[Short of time? Read the Haiku review instead] In 2005 I travelled across the Nubian Desert, in North Sudan, in a variety of pick-up trucks. During the penultimate leg my poor backpack was strapped to the flank of a Toyota Hilux, where she likely received the worst punishment any pack could reasonably endure and still remain in one piece. On reaching Dongola I almost wept at the sight of her as she fell limply from her strapping like a drowned corpse, and that night I lovingly washed her, dabbing her furrowed lid with a damp cloth. In time, she recovered, and carried my gear all the way to Cape Town, and a couple of years later all around South East Asia. What a pack! She was my first – well
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