The Long Ride Home
Published on 13. March 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
186 pages
979-8-233-54230-5 (ISBN)
Description
The Reins of Identity: A Fifty-Year Return to the Soul of Greece
One man, two wheels, and a five-decade journey home.
When Iakovos set out to cycle across the rugged Greek peninsula, he wasn't just testing the limits of his physical endurance. He was retracing the threads of a life spent in xenitia-the longing of a life lived far from one's birthplace.
From the gruelling climbs of Mount Parnassus to the hallowed silence of the Ancient Theatre at Delphi, every pedal stroke serves as a bridge between the modern traveller and the eternal wisdom of his ancestors. Amidst the gray limestone and silver-green olive groves, the ancient maxims-Know Thyself and Nothing in Excess-transform from dusty inscriptions into the very gear and grit of a solo bicycle pilgrimage.
Part travelogue, part philosophical meditation, this is the story of a "modern-day wayfarer" who discovers that the greatest athletic feat isn't reaching the finish line, but returning to one's roots with an intact soul. In the shadow of the Bronze Charioteer, Iakovos realizes that while the horses of time may be lost, we must never let go of the reins of who we are.
Join Iakovos on a transformative ride through the "land of his ancestors," where the destination is not a place on a map, but a new beginning.
More details
Person
Iakovos Garivaldis OAM has been President of the Hellenic Writers' Association of Australia for eleven years and has served in a number of positions within the executive committee of Thessaloniki Association "The White Tower". He has been instrumental in celebrating the annual Sister-Cities Festival in November at Federation Square and also has provided his services to many other organisations within the Greek community in creating websites, promoting Greek culture and traditions, promoting literature and the arts.
Between 2009-2020 he has single-handedly created and maintained the literary electronic page "Diasporic Literature".
Has organised the first Book Exhibition of Greek Writers in Australia in Oakleigh in 1994 with Hellenic Writers and the Greek-Hellenic Archives Museum of RMIT University.
With the same organisations he has also organised the first Exhibition of the Photographs of Victorian writers taken by Kostas Athanasiou in 2001.
He created the first bi-lingual literary website of Greek writers abroad in the world, now stored at the National Library of Australia archives and organised the publication of the first electronic and trilingual literary magazine "Diasporic Literature" in 2010 with many writers of the Diaspora.
Has also initiated the project of registering materials and artefacts of the first Greek migrants in the Victorian Collections of the Australian Museums, Victoria under the name "Plutarch Project".
In 2016 he received the Order of Australia Medal by the Australian Government for his services to literature.
He is an IT Engineer by profession and has published 5 books on technology and 6 books on his research about Asia Minor