A collection of previously unpublished letters and photos has
revealed that Christie set off on a year-long round-the-world trip, as
part of a trade mission of the British Empire Expedition.
The master of suspenseful plots visited Hawaii, Canada, America, New
Zealand, Australia and South Africa and took photos with her portable
camera. Agatha Christie described her adventures in diaries and letters
sent to her mother.
"It was occasionally painful as you took a nosedive down into the
sand, but on the whole it was an easy sport and great fun," the novelist
wrote. When she finally took off on her first stand-up ride, she was
delighted.
"Oh, it was heaven! Nothing like it. Nothing like that rushing
through the water at what seemed to you a speed of about two hundred
miles an hour; all the way in from the far distant raft, until you
arrived, gently slowing down, on the beach, and foundered among the soft
flowing waves."
"The Grand Tour," a new book published by Harper Collins, delivers
some of the original letters, postcards, newspaper cuttings and
memorabilia collected by Agatha on her trip.
The British crime fiction writer sold over a billion copies of her 80
novels, short story collections and plays. Agatha Christie, a true
pioneer, not only in novels but also in surfing.