Footsteps in the Gobi — Gemma Thorpe

Map from Mildred’s book, showing the route from Lanzhou (‘Lanchow’). north west through Xinjiang.

Travelling across the desert towards Turpan.

Looking for locations in the Flaming Mountains near Turpan.

The ruins of Gaocheng ancient city, Xinijang.

Villagers with Mildred’s book in Tuyoq, Taklamakan desert.

Grape drying houses at the foot of the Flaming Mountains.

Red chillies drying on the roof in Jiayuguan, Gansu.

The horses of Kazakh herders at Tianchi, Heavenly Lake, Xinjiang.

Mildred Cable was the first Englishwoman to cross the Gobi Desert, in the 1930s – a time when female independence was unheard of. Along with her two companions, sisters Francesca and Eva French, and a camel cart full of bibles, she travelled back and forth across the vast expanse of the desert, visiting oasis towns along old Silk Road trade routes, through Western China and into Xinjiang.

‘Five times we traversed the whole length of the desert, and in the process we had become part of its life’.

Mildred wrote a number of books about her journeys, which proved very popular with the armchair traveller back home. I came across ‘The Gobi Desert’ which became my guide, my Lonely Planet, for the journey I was to make. The hand-drawn map in the back of the book dictated my route, which I followed by train, bus, taxi and camel, looking for traces of the people and places Mildred had encountered some 80 years previously.