Women On Adventure is a blog by K.L. Webber exploring our rich shared history of women's adventure writing. This curated collection of quotations showcases the opinions and experiences of influential female travellers in their own words.

"It is up hill and lonely, but we do not mind that."

The reactions of non-adventurers to adventurers never seems to change, as these cycle tourists in Algeria discover... 

The mountains and plains were wrapped in a deep blue or purple light, which never varied, but was just as entrancingly beautiful at high noon as in the early morning. After the lapse of months, memory still recalls vividly the intense blues and purples on those and on succeeding days, bathing landscapes, sometimes barren and desert, with a glory which, without this divine lighting, would not have been theirs. […]

The woman looked pityingly at us as we prepared to leave, saying, –

'Are you going up there?'

'Yes,' we answered cheerfully, as we glanced towards the splendid road winding upward into the barren hills. 'It is up hill and lonely, but we do not mind that.'

 

Fanny Bullock Workman & William Hunter Workman

Algiers - Constantine, pre-1895

Source: Fanny Bullock Workman & William Hunter Workman, Algerian Memories: A Bicycle Tour over the Atlas to the Sahara, London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1895

Further Links:

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/workman/algerian/algerian.html

http://harvardmagazine.com/2012/03/vita-fanny-bullock-workman

https://www.adventure-journal.com/2012/11/historical-badass-climber-and-explorer-fanny-bullock-workman/

 

 

WOA Image: Gion, Kyoto, Japan

WOA Image: Gion, Kyoto, Japan

WOA Image: Kyoto, Japan

WOA Image: Kyoto, Japan