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Following in Nancy Wake's Footsteps - Part B

Punctures, rain and another detour

The day looked promising when we set off the next morning, but it didn't last. My bike got a flat tyre just 30-minutes into the ride. My son's tyre started going flat soon after. He kept pumping it up but eventually had to stop when it completely deflated. By this stage, the rain was, of course, torrential.

We took refuge in a rundown farm lean-to and changed the tyre. After many hills, with the sky darkening, we eventually found our Airbnb – a flat above a very typical French farmhouse.

We started the next day arguing. Tristan and Caoimhe wanted to take a taxi to our next destination. They found a taxi service with a van big enough to carry all three bikes. I was disappointed that we wouldn't be cycling the entire route, but had to go along with the majority vote.

We cycled to Mérinchal, where a young man in his Ford people-mover van picked us up and dropped us off in Ussel. We ate pizza and delicious cakes before setting off again, cycling along a hilly main road before turning onto a country road.

 We arrived at our accommodation at 4.30 pm. It was a Swiss-looking house overlooking a lake. After a walk and a swim in the freezing water for Tristan, we dressed in our best clothes and went downstairs for dinner. We were served tomato and courgette soup, crumbed schnitzel with a witloof salad, and apple sponge with cream and strawberries. It was our most expensive meal in France, but cooked to perfection.

 

 

The final leg

We set off at 9 am, crossing our fingers that our intended four-hour cycle ride would be exactly that. We had a train to catch at 4.40 pm in Laroquebrou.

Fortunately, there weren't many cars on the roads, so we could concentrate on climbing very steep hills and then whizzing down equally steep descents. The scenery consisted of sparse bush, creeks and rundown stone houses. We passed cows with bells around their necks, stone churches perched on hills and stopped at the roadside to eat local cheese in baguettes.

I hesitated when we reached the sign pointing towards Saint-Santin, where Nancy had hidden with her French Resistance group. Tristan and Caoimhe were reluctant to take another detour. We knew how that had played out on earlier days, so we cycled on towards an ancient town with a castle on its hill.

We eventually reached the railway station, pleased with ourselves that we'd arrived in time. An hour passed and our train still hadn't arrived. I looked at the grass growing on the tracks and wondered if it was trying to tell us something.

Laroquebrou train track

It was.

No trains came. A bus flew past, but didn't stop even though Tristan waved it down. We had no choice but to get back on our bikes.

Caoimhe and I overruled Tristan's chosen route, opting for what we thought was the shorter route via the motorway. After 30 minutes, we stopped. There was no cycle path and cars were whizzing past at 120 kilometres an hour. It was too scary.

We tried a path through a quarry, but the sandstone track was falling apart. Indecision stopped us. Should we venture further along this unknown track, which wasn't looking promising, or catch a taxi? We chose the latter.

The taxi driver arrived an hour later. He was a little scathing about our inability to speak French. I told him I'd practised for an hour every day for a year, but still wasn't confident enough to speak it. He wasn't impressed!

We had a late dinner from a cafe nearby then retired to bed early. We could hear a child crying for much of the night in the apartment next to us. But at least we were warm and dry. Not like Nancy who at the end of her journey collapsed into a bush and had to be given a sedative to calm her sobs. It took her several days to recover from her dehydration and sore muscles.

We woke late the next morning. I walked to the supermarché, ogling the rows of cheese and wine and the centrepiece of crab, lobster and king prawns. Croissants and yoghurt were more within our budget.

Back on the train

Perpignan

It was a struggle getting our bags and bikes onto the train in Aurillac. A kind woman helped us get everything on in time. At the end of the journey, we dropped off our bikes in Toulouse, then walked through the streets to our accommodation.

We said goodbye to Caoimhe the next day, as she had to return to her studies in England. Tristan and I continued to Perpignan, where we could see the Pyrenees in the distance - where Nancy climbed over in a blizzard to reach Spain.

Then we travelled to Marseille, where Nancy had lived with her husband, Henri Fiocca. The only reminder of her time there was a road named after him. The once-grand city seemed to have lost much of its glamour, with graffiti covering even its tallest buildings.

Tristan returned to his navy duties in England the following day, while I continued north to research another true story I was writing, also set in France during the Second World War.

 Appreciating Nancy's journey

My son reminded me that Nancy had ridden approximately 600 kilometres in just three days on her simple, no-gear pushbike because she had no choice. People depended on her and she had an urgent message to deliver.

We, on the other hand, were on holiday!

For me, though, it had been a research trip that allowed me to return to my edits with a much better understanding of the French countryside and a real appreciation of just how difficult that bike journey must have been.

Nancy Wake was an incredible heroine. I was proud to launch my book, A Flame in the Dark, at the end of April 2026. 

Thanks to One Tree House for publishing it and Fifi Colston for the gorgeous cover.

Following in Nancy Wake's Footsteps - Part A

The Toulouse train station

In April 2025, I flew to Paris, eager to follow in Nancy Wake's footsteps. I had one night to recover from the long journey before catching a train to Toulouse, where I would meet my son Tristan, a naval officer, and his Irish girlfriend, Caoimhe. They had agreed to join me on Nancy Wake's epic bike journey through the Auvergne region.

We picked up our hire bikes but, because of delays at the bike shop, missed the train we had hoped to catch. Instead, we caught the next one, which took twice as long and meant we wouldn't reach Châteauroux until dusk.

At one of the halfway stops, pickpockets targeted us, but we were onto them and managed to avoid their sleight of hand.

Tristan and Caoimhe at the Chateauroux cafe

We cycled to our accommodation and then headed out for dinner at a small café nearby. The food was superb and the wine was just what we needed after a long day of travelling.

The next morning, we cycled into town and followed the cobbled ring road around the ancient buildings. We were hoping to find the tavern where Nancy had tried to get an urgent radio message sent. Across the road, a hunchbacked radio operator was supposed to receive it, but Nancy had no luck.

Nor did we.

 

The long road through the Auvergne

Chateauroux ring road

What should have been a four-hour cycle journey turned into a ten-hour slog through torrential rain. The 'shortcut' took us through green meadows, muddy farm tracks and dirt roads. We often had to backtrack when we reached a dead end of blackberry bushes or tracks too muddy for our wheels. Nancy never mentioned these hardships. She had more to worry about: trucks filled with German soldiers and Nazi checkpoints.

Late that night, we finally found our accommodation. We stripped off our sodden clothes, ran a hot bath and drank hot Milos to revive ourselves. My son said, "I can't believe I'm spending my holidays doing this. It's not what I expected."

They had chosen pushbikes over electric bikes. I was twice their age and  reasonably cycle-fit after biking every day for a year, but I didn't want to slow them down on a pushbike. I chose an electric bike and wasn't particularly popular when I overtook them on steep hills!

The many paddocks we rode through

 The next day was a reprieve. The track followed a canal towards Montluçon, with no hills to contend with. We stopped for lunch at the café where Nancy had eaten dinner on the first night of her journey. I doubt much had changed over the years. It still had a wooden bar counter and a view over the canal. Nancy had listened for gossip about the surrounding towns and where it was safe to cycle. We listened to piped music from the bar.

 

 

Exploring Nancy's Resistance country

The lake where Nancy swam after a fight

For the next three days, we stayed in Montluçon and hired a car. This was the area where Nancy spent much of her time with the French Resistance.

We visited the forest where she had hidden, now a working forestry operation. We saw the lake she might have swum in after a nasty fight with the Germans, and stopped for a walk through the town where she first landed by parachute and later blew up a bridge.

By this stage, my son was becoming a little tired of my Nancy Wake touring, so he drove us to a winery to sample the wines.

The next day we drove to Vichy. We had hoped to swim in the mineral hot pools, but the town baths were now just a memorial, with the pools empty. The town square where Nancy had celebrated before hearing terrible news from home was still there, although the Nazi flags were long gone. Instead, we sat beside the picturesque lake and ate our lunch.

On the way back, we took a detour, hoping to find the château where Nancy had worked from during the last two months of the war. We came to a driveway that looked as though it might be the place. My son opted to stay in the car while Caoimhe and I walked up the leafy driveway. And there it was!

We had reached the back of the château, the place where Nancy had stood on the steps to accept flowers from the Spanish fighters. Resistance fighters had saluted her as they marched around the château.

I was thrilled to bits to find this chateau as there are hardly any photos of it anywhere. It felt as though something of Nancy and the French Resistance fighters still lingered in the building and its grounds, carried on the breeze through the trees. I could almost picture Nancy bossing them around and feel the tension as the Nazis passed by on their way home.

Cont/... 

Bike adventures through my childhood, young adult years, and now in my sixties

More Adventures

I travelled a lot when I was young. As a teen, our family lived in a pop-up caravan and roamed the Australian outback, fossicking for gemstones, fishing, and swimming in rivers. One of those rivers had crocodiles, though we didn't learn that until later. Thankfully, we survived the much-needed swim after spending a week without power and water on Mt Surprise while fossicking for topaz gem stones.

Whenever we stopped at a caravan or a clearing, we'd set up camp. As soon as my brother, sister, and I finished our correspondence schoolwork, we'd hop on our bikes and explore the caravan park or the bush. We encountered huge spiders, kangaroos, and scorpions, but had no mishaps. After a year of travelling, we settled at Biggera Waters Caravan Park and attended Southport State High School on the Gold Coast. 

