalist from his hospital bed in Shanghai, ‘but since I was a child, I have always wanted to see the world. Of course I could have travelled by plane but this seemed more exciting. I only hope that I don’t have any more problems.’ Murphy restarted his travels in China and arrived in South America exactly a year after leaving Britain. He stayed in Chile for a few weeks and continued cycling through Argentina, Brazil and Central America. He reached North America in time for Christmas.

He celebrated the new year by cycling up the east coast into Canada, before he finally returned to London Heathrow Airport in April 1977. He had travelled 25,000 miles and all he had to do to finish his journey was ride the last forty miles home to Stevenage ...

Unfortunately his bicycle got crushed while it was unloaded from the plane. Murphy, broke and broken, had to hitch-hike home in a car.

Excerpts from Opportunities. Powerbook. Longman.