People and Personalities

The story so far....

One year and a couple of weeks ago, Tom and I left my house in Bucks to start a trip travelling around the world by bicycle, train and boat. We actually first left on April the 12th 2007, but then had our bikes stolen on the 13th. But by the time we got replacement bikes, re-packed and re-psyched it was April 23rd, our official date of departure.

On that day, Tom and I left my house in Prestwood, Bucks at 8 o'clock in the morning after just a couple of hours sleep due to a mixture of late-night family goodbyes and early-morning last minute packing. Our motivations for the trip were to travel, to cycle, to raise money for charities, to promote sustainable transport and to delay careers. But more than anything we longed for adventures and hoped to create memories.

So, after a year in the saddle, here are a few of my highlights.

Cycling through Cleveland towards Newcastle we met a cyclist called Tony. Our panniers had been drawing plenty of attention and so he slowed to ask us what we were up to. He clearly enjoyed hearing of our plans and invited us to stay with him and his wife that evening, where we ended up enjoying a meal with a large crowd of his friends. It was our first taste of hospitality, something we have now found in every country we've passed through and one of the biggest factors in making our trip so enjoyable.

Have they packed everything?

In Norway, we had been climbing to a pass for a whole day, when we finally made it to the top we settled down for the night with a fire. In the morning we woke to 15cm (5 inches) of snow and were forced to take our first day of rest. It was a very cold day but incredibly tranquil, and we enjoyed it huddled in the porch of an empty ski chalet in an empty town. The great thing about the mountains in Norway is that every wheel turn up a hill was one closer to the inevitable downhill. The downhills in Norway, and particularly from that pass, were incredible.

As we made our way north I had a desire to keep going right to Nordkapp on the northern coast. Tom was happy to take a week in Jokkmokk and so I went solo. By then we had 24 hours of daylight and so I was cycling almost non-stop. At 2 in the morning on my third day I was starting to feel wasted, my right leg was killing me and I had only had very little sleep. But then I entered a steep ravine, with waterfalls all around me, rapids to me left, a clear sky with the eternal sun shining and best of all, a 10km downhill. The road was deserted and I was on the high of my whole trip to date.

Tom and I were in Boden, Sweden on midsummer's day (June 21st), which is celebrated throughout Scandinavia. Tom and I had occasionally been using an site called couchsurfing to find people to stay with along the way and at the time were staying with a really incredible host, Victoria. That evening we all went to a party and experienced a mixture of the traditional celebration (a midnight swim, maypole dancing, a game called "Kings" vaguely similar to croquet) and the modern celebration (eating, drinking and dancing through to morning).

As we cycled through Finland we were lucky to meet Harri, who was away from home but invited us to stay with him when we reached Helsinki. Harri and his wife, Virpi, were two of the kindest people we've met. We stayed with them for a number of nights, enjoying regular saunas (mandatory) and a weekend with them at their summer cottage on a lake.

John takes a breather in Norway

We travelled through Russia on the trans-Mongolian train. One of our stops was a city called Irkutsk, which is on the shore of Lake Baikal. We had been travelling with a American guy called Noah; one day he and I took a train and long hike down to the shore. Actually we were pretty lost but fortunately met a group of young Russians who showed us the way. They insisted that we join their party - though it was really assumed we would - and so we took shots of vodka when they did and followed it with pickle juice like they did. Other than Irkutsk we had only stopped in Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia, which are not the most welcoming cities, so it was fantastic to meet such a friendly group of Russians, which I am sure is more the norm outside major cities.

Tom and I had not planned on stopping in Mongolia but I'm very glad we did. We met a new friend, Jacob, from Sweden; and so Jacob, Noah, Tom and I took a month long trip around western Mongolia. Because of it's nomadic nature, Mongolia is the most hospitable place I've ever been and travellers are highly respected. So we had many great nights with families in their 'gers'. But one great memory I have is from camping in the mountains in the far west. I decided not to use a tent that night as it was a clear sky, so I found some sheep's wool to use as a mattress and then went to sleep in my bivi. I woke in the morning unable to move properly but unsure why this was. When I opened the zip of my bivi I saw that I was underneath six inches of snow. It's a credit to my kit that I was still toasty warm inside.

We were lucky to be in western Mongolia during the annual eagle hunting festival. The event is a chance for families to show off their eagles, which they train to keep predators away from their goats. The festival lasted two days and included camel racing, horseback wrestling and some bizarre events like the man and woman race, which isn't a race at all but a mile ride on horses with the woman whipping her husband as hard as possible.

Bish on his bike!

After leaving Noah and Jacob in Shanghai, Tom and I took a ferry across to Osaka, Japan. There were plenty of things I loved about Japan and one of them was how kind people were. One morning Tom and I woke up in a company car park having failed to find anywhere better the previous evening. It was about 8 O'clock and a suited office worker was walking over to us. I was sure we were about to get told off and made to leave but instead he held out two cups of coffee and wished us a good morning.

We managed to get passage on a container ship from Tokyo over to California. It was a ten day journey and we had one other passenger, Evan, with us. But the crew and officers were very friendly and we made particularly good friends with the second officer, Pablo. We had been told we were welcome at any time on the bridge. Pablo's shifts were twelve to four (twice a day) and he was very keen to have company at night. One night on the bridge, Pablo switched off the auto-pilot and offered me the controls. Of course there were no visuals to go by and so he told me just to go by the compass. However, I was feeling the bottle of whiskey I had shared with him earlier in the evening and really couldn't work it out. In about a minute I managed to take us 30 degrees off course. Pablo had to work pretty hard to get us straight again before the next officer came on duty. As far as I know the captain never found out.

On reaching the USA, our plan had been to make our way straight up to Alaska by train and ferry and start our long ride down to South America. But we arrived in December, about 4 months later than planned. So, we have to wait until the snow melts before we can go again. It's been a long, impatient wait but it is only a few weeks off now. I am in Vancouver and have been staying with friends and family. I was hoping to find work here but only managed 2 weeks of labour in a bike shop. Tom has been working in a kitchen a couple of hundred miles south of here, in Seattle. The first ferry up to Anchorage, Alaska leaves on the 23rd May, we will be on it. From Anchorage we plan to head south, cycling all the way to South America.

We are raising money for Medecins Sans Frontieres and Friends of the Earth. So far we have raised over £4000 and hope to keep the number growing.

If you would like to donate or keep up to date with the boys travels, you can do so through the boys website: