Raised on a dairy farm in south-west England, Mark Chipperfield is a freelance journalist who writes for publications in Australia, Germany, the UK, Hong Kong and the United States. At the age of 17 he worked as a deckhand on a German freighter from Auckland to Rotterdam, and has been travelling ever since. Mark, 59, has been a news reporter, foreign correspondent, magazine editor and travel writer. He lives in Sydney with his wife and two-year-old son.