Between jobs, she travelled widely and adventurously:
back-packing in South-East Asia on $10 a day for nine months, walking
in New Zealand, trekking in Nepal and riding a camel through the
Thar Desert are just a few of her travel experiences.
In 1991 she returned to England in order to drive
in the 1992 London to Saigon car rally. Sponsored by Harrods, Bridgestone
Tyre and Lada Cars, she and her co-driver were the only all-female
crew on the 63 day, 12,500 mile journey. On arrival in Saigon all
funds raised and the car were donated to Save The Children. (The
car, apparently, is still going strong!)
This experience led to writing travel articles
and thus Caroline fell into freelance travel writing. In due course
she tried her hand at thrillers and in 1999 won the Crime Writers
Debut Dagger Award with the opening to the novel which became her
first published book.
During the past few years she has successfully
combined writing and travelling. In 1998 she completed the London
to Cape Town Rally, again with an all-female crew, and in 2001
she participated in the Inca Trail Rally around South America with
the same co-driver.
As Caroline says, 'With
genes like mine, I don't think I stood a chance to do anything
else but seek a little excitement in life!'
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