My Skinny Legs

Its over...

2009-02-13T13:29:00.007Z

Where to start? I feel like I must justify why I am going home haaa. Honestly I feel like I have done enough for this trip. I know I said at the start I was looking forward to a year on the road but I dont feel at this stage I wanna keep riding. I had this sort of checklist inside my head of what I wanted out of this trip and I feel like I have given each one a huge tick.

Its been a while coming and I have spent the last week sleeplessly debating it non stop. Even talking the points out loud in the tent at night to make sure I was arguing both sides properly haaa. So I am happy that its the right thing to do. I am also glad it was a solo trip because with all my changes in plans I am sure I would of lost a friend haaa.

I am stopping, for now, because I have had enough of cycling. I have loved the hard work on the bike but what I most enjoyed has been the sense of being out in the elements in the wild. But its a sense I dont get too often, well maybe I should of cycled off somewhere more remote I hear ye say. Its the fact of being on a road, a permanent highway of people and machines. Thats what takes away from the wild aspect of the trip. The fact that no matter where I cycle there are always cars or people. Its a revalation of the trip, maybe I should of known that there would be cars and people on roads eh!

But I did not know how much I would enjoy the lonely times in the middle of nowhere, no machines, no lights or people. Camping out in silence under the stars. I have experienced it in most countries and more so in Morocco. I wanted to know what it felt like and how much I would like it. I absolutely loved it! My head is actually close to bursting with memories. The blog has captured only a few seconds of a few days so you can imagine how full my head is.

What made me smile so often was seeing my shadow being cast on snow, sand and water. The romantic notion of lonely adventurous travel. Well I got a little taster of adventure at times and now I realise I want a bigger drink.

What I enjoyed most has been my reaction to certain events and landscapes. One of the most positive was my change of direction in Morocco. It was litterally the answer I was looking for out of this trip. Having planned out an amazing route through the mountains and back up towards Marakech, Casablanca and back to Tangier, I came upon the most inspiring view of my life. Just the biggest mind shattering landscape unlike anything I have ever seen. One that gives you goose bumps that dont just tingle but actually rattle your body. To have a voice inside actually speak to you and tell you "we want to go there". Then another voice says "wow that would be a real adventure eh". Lots of voices eh, it was almost a fecking discussion going on haaa. To take that turn was to find out what I want in life. I want go home because I now know I can go anywhere in the world and for now thats back to the madhouse!

So what next I hear you all shout. I will probably keep the blog going if I feel I am getting up to enough silly things. I always intended this trip to be a bit of a training boot camp for future trips. So I intend to keep training when I get home as I feel a more physical trip into nature is next up. I have also read over my blog posts and I think I really should work on my spelling! Then I will probably publish a book about the epic and perilous journey to Africa, sign a movie deal, do the talk show circuit and collect a National Geographic award. Then I will probably try find another bullshit job in a recession stricken country and head for wilder pastures. I will definetly not list what I have planned as that will no doubt change a hundred times before I even get home on Friday.

Thanks for everything guys!

Seamus

Battle of Rekkam

2009-02-09T13:48:00.020Z

Well the last few days have been probably the most exciting so far ha. Heading out onto the plateau was the start of some tough times. My friend the wind was back with his friend, Mr. Wind and his cousin, Mrs Windy. At this stage my legs are as broken in as they can be for this silly lark of cycling. The previous few days I covered, 130kms, 100kms and 150kms with relative ease. Ease because nature let me cruise along wonderfully flat windless plains which were probably downhill haaa. So when I looked at the map and this section is about 150kms its easy to think ye will zoom across in a day no bother. But by now experience has thought me not to get carried away in thinking I can cover a certain distance in a day.

Oh where to camp?

The wind was an absolute dream come through, easily the most fierce thing I have experienced so far in my life. With nothing in its way it just roars over the plains undisturbed. Its what I expected though, plus a whole lot stronger than I thought haaa. It was the last part of Morocco I knew was out there, its why I headed into this part of the country. For two and a half days I saw nothing but sand, tufts of grass and an occasional bush and the straighest road of all time stretching to the horizon. Of course cars and buses too haaa sending me flying off the road in their turbulence haa. Up at 6.30am to get the coffee on and watch the sunrise eat some brekkie and on the road by 8am. I pushed and pushed and pushed and was flying along at the insane speed of 6km/hr. I knew I was not trying hard enough so I damn near had an fit trying to keep up a lofty 10km/hr. Getting blown off the road non stop, the sorest thing was my weak bloody wrists trying to keep the bike on a straight line haaa.

First sand storm, more of a sandy wind really ha

I dont really like to eat too much sand

I dont want to appear as moaning about it, I really enjoyed it all. Sure I had my first sand storm of the trip, it was only the first of many haaa. The sand is not like at a beautiful Aussie beach, its incredibly fine, red and gets everywhere. Even when its not windy out it gets everywhere. For two days I was trying to make sandwhiches inside my handlebar bag, you just have to accept that you will be eating 25 percent sand and get on with it haaa. While its a main road north, its super empty section so camping out you get the feeling of utter wilderness. Staring out my tent door at night was amazing just soaking up a vast view of nothing. When you look at only one direction for a while ye kind forget that there is nothing in all directions so when you get out to pee and look around ye get the ole goose bumps that make you realise how special this area is.

I cant get enough of these guys

Pancakes anyone

Shelter to cook one day was provided by a kind security guard of a solar powered radio mast. Poor guy must do his nut in out there on his own. Great banter out of him all the same. I did not expect this level of humour out of the Moroccans, really reminds me of Ireland. While cycling I could of course have cruised along at the stupid pace that the wind dictated but I wanted to beat the elements, or at least try. So for every single hour of the two and half days I gave it my all trying to get to Ain Benimathar, just to prove I could make it. The road is dead straight but they put in bends I suppose to wake sleepy drivers. That just teases me because you see a sign stating a bend to the east, which would hopefully put the wind kinda behind me but alas it was never to be. But that does not stop you thinking the same thing again and again everytime you see the sign haaa, its a mental feeling.

I can almost see the curvature of the planet

General electric abandoned railway line

My own mobile toilet

Finally rolled in after sunset, really fecking weak, picked up supplies and tried to find somewhere to camp haaa. Which is a nightmare in the dark so eventually I asked two men standing at the side of the road could I camp in his garden haaa, knowing more than likely I will score a bed haaa. Mohamed invited me in for dinner and a bed. From the outside the houses really are very boring and drab looking but inside they are stunning. The tiled floors are like something you would expect in a royal palace. Sitting on a sheep hide watching the father make the tea I was gobsmacked to see how much sugar they put in it. The sugar is in a 2kg compressed bullet/missile shape and they chip down into smaller chunks and keep it in a bowl. He put in two chunks, each the size of half a large orange! It is a wonderful tea and I love the whole setup and drama of the pouring.

Notice the girl second in,
cupping her hands like that, very cute

I was really afraid Celona would crack a tile

We had cous cous and chicken for dinner, three sons, the father and me diggin into a massive plate in the middle of the low table. They kept heaping more and more onto my side and I was only to delighted to impress them by out eating the lot of them combined. The gave me a good slagging for that. As I sat there after dinner, comfortably bloated, my legs ached and my knees were throbbing. Thats when I seen one of Mohameds daughters was in a wheel chair, she had no aching legs or even throbbing stumps. Kind of moment to remember how fortunate I am to have the money and body to do something like this. Made me appreciate my life even more.

Brushing my teeth in the funniest of places

Great character to the tress out here!

There is always life

Getting back to some hills the wind has dissapeared and the sun is beating down. Time to chilax as the canucks say. Time once again for many unnecesary coffee breaks and to soak up the sun. Sitting on another rock eating some delish oranges, they are worth the effort by the way, I never even noticed a shepard with his flock of sheep nearby. I wave and get an eager wave back so I wander over and give him an orange. The people are so incredibly friendly I will miss it so much when I go to spain again to get my visa for Algeria. Anyway a little while later he has moved off from the road and into the hills and he starts to belt out a song. Sent a shiver up my spine it was that emotional and passionate, obviously no idea what he was singing about but as I sipped my coffee I knew that life right now is perfect.

Finally some hills on the horizon

The last couple of days in Morocco where spent in some of the most beautiful hills I have been in so far. Standing on top looking south over the plain I had just crossed I was already longing for them. I was half tempted to cycle back south and wander for longer around to see more and meet more people. I had many visions in my head of what Moroc would be like but none of them were based on experience, only what others told me or what I read about. In the 25 days I spent there I met more Moroccan people than I met in all of Europe combined. They waved more, smiled more and yet worked harder for less money, some in terrible conditions. Its a side to human nature I was not accustomed too. They spend much more time outdoors, they walk more, carry more and moan less from what I could see. I have made soo many friends I would love to meet again on the road but I know we will only ever meet again if I pass by their home. I think it would be nice in a few years to swing by again and try repay the enormous debt of hospitality I owe them.

Mars plus the Moon equals Heaven

2009-02-06T12:01:00.019Z

So I left the warm internet cafe in Boulemane to cycle over a lower section of the Middle Atlas mountains on a main road. Another wonderful day was spent in horizontal snow. If I had been facing a week of these conditions I would of turned back, it was more carnage. Have you ever seen that rubbish motorcycle sport where they race around a circular ice track skidding constantly, yeah that was me. At one stage it was a fecking whiteout and I had to just stand still on the icey road till it passed. I eventually make to a little abandoned hut and I start to cook up some food. Keeping it simple yet yummy I had some spuds and carrots topped with a mound of margarine, probably the greatest meal of all time. So I sat there on a stone and some cardboard as insulation for my sexy bum when three extremely hardy Berbers walked in and took shelter with me. Looking out the door the wind was just mental, it was easily the sweetest place to be so we shared some chocolate and just all tried to warm up.

Wich way was the wind blowing?

A five star hotel in terms of shelter

No matter how cold the shelter was, it was still paradise compared to outside. I finally lift myself off the rock and go back out. Eventually I get the most sudden change in conditions, I litteraly turned a corner and the weather was fine again. I then roll down through the most barren Martian bowl shaped landscape over to the barrier which had closed off the road haa. I also get what I have been waiting a long fecking time for, no not sex, I get the biggest applause of all time off about a hundred people waiting for the road to open. They were taking my picture and slapping me on the back, it was hilarious fun.

The biggest cheer of the trip

Inside Lessans home

What an entrance eh

Home is sometimes a dried up watering hole

So when I get out of that little bowl I am confronted by the most daunting inspiring soul shaking view so far. It was just a prehistoric area, if a dinosaur had of walked past I wouldnt of batted an eyelid! Hundreds of kms of multiple layers of flat plateus surrounded hazily in the distance by mountains pierced only by the longest straighest road I have ever seen. So having spent the last few days crawling up hill it was time to fly again and fly we oh so did. The road looks flat but has a hint of downhill to it so we spend at least an hour doing between 50 to 60km/hr. We come to a halt at a delightful little mud walled village to get some water and of course I get invited in for tea by a guy. So I find myself out in the middle of nowhere warming myself up by a wood stove only an hour after being in the snow. Africa has soime big swings of temperature.

My abandoned mud village

A view of history

The road ahead

So we camp out that night in the most quaint little abandonded village/estate up on a hill overlooking the river that has spent thousands of years carving out the valley. When the wind drops the silence out here is really spooky, total silence is of course heaven at times especially when its been so long since you had it. We ride and ride and ride along the edge of the High Atlas towards a town called Talsinnt. I pass through a non existant town and see a few people getting water from their garden well and I go up to thel causde I recon its a fricken cool way to top up on water and have a natter with the locals. Again I was invited in for tea, the house is beautiful and cool inside, almost like air con. The sittin room as usual has only a big rug covering three quarters of the floor with cushions and wooley sheep hides on it. Painted yellow up to about shoulder height then white to the ceiling which is a wooden and cute. TV in the corner with a pretty display cabinet of cups, silverware and the usual junk we collect. We sit beside a low table and the women come in with a jug of hot water and a basin so we can wash our hands. Then its a silver platter of tea/coffee and the Moroccan bread which is about the size of a dinner plate, round and a few cms thick. You break bits iof bread off and dip it in a yellow oil, presumely olive oil? Or whatever they have like chicken, anyway whatever they put in front of me I always devour as its delish either way. Also if the father slurps his tea I do to, just to fit in, plus its kinda childish and fun, something your mam would tell you not to do at the dinner table haa.

A communal oven for the famous bread, pronounced Chobs

Are you kidding me or what

A close knit bunch

Erosion is the running theme

Stopped for a quick cup of coffee in the quietest little valley, alone and left to my thoughts about how much I love this country and its people. Thinking how empty this valley is when a little shepard starts singing a beautiful tune. For the life of me I could not spot him and I presume he couldnt see me either haaa. Thats the beauty of this country, it lets you feel like you are alone in the middle of nowhere on an adventure!

The little beauty sang out to me here

Right on the road but if five cars passed all night I would be surprised

A world record broken, longest time waiting on a bus

People are everywhere eh

Talsinnt turns out to be the most End Of The World Town. Just astonishing junp back in time, of course they have satelite dishes on the roof tops but take them away and its prehistoric. Rolling through the streets looking down alleyways and just trying to imagine how it feels to live like this? Simply put, I am in travelling wandering heaven out here. So when I get out of town over the hill and around the corner I am gobsmacked. On the map iots a huge white space, flat and with hardly any towns or roads. As sdoon as I seen that section of the map a few weekw ago I knew I wanted to go see it but the rest of Morocco was calling too, goddammit I want it all. But when I seen the plateu my soul shouted at me to go to it, really it spoke to me and told me not to be stupid, we had to go to the land that time forgot. Luckily I am on my own oout here so I can change my route as often as I like!

Where do I start?

This and tufts of grass is all that grows out here

The famous spoon in action

A refill is out of the question

Another day I passed a shepard and he asked me for some water. If it had been one of you guys I would of dragged you off to the hospital straight away. He was as dehydrated as I have ever seen. Face and lipps all dry and chipped and blistered. He took ther smallest sip and refused my offer to let him keep the bottle of water. We are talking about soime extremely hazrdy people out here.

