GEOFFREY McSKIMMING

When Geoffrey McSkimming was a boy he found an old motion-picture projector and a tin containing a dusty home movie in his Grandmother's attic. He screened the film and was transfixed by the flickering image of a man in a jaunty pith helmet, baggy Sahara shorts and special desert sun-spectacles. The man had an imposing macaw and a clever-looking camel, and Geoffrey McSkimming was mesmerised by their activities in black-and-white Egypt, Peru, Greece, Mexico, Sumatra, Turkey and other exotic locations.

Years later he discovered the identities of the trio, and he has spent much of his time since then retracing their footsteps, interviewing surviving members of the Old Relics Society, and gradually reconstructing the lost true tales of that well-known archaeologist and little-known poet, Cairo Jim -- which have become the enormously successful Cairo Jim chronicles and Jocelyn Osgood jaunts. All of these "mysteries of history" are published in Australia by Hodder Headline and Bolinda Audio (and by other publishers in other countries), and none has ever gone out of print!

Geoffrey has had sunstroke in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt (while researching Cairo Jim and Doris in Search of Martenarten and Cairo Jim and the Sunken Sarcophagus of Sekheret); ventured into the depths of the pyramids at Giza in Egypt (for Cairo Jim and the Secret Sepulchre of the Sphinx); trekked through the Andes mountains to reach the abandoned city of Machu Picchu and camped in the cloudforests of Peru (for Cairo Jim on the Trail to ChaCha Muchos); visited many Greek temples over 4,000 years old (for Cairo Jim and the Alabastron of Forgotten Gods); climbed the immense Mexican pyramids (for Cairo Jim and the Quest for the Quetzal Queen); safaried through the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania and sweltered on Zanzibar island (for Xylophones Above Zarundi); sniffed around ruined cities like Ephesus and underground cities like KaymaklI in Turkey (for Cairo Jim Amidst the Petticoats of Artemis), marvelled at the ancient history of Italy while sorting out one of Cairo Jim's escapades (for Cairo Jim and the Tyrannical Bauble of Tiberius), to name a few memorable experiences, and just a few of the books he has written.

His hobbies, when not writing the Cairo Jim and Jocelyn Osgood chronicles, are archaeology, travelling, old books and recreating the past.

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All written material contained herein copyright ©Geoffrey McSkimming 2004

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