South from the Limpopo

Dervla Murphy's journal of her cycle tours of South Africa, before, during, and after the transfer of power in 1994, gives a day-by-day view of that momentous period. When she first pedalled across the Limpopo she fancied that she understood South Africa's problems because for more than 40 years she had - from a distance - taken a particular intrest in them. Within 12 hours of her journey that illusion was shattered. This journal refelcts her moods of confusion and eleation, hope and disappointment as she tries to come to terms with a country even more complex and shattered - but also more flexible - than she had expected. As she records her quite often contradictory reactions to the new South Africa, Dervla Murphy's journal records how she came to love the new South Africa.