A dash of colour other than mud is a surprise

There are camels out there

Lovin it

This was the shrivelled up shepard

Now for the absolute funniest moment caught on camera so far, probably in the history of digital photography even, you decide haaa. There I am in no mans land when I see some more camels, out with the camera snapping away. I am extremely careful when it comes to taking pics as I dont wanna offend anyone and stuff like that. Just about to leave and this guy comes out from behind a wall and walks towards me, I do the usual dipping of the head and a friendly Salam Hilikam, spelling, the dude shakes my hand and wont let go, demanding money for the pictures I took of his camels. Now if this had been a carnival where he had a stall with a sign stating 10 dirhams per photo, maybe, but come on dude. I say no and he grabs hold of my arm so I cock my left fist and tell him I will actually knock out his last tooth if he does not let go. Then he grabs my map and tries to tear it off my handlebar bag so I kinda roll away knowing he wont give up. I am so calm about it its funny. I get about three meters away and he throws his stick at me hitting Celona, I think about stealing his whittled stick but I remember how long it took me to
whittle my spoon and I decide to just get the fuck out of there instead haaa. The fucker then launches a stone at me but we have pegged it just outside of his range and I say fuck it if he is gonna throw a rock at me I am gonna steal a picture haaa, so i do. So help me god we snapped a dinger! If you look closely you can see his two feet are in the air and the second rock is up in the air above the mountain in the background. Haaaa

All good in the hood

Angry old chipper

This incident happened days before I decided to head north towards Spain, I just had to tell you cause I caught it on camera and honestly I was sitting in my tent later that night staring at the pic in bits laughing.

Trying to figure out which way to go

The silence was golden

Actual nomads

So we headed out to the most barren, arid, windswept place I have ever set eyes on. It is amazing, truly special place. But its a route that takes me north through the Plateu du Rekkam and out of Morocco through the port of Melilla to Malaga in Spain in about three or four days. I have seen as much as I can take in from one country right now. The scale of landscape has got me pondering what I wanna see in my life, I wanna see everything, everywhere, every animal and meet people from every corner of the world. I feel like I have met many different people here in Morocco. I learned about the Muslim culture, Berbers and shepards. I also know I can only do so much at a time and with the law of diminishing returns I can happily leave knowing I seen a fricken ton of this place and its bizzarly different areas and people.

My work here is almost done

IN DA MID DLE OF NO WHERE

To attempt a Tamjilt...

2009-02-01T15:15:00.010Z

I left Fez aiming for the highest pass over the Middle Atlas mountains. I wasnt or was any one else sure if the road was open ha. I asked the guys at the petrol station and they said impossible, as one of them filled my fuel bottles with a lit cigarette in his mouth. I asked a police man and he said it was open but that it would be difficult. Before the hills it is a nice flat plane which has a ton of farming going on which makes it hard to camp in the wild as such. So I pulled and got chatting to a farmer who said I could stay in one of his workers little rooms. Haaa my own little bed of planks, which I obviously put my mattress over as I am in no way as hard as a fricken Moroccan farmer. So began probably the funniest night of the trip, sitting beside a nice warm log stove shooting the shit with the locals. One of the girls who is like a house maid, Fatima, was ripping the piss out of me the whole night asking me to put her in one of my bags and take her to Ireland. It was a huge farm and I got the grand tour off Mohamid the father as he proudly showed off his big collection of tractors and bulls.

The whole family plus the long lost inbred cousin

A much more beautiful and comfortable pillow than mine

The road to another mini adventure

I headed off towards the hills then, loaded up with food and water, once past Ribat El Kiber it was pretty much no mans land. To get to where the climbing starts you have to cross a river that runs right over the road. Freezing cold melt water with stones hitting my ankles, from the start I knew I was in for an interesting time. A wonderful winding road gently climbing up and up. Really gotta take my hat off to the road builders around here. Before this trip started I had a vision of what I roughly wanted to see and more so the feelings I wanted to experience and it was on this climb I got them. Beautiful blue sky and just warm enough to keep ye toastey even though we were as high as the Pyrenees? So I had loads of time sitting on warm rocks sipping coffee and just feeling the massive views. All day I climbed away the only people I seen was a guy on a donkey and two shepards off up the hills with their flock. Now people inhabit every square inch of this planet but it really was the loneliest romantic adventure so far, just no one around. This obviously had me thinking the road aint gonna be open but we kept going cause ye never know eh. We camped out under the stars and cooked by starlight before it got too cold. My spoon which is half fork and half spoon, a spork, was already in a bad shape having snapped all the prongs off the fork end but as a spoon it was doing perfectly fine, who uses a fecking fork anyway? But sure while I was tucking into my dinner I snapped the bloody thing in two. Yes Yes Yes, it would have to snap in two while I am in the most remote place of the trip so far. So I did what any intrepid wildman would do eh, I whittled my own spoon out of a branch! I know he is a huge fan of my blog so he will be mortified by me thanking him, but cheers Ray Mears. Loving his Bush Craft and Survival techniques haaaa. I only use the wooden spoon to stir food I am boiling as I cant get it smooth enough to dare put it in my mouth haaa! But it was a proud moment nonetheless.

Dream start

My only company for the day, lazy git

God how I appreciate good weather

Thankfully it did not swamp the road

So the next day we trundled on aiming for a town up in the hills, only to get there and find its not a town but an area? With nothing in it, nearly all the second day we met no one. Then we got to the snowline and things got really messy. The road vanished under ice and frozen snow and it became difficult haa. Eventually I had to push and drag the bike over icy ridges, nervously walking over frozen pools and occasionally plunging ankle deep into the water haaa. At one stage we where making only twenty meters at a time before having to catch my breath. If the weather had been anything but perfect I would of gone back as the road was beyond anything ye could cycle and it would be an absolute mission for twenty Kms over the pass. It was the most effort I had put into the trip per km so far. Finally the road was blocked by a snow plow so we had a look around and the men were no where to be seen. Spirits where lifted though because obviously the snow plow was clearing the road. A jeep pulled in behind me and three men got out and they were in bits laughing at the fact I was up here. I tried to figure out where they where going once the snow plow moved but we were struggling with the old Arabic to English thing. They basically said I should turn around or I would die up here haaa. I was trying to tell them once that plow gets moving I am going over haaa. We all walked down the road to look for the Plow King and found them in a bull dozer opening the road that was under about two meters of snow. Haaa I clearly would be turning around now but even then I was wondering could I pay some mountain people to get over the pass with donkeys haaa, mentally I was in a focused state of mind on getting over it haa. That was not gonna happen, anyway I scabbed a lift back down the mountain off the lads, I had cycled up and had no qualms about taking a lift over roads I had cycled already, the lads turned out to be some sort of civil servants inspecting how the road was doing. On the way back down we stopped and chatted with men who appeared out of the rocks and they where swapping forms and just chilling out chatting. It was really nice to meet some of these people who live right down in the valleys. Mega friendly people sharing out bread and oranges and we had a snowball fight with the kids. And thats where our newest term came into existence, as I had been heading for a town called Tamjilt, pronounced Tamjeelt, the lads where rippin the piss out of me for even thinking about it, saying Tamjilt and pointing at me laughing, I deserved it haa. When we got to the bottom of the mountain another jeep approached us and where asking about the pass, when we pulled off I just said Tamjilt and laughed at the other jeep, the lads where loving the call! One mans adventure is still just another kids playground.

Fun and games

Its worth the effort for a hot dinner with a view

Game over

Ahmed, in a Jellaba, super friendly old guy

Reflecting on my failed attempt

I was not actually too dissapointed with the road being open as I had some precious moments of warm weather in some pretty high hills. It also led me to a wonderful cycle along the plains below the hills which again gave me more romantic feelings. The sun was scorching my nose and hands, flat empty land with the mountains hazily in the distance, the tarmac was long gone and we were on a gravel road with the amazing feeling of being in the real Africa haaa. There where no Thompsons Gazelles or cheetahs but the goats and sheep out on the plains under the heat haze provided a surreal atmosphere to the views. Needless to say I enjoyed the hell out of the sunny weather as I knew it would not last once I got to back to the main road south of Fez.

Little kid on a donkey, we shared an orange, it was a cute moment

Ribat el Kiber

A typical mountain house, got a refill of water off them

Another day or so later haa, was a very windy day so I pulled in at what appeared to be an abandonded building with two lads hanging out, one in the traditional Jellaba. I cooked up some pasta and we chatted as best we could. Later on a guy came along and opened up the door to the house to accfept a delivery of gas bottles. It was a shop and a one room school. Eunice, the owner, invited me to his house across the road for some tea, which turned into a feast when his mate Hassan came along too. He had good English and had studied Chemistry in uni. I got the full Moroccan hospitality including the famous sweet tea which they pour holding a beautifully ornate teapot high above the glass! It got late so I camped in his garden, later that night I went over to his shop which a few of the local young lads hang out at. I got Arabic, Berber, Spanish and French lessons off Hassans younger brother Mohassein, a teenager. I also got to tick another box, meeting Berbers, the mountain people. It was seriously freezing cold but we all hung outside the shop eating delish chocolate topped cakes and generally messing around, probably the latest I had been up in a long time, toes almost frost bitten but I was hanging out with real hardy mountain folk so I was not going to bed till they were haaaa

Take whatever shelter ye can to eat!

Eunice showing off Moroccan style

I really do forget where I have camped sometimes so when I wake up and open the tent door it can be kinda weird if I am still half asleep wondering where the hell I am. So when I was woken up the next morning by the sound of an avalanche I was freaking out till I remembered I was in Eunices garden haaa on a flat plateu, but it was the most insane wind of all time. It led to the absolute harshest conditions of the trip so far haaa, really dramatic eh, no joking it was a bloody nightmare. Hail stones all day and bitter unrelenting wind. So far I have only fallen a couple of times on ice, that day I was blown off my bike about fifteen times, once right across the road and into the ditch. Ye know when people say, sure its an experience, yeah but that only afterwards when your laughing about it on the couch, when your in it ye can pretend ye love it but ye fecking dont! I spent all day climbing again, I was pushing my bike at one stage the wind was that bad, just horrific. Stopping so often to catch my breath, I am a wimp eh, flat roads ment nothing, in the wind its all climbing, sometimes ye cant even breath its that bad ye have to turn your head haaa. I stopped to eat, once in some trees for cover and once in a V shaped cut in the rock beside the road, horrible day but I really was loving haaa cause it just cant last for ever. I finally make it to the town Boulemane, the most dramatic entrance to a village ever, basically situated right in the middle of the mountains, the main road leading into an almost Holywood filmset entrance of huge rocky hills on either side. Nestled away on the main road but ye feel like your a million miles for anywhere, yet here I am sitting in an internet cafe!

Prayer time five times a day belts out from the tower speakers

I camped just outside the town last night, waking to find my tent almost collapsing under the fresh overnight snow. Had a monster feed as it absolutely baltic out and the beautiful wind is howling away again. Cycled about 2kms along the road in a smashing headwind, went through a tunnel and was litterly blown back out the way I came so I walk Celona through it. Just so we are clear on this ok, the wind is fucking crazy harsh haaa! Not long after the snowplow man aggresively turned me back despite my protests. I get back down to Bouleman town and I have to wait in line with the cars while they argue away. A policeman said the road would be open in an hour so I nipped down here for a quick post. Really excited to even get past thi

Boulemane with the dramatic entrance in distance

Celona had a chilly night

Waiting for the road to open, exciting times!

My route will hopefully take me to the far east side of the high Atlas moontains as most of the roads will be closed. Then fingers crossed I will get onto the Anti Atlas then back north to the Tizi Itchy pass I think its called, which hopefully will be open which drops down onto Marakech. The distance is huge so I have put off having a peek at the Sahara as its so far south and I will see it in Egypt I think haaa.

Séamus

Seeing is believing...

2009-01-24T18:49:00.017Z

First off forgive grammar mistakes and the order of pics is a bit off as this keyboard is half arabic.

So my last couple of days in Spain were as amazing as everyother day of my ickle bike ride. Aiming at a town called Verger one day telling myself I will rest once I get there. But when I get near I see its at the top of a VERY steep road. Ah sure we will just sit here then and look up at it. No we must go up otherwise this trip will become weak. So I climb up a steep short road to a quaint town and its up there that I remember what its all about. Its about the hard work and the super payoff of a view. Anyway thats not the greatest start to a post but after the easy flat coast of Portugal I needed to recheck my motivation for the pain of cycling hills haaa...

Not something ye see in the Irish countryside

I had planned to get close to Tarifa near the end of the day so I could get an early ferry to Moroc so I can get all settled in and ready for a new country. But as I got close and Africa loomed hazily across the water I got the goose bumps and I knew I would be too excited to sleep so I picked up the pace and flew into town hoping there would be a ferry. There was and before I knew what I was doing we were skimming across the straight of Gibraltar. Haaaa I was easily the happiest camper on the boat; just buzzing around like a kid on a school tour. What a feeling. Such innocent childish fun on a ferry with no adults haaa! I roll off the ferry and get waved to go through the gates and into Tanger when a policia stops me. Have you anything special for me he says. I say special like what and inch towards the gate. Special like GUNS. Yes sir I have two do you prefer a hand gun or a rifle and he just laughed and asked where I was going and I say into the hills towards destiny haaaaaa and cycle off.

A great start to my time in the Rif mountain area

Biggest valley of the trip

So I was in a pretty busy big city and its 5.30 and the sun is setting so I fly along the coast to where I had seen some green area from the ferry. I spy a bit of a hiding place and snoop around and its seems like a good spot so I make my way back into town because its all lit up with street lights so I can easily make my way back to the camp site in the dark later. I just chilled out down at the water front and ate some museli and watched some kids doing sumersaults. What a fricken laugh man. I spent a while cruising around Tanger and its outskirts really hit me like a sledge hammer. The level of poverty was crazy. Real muddy slums where they collect everything possible to reuse it. I recon they have every single car part imaginable. That was the Holy Shit Man I am in Africa moment number one. Number two was seeing a fecking CAMEL!

Australia has the iconic Kangaroo but can you actually trump a Camel

Thank God or Allah that they have the signs in English too

The next day I take it easy and just do a short day to get out of Tanger and into the hills. Just relaxing and getting a feel for all the different sounds smells traffic and people. I approached a guy in his garden and he greeted me as his long lost brother and he said I could set my tent up on his land then soon after upgrades me to inside his garage. I went to sleep at noon till about 6pm ate some food then went back to sleep. I presume it was all the excitment that had me wrecked haa.

Indoor camping is all the rage these days

Hamid standing proudly with my sexy lady

I head towards the hilliest area on the map in the north as I wanna do a circle of Moroc down over all its four sets of mountains. The Rif, Middle, High and Anti Atlas mountains and back out to the coast for the other major cities. Absolutely amazing wall of mountains on my left as I cycle east so I decide to keep following them for the next day after sleeping next to a forrest rangers hut as a local had driven up to me and warned me about local thieving gangs. A hiking trip along the Riff by the coast would be one for a future trip. The Moroccans made the first two days the funniest and most welcoming as I could ever dreamt of. Since the start I promised myself to be as nice as possible to everyone I met no matter what happens. So far I have waved and smiled and answered the same questions a million times with a smile and enthusiasm. Because I believe if you are going to go through different countries then you have to have do so with a smile energy and patience. So I have not got angry or annoyed about being run off the road or jeered or any other negative things that have happened in Europe many times. I have not even talked about them in the blog as they have not been representative of each country I have been in. There are always a few bad apples eh so why sweat the small stuff.

I am coming for ye!

Builders must be on strike as there are

unfinished houses are everywhere

But I am afraid Africa tested my patience beyond what I thought was possible. I was headed up a long gentle climb towards a town called Bab Taza. The views are another once in a life time moment. Clear blue skys and just perfect temperature. Yes Africa is going to be great. Little did I know or research the area I was going into. Research is for nerds man. Fuck travel guides man I on a mini adventure haaaaaa. As is the custom on my trip when a town or a place is amazing I end up repeating the name over and over as in its my new word for something special. So Bab Taza. BAB Taza. BAB TAZA haa. If I thought Tanger was an eye opener it was merely the first kiss on the night you lose your virginity as Bab Taza just blew my head off. The roads are really good, till ye get into town. Then the road ends and you cycle along the rim of potholes under two feet of mud. Holy god we are now in Africa haaa. Just an absolute SHITHOLE. They have signs up that the road is under construction haaa. But I use the term shithole affectionately. If this was an Irish town it would of course be labelled a shithole but its a small town up in the hills of Africa. But that was all I could think of as I negotiated through the mud and craters as people shouted at me to come to their cafe or shop. Men walking by in Jedi style cloaks called Jellabas, towing a donkey with a massive load of straw and bags of grain. Pure and simple it was too much to take in. So I rolled on through. I couldnt take pictures and I couldnt stop haaaa. I was in my element now. In Africa.

A small 3 bedroom house with a sweet view

Land slide took out a few houses

It all went tits up from here on. As the weather was fine the road was just covered in drug dealers. They are everywhere. EVERY SINGLE person says hello sir how are you. Do you want Hashish. They make the clucking sound then hashish. They go Whist Whist hashish. They just shout hashish at you. The drive by beeping and flashing their lights making smokey smokey signs with their fingers. They pull in ahead of you and offer it. They block you in and offer it. When you cycle on around them the drive after you and do the same thing three or four times. The guy who offered you it in town will get a lift off his mate and catch back up with you down the road and offer it again. Now thats not the bad part. The bad part is half them take offence when you say no thank you. No sir thank you very much but no thank you. Yet they still call you all sorts of insults most of which are fuck you fucking fuck haaa. They try guess you nationality. Hey English man. Hey Spaniard. One guy shouted hey Czechoslovakian shave your beard! That one actually had me in tears laughing and gets a nomination for call of the trip, fair play to him! I dont even mind them taking offence. I take the bullshit on the chin and continue to smile wave and answer there fucking questions of how am I today. I am great thank you. Do you want hashish. No thank you. Blah blah fuck you then and I cycle on. Obviously its the quiet tourist time so they need to sell even more but come on.

Peace and quiet away from the dealers

In the hills the cars are pretty old school, lots of Mercs and Renaults

Now as an experiment I want you to get the person next to you to ask you how you are today. then offer you hashish. Then you smile say no thank you and they call you a fucker. Do that 20 times and see how smiley you are. I cycled about 60 kms through this road and I swear on my life I was asked every 50 meters and sometimes every 20 if it was near a junction. But I answer away and do my best. Because they are only saying hello at first and I dont want to not answer the nice people who do just wanna wave and smile at you and there are plenty of them too so I do my best haaa. At one stage I was exhausted after a hill and was just fed up answering the questions and I stopped to enjoy the view on a quiet stretch of road and a car pulls in. I say no thank you. Please no thank you. The guy is sitting in the passenger seat yapping at me non stop. Hashish hashish you want hashish why you not want hashish hashish hashish. I just kept saying no thank you and turned away to look at the view finally just ignoring him. What you looking at you wanna buy a house I sell you a house very cheap. No thank you. Why you not buy house what you looking at why why why why why why. Eventually he just does this ignorant fucking laugh like he knows all he wanted to do was piss me off and they drive away. I almost turned back to go to Tanger. But I knew I was being a pussy and that it was probably just a bad spot in the mountains. I was mentally fucking wrecked and dissapointed because it was only one day of harrasment. Big deal heffo your being soft. I focused on the fact that I did well and never rose to the unreal bullshit they say. The views of the valleys were worth the hassle they really were beautiful but that night I camped out and when I went to bed I was twitching! Can you actually believe only one day reduced me to a pussy twitching alone in my tent. Haaa so I did alot of talking to myself telling me to just harden up and be nice about the situation.

I whipped up some veggie soup

I couldnt even look the camera in the eye,

soaking wet; hungry; tired andI felt even worse than I look

The next day it continued. Thick fucking hillybilly yokels with the most mundane sales pitch of all time followed by the inevitable abuse. I grinned and cycled on now unable to look anyone in the eye. I almost cried when a fucking 10 yr old ran out in front of me to offer me a bag of hash. Later in the day the fog closes in as I climb up into the snow and wind. No bloody dealers up here eh ye soft fuckers. So I had a wonderful time freezing my fingers off and wincing into the wind as it whipped over the mountain. I end up cycling at 45 degree angels into the wind with some strange Paula Radcliffe shuffle of a cycling movement haaa. Its such a masochistic pleasure in being out in the elements making coffee and soup in the snow. I missed the harsher cycling after the few weeks on the coast. Cycling on the flat is easy and fun but it leaves you wanting more. Like a one night stand, yeah it pays the rent but its never as good as the sweaty good stuff. Its not that I want to be cold but the satisfaction of reaching the top of a hill and getting anopther breath taking valley is the greatest feeling in the world. Even getting back down below the snow line is such a sweet victory making me scream my head off in pure primal pleasure until an icicle falls from a tree and smacks me in the nose and I remember that nature is in charge of the show haaa!

The roads torn up near the towns

The local kids were soaking up the view as much as me

I eventually make it down into a town called Ketama. Mental busy trading town on a junction of two main roads. Has to be seen to believed. So I roll to the outskirts to buy some food and a guy approaches me with the usual spiel. I say no thank you and then he gueses I am from Ireland. I get talking to him and he has perfect English and claims to have travelled around Europe. We talk for a couple of minutes and I refuse his offer to stay at his HOTEL. He offers me more hash and when I refuse again and go to roll away he grabs the handlebars of Celona. Two other goons that had been hanging around move in a bit closer. Motherfuckers. He says I really should stay with him if I want to stay safe. I obviously say no thanks and go to roll away but he tries to sort of pull the bike down to the ground so I gave him one of those silly karate chop type punches to his arm holding my bike with as much anger and energy as I have ever mustered. Haaaa I caught him fucking lovely on his skinny stoner boney arm and he winces then I basically lost it. We verbally abuse each other, I fleeced him in a way that would of had you lot rolling around on the floor laughing haaa ripping him about his hicky clothes and stupid shoes haaaa. Its one thing the Irish are good for is giving a slagging. I took heart in the fact he did not hit me back and his goons stepped back a bit. Here is this well spoken articulate guy with more sense and brains than all the other hillbillys put together yet still wants to act the ignorant prick. He says he is going to come after me down the road which causes so I shit myself and get off the bike and ask him to get me now instead. Absolute wanker. I look an absoltue mess. I am filthy sweaty muddy and I knew I looked a real oddball with my beard. So I kinda knew he wouldnt do anything. Kinda knew haa. We just keep shouting and I just end up walking down the road pushing Celona away and he heads in the opposite direction shouting at me and I smile. I cycle off at horrific speed haaa laughing at how stupid I had been but I honestly think I was probably in a bit of trouble anyway once he grabbed the bike and tried to pull it to the ground.

That was only a small part of my first few days but I cant not talk about it. Remember its only trying in trying times... So then it was time to spin downhill into the lowlands when my back brake cable snaps and I obviously dont have a spare. Its raining and having only a front brake in the rain is useless so anytime the road is mega steep I have to walk haaa. So now its a fecking walking tour god it was hilarious fun walking in the pissing rain with a heavy bike. Honestly again it was actually a laugh thinkin how stupid it is not to have a spare cable but as I am knew to this cycling lark I thought ye would be able to limp into town on one brake. Ye in Ireland where its flat and bike shops are everywhere, ah come on heffo! I should of known better haaa. I end up sitting on a fence sipping coffee when I see a couple of girls working in their garden so I get chatting to them and asked could I camp in their field hoping I will score a bed rather than camp in their field haa. They ring their Dad on a mobile and he will be back in an hour and they ask me to sit in under an overhang in front of their house and then the bring out a little coffee table with tea, coffee biscuits and cake. Obviously they could not invite me in without a man around so we sit chatting as best we can and I had them in bits laughing doing sign language. Their brother Aziz then comes home and we headed into town for coffee and met a friend of his Jemel who speaks perfect English and I arrange to meet him in the morning for a chat over coffee. I knew I was sweet then for a place to sleep, a bed for the first time since Lisbon! Later on the mother and father come home and it was honestly the best night so far. The women cook and ate somewhere else in the house and the men eat together in the main reception room. We destroyed a delish chicken with our fingers, breaking bread and sharing it all around, slurping coffee and biscuits and oranges. We watch satelite tv, Aljezeera international channel for a couple of hours and I end up sleeping with Aziz and his brother on a couch type bed thing in their beautiful reception room. The details of the night could be better but I have to say I am being selfish as I am keeping them for me, I deserve these private memories after the shite in the hills.

The nicest family in the world

Plan changed again as I was gonna stay in the hills outside Fez but when I seen it I got all excited to get stuck in so I went in late in the evening. Still with only one brake I could seen a very long curving steep run down to the lowlands, the road had dried up and the team decided to just go hell for leather and whore down at full tilt. HAAAA it was absolute carnage, ye know the buz ye get snowboarding when you are going so fast that you know the only way you are gonna be able to stop is when the hill flattens out, so fast that you dare not even turn onto the other edge of your board so you end up going even faster. Well thats what we did down a real smoothe road, lunatic stuff, it was such a buz. I had my side of the road to myself. Just flying, when a bloody taxi driver decides to overtake on a corner at a bridge. It would take me a fricken kilometer to stop even if I tried, he was right over on my side. I squeezed over as close to the edge of the road as I could and he squeezed as close to the truck he was overtaking, I am not joking when I say his front passenger put her hands over her face as if she didnt want to see him hit me. I put on my best wincing oh shit I am dead look and missed him by the closest gee hair of all time roaring with laughter as I was already a couple of hundred meters past him before I could even figure out if I made it haaa, just deadly craic. Just another silly moment in life...

The entrance to the Old Medina part of Fèz

I wish I had to money or room to buy bits and pieces for ye all but I cant haaa

Yeah Fez is amazing, again I have to say the people are just out of this world nice and helpful. I still feel bad ranting on about the scum in the mountains as already the nice people have eclipsed what went on. Fez is a massive city where I knew ye pretty much need a guide to get the most out of it and so when a young guy Tarif offered I said why not. We got sooo stuck into all the small side streets and places I just could not of got to see as its the biggest maze in the world. I recomend ye just front up the cash if ye wanna see all the good stuff. We were out on a roof top looking down into the area where they dye the wool, we were in tiny little metal works, leather workshops, you name it we seen it and right now looking back on it, it was the greatest day of my life. The narrow streets in the Old Medina part where the donkeys are king because cars cant fit, its all soo old and pretty much nothing has changed since the city began thousands of years ago.

Dying the wool

Cleaning wool in Fèz

The incredibly hard work some of the people do has shocked me too. I cycled past this woman who was bent over almost scraping her nose off the ground with an absolute monstrous load of sticks piled about two meters high on her back. It would of made a sweet picture summing up the struggles of people earning a living off the land in Africa but I also felt it would demean her to take it. She actually managed to look up and give me a feckin smile as I cycled past. There is a thin line between snapping pictures and been a pervert to suffering. Even when I know the shop keeper is charging me a little more than he should. Who am I to argue, we come here on holidays taking advantage of the exchange rate, with more money than they could ever dream of yet would feel pissed off by being OVER charged for an orange. What bugs the shit out of me is that so many people come here, see whats going on yet go ignorantly go back to their lavish lifestyle flittering away obscene amounts of money on luxuries and leave fellow humans in the mud. Is it the third world I am in, or is just the WORLD?

Traffic Jam in the Old Medina,

I cant get over how much I see everyday

Next stop is probably Marakech but I am not sure how long it will take as I am determined to take the longest route and spend hopefully a couple of weeks in the middle and high Atlas mountains before dropping back down to the big smoke. At this point I feel I have chipped away every excess part of my mind and body. All fat is definetly long gone. The parts of my mind that would crave a couch, running hot water or electricity have vanished and all thats left is a million times stronger than before I started. Its not just that it feels right to be out trying to live in the elements, it just feels like thats all there is to life. Another big section of the trip is close now and I am ready for another mini adventure!

Amazing hand made silk stuff

The most beautiful cafe so far

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined."
Henry David Thoreau

Whats it all been about eh...

2009-01-13T13:27:00.011Z

Well I am shortly (two days) about to get the ferry to Morocco. For soo long now I have been looking forward to getting to Africa by bike that I still try not to think about too much cause I am still not there yet. Never havin cycled any real distance before this trip it has been funny learning how to keep the bike moving and working, the first time I took off the back wheel has hilarious as all sorts of washers and springs fell off I was not sure if I got them all back on in the right order but that was ages back so obviously I did haaa. Even how to pace myself to get the most out of the day has been a long learning curve, when to eat, when to rest, slowly you build up a routine to save time and make the most out of the day.

If any of you are ever in Portugal I seriously think the coast south of Lison is the nicest part plus if your there during the summer I recon you would be crazy not to drop into Tipi Valley and do some Yoga and surfing with Lauri at surfshanti.com. It is a very peaceful and beautiful little valley down near some wet lands and beach. I spent the afternoon with Lauri driving around in his jeep through the wetlands and hills and its a real find in terms of quaint Portuguese life.

Fixing my stabbed mattress

Leg one has been simply amazing and my favourite little things that I have got up to have been:

The romantic lonely fisherman

My coffee: Mixing so much instant coffee into so little hot water that it has the viscosity of Guinness and possibly should be legally a class one drug.

My leaky tent: I have searched for so long and still cant find the bloody hole that I have accepted the leak and I lie to the one side of the tent. My thermorest matress is like a lilo in heavy rain but I stay dry so its all good.

Tipi Valley

My clicking Knee: just seems to be normal now, no pain, I take gloucosomine and vitmains, drink plenty of water but yet the right one clicks away. Hopefully no long term damage haaa.

Rather than turn back
I thought I could push Celona around the lake,
2 hours of pushing later
I had to turn back anyway haaa

The funny times that I get nervous: cant really explain it but its usually when everything is going well I feel like the trip will go tits up because surely life cant really be this good!

The multi flavoured food: I use my cereal bowl to chop veg so my morning museli always has a tint of onion. My coffee has an essence of popcorn and my sandwiches have a smidgen of last nights dinner. But I truly love the mixes haaa.

The looks people give you: Some people will just walk right up to me and stand two feet way staring silently as I am eating. I will say hello yet most of the time they will stay dumbstruck and keep staring finally walking away muttering something like "du dud u loco dud du du" haaa. It makes me feel special when this happens, I wonder do they go home and tell there partner about the strange thing they saw today.

Celona floats easily enough

My beard: Yes I do look inbred. But I will not allow hurtful comments like that stop me from not shaving for one year of my life haa. It gaurantees no sex, not that I get much looking my "best" but it has to be done for the sake of looking back on pics in years to come. Remember that while my beard grows ever wilder, you lot are working!

My mistakes: Taking a wrong turns leading to pushing my bike through 20kms of sand in a national park, breaking my tent twice, putting my knife through my inflatable mattress and so many many more.

Inspiring people: be it emails from friends or the random kindness of strangers I meet everyday. I get so much out of each encounter and it helps to keep my head level and keep perspective on life. I under estimated how important some people are in my life and I am glad so many of you make the effort to keep in touch.

When I talk to strangers and they ask am I "solo" I say yes but I am not really. I think about everyone so much during the day that I feel you lot are here with me at times. I would never have made it past Wales without such a great family and bunch of friends home and abroad. But enough of the lovey dovey talk.

Focus: Making sure I keep my eye on the ball, remembering why I am here. Thinking about what I want out of this trip. Not worrying about distances, keeping an eye on the scenery rather than how far I have come. So I have been taking stock over the last week, remotivating myself and making sure I try get into some silly situations haaaa. Remebering its just a bit of a cycle.

This week has been another mini adventure the likes of which I will be laughing about for a long time. I was going along the coast road when all of a sudden it ends at a military barracks. So I getting chattin to a dude and he draws, with a stick in the sand, a map of how to get around it through the national park. All I could think was this is frickin funny and I did not really pay attention to the map and boy oh boy if I didnt spend the rest of the evening and half the next day in just about the most beautiful lost in the woods scene from Sopranos ever...

I think the one thing I underestimated about this trip is how funny it would be, I spend half my day laughing with strangers, animals or just by myself about how I ended up on a bike in a weird ass town. The south of Spain (under Sevilla) is a crazy flat swamp land. I had been aiming at a town that has a ferry to cross a river, way down in the middle of nowhere haaa I get there and of course the ferry is not working now. Haaa so I cycled back north 40km to the next crossing which was working but taking it was probably the riskiest thing so far haaa. It was as lobsided as I have ever seen a boat in my life, loving it.

My private paradise cove for the night

So Morocco on Monday, only real plan is to go see Fez, meet some Berbers in the Atlas mountains and hopefully see the west side of the Saharan dessert. I remeber years ago all the cars on our street got covered in sand and they said it was from the Saharan Dessert, I thought that was the coolest thing of all time. So to see it in the flesh will probably have me teary eyed.

Peace

Inside the mind of a fruit cake....

2009-01-03T11:23:00.019Z

I only spent one night in Porto. Had a walk around and liked it in as much as you can in a day. Met a Slovenian guy who I will call Marudo as I cant remember his name. He was a funny hippy of the earth type of guy and I indulged his aura talk and buzzed off him a fair bit. Anyway in the middle of the night the guy in the bunk across from ours was snoring his fat head off, deep throaty snores. As its a hostel ye cant overly complain about noise from other room mates but I dont tollerate snoring to any degree, never have, never will haa. Marudo was awake and telling the guy to stop snoring???

I think she is on the ball with rain gear

Cutest trams ever, the drivers have to madly shake
their left hand to control the speed

So I did what I have been doing for a long time, I got my pillow and stretched across the floor trying to keep my naked (highly toned) ass under the sheet, I walloped him right in the face with the pillow. Haaa I love it, it always works and they never remember what happened, they just roll over and fall into a snoreless sleep. Marudo seen what I did and I have honestly never heard someone laugh for so long I thought I was gonna have to wallop him too. I recon one day hitting strangers with a pillow might get me in trouble but till then I take my chances and I will enjoy my sleep!

I met a guy on a mountain bike and he asked was I lost,
I said I wasnt sure

I was going so fast I set the tarmac on fire

New Years Eve was a tame affair compared to last year which I spent counting down to midnight scuba diving upsidedown, inside a little shipwreck with Mike, plus we had some champers! My first glimpse of the Atlantic was just about perfect. It was just dark and I cycled along a narrow wooden boardwalk singing "on the board walk dum dum dum dum on the boardwalk". As soon as I got on on it I was like "ye I wanna cycle this all the way to Moroc", two mins later I had enough of the shaking as the sleepers got further apart. The path was lit by some amber lights and was as Holywood as it gets in terms of a grand occasion arriving to the sea once again. So this new years was spent finishing a book camped out on the beach. To Kill a Mocking Bird, pretty good, very articulate kid eh.

The Atlantic, another milestone reached

Sing it with me, "on the boardwalk"

Was asleep well before midnight after spending a fair chunk of time watching a beautiful crescent shaped moon, which turned into cats eyes when a thin strip of cloud cut it in two, pretty cool stuff. God I am sooo old, New Years Eve is supposed to be party time, its happened hasnt it, I am now old ha! As if more proof is needed I also wear socks with my sandles when its cold. The first person I met in the morning was an old Indian jogger that at first thought I was cleaning the beach haa, I cleared matters up and informed him that I am the guy that will make Lance Armstrong go back into retirement should I take up cycling competitively when I get home. Anyway the Indian said "may you meet only honorable men on your journey", what a nice way to start another year.

There was more sea water in the air than in the sea

Dont ye just love when ye have sand in every crack of your body, it can mean only one thing. Yes folks its been a beach bums life for me over the last week down the coast of Portugal. Miles and Miles or should I said kilometers and kilometers of golden sandy beaches. One night I camped at the edge of a cliff with a smashing sea view. Its exactly what the waves did all night, just smash loudly into the cliff and kept me awake. My energy levels are better than I ever would of imagined so to miss a nights sleep does nothing so I gave up trying to ignore the thunderous waves and just sat watching them. Wave after wave rolling in from the west, no wind, just hammering waves.

When I grow up and stop using a camping stove to make my coffee,
I will hopefully get a present of one of these

My daily empties

My head is pretty clear these days, stress free that is. Thoughts jump around alot but to be honest I have hardly had a negative thought since I left. Its one of the things I wanted to do while away, bring a real peace to my mind, slowly I am getting there. So what happened the other night has me puzzled and I am also still laughing about it. I camped out down by the beach on a patch of grass behind some sand dunes. A nice flat quiet spot, just how I like it. Finished off a crappy fantasy book, King of Kings or some rubbish like that, book two of three. I had not read book one and I dont intend on reading book three. I finished my popcorn, yes popcorn, this touring lark is hard eh. Had a good old sleep and the next morning I woke up had some brekie and started to dismantle the tent. It looked odd, the tent pegs I had firmly fixed into the ground were all pulled out but yet there was no hurricane overnight. When I took apart the tent poles I noticed the one that connects to a joint was split. Easily replaced with a spare I got off Dinier in France, but as it is one that joins the joint it should be reinforced on the inside so I have no doubt it will split at the worst time in the near future. Anyway enough boring talk of bloody tent poles, what is strange is how did it break. It had me thinking about it all day and finally I remembered haaa. I had a nightmare that my tent was being blown off a cliff! I remember freaking out and jumping from side to side trying to stop the tent falling off an imaginary cliff and kinda waking up and realising I was only dreaming. Haaa I jumped so hard trying to keep the tent from falling down the side of the "mountain" that I snapped a feckin pole. It would be even funnier if someone was walking by during my fit.

My Wallet is the one that says Bad Ass Motherfucker

Seriously, whats the markup on antique tools

I am in Lisboa for a couple of days. Turns out I picked the number one hostel in Europe, it is seriously slick, friendly, cheap and clean until I arrived with all my nature smells. There is a real backpacker vibe to it, not just holiday makers but chatty backpackers. I was catching up on Jacks adventures in Oz on his blog and it had me yearning for the backpacker feeling again. So its been perfect timing to get into a real hostel full of excited travellers. I got chatting with a Brisbane guy and man it brought back the good times of working in the Empire Bar in the valley, assembling furniture and drinking like a lunatic all hours of the day. Went on the free tour of the city that the hostel offers. Ye cant expect too much when its for free but where it lacked in the usual over the top dates and names of every single person and place of note it made up for it in banter. Spent a chunk of time wandering around the flea market with an American Victoria, how the people make money selling broken useless shit is a small wonder, well its a big wonder because I seen hardly anyone buy anything, just one big collection of crap ha.

I have been having some interesting guests lately

The first, second and third person I met in the city while walking around offered to sell me hash or coke, same sort of scene as Barcelona. Later on I went out for coffee and one of the guys from earlier on approached me again and would not stop trying to sell me some hash as I said "no", "no thank you", "cheers no I am good as it is", "fuck off you shit head" eventually made him realise I was not a stoner. It kinda of annoyed me that I snapped but he was really pushy and in my personal space.

Me fondling Victoria

Life a beach, a loud beach

Met a surfer, Lauri, from Aus and got chattin about travel and he is just back from Morocco so he gave me some advice on where to go. He runs a yoga/surf retreat down the Algarve coast a bit and invited me to visit him. So I checked out his website surfshanti.com and it looks like a pretty cool spot so I am heading that way once I leave Lisboa. I am getting majorly pumped up for the next leg in Africa but I still have a bit to go so I need to focus on the last itsy bit of Europe. The hostel has a huge pile of old Nat Geo mags so I have been fleecing the articles mainly on Africa and one cool one about Borge Ouslands trek to the north pole nearly twenty years ago, he was the dude I went to see talk before I left.

Its 2.80 euro to get the lift to the lookout of Lisboa,
our free tour guide took us the long way for free

Slumming it in Lisboa

Excitement to leave the hostel tomorrow after the free breakfast, of which I will overly gorge out on, is almost at a stage where I am twitching. I will sleep feck all tonight thinking about what awaits ahead in the next couple of weeks. I am on the verge of getting my ass onto Africa, FRICKEN AFRICA, possibly the most wonderous place I can think of travelling. To go to where it all began, I mean can you imagine the moment I see my first camel. No, its too much to think about right now, Algarve here I come!

A wise man once wrote and sang:

The more I see the less I know
The more I like to let it go

Ignorance was bliss

2008-12-30T18:43:00.009Z

Hola, Bonjour and alright!

I have had to most random 8 days of the trip so far. Everything has been soo random, the people, the weather and the wildlife. I have crashed, starved, laughed and I had a wonderful christmas day cycling around the middle of Spain tryin to find a bloody village that had a public phone. It was worth the effort in the end to get to talk to my family, to hear about the fry they had for brekkie, I had museli. After hanging up I went to the nearest bench and made some coffee in the glorious sunshine, in the mid teens anyway. I had to behave myself as I had a guest for lunch, some random woman, stinking of last nights booze, came out of her house and just stood in front of me staring in awe at my camping stove. It was just gas craic trying to explain it all to her with no language, she did not seem to even understand my sign language. Just when I was about to hit the road again she gave me a pat on the back and that near melted my heart, just random love...

I fell here and it hurt, ice is harder than titanium

I got another super present for xmas. Since the start of the trip one of the really special pleasures I have is in watching all the different birds of prey hunting. Spain has really taken the piss in this matter over the last few days. Looking up at huge soaring vultures, hovering kestrels and massive hawks. Another great moment came as I whizzed down from another wonderful hill with a steep drop off right beside the road. I turned a corner and there was a massive hawk cruising along, he was a couple of hundred meters off the ground but their we were only a few feet apart gliding along at the same speed. UNREAL! I have alot of dreams I want to come through but I never thought that one would be topped in the same week but it was. On chrsitmas day I seen my first confirmed kill. I have watched probably thousands of these birds on this trip but never seen a completed hunt. It was a kestrel hovering at the side of the road. Usually I end up spooking them but this one must of already had his eyes on dinner. He dove, I held my breath and rolled closer for the millionth time, not believing I would see what I have dreamed about for months. Wings tucked tightly in, supreme stealthy speed, you could almost see vapour trails as he cut through the air. The mouse, sitting pretty, munching on some left over corn, trying to keep fat through the winter, he was wearing the christmas socks his kids gave him for the third year in a row, he had a little handful of corn to bring back to the hungry waiting family. Alas it was a meal they would never get to enjoy, snatched up and torn apart before he knew what hit him. It was the Kestrel family on the next block that would have the extra portions for christmas dinner. Heffo on the sideline whooping and hollering, blood in my eyes, I cheered on the kill like a spectator in a colosseum of old.

The start of the sunny weather, somewhere in Spain

Then all my innocence was shattered in my last couple of days of riding through Spain. I stopped for a quick stretch and drink when something caught my eye on the road. It was a dead snake, I didnt know Spain had snakes haaa. Had I of known this I probably would not of slept in my tent with it wide open on hot nights. For all I know they could of been crawling all over me during the night. Highly unlikely I know but I deffo would not of had the bloody door open haaaa.

Wishing for hills

For my birthday I promised myself I would get into Portugal, so began one of many long days on the bike. Outside of Madrid the road was pretty flat so I covered some "big" distances. I always wondered how they came up with borders of countries, obviously the Pyrenees sould of given me a better clue as to what awaited before Portugal. Yes another great hill, I was told on the way down to go back by some boy racer as it was too icey and slippy, started to put the shits up me but I was not going back. Turned out to have a bit of frost and alot of sheep. As I got closer to the border I wanted music so I flicked on my Ipod shuffle and on came Bob with Like a Rolling Stone, just lovin your work Bob! An amazing valley with all sorts of rocks piled in unusual piles haaa, and only half an hour of pain up the otherside, camped out at the side of the road looking out over the valley, extra chocolate for the birthday boy!

Made me reconisder my "planned" trip through
South America by donkey

Stopped for food in some silly little village the next day and had a jam sambo. As is my routine just before I jump on the bike I have another quick coffee, one for the road, just then two teenagers came over and offered to buy me a hot drink, it was kinda cold out so I said of course. They bought me a single espresso and I got the coffee shakes, I love them haaa. Thiago and Anna, beautiful little kids full of questions. I asked them all about their xmass, Thiago got a guitar and Anna got shoes and stuff. They go to an English bording school so it was cool to be able to chat in English, they also gave me the change of the tenner their parents gave them to buy me a drink. I obviously refused and told them to tell their parents I took it and that they should buy sweets with it but their grandad came into the cafe and made sure I took it, so I did, and I bought Pringles and three slabs of chocolate.

Anna and Thiago

I have a theory, I have developed many since starting this trip haaa. Now dont get me wrong, its just a theory, a lot of theories didnt pan out, The Lone Gunman, Algebra, haaa gotta love Joey. My thoery is that dogs are the reincarnation of people who have been killed by touring cyclists. My evidence is in the fact that every single time I pass a garden that has a dog, in every country, it will quickly run up and start barking its head off at me as I pass. If the garden is fenced it will bark and run along to the end of the garden and bark as best he can through the fence. If the dog is chained it will run towards me as hard as he can and bark until he almost cuts his head as the chain takes the slack. Even if the dog is way up in the hills they still bark at me and thus warn the dogs around the corner that a murderer is on his way so they will start barking. I even find myself barking back at them only to have the owner give me the weirdest look as the pop their head up out of the flowerbed. Sometimes it seems like the sound track to this trip is fecking barking dogs. And the next story has cemented the sound track in stone for me.

Proof of the maneaters

It was just another day up in the rugged hills, where the hardy folk dwell. The inbred farmers busy tending to their goats, adorable in a purely ugly way. Ye get them everywhere I suppose. They still smile, obviously with only a few teeth but a smile is a smile. The odd one will give me that reaction that inspires me more than anyother. As I cruise past they thump their hearts twice and then the air in salute to my trip. I do the salute back, we laugh and then I am gone, hoping the next farmer gives me the same salute, I usually get a few each day haaa. I had been pushing hard all day and had climbed my last hill of the day, I had been holding a number one and a two as the going had been good and I promised my organs I would releave them of the pressure at the camp site. I found a nice out of the way quiet spot to camp beside an abandoned house overlooking a steep lonely valley. I set the tent up and sat at my front door pondering life with a cup of coffee looking down into the dark abyss as the last of the light faded away. My bodily urges had left as I was sitting so I lay down for a bit. Then the church bells rang, aww thats cute they are playing Silent Night, then I heard a bark, then another and another and they were getting closer. So began the night of all nights, the seige of all seiges. A pack of ferral fucking dogs surrounded the tent. Now it was not just a bit of barking, it was barking to end all barking, growling and snarling like I had just killed one of their children. It was pure madness, but sure they will be gone soon enough. Ye tell yourself these things all the time but it does not mean it will happen. Before I got a glimpse of them I imagined them to be some whimpy little jack russels. I had one side of my front door open and I got a look at one of them, a massive German Sheppard, I mouthed to myself "bollox" and closed off the tent door.

I wished I had a front door like this

So I played the waiting game, stay silent, they did not see a human enter so for all they know its just a random empty tent. So I lay as silent as I could. It was as if I had been removed out of the galaxy, pure and utter stillness. Any time I moved I thought the sound of the sleeping bag was like picking up a bag full of shattered glass, so I didnt move a bloody muscle. When I could hear my pulse vibrating with the sleeping bag at my neck I moved it, thats the sort of quiet I was aiming for to try get rid of the hounds. For two hours they ran around the tent in a crazed state, at one stage one of them was howling like a wolf, sweet jesus. I was hungry but my food bag was outside, I was gonna cook up some popcorn of all things, not tonight my friend, I dined on hunger cursing the dogs. They finally went silent, so I waited a while to make sure they were gone, delighted, nature was calling so I made a move for the door. Up the dogs jumped and continued their frenzied barking. Holey fuck they had actually just sat down and had been waiting about twenty minutes. So they got all worked up again and I got all silent again, as pointless as it was as they clearly where super smart genetically modified intelligent army dogs. So I lay in my bag in the dark praying they would not rip the tent. I was doing a Ghandi with my peaceful protest. I drew the line at damage to my house, if they started to bite it I was gonna pull a Magyver and fashion a spear out of a spare tent pole and use my leatherman knife and kill me some dog. At one stage I was getting ready mentally for a show down, thinking yeah I will get biten but I will take a couple of them down and then get to the next town for stitches and a tetness shot haaa. I was bursting and I considered dumping into a plastic bag but I could not bring myself to do and it would of stank to the high heavens, I thought maybe I could hurl the bag at them or something. I know its madness but I was brainstorming as best I could. Eventually they went quiet and I resigned myself to getting some sleep, hungry and holding onto a peepoo but I was even to be denied sleep as the church kindly offered to sound the bell every hour and wake the dogs from their quiet vigil of my tent. Silent night my ass at 4am, 4fuckingAM are you guys for real, 5am, 6am, SILENT NIGHT driving the dogs mental. But I dont blame the dogs, I blame the idiots who probably bought the dogs last christmas and had got bored of them and just dumped them up in the hills like they do back home. The dogs didnt attack and eventually there was silence at the 7am Silent Night Remix so I had a quick look out the tent to find the beasts were gone so goddamit if I didnt just pack that tent up, load the bike and hit the road in under twenty seconds flat laughing my head off in the early morning darkness. I got into the next town and found an early bird cafe and did some serious damage to the toilet bowl, I also ate two of the most delicious custard filled sugar donuts...

Wishing for a flat road

I had picked out what I thought would be a nice hilly route through Portugal, I was planning to go to Vigo but changed my mind when I seen the most squiggly road of all time. It definetly has more bends than the Enniskerry road. Squiggles, which where also my fav biscuit in Welly, mean hills so I was pumped up for this one. The Dourro river flowed all the way to the Atlantic through Portugals wine region. Sandemans was about the only name I recognised. Man if I didnt just roll along the side of the river in glorious sunshine and happiness. Then the road takes to the hills, then down to the river, then to the hill, down to the river and back to the hills and ye get the idea. Man it is just a beautiful area, the farmers are all out picking the last of the olives, trimming grape vines and burning leaves. Which filled the valley with smoke, not enough to put you off, just enough to create all sorts of shapes with the sunlight. The smell of lemon trees, manderines and even near the end there were ecalyptus trees to add to the beautiful aroma.

My first night in Portugal

So I arrived into Porto thinking it was New Years Eve, its the eve of eve haaa what a muppet. I am in a cool hostel for the night but its full for tomorrow so I might hit the road and enjoy the big night from the hills haaa. So far I like what I have seen of Porto, to sum it up in the few hours I seen, Oldschool.

Skinny legs and skinny arms

A million shades of red...

2008-12-18T15:07:00.039Z

With so much time on my hands, I get thinking about the most random moments in my life. Mostly happy moments, some scary moments, some drunk moments. Its funny how when trying to recall a situation I can only bring back a single moment. Like trying to remember a whole conversation, when I know we talked for hours yet all I can remember is the smile at the end.

I would of loved some roasted marshmallows for this one

I am close to my 29th birthday now and I am trying to think about what I have done with all that time. Cycling down so many roads on this trip gets me thinking about how I ended up on this particular road. So much time spent in school, college, working, relationships and travelling. Yet if I was pushed to sit down and write about what I have done so far I could only jot down a snap shot at best. Life is just a collection of moments. Even looking back at what I did last Monday, I can only recall a few funny things that happened. I suppose I am happier now knowing that the moments are ticking by the way I want them too.

Bring on the new day!

I got another Nat Geo mag today and it had the Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1: All humans are born free. Thats definely true for me and most Irish people. Yet why am I only starting to experience a true sense of freedom now, 29 years later. I grew up in just about as normal house as ye can get, granted the inmates in the asylum probably argue along those lines too haa. I dont feel the rigid structure of school and college was right for me but there is no alternative so ye have to go. I just never got into it, something was always just a little bit off. There is no doubt I had some serious craic in uni but that was definetly because of the crowd rather than the fine educational institute of DIT. Travelling helps increases the sense of freedom, cycling increase the freedom tenfold...

Thats some good thinking boy

Now I have had to delete a pretty big rant I had spent a long time typing. Just stuff that I felt needed to be said. So once I put it down on and reread it, the therapy was done for me. So this is a vastly alterted post, not sure what the point is in even telling you. Maybe its just for me, to jog my memory of the post that could of been...

I made the owner an offer, it still pending

The things I have experienced this week have made me happier than ever. The places I have seen and the loving that I have done haaa. I feel like I am really starting to live on the edge now. Not on the edge of danger or of human endeavour haaa. On a different edge of my life. Living in the right place at the right time, all the time.

So many canyons and mountains rolling on forever

I have stopped in Madrid for a few days. Usual madness of backpacker hostel, madness that I am no longer involved in. I was chilling out in a Starbucks, not actually that bad for once, and I got chatting to Laura (Madrid) and Denise (Columbia). Awww they were loving the beard man, dont blame them either. Ended up going to the cinema with them but there was no dropping of the hand! Went to see My Blueberry Pie, cemented my love for Norah Jones, just simply smoking hot. I love the buzz of rocking into a city and getting chatting with locals. The anonymity of travel by bicycle is amazing. But whats more amazing is the open nature of strangers to chat or offer help.

New horizons everyday

How exciting is it to look at a map and be able to go almost anywhere on it. To spend a chunk of time in my tent at night picking out the most interesting route. Only to chose a turn at random in the morning just to see what might have been. I am truly in love with the random nature of my journey. Where ever I end up will be completely my own fault. The whole curiosity with the dead cat lark. I struggle to sleep with excitement even this far into the trip.

If the road is quiet enough I can afford be really lazy

Mixed emotions about Madrid to be honest. Supposed to be resting my legs yet have found myself walking around the city for hours. Maybe I walked so long because its hard to find what is nice about Madrid. Dont get me wrong, I like it but I am not sold on it like Paris. I did a bit of museum stuff, just was not feeling it. It was an exhibit on 1914 avant garde and the great war. I did like a penciled sketch of a Belgium officer but that was about it. Nature trumps most art in my opinion. Its like watching a DVD on Planet Earth, or even a blu-ray disc haaa, it pales in comparison to real life.

Maybe I am yearning for the outdoors too much and not letting myself get into the run of things in the city. It is just packed full of christmas shoppers, possibly 50 million people today. They seem to have a weird christmas wig tradition here, very bizare and they also litter pretty fricken badly too. Everyone running around spending obscene money on obscene things, stepping over homeless people and averting eyes. Once your eyes have been opened its very hard to close them again. Its been a few years since I have really enjoyed christmas, probably since I left for Oz. Its hard to find joy when you know what poverty and hardships people go through, which I presume are multiplied at this time of year. The money spent over christmas makes me sad. The amount of disposable income we have and the choices we make in spending it. I think its why I didnt go to Malaga to meet Mary for christmas, combined with wanting to see Portugal haaa. Its all just wrong in my opinion, completely upside down.

Fingers of god pointing the way

Well there have been some sweet moments in the last week. Here is the highlight reel:

They could not of dug out all that rock just for a cycle path?

Another moment doubting the directions of a stranger. Why should I doubt them? Well when you ask how to get to Navaroñ and they point you towards a muddy track, doubts get raised. He looked like an extremely sweet old man, not dissimilar to Yoda. So I trusted him and went on a pretty wild ride through a slushy muddy track and eventually got to Navaroñ, which was a shit whole and I cycled right past it haaa. It will be a while before Celona forgives me for the mess I put her through but we did get a sweet spot to sleep.

A road = Tarmac, not mud

I had the quietest moment of my life. I had camped out in a nice little spot, I was hidden away off the road up in a little woods, just got the tent up when the weather got good. The sky started to poop down sleety crap and then it turned to hard hail. After a while we got the good stuff, big chunky snow flakes. After a couple of hours when everyone was tucked up in their warm beds at home it got real quiet. An erie silence like the kind you find in scary novels. No wind, no cars, nothing. At one stage I tried to pop my ears just to make sure I was not all bunged up. You could almost hear the flakes falling on the snowy floor.

Roads are quiet enough to make coffee anywhere

I had my wild animal moment. I was cruising along the prettiest narrow valley of all time. It had a small stream which had probably spent its whole life carving out the valley for me to cycle along. It was cold, quiet and there was a bit of mist hanging on the side of the valley walls. Then thirty feet in front of me a big furry fox runs across the road and up into the hills and he stops just up off the road. I get closer, staring him in the eye, he didnt flinch, he just sat down and stared right back at me. I didnt go for my camera because the moment would be over before I had a chance to take a shot. So I slowed down and pulled in right beside him, he was only about ten feet from me and we just looked at each other for about twenty seconds and then he scampered off up the hill.

The only chimneys around

Time is my next topic of thought,
especially seeing the "river" that carved this

I had my Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid moment (minus a hot girl on my cross bar). Wheeling along in the sun, yes Spain does actually have weather other than the snowy kind. Long flat land, sun beaming down, just the merest hint of a tail wind. So there I am, simple me, in the middle of a huge bowl like valley surrounded by the snow capped mountains I have been struggling over. Sitting on the side of the road eating a few strawberry jam sambos, an orange, a pear and coffee. Soaking up the suns rays, its amazing how much it can revitalise you. It was the first day in a long, looonng time I have been able to sit on the ground, so I did for a couple of hours and watched the birds dance around the sky.

Alex wanted to be in a pic

As easy as living gets

I had my camping in an abandoned house moment. Spain is dotted with derelict houses and I have been itching to get into one and spend the night. The house had only the four walls left, so I pitched my tent in it and started cooking up dinner. Well holey moley when the sun went down I was treated to the darkest night sky of the trip. It was like something out of a Holywood movie, tucked up in my sleeping bag hanging my head out the door of the tent star gazing. Where the ceiling should be was just deep black sky with every single star out, I counted them and they were all there! Even the windows and doorway had a perfect night sky in them. It was just dead romantic, Celona agreed.