In my early twenties, wanderlust struck again. I packed a backpack and flew to England. I worked bar jobs there, then became a nanny and waitress in Greece, and a grape picker and even a shepherdess in Israel - to keep travelling. I took trains and boats through Europe, Israel, and Egypt. I was often at risk of being robbed or kidnapped, but some sixth sense always got me out of trouble.

I travelled throughout India, including Kashmir, a place you can't easily get to now. I stayed on a house boat, rode donkeys into the hills and camels through the desert. I happened to be deep in southern India riding an elephant when Prime Minister Indira Ghandi was assassinated and survived some harrowing days, fortunately inside a wildlife park. 

On my way home, I stopped in China, just as the country was beginning to open to foreign travellers.  I naively expected to find  people who spoke English .- none did - but I encountered some lovely French travellers and the Chinese people were friendly and helpful. My Lonely Planet Guide became my lifeline as I navigated  planes, trains, boats, and bikes from Beijing to Guilin. 

Back home, I went to university, married, had two children, and limited my travel to occasional trips to Australia to see family. For work, I have driven all over New Zealand visiting schools and encouraging children to enjoy reading and writing, but my wanderlust had been largely stifled.

In 2024, while writing 'Epic New Zealand Adventures', I realised my travels had been rather tame by comparison. After interviewing Mark Watson and Hanna Black who cycled throughout the Americas, I wondered why I'd never thought to bike across a continent. I've always loved biking - from cycling around caravan parks as a teen to pedalling through the streets of China, and back to university when I couldn't afford carparking. So I began cycling daily: first 5 kilometres, then 20 kilometres a day. Last year, I biked from Ngāruawāhia to Cambridge. Later that year, I biked the Dunstan and Otago Trail. In 2025, I planned to cycle Nancy Wake's famous route from Saint Santin to Chateauroux in France to research a new book. More on that soon.

Don't put off your travels. Get on your bike, walk the trails, fly to the places you've always dreamed of. 
Find a way to make it happen. Fifi Colston and I paid for our bike trip in the South Island by doing school 

visits. I hoped to receive a grant to make my research trip to France happen, but more about that later.

So, if you're longing for an adventure -  make an intention and take active steps toward it.

Good luck and safe travels!

Find out more about New Zealand's Endangered Dolphins

A beautifully illustrated nonfiction book on the worlds smallest and most endangered dolphins

Mid-May my second book was released into bookshops. This book is an illustrated nonfiction book about the New Zealand dolphins formerly known as the Maui and Hector's dolphins. Scientists now prefer to name species after their country or what they look like.

I cover subjects such as:

• How rare?
• How big?
• How are they the same and different?
• How clever?
• What senses?
• What habits?
• What's on the menu?
• What is their life cycle?
• How do mothers care for their calves?
• How do they play?
• What threatens them?
• How do sanctuaries protect them?
• What can we do to help?
   

I approach each subject with a question because I imagined a young person asking those questions and wanted to answer them directly. I fell in love with the dolphins even more after learning how caring they are to each other and other species, including humans. And I love how playful they are, even playing tag and pass the parcel seaweed along to each other. I knew kids would want to read how we're protecting these precious taonga and have included how sanctuaries are doing that job and what we can do to help them.

I always like to make a double page interesting by putting in extra graphics - this time it's a fact bubble. You'll learn fascinating titbits like: Did you know that the closest living relation to dolphins and whales today is the hippopotamus! And dolphins' brains are 15-60 times bigger than a shark that are a similar size! You'll find one of these bubble facts on every double page spread. I've also include a New Zealand map, a diagram showing the size of dolphins in New Zealand waters, and a dolphin showing its labelled body parts - all expertly drawn by Marco Ivancic.

I've teamed up with Marco again and he's created some stunning illustrations of the North and South Island New Zealand dolphins. This is my favourite one.

 

 

I also teamed up with Thorsten Bux from Tripod-digital to make an Augmented Reality site with extra information. You just need to scan the QR code below and it'll take you to a webpage and then you hold your camera over each page in the book and it'll show you videos, photographs, and extra information. Do push the link to see the dolphins looking at themselves in the mirror, they are ever-so cute. You'll also see a progression of one of Marco's illustrations.

 

                                                         

 

The book was expertly checked by New Zealand's leading dolphin expert Dr Elisabeth Slooten. I'd like to thank Dr Elisabeth Slooten for her fact checking, Genevieve Robinson from Canterbury Regional Council for her photographs, Thorsten Bux for making the wonderful AR component, Marco Ivancic for his gorgeous illustrations, and Duncan Perkinson from White Cloud Books/Upstart Press for making this book happen.

I talk about the book some more on my website here. You can find my educational resource here. Here's my book trailer:

Thanks to the following reviewers for their reviews.

