Overland to the Island
‘How about going for a drive?’
‘Where?’
‘Around the world.’
Overland to the Island tells the lively and frequently jaw-dropping story of Alan and Joan MacLeod’s 1963 journey from Dunedin to the Isle of Skye in Scotland with their six children, aged five to fifteen. Alan MacLeod – a Dunedin farmer and former WWII artilleryman – whose grandparents emigrated from Skye to New Zealand in the 1860s, had decided it was time to reconnect the family with their clan ancestry and revisit old haunts from his days fighting in the Italian campaign. Travelling in a homemade house-truck called Holdfast – built by Alan using a Ford tractor engine, a city bus cab and the chassis of a WWII armoured scout car – the family embarked on an extraordinary adventure around the world. Apart from Alan, none of them had ever left New Zealand’s South Island.
Wending overland through territories and cultures unfamiliar to most Westerners in 1963, the MacLeods’ expedition attracted much media attention, but the complete story has not been told until now. Written by their granddaughter Hannah Bulloch, Overland to the Island is both an engrossing tale about a trek through a 1960s world since reshaped by politics and technology, and the author’s quest to understand the emotional and personal impacts of this arduous undertaking.
Drawing on family conversations, letters and diaries, Bulloch reflects on her grandfather’s motivations for such a risky adventure, her grandmother’s resilience under pressure, and the lifelong effects on the children.
Illustrated, with maps, and beautifully written, Overland to the Island is the remarkable story of a bold, eccentric and somewhat ramshackle family pilgrimage, navigating everything from stressed family dynamics to life-threatening danger with a combination of fortitude, luck, naivety, Kiwi ingenuity, and – always – by making friends along the way.
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Reviews and Interviews
'During my childhood, my mother had a long scar across her face, and I knew that this was from “the accident” that happened on “the trip”. She would also periodically mention her travel diary – like if something about Tehran came on the news, she would say, “I remember Tehran. I would have written about that in my diary”. But my mother seldom talked about the journey. Like her siblings, she had quickly learned that most people around them in that era struggled to relate to something so far outside their own experiences.'
Hannah Bulloch speaks to Sapeer Mayron for the Sunday Star Times Read
'Shoved and jostled amid over a thousand clamouring passengers, the MacLeods mounted the gangway to the TSS State of Madras. Porters with loads balanced atop their heads barged past, while people shouted instructions to one another, and the hiss and clank of machinery rose from the docks. On deck, people were sprawled everywhere with food, bedding, boxes, trunks and bags piled around them. Arriving passengers – mostly Indian, but some Malays and Chinese – wove briskly between obstacles, in search of space to settle.'
Extract for the Sunday Star Times Read
'In 1962, Dunedin farmer Alan MacLeod said to his wife Joan and six kids, 'how about going for a drive'?’ Little did they know the 'harebrained scheme' Alan had cooked up would see them travelling the world in a homemade house truck a year later.'
Feature in the Otago Daily Times (originally published by Nine to Noon, RNZ) Read
'Alan's wanted to reconnect the family with their MacLeod ancestry on the Island of Skye in Scotland, and visit friends he had made fighting in the Italian campaign in World War II. With a few boat crossings, they did it all in their house truck 'Holdfast' built from a Ford tractor engine, a city bus cab and the chassis of an armoured scout car. The extraordinary story is told by Hannah Bulloch whose mother Marilyn was one of the six kids on board.'
Hannah Bulloch speaks to Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon, RNZ Listen
About the author
Hannah Bulloch
Hannah Bulloch was named the 2017 Emerging Writer in Residence for the University Book Shop (Otago) and the Robert Lord Writers’ Cottage Trust, and was a 2018 Writer in Residence at the Robert Lord Writers’ Cottage. She holds a PhD...
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