My home away from home

This tree was outstanding in its field

I had my easiest hill moment. What is the craic with the Spaniards and straight steep climbs eh. Finally I found a hill that had a glorious winding road up it. So I strutted my stuff all the way up in third gear, this hill climbing lark was finally easy. When I got to the top, I was stretching my neck out to see what the view would be like, it was absa-toot-ly breath taking. The scene in front of me was simply colossal, the biggest view of my young twentysomething life. Why do I feel it should of been harder work for it?

Shhh did you hear that

I want to squeeze every last ounce of energy out of this body before it fades away forever. To see my world. To bring happiness to others and somehow make a difference. To live every moment with real passion. I realise that this life is a one time offer. There is no coming back to do it better. There is no tomorrow, only this moment. Simply, I want to live...

This is why I left home

Now imagine for a single second if we could live like these guys sing...

The mountain troll

2008-12-11T16:02:00.016Z

Hola,

I have sat and browsed the net for a bit, listened to some music on youtube, so hopefully I have restored my pulse to a reasonable level, its been at a 180bpm since I last posted. The decision to go the mountain route has been a huge step up in terms of adventure for the journey so far, a moment in history for me. It also marked my two month point. So I have been trying to put some perspective on what I have done so far. The only thing I can come up with is that all the effort and excitement I had in the first two months was but a mere warm up compared to the last week.

The most tranquil camping spot so far...

I was sitting down on the side of the road staring at the horizon about 100kms away where the mountains started. I got so lonely, the size of my planned trip has never seemed so big. It was only day 60 of 365. I have never felt so small, the world is so big, Spain alone is too big. I felt like a grain of sand on a beach. Its not exactly the feeling I wanted going into the hills but in the end it was the right one to have.

The attempted star jump is masking my nerves for the road ahead

My place in the world is small, I am nothing compared to the land I see before me. Its only out here that I have realised its ok to know that I occupy a tiny space in the world. Knowing this I can give the planet the respect it deserves. Natures energy can be scary when you are alone in your tent at night. I have to admit that a couple of the nights I was truly praying that the weather would not get any worse. Trying to sleep in a tent that feels like its on a roller coaster. Trying to sleep when your toes are bloody freezing even with two pairs of socks on inside your sleeping bag. Another 3am spent furiously wanking my toes trying to warm them up has been a dream come through, a smelly dream at that.

Coldest (greatest) night of my life by a country mile

I am not trying to be a drama queen, I know I am not in the artic. But I cannot deny I did get proper nervous a couple of times out there. Again its about not trying to lose the run of your thoughts, focusing on one step at a time. Eat, cycle, drink, cycle, eat haaa. I know I have enough water, food and fuel for the stove so I can take my time and deal with what comes up. There is no rush, I have no short term time limits. All I want is an adventure and to see as much as possible. I love having the fall back that people go through much worse in more remote and dangerous places. I love getting back on line and reading what other people are up to on adventures, even reading about how peoples plans are coming along for future expeditions. I love being out there struggling, planning ever harder trips. Treating this as training. Its beautiful to dedicate myself to the outoors rather than to fucking myself up partying.

Too many hills to think about

The first few days where warm and sunny. Hard hills but the weather was amazing, even had the tent front door undone at night. It gradually got worse (more fun). I thought I knew what hard work was. I thought I had seen mountains. I thought I had been cold. No, now I know better. But its worth it because this area of Spain is unlike anything I have ever seen. It must be a geologists wet dream. I have never even seen photos of anywhere half as beautiful. The rock formations, arid land and general scale of everything is what I thought only far away adventurers got to see. The sort of place you one day hope to see before you die.

Who gave planning permission for this?

I got to see it by random, just taking a turn off a road for the laugh. I have realised what great patience I have in climbing hills. I dont listen to music on the way up just so I can listen to the demons inside me. By demons I mean my weak side telling me to stop, the puny me telling me to go around. I like hearing myself argue with the demons. Its funny how proud I am when I finally get the demons to shut up.

I can retire now but then I would not find out

whats around the next corner

I have pushed myself on the Handall court before but this is different. Its such a sadistic pleasure to push so hard on your body and not for Everest, for a hill that does not even have a name. One of the weirdist changes has been my ability to shovel food into me on an industrial scale. If I did not burn off the food in effort up a mountain then I would have to spend hours on the toilet dumping it out.

Pressure, pressure, pressure, geological pressure that is

I shite on like its only me out there but its been team effort. Celona (my bike) got grumpy with me one extremely cold morning when I gave her a golden shower to de-ice her brakes. We had a big argument on the way down the hill but she has since forgiven me and seen the light on how necessary it is to have brakes on frozen roads. I had used most of my hot water de-icing the tent poles so I could pack them away and I was trying to keep as much water as possible to drink. It was a rare moment of genius I thought, Celona did not see it at the time though. Then Alex from Guinness book of records (my shadow and photographer) also got a bit lippy with me one night in the tent, he made a smart comment about me not putting in the effort. It was a few days before I even spoke to him again.

I recently watched a short clip of another cyclists camping

spots hence my effort to show you guys where I sleep

Even in the mountains I cant escape the sea

My last shower had been Barcelona about 10 days ago, I stank like the inside of a dead tramps arse. I was sweating and panting like a beast. I finally realised that I had been stopping every five meters to catch my breath. The land was just so wind swept with zero cover so I pulled in at a tiny little overhanging rock. It was raining and the wind was roaring down the hill as I tried to cook up some pasta. It was too wet and cold to sit so I had to hunker down and lean against a rock as I inhaled the food. I was even making a strange grovelling noise as I ate, it was as close to being an animal as I have ever been. It was then that I seen the mountain troll, it was my reflection in a pool of ice. I just had to laugh to myself, I could just picture one of you guys driving by and seeing me.

This is where they make the wind

So I am now taking a couple of days off, my soul cries out for more but my legs are truly empty. I have been aiming at a town called Teruel since I left Alcañiz. Looking at maps aiming at certain towns, they become a kind of mythical beacon to try and reach.

Wheres Wally?

Well Teruel in its first hour, after a long shower, has already been incredible. I went straight to the funkiest looking cafe and was ecstatic when I was charged only 80 cent for a coffee, plus I got two free bars of chocolate when I proudly informed the lady of my momentous journey to get to her cafe. Haaa we got chatting, not sure how you spell her name but its something like Balene. She ended up taking me for lunch, tons of tapas. I had peppers covered in bacon and cheese, potatoes covered in fried egg and bacon plus chorizo and some bread. Good laugh chatting about language difficulties while on the road, her travels to America, Japan and her life in Spain. So far I have spent all my time in the middle of nowhere, it was a pure delight to have a good old natter to a local.

JohButer Trio, Nowhere man

One last thing, this song has become a bit of a theme song for the team. Its just a beautiful tune, bopping along, not all the words but most of them hit home for us...

Take it easy amigos

I am not sure I can take much more of this...

2008-12-06T10:58:00.012Z

I just put up some pictures of Barcelona in my last post, just incase my brilliant descriptions were not enough.

Breakfast channel

Why dont they wind the roads around like in France

It is too much, this should not be just for me. I have had the wildest few days of the trip so far. With water fountains everywhere I am missing a little bit of local interaction so I may start just knocking on doors again for chats. But the dip in sign language conversation has been infinetly surpassed in un-funckin-believable landscapes. Sorry for the nasty Irish habit of squeezing curse words into the middle of words. But its all I can do to contain my pent up happiness...

Sometimes I cheat and push

Pretty close to the edge, didnt mean too haa

Casear the chief mouth of a little village

After the conversation filled weekend with Dara and Orla I rolled on towards Madrid. Climbing again, climbing more and gernerally not really seeing a flat road for days. But they are not steep but just endless. The roads tease you like a flirty 16 yr old in a junior disco. They let you believe the hill will end just around the next corner. They dont, suddenly you find yourself wrecked and have pushed a bit too hard and are still no where "cool" to camp for the night.

This is what I hoped Spain would be like

Ass hole

So I stop, cursing the stupid idea of crossing Spain by bicycle. I make myself a coffee on a wind swept roadside, cold and feeling only nine out of ten in my happiness scale. So I get pumped up by the caffeine, ahh socially acceptable drugs are great eh. I trundle on and finally I come around the millionth corner and low and behold I nearly crack up. Why did I whine for fifteen minutes when I knew in my heart what was ahead. I know it wont always be hard, there is always a reward. Well I got it good. Easily the view of my life, not including girls naked, I mean a huge sweeping 300 degree view of a plain surrounded by jaged rocky mountains. Little Spainish brown villages dotted all over the place, 100km views across the plain. The tears came, not wussy girly night out drunken tears. Manly in touch with nature ones!

I want it all

I love the ramshackle tumbling buildings

My friend Libby has started a blog which you will find here. She is starting her position as New Zealands Youth Ambassador to the Antartic and I recon she will have plenty of adventures to keep an eye on. Good luck Lib!

A roadside abandonded mine shaft,

nice a warm inside so I made coffee and warmed up

They get boring after a while

I like to keep an eye on home affiars too

Well a while back I found a slick bookshop that had a good old English section. I grabbed nearly everything they had. One title which has provided me with the most motivations and laughter is "Round The World On A Wheel". Its about three English gents in 1900 or so setting off to cycle around the world, awww man its just priceless. The adventures they have are brilliant, fighting off horse backed bandits with their revolvers. I cant belive they did back in the day before goretex, comfy sleeping bags, stoves and all the gear we have now. I whip it out and only allow myself to read a few pages a day so that I can make it last longer. I will post it to who ever wants it after me, its a super adventure read.

Rolling on till the Atlantic I hope

Like the scarf?

Trying for the worldly traveller look

I dont really rave on about particular towns, distances I have done or other silly details like that. Mainly because its all good, one town over the next, with your eyes open there is magic everywhere. I am in Alcaniz now, tomorrow I will have to decide between a mountain road or a busy main road. I dont need to do a poll from you guys to know which you want me to take so its safe to say I will be taking the quiet mountain road. Doing my usual huffing a puffing up mildly steep roads while grannies in electric wheel chairs whiz past me. The last joy I will tell you about is the one I get out of music. When the going is easy I stick on some John Butler Trio or Jack Johnson and sing along, loud and proud. Really buzzing off the tunes is what its all about, not just listening but feeling the music, haaa.

UTV at 9pm has nothing on this

Exciting times!

In the valley, no one can hear you shiver

2008-11-28T17:52:00.017Z

Little was I to know that the cold weather at the pass was only to be about average for the next couple of days. Down in the valley overnight, it got seriously chilly on my willy. Fully dressed inside my sleeping bag, with gloves on. Ah ye gotta love it. Its amazing how quickly you can do things when its that cold. My special pasta and chorizo dinner I have been munching on for weeks now tastes even better, the portions I consume are also monstrous.

Every door seems to be "painted" in Barcalona

In the dark valleys I have seen some of the clearest night skys since fruit picking in Oz. Its funny that it coincides with the National Geographic coverage of night sky pollution. There is nothing better than sitting at the edge of your tent, wrapped in your sleeping bag, counting shooting stars (11 is my best) and sippin some (alot) steaming coffee. I dont care what temperature it is because this is unmissable. When its been raining or when you have had a head wind for days, you say to yourself, its not permanent, I will have my glory days too. To be honest I have not actually had a bad day so far haaa. If the wind annoyed me I would go home, if the rain got me down I wouldnt be an Irish man haaaa.

I was on my second crepe of the evening

By all accounts the climbing was supposed to be finished and that it was to be an easy roll into Barcelona, hmm clearly they have never cycled the route. You can take the valley route through a tunnel but not cyclists, discrimination. So it was to be another climb. This time the mountain was not snow covered but was however pine tree covered breathtaking. The view back towards the snow capped Pyrenees is easily the most picturesque I have ever seen. I feel having struggled up there also makes the view that much better. Anyway the road was not that steep and was filled with wonderful snaking turns giving countless "wow" moments. I bumped into two American guys, Will and Gerald, that were going snowboarding and they gave me two perfectly ripe nectarines. I saved them for the peak, free food tastes soo much better.

Yes still loving the sandals,

even though Dara was double socking it in shoes

When I see a big hill or mountain, I actually hope its in my way now. I also hope I get a good return on my investment. The last one did, 20kms climbing up and 50kms of twisting down hill, the windchill was again divine. Put in the effort and rewards are obvious. I found a nice quiet route to Barcelona but it was getting late so I ducked into the woods at a hairpin turn and slept for a solid 14 hours. My poor legs deserved it.

I am soo in touch with the simple men of the world

So another big day had arrived, I was close to the coast now and I was hoping to get a look at the Mediteranean Sea. Its amazing how much you build up these moments while you crawl across a country. Just rolling along and thinking of the moment I would see the Med made me teary eyed. Well the day was pretty much over distance wise when I came to a provincial park, delighted. I followed along the sort of path you (I) dream about, dirt covered, winding, smelling the Spainish country side. It was a sweaty ride and half way up I had to stop for a number two with the bear. Anyway that sort of gave me a second wind, I decided to see how far the trail went. On and on it went, happy as can be, it got steeper, and the camping spots got more attractive. Buckets of sweat that should only be brought on my bedroom antics.

I was hoping the trail would end just around the hill with a sea view. Finally it ended in a horrible housing estate, haaa. Stubburn me, I went looking for a street that I "knew" would lead over the hill. After much sign language I got onto one. Slight problem, Alex from Guinness Book of Records measured the angle of ascent and said it was 89 degrees and he confirmed it was impossible to climb with a fully laden bike! As I slowly crawled up I caught a glimpse of a little old granny pointing her spindly artrithic finger at my skinny legs and laughing. I have been in Spain a few days now and I can lip read pretty good, the granny was saying, "go home ye skinny celt, ye wont make it". Fuck you I shouted at the coffin dodger and stuck my straight middle finger in her direction and I powered on.

I was out of my saddle now, crushing the bar ends with my grip, handlebar creeking under the enormous pressure I was exerting. All I could think was this is just stupid, just go back and sleep in the beautiful park. Something inside spoke up, it was not my soul or my heart. It was my body, I was not actually that tired and my legs wanted more so I kept going. At one stage Alex from Guinness said "look mate you are pushing to hard, just stop and take a few minutes, its not right for a human". I told him to take a seat and enjoy the show. After what seemed like two hours but was probably ten minutes I made it up over the crest of the hill. You guys will remember the moment I did it because some of you would of felt it. You may have thought you sneezed or choked on something you were eating but no what you felt was my raw power. If you had looked towards Barcelona you might even have seen the sky was a bit brighter. I jumped off my bike knowing my spirit would take over and say something really inspirational to roar at the Med but all I could manage was a pitiful whimper of "thank god thats over". I pitched my tent and enjoyed the most panoramic view of Barcelona and watched it for hours as the sun set and the street lights came on.

Camping near a city does not get better than this

I rolled into the city centre after passing along a horrible industrial sea front which really got crushed the buz of the previous day. Booked into the cheapest hostel, free net and coffee, pure love. I always make my money back on the rent with my anihilation of the coffee. My room mate was a Swiss guy heading onto South America for a years travel, he was alergic to fat, haaa very unlucky eh. Went for a bite to eat and I destroyed a savage amount of meat at a Turkish place. The feeding had begun. The next day I met Dara and Orla at there hostel, stupidly I turned up on time, Dara is always hilariously late for everything.

Loads of time to chill

The sightseeing began, Gaudi, everywhere eh. I think he just found an abandoned tile factory somewhere and had a ton of broken tiles to get rid of. Picasso, bowls of fruit and guitars, guitars with bowls of fruit. It was super fun to be able to chat about all sorts again with friends. I really missed that, the topics got a bit extreme at times but it was only us that could understand it, hopefully haa. When I settle again somewhere I hope that you guys will visit me so I can repay the generosity, books, chocolate and a ton of everything else. It was funny to be poked and prodded all the time, especially when I was fully kitted up to leave town. I am used to how I look I suppose. I gave Dara a spin on the bike, now christened "Celona" by Orla, a guy took his picture. All the time I have spent on the bike and not a single pic, Dara stole my thunder, I was ready to fly home I was raging.

It all got a bit too mushy for me

It was a brilliant weekend that allowed to me recharge my batteries, a change in direction now. I am heading west now for Madrid and Portugal. I love the freedom of heading in any direction at any time. Sorry there are no pics the net cafe sucks, next time.

I have my doubts about these people painting these pictures

Becareful what you wish for...

2008-11-24T14:02:00.006Z

It has been an amazing few days. The canal was so quiet, flat and peaceful. I am glad I met Jean Claude and Hisuk who told me about it. Defintely the easiest days ride so far and I would of loved to go all the way to the coast but my heart was set on Andorra in the mountains.

Fleecing the books

I made it to Dinier and Cecile house, only supposed to be 40kms, I of course took a wrong turn and made 65kms over the hills in pitch dark. What a night, we had a beautiful meal of duck caserole, I mean divine, plus cake for dessert, plus some mint tea. Got to wash all my clothes too, my waterproof socks still stink though haa.

Two of the most helpful and friendly people I have ever met

Their house was just about as cool as they come, up in the hills of Mazere, an old farm house. Inside was just crammed with books, CDs and Ceciles photography some of which was from Ireland so I was loving that. They are the kind of people I would love to bump into again on the road somewhere.

For my next adventure I am getting one of these

So it took another two days riding to get to the foot of the Pyrenees, wonderful valleys to cycle through. I met a young couple Juan and Fred who are just back from NZ and are looking for work in the ski resorts. I gave them a patch to try repair their uni cycle but the tube was fooked so no joy. Fred made me a delish cup of coffee and we chatted about the usual travel stuff, Fred had cycled through Estonia with a backpack celotaped to her bike because she could not afford anything better. That is the attitude I love, do what you have to do. I got about as close to the actual climb as I could and then made camp down by the river. Slept well and dreamt of all sorts of crazy scenarios of what was going to happen the next day on the climb.

The meeting of the waters!

I woke up this morning to find that it had snowed overnight, a fair old dump too. Thats when the nerves started. Everywhere covered in snow, and this is at the bottom of the climb. I am gonna be found out, I am no cyclist, I am a fake with skinny legs. I was all packed up and fed and ready to go nice and early at 7.50am, this was only the second time I have got up really early, the last being when I dropped my bike in the Welsh lake!

Dinner with a view

So began the hardest day of my journey so far. God almighty I have not been so exhausted in all my life haaa. Ah it was pretty hard but sure I am able to come into the internet cafe and right this so obviously there is still a bit left in the tank haa. It was about a 20km climb and it started off with a blue sky. Sweating away and I am thinking its hard but I didnt come here for hard, I came here for extremely hard. Well some god somewhere heard my thoughts because not fifteen minutes later the clouds closed in and the snow came and it brought its friend Mr. Wind.

It was not sugar

Haaaa it got so hard I thought I was gonna have to chicken out, I was going so slow. I could barely move the bike forward. That was when I relaised that my rear brake had clogged up with snow and frozen solid. It was one of the those thank fuck moments, so I disconnected it and the ride got a little bit easier haaa.

I wanted cold, well I got it

Eveything froze eventually, the teperature droped so fast. Water in the bottles turned almost solid ice, undrinkable. I could only use one gear, thankfully I had it in first all day haaa. It was a dream come through, it became extremely hard. I loved every freezing second, seeing the Andorra sign made me shed a tear, which quickly froze to my cheek.

Just ticking another box

That was up, down was actually another 10 degrees colder haaa. I was pumping my legs as hard as I could just to stay warm. I got around the corner into Spain and it warmed up exactly as Spain should do eh.

Hot as it gets ladies

So ends my mountain adventure. There was no way in hell I was going around it. Its easily the hardest thing I have ever done on a bike. I did not listen to a single song on the way up, I did not want any help from the Chillies or Snow Patrol. I wanted to do it alone. I read about an old school Irish climber who climbed one of the hardest mountains in France with only a ham and cheese sandwhich. So in his honour I only ate bread with fig jam today. Like Tom Sawyer would do on an adventure, you gotta add a bit of class to it haaa otherwise it aint no adventure you can be proud of.

I wanted all four seasons and I finally got the full winter, if only for a couple of days. I can not even imagine how you could face a winter in Siberia on a bike. I have been looking at the same map for weeks, finally I have made it into Spain. I absolutely loved every second of France, the people, the food, the roads. It is like I am leaving behind a part of my soul with everyone I met. BUT I did not get a single French kiss, so it was all for nothing.

and I think to myself...

2008-11-19T16:47:00.012Z

I have been spoiled rotten the last while, really struck it lucky with bumping into the right people. I think each person I meet has been ringing the next town on my route and they are trying to out do each other in a lets over feed the skinny Irish man.

They did not offer me a single fish
even with all my fishing knowledge I tried to pass on

A few days back I stopped to ask for some water, as soon as I knocked on the front door a little old granny opens the window and hands me a cup of coffee to drink. I joke not, I could barely hold the cup steady from laughing. I then rolled down around the corner to a beautiful lake in Larche and the first people I spoke to invited me up to their house to stay. It was one of those moments where the stranger says "look up the hill, see the green house", which is big and beautiful and you think they will say "well ours is the tin shed next to it" but they dont. What a house, with an amazing view of the lake and hills.

Jean Claude and Hisuk, the other guy is just so hot

Jean Claude a semi retired computer geek and Hisuk is a Korean pottery maker. We spent the night melting cheese and solving the worlds problems. Hands down the best food I have eaten in France, I took so many portions but I just could not help myself. It was one of those nights where the talking just keeps going on all sorts of topics. They have done some great trips in their time, my favourite was Jean Claudes to Ireland in the 60s on a hybrid bicycle/motorbike thing but he could not afford any petrol so it was just a heavy bicycle, love it. They gave me a jar of yummy jam and a packet of soup for the road. The gift of food while on the road is without doubt the greatest joy. Although I do wish someone would give me a fishing rod. I combined the soup with the last few spuds that Mono gave me way back in Jersey and I had me the finest lunch of all time looking down a lonely valley.

The soup and spud spot by the road

I pulled into a garden to ask for some water, I am a pro at this stage on my approach but this time I caught a woman in her kitchen off guard and fook me she screamed her heart out when caught sight of me. I mean the scream was worthy of an oscar, once she calmed down and I apologised as best I could in sign language she invited me in for some crepe. Now I may not of got any loving done in France but crepe is as close to lovin as a single hairy smelly guy is gonna get I recon. Delish, plus a single espresso to wash it down. Her daughter could speak English and we chatted for a while, she was uber hot but I could not get the Kings of Leon lyrics out of my head, 17... Haaaa

Just thought the place could do with some fresher smells

The amount of coffee I have consumed with locals has been a dream come through for me, any nation that drinks this much coffee is alright by me. I slept in a garden of the cutest old couple, Jacque and Miriam. Once I had my tent set up they invited me in for a cup of herbal tea, I am soo into the herbal stuff now, real hippy love. After we had some soup we sat by a log fire, them two wrapped up in blankets on the couch with their dogs on their laps, me on a lazy boy with my socks off and if we didnt just go ahead and watch two hours of figure skating, ah man it was epic funny. Where would ye ever find it in your wildest dreams of travel eh. It was real tense competition and any time a skater would fall we would all tut and sigh in dissapointment.

It was the cutest night of the trip

Spent a peaceful night having a wet dream about the hot girl who won haaa. The next morning they again invited me in for brekie, coffee and fig jam, made straight from the fig tree in the garden. Gee wiz its only devine, they gave me a jar for the road and a packet of high energy museli biscuits.

Bull shit

Well its been non stop for the last while and I have not really taken a day off since Jersey so I have hopped into a horrible hostel for two nights to give my poor legs a rest. They feel good but the distance has deffo given me a few niggles in my knees. The hostel is another odd ball place. The key hole for my room is just weird. First night I got back late and could not open it, reception was closed. I heard a couple talking in the room next to mine so I knocked. The guy answers and I sign that I cant get into my room. Ah god, he comes out, sweat dripping off him, he has that post sex grin and is wearing only a face cloth wrapped around his waist. He got my door opened, I thanked him and told him to "give her one for me", he did not speak English so the comment was only funny to me.

Its blurry but ye get the idea with the old Autumn leaves falling thing eh

I have really settled into the trip now, its taken a while but I do feel that it has stopped being a trip and it feels somewhat like a way of life now. I obviously cannot predict for how long this feeling will last but while I am in the zone I will soak it up.

Reminds me so much of Australia, minus the heat

I finally tracked down some English National Geographic magazines, man they spark the brain off no end. On one hand they make me wanna go back to uni and study biology and on the other they make me wanna travel non stop for every single second that I have left on this amazing planet. Thats definetly been the running thought of the week, the size of the world, the places and animals to see. I need to see everything, I need to keep the adventure going for as long as possible.

I just finished Huckleberry Finn and without a doubt
I will be building myself a raft and I will be going on a crazy Kon Tiki expedition

I am glad I have a bit of Eddie Vedder to listen to, the Into the Wild sound track does a good job at counter arguing the whole settling down thing. I read Hubert Wilkins bio while in Wellington, that is how you squeeze as much as possible into a life. Should I surround myself with books on travel and people that have great adventures that way I can justify a life of adventure? Its easy I suppose to get carried away in the moment while on the road but these thoughts have been with me for many years now.

Bloody Romans

Riding along in the hills listening to beautiful music, it does not get much better. Every single corner I turn has some thing new, some thing I have never seen before. Its the kind of goose bumps I get at a new dive site, not knowing the terrain or the animals. Never knowing what will swim by, I miss diving so much but this is easily quenching my thirst for new things.

I wanted to get the most out of my money but I think
I pushed the brake pads a bit too far

It does bug me how my brain keeps reminding me that at some stage I must settle, start working a "real" job and buy a house. Well, I suppose what I must work on is compromise, not a house but a boat will be as far as I would like to settle. Do these sort of thoughts get to you guys, am I alone on this one. I some times wonder is this one of the times I should listen to my soul and just keep going till I have been everywhere and seen it all. Would this be what I was born to do, just like some people are born to be home birds. Why is travelling the world seen as alternative?

It is actually worth defrosting the Nutella, yummy sambos

I held off posting because I had a feeling Toulouse would have some secrets to reveal. The centre is a mess of roads, foot paths and cycle paths that all seem to go in every direction. You would have to be born here to make sense of it, I simply sit and watch it all unfold. Office staff power walking to get back after lunch bumping into eachother. Homeless people with five dogs each begging for money. Everyone just seems to be so busy, meeting, kissing and bumping into each other. Ah the cafes, yep you bet I drank coffee in a just about all of them. Prices are a bit all over the place, from 3.20 to only 1.60 for a double espresso and the cheaper one with free internet computer, happy days. I finally have also found a good camping store, most of them are shit lifestyle sports ripoffs but there is a cracking one on the outskirts of Toulouse.

Coffee time, always

So I hoped onto the old metro, connected with a bus, bike free day today haa, and I was in outdoors heaven. The first girl told me I would have to wait 20 days for a spare tent pole, get a fucking grip, the shop was the most well stocked I have ever seen, next. It took a while but I eventually found a staff member that could be bothered to really help me fix the pole. He didnt have a spare one but cut another one to the right size and its a perfect fit now, he also cut a couple of extra poles for me to keep as spares, extra elastic band stuff and a connector all for free. Got a few other bits and pieces to fix gear and a maintanence kit for my stove and I am ready to rock and roll all over the place. Best of all the dude and his girlfriend invited me to stay in their house tomorrow night, its the right distance and the right direction so I am there amigo haaa.

I am probably over doing the whole stove thing
but I truly love her

I have been looking at Andorra for a long time now on my map. Jean claude and Hisuk have recomended a trip along a canal which a I will do for a day. I have a mountain range in front of me, my skinny legs are already yelling at me to take the flat canal to the coast and go around. But my soul is screaming to go to the mountains and man if you want the big views ye gotta drag your ass up a hill at some stage.

what a wonderful world...

Centre of France

2008-11-12T09:56:00.007Z

Good day,

Hope everyone is feeling great today, all is dry in the land of the French. This week I made a dramatic discovery, one that will puzzle science for a century. Its a new element which I have dubbed, Heffo1. It turns out that it is stronger than Titanium and lighter than Helium. Yes I have ben powering my way over the rolling French country side and feeling strong. Its been a magic week.

Not many evenings like this left in France

I see so much road kill it gets me down a little sometimes, especially when its something I have not sen alive yet, like an owl or a wild boar or this dude!

I did not kill him but I did cry a single wet tear for him

I did not write this but I agree with them

I used to watch a ton of TV, its something I have reduced over the last while. Now in my tent I am glad I have only the view to look at. So I spend a huge chunk of my day watching the animals, especially the birds of prey. I see about 20 or 30 per day and have yet to see one get a confirmed kill but its brilliant to watch the smaller ones hover over a field and then make a dive for a mouse. This is my favourite show.