Bob from Bobs Books Blog says, "Marco Ivancic’s diagrams, photographs, maps and illustrations enhance the excellent information and easy text of Maria Gill. An award winning non fiction book if I ever saw one." Read more here.

Adele from What Book Next says, "This is a perfect book for young dolphin lovers, school projects and the Children’s Non-Fiction section of all NZ libraries." Read more here.

You can purchase it direct from Upstart Press, find your local independent bookshop at Bookhub, at PaperPlus, or buy signed copies from my lovely local bookshop Matakana Village Books.

I hope you enjoy it!

 

Maria Gill's first book for 2024

Greetings readers and writers

I hope you've had a relaxing break and read lots of wonderful books! I did.

This year I have two new books coming out with Upstart. I'll tell you about the second one in the next blog post closer to its release. But I can tell you about the latest book that was released into the wild yesterday (Thursday 8 February).

Queen of the Cosmos: Beatrice Hill Tinsley, beautifully illustrated by Alistair Hughes, is about one of New Zealand's most famous scientists. You may remember that I published another children's book about one of our other world-famous scientists - Ernest Rutherford - in February last year. Now, you'll be reading about the female equivalent.

Beatrice's story is a sad but empowering story. Born in the UK when London was being pelted with German bombs in World War II, her family moved to Christchurch when she was five years old. Later they moved to New Plymouth where Beatrice and her sisters grew up in the small seaside town. Beatrice was most likely a gifted student but she also worked hard at her studies. She had an aptitude for music and the sciences and those two subjects would be her joy for most of her short life. Beatrice married young and soon found that it would add to her workload and disadvantage her in ways that restricted her career. 

The newly married couple moved to America and while her husband's career took off, she found it difficult getting work in astronomy and cosmology - her area of expertise. Find out how she overcame these difficulties to become known as the Queen of the Cosmos.

Queen of the Cosmos is a story about sacrifice to achieve your lifelong dream and to make a difference in the world. In her case - answering the big questions - finding out how far away galaxies were, and whether the universe was expanding or would one day expire. The story is also about the dangers of melanoma, divorce, separation, and not giving up. Heady subjects, but written in a style that doesn't overwhelm young readers. They can find out more about the difficulties Beatrice faced at the back of the book, as well as a timeline, how she was recognised with awards and naming rights, and a glossary.

I can't wait for people to see it as it's an inspiring story that will hopefully encourage more young people to study the sciences and have a curiosity about the world. Readers will love Alistair Hughes gorgeous illustrations. His watercolour pictures really capture the magnificence of the night sky and the universe. He also captures the emotional moments in the story, and has a real talent in drawing people through their years.

Here's a book trailer you can watch:

 

Here's a teaching resource you can use:

The first review is out - thanks to Bobs Books Blog. He says: 

Simply told by Maria Gill who always gets it right and expertly illustrated by Alister Hughes whose expansive illustrations reflect the massiveness of the cosmology world that Beatrice was working in. A classy piece of work for juniors through to high school students. A life worth knowing about. certainly the Queen of the Cosmos. Read more here.

Thanks also to Adele Broadbent for her review on What Book Next:

This talented team has done it again – bringing an exceptional New Zealander to the fore and sharing their life with young kiwis. This time is it a gifted woman scientist whose work and research on the cosmos has been heralded around the world. It wasn’t an easy road for Beatrice by any means, but Maria Gill & Alistair Hughes have portrayed Hill Tinsley’s short but extraordinary life beautifully in another narrative non-fiction picture book.

Buy from Upstart or BookHub or your local bookstore or a signed copy from me.

Thanks to Beatrice Tinsley's family and her partner/colleague Dr Richard Larson for fact-checking the story. Also thanks to Alistair for his incredible artwork and Upstart for publishing this beautiful book.

ISBN: 978-1-77694-005-9

RRP $25.00 (paperback, 32 pages)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Epic New Zealand Adventurers

 2023 'Epic New Zealand Adventurers'

Ten true stories of daring and danger from New Zealand

adventurers. Race to the South Pole with Sir Edmund Hillary,

find the end of the Nile with Cam McLeay and Garth MacIntyre,

 circumnavigate the world in a yacht with sixteen-year-old Laura Dekker.

Trek solo with Helen Thayer and her husky to the Magnetic North Pole,

ride bikes down the spine of the Amercas with Mark Watson and Hana Black,

and many more exciting adventures - some known, some forgotten,

and some just discovered. 

My latest book 'Epic New Zealand Adventurers' is due out in all good book stores from the 13th July. You can pre-order it from Upstart, Aotearoa Books, and from me also.

The first review has come in. Bob says in his blog: All are told in a two page spread with fantastic illustrations by Marco Ivancic and thrilling writing from Maria Gill who has been a traveler herself.

Have a look at the book trailer:

Teachers, please download the free teacher resource: