Lu Barnham
Travel Author
about lu
Lu's travels have taken her to almost 70 countries around the world. Her first book, An African Alphabet, traces a cross-continental journey from Morocco to South Africa, stopping in a town beginning with every letter of the alphabet along the way. Her second book, The Cicada's Summer Song, describes her 1200km walk around the island of Shikoku, Japan, on the 88 temple pilgrimage. She is currently working simultaneously on a collection of essays about India, and a book on festivals in Australia, where she lives with family.
Before the Bottle Tree
Before the Bottle Tree: An Australian Journey in Fifteen Festivals
Camels race in the desert. A giant prawn dances alone in the rain. A life-sized Ned Kelly made entirely of bread tins hides out behind a rural bakery…
Keen to get under the skin of her new homeland, Lu Barnham travels to fifteen iconic Australian festivals, a journey that kicks off with the Parkes Elvis Festival and runs through to ‘MelonFest’ in the Queensland Hinterland. Along the way, she discovers that small-town museums contain everything from stuffed three-legged chickens to ‘bile beans.’ She catches the Denilquin Ute muster in the year it becomes a mud bath and grabs the chance to dress up as a neon-pink pig for Adelaide’s Beer and BBQ Festival. Lu bunks wine-tasting class to seek out remote bushranger haunts, fails spectacularly at a cherry pie eating contest and learns to line-dance in the mountains. Mangrove trees on the coastal inlets serve as a reminder that her own roots here are growing deeper, too, as the festival explorations naturally interweave with some of Lu’s big life moments. Before the Bottle Tree is a journey along Australia’s less obvious roads, seeking out quirky events that reveal the characteristics of a stunning and unique nation, while discovering a sense of belonging along the way.
The Cicada's Summer Song
The Cicada’s Summer Song: Walking the Shikoku 88 Temple Pilgrimage
The Shikoku pilgrimage is a 1200km circular route around Japan's fourth largest island, visiting sacred sites associated with the 8th century Buddhist saint Kobo Daishi. For over a thousand years, pilgrims have walked in his footsteps, leaving behind their regular lives to pay respects at 88 temples. Dressed in white robes and conical hats, modern day pilgrims cross mountains, forests and paddies, as well as teeming cities and busy highways. Lu Barnham embarked on this journey in the middle of summer, discovering a sweltering, colourful island, wriggling with snakes and spiders. She was met with smiles, gifts and encouragement from the local people, and for 51 days, her solo trek was accompanied by the constant song of the cicada. Lu set out to Shikoku hoping for a challenge, and a chance to experience Japanese culture by participating in an ancient Buddhist tradition. The Cicada's Summer Song is an account of her journey.
AN African Alphabet
An African Alphabet: From Agadir to Zagazig
An African Alphabet follows Lu Barnham’s 20,000 mile journey across the length and breadth of the continent, visiting a town for every letter of the alphabet. Riding shotgun in a Congolese logging truck, travelling alongside a secret agent in Angola and dodging a fist-fight in a Bamako market, the author follows the little-travelled Western route from Morocco to South Africa by bus, boat, roof rack, donkey cart and lorry, always in the company (and sometimes the laps) of the locals. With her philosopher-photographer partner, Seth, she discovers the modern, everyday life along the continent’s roads. From Agadir to Zagazig, travelling alphabetically takes the reader through 24 unique countries, in a travelogue about flowing with Africa rather than overcoming it.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Set in Bharatpur, India, Lu's travel essay 'Rickshaws and Recces in Rajasthan' is published in the anthology A Girl's Guide to Travelling Alone, edited by Gemma Thompson, 2014, available on Amazon Kindle.
Lu was longlisted for the Bradt New Travel Writer of the Year 2021 with her piece ‘Green Lassi, Golden City’ (set in Jaisalmer, India.)
Her piece ‘Old Hand’ details how not to cross a road in Ahmedabad, India, and appears in Robert Fear’s ‘Travel Stories and Highlights: 2019 Edition’
Lu’s essay ‘The Road to Blue Paradise’ is published in the anthology Beastly Journeys, edited by Jennifer Barclay, 2018, Bradt, available in print and on Amazon Kindle. The tale takes place on the Andaman Islands, India, and sits alongside stories by David Attenborough, Dervla Murphy, Gerald Durrell, Mark Shand and many more.