I stood alone and naked in a field and howled at this moon

My life must give me the mentality of a long distance trucker. So much time to think about things and twist things in my imagination. Luckily I have a pretty clear mind so there is not alot of room to create strange emotions. The difference between me and the truckers is that I have no bitter feelings of being under paid and over worked haa. So my thoughts are at a strange level of supreme happiness. Especially when I am whipping down a quiet country lane surrounded by golden brown trees.

Sometimes my life is hard and I have to fix things but I love tinkering

I try my hardest to steer clear of all the big cities, they are a mess to get in and out of and way too busy. If I get a good run I might only see 10 cars all day cycling. The other day I was in a beautiful medieval town for lunch. It was about as romantic as it gets, minus the hot girl of course. I was cooking up a lunch of pasta when I realised I had no sauce for it, shit, ok leave it cooking and go to the shop around the corner. Easy yeah... no, not when you are me and the streets are tiny and all look the same and you cant find your way back to your simmering pasta! Awww panic set in and all of a sudden I feel like I am in the Crystal Maze and everyone is looking down into the room shouting for me to run to the door but I am flustered now like the stupid contestants and I cant find the laneway! So I sit down on a doorway step and count to 10 and then figure it out haaa, the pasta was grand and I ate it without sauce and it was divine.

On nights like this I sit up for hours and just watch the sky

I love how destiny and faith can bring you to the mosy beautiful place in the world to camp, if a farmer say no I cant camp in their field I just move on. Its getting late and its looking likely I am gonna have to hide it out over night somewhere crap. Its then you cycle around one more corner and come across paradise. It happens so often that I dont wet myself laughing at how lucky I have been again. I just make camp and start up the old stove and make some dinner and coffee or like the last few nights I have made myself some hot chocolate with Nutella. The simple pleasure of cooking over a stove in the wild has provided me with the most delicious meals of all time.

Sit long enough and stare at the water and you finally notice its a slow flowing river

Even when it rains I am happy because then I let the rain do my dishes

Take it easy guys and remember to chill

What is clean?

2008-11-06T13:13:00.012Z

I left it really late to try and find somewhere to camp last night. I was surrounded by crop fields but I could see a small village up ahead in the misty gloom. I asked a couple of different people if they had room on the their land anywhere to camp but was politely shot down by all. I would try one more small farm before heading to the next village or sneak camp somewhere and hopefully get up earlier than the farmer.

I rolled into the farm yard, there was a light on and I could here talking, a great start. Just as I knocked on the kitchen window I caught a glimpse of an elderly farmer and his son blow drying the hair of a small dog on the kitchen table. The older farmer, Robert, came out and I tried to explain that I needed a place set up camp. Communication would be through grunts and demonstrations only. He suggested that he could move his car and that I could camp in under his garage in the yard. Delighted, I accepted. Then his son pointed to a small disused house in the yard. Robert showed me around it and I graciously accepted the offer of the upgrade in accomodation. Next he brought me into the main house and showed around a spare room. This was getting mad but of course I accepted the second upgrade and tired to explain how happy I was.

It all got a bit weird from here on as he tried to have a long conversation with me about food and my room. I got lost in his crazy tongue so I started to tell him about the time when we were kids a bunch of us went on a walk in a forrest and a bee hive fell on my friends head and we got stung all over. The he got lost in my tongue so we both shut up and he got back to cooking dinner for all of us. I sat in the sitting room with his son Unay and I just tried to soak up everything that was happening. The place stank of dog, there was a dog in a little cradle with its four new born pups. A guy walks in holding a dead wild rabbit by the ears and gives it to Robert. I say bonjour and he sits and tries to talk in French to me, I say back to him "oh ah Paul McGrath" and then he stops talking in French to me.

The walls of the sitting room where covered with shelves with a million weird objects on them. Tools, framed baby photographs, chemicals, antlers, empty chocolate sweet tins. The room had the feel of a horror movie. All the photos on the walls were from the 40s and did not even apear to be from this family, it was spooky but I just tried to stay cool. The son prepared the table while holding the dog, the father would come out from the kitchen and hand feed another dog part of the meal we were about to eat. All I could think of was germs, food poisoning and me curled up in my tent in a forrest somewhere dying from the contamintated food.

But who am I kidding, here I was panicking over some one petting a family dog while touching my food. I have no running water, I eat at bus shelters, out of one pot that badly needs to be touched with some fairy liquid. It shows how ingrained society has made me paranoid of germs, granted I could still get sick but its soo unlikely. I settled down a bit and just went with the flow and pretty soon I was playing with the dogs and munching on some bread and cheese. Robert came out of the kitchen and dramatically sharpened all our knives with a wild grin on his toothless mouth. The main course was a big pot of boiled Schuh [spelling] with four different types of sausage and chunks of ham. This was heaped onto our plastic disposable plates, the servings were clearly meant for some sort of prehistoric cave man. Dispite how it looked it was actually pretty tasty and I gobbled it up just quick enough so that the rest of the lads had finished off the pot hence denying me another 5kg portion of meat. I think Robert added the sausage bits in order to make the meal more glamorous for me.

After dinner we had cheese and more bread handed out by the son, 10 out of 10 for the cheese what ever it was. We chilled out with bloated bellies and watched the latest French DVD release which was a romcom based around a couple of Post Office workers. I could follow most of it and also what the lads thought of it as whenever the hot girl appeared on screen the tone in there voice would change to that seedy perverted accent guys do. Once the movie was over I demonstrated that I needed to sleep by placing my praying hands close to my head and faked a yawn. Robert showed me down the hall and into my storage bedroom, again as dirty as the rest of the house but it had a bed and I could use my sleeping bag to keep me elevated off the horrible diseases that would engulf my body and leave only my skinny bones by the morning.

My first night in a strangers house

I did my late night pee in the toilet next to my room, it had cob webs, fifty three dead flys and four empty toilet rolls on the window sill. I usually piss on the side of the road and poo in the woods with the bears and here I am looking down on this families toilet. I lay in my sleeping bag trying to write in my water wrinkled diary when I heard a noise at my bedroom door. It sounded like the son was leering through the keyhole and masterbating on the door. What has happened to my mind? Why was this my first thought? Especially considering that Robert had told me to make sure I kept a chair at the door otherwise the dogs would push their way in overnight. That conversation took twenty minutes yet my scared brain still thought of the worst scary movie scenario possible.

Robert gave me his business card and

very a professional send off

I had a sleepless night as the chickens in the yard were going crazy cock a doodle doing their hearts out. The night desrves detail as the Juliens were the first family to invite me to sleep in their house. What went on in my head clearly shows how nervous I was. I have a long way to go to block out the fear of coming across random serial killers. I do not take full blame for my crazy thoughts though as the house was a touch on the bizzare side. I am just glad to have this one under my belt. I do feel bad about what I thought of their house and its something I will work on over the next while. They were wonderful people and I was estatic to share a meal with them.

I got my Gay on in Paris

2008-11-05T11:29:00.006Z

Howdy,

Well I hear there are some serious congratulations to be made. Tony winning a fancy dress competition, my sister doing well on the Gaelic football TV show, Obama winning the election and of course Dara getting on the panel for Leinster. Clearly Tonys achievements have out shone the others, I have no doubt that you spent ages on the costume, well done.

Veronic, John and Emily who fed me sooo much and let me sleep in their camper van

Well after the freezing cold first few days, France has warmed back up. I trundled along towards Versaille, picking up fresh bread everyday, I am like a little old granny who does daily shopping purely because she has nothing else to do. Its the best way to chat to locals and shop keepers, dont tell the French but sometimes I pretend I dont know where I am just so I can have a chat, especially with hotties.

Can you possibly eat too much bread? Only time will tell

On that note, what is the story with the smashing looking French women, over the top divine beauties. Even when I am at my best I would struggle to score one of these angels never mind the scruffy state I am in now haaa. Maybe I spend to much time on my bike and get over the top horny and see beauty everywhere or maybe French women are just smokin hot?

It was not actually that cold or slippy but it was extreme fun

I made it to the Palace of Versaille, eh yeah Powsercourt Gardens times a billion. Easily the most spectacular house I have ever seen. The scale of the place just made me continually laugh so I sat and made myself a delicious salami sambo. The amount of time and money that goes into creating a place like this must be epic. From here on my love of the French really started to grow, they are pretty much mad. Where they trying to out do the Pyramids of Giza? Everyone was cycling down around the lake and walking up to the palace, I of course have my bike and bags. So I cycled up getting some strange looks, like I always do. Took this shot and went over to get a close up look at the Chateau. The Gendarmarie then escorted me off the premises, not similing, not impressed with me crying with laughter that I had not seen it coming.

Not many people will have this kinda shot of the Versailles gardens haaa

My time so far has been split fairly evenly between camping in the woods and in peoples gardens/fields. It had led to some interesting conversions in the absolute most basic form of talking and sign language. Alot of the time we just give up trying to explin what we mean and just laugh. I like to laugh with complete strangers.

Dan let me camp in his garden.
He had no English so it was a funny night watching Simpsons in French

So I fairly pumped it along into Paris to meet Geraldine. They were doing road works on the road I was on into Paris so I had two lanes completely sealed off from the traffic to myself. I put on the Kings of Leon new album and cruised about 10km on brand new road singing what I believe are the lyrics to their songs, clear blue sky and really warm haa it was the greatest day of my life.

This sex is on fire

We went out into Paris that night and met up with another guy Mathew who worked in the Porterhouse during the summer. He is a typical Frenchie, super good looking, dressed for the cat walk, scarf loosely around the neck. We had a great time going around the sights like the Notre Dame.

Mathew and Geraldine, eccentric Frenchies

The next day Geraldine was pretty busty so I just wandered in around town on my own, mastering the subway system and jumping from level to level like a Parisian. Drank loads of coffee, chilled out wathcing artists doing there thing. My first crepe in France was 80 cent so I felt safe giving the super hot girl a 2 euro coin for one in Paris, she just smiled and winked, I stood there thinking wow my beard must be getting sexy. I looked to the sign and it was 3.50 euro but she just smiled again as if to say its cool I dont give a shit, the money aint goin in my pocket so I walked off dissappointed she was not coming onto me but delighted with my cheap crepe. I love disgruntled hospo workers.

I am not sure why it was painted with a blur but it was my favourite of the Louvre

I did all the usual tourist things, Moany Lisa and Eiffel tower. I did not go up the tower as I like to live my life and not spend a quarter of it in a que. I had also seen all of Paris from the Monmartre.

See the sky is blue and life is sweet

The weather was fantastic and I walked around in a tshirt all day. It was one of the most amazing cities I have been in. I cant wait to go back one day and see if the super hot crepe girl will go on a date with me when I am clean shaven and have big strong legs, although they are at least 1mm bigger now.

Beautiful tree

I did try to get lost down the alley ways and find myself a nice quiet cafe to read in, all the cafes where busy but I loved them all. I think I drank a weeks worth of food in coffee but I dont regret it as coffee is one of the best parts of life outside the bedroom.

A work of art but not in the Louvre, in a Paris back street

So I am in Etampes today, heading straight south. I am still a bit nervous, my legs feel good, all the gear is working well but I just hope that I dont get injured or sick. I dont want this dream to end. I cant believe my life can be filled with so much excitement. I want to make it across North Africa and up to Poland for the wedding in October. I suppose I am happy that I actually made it this far but now I am greedy I want it all. So for now I take it easy on my legs, eat loads, laugh and I bop along to Xavier Rudd.

Streets like this look quaint but they are
a pain in my ass to bounce along on haaa

Thanks for all the emails and I love you all. I have changed, America will hopefully change, could this be the turning point in history for all of us?

Bonjour

2008-10-31T09:36:00.003Z

Well holey moley,

I arrived in St Malo on Monday, having spent the ferry crossing chatting with a granny who was going couch surfing for a week! My French adventure almost came to an abrupt end at the first roundabout, some idiot was driving on the wrong side of the road. Awww man I spent the whole of the first day trying to stay on the correct side of the road, such a mission to get my brain to snap out of it.

I camped in a nice family garden the first night and she brought me out a steaming hot bowl of cabbage, potatoe, carrot and sausage. I gladly gobbled it all up even though cabbage would be my least favourite food but it was delish. Next morning they invited me in for brekkie and coffee, I could not dream of a better start to a new country.

The next night was spent in a camper van, having been led to a supposedly Irish farm by a couple of mad farmers. The Irish farmers where not around and it was getting cold so I tried the next house, delighted. They let me sleep in their camper van and I spent the evening inside their extremely warm house eating a four course meal. Veronic and Jules are possibly the nicest people I have met on my trip so far. The next morning I woke up to find the countryside blanketed in snow. Oh how I laughed and then laughed more at the thought of spending the next few weeks in conditions like this. Its been about 1 degree - 6 degrees out for the last couple of days and below zero overnight.

So I am now in Mamers after spending lunch time at a fruit market with Jesus and his daughter chatting about their organic farming, he gave me an apple for my trip. Everywhere I go people are constantmy offering me help or advice is brilliant but fricken cold. Its now that I am glad I read so much about polar explorers because yeah its fricking freezing outside its nowhere near what Tom Crean would have endured.

I will post some pics next time as this keyboard is driving me mad with the French layout haaa. The conditions dont bother me one bit so far, its harder in the cold but its soo much fun working out the best way to do things. Roll on Paris

Happiness

2008-10-24T12:36:00.017+01:00

Feelings are different for everyone, levels of excitement, sadness or boredom can be vastly different from one person to the next. A song, new or old can bring back a single perfect moment in life but mean nothing to someone else. A smell can do it, be it a flowers scent or cow shit! A shadow or a ray of light can spark a long forgotten memory. I love the complexity of life, the endless combinations, the diversity everywhere.

From my front door for the last few days

I just wonder have I topped out on excitement and curiosity?

Where does my happiness peak?

When I am happy, is the level higher or lower than my friends?

Is my anger worse?

I suppose the scale of these feelings is really only important to yourself. If I am only happy when traveling while others are happy to sit at home on the couch then so be it. The person sitting on the couch may actually be infinitely happier than me struggling around on my bike.

The main thing though is to be true to yourself. Don't lie to yourself just to stay in your comfort zone because maybe what you consider to be your highest level of happiness right now is really your lowest level?

Living on the edge like I do has its hazards

I only ask that people question what is going on around them. Question news stories, question new laws and policies of government. Most of all make sure you question yourself and double check your answers, just like you were thought in school before exam time runs out.

Catching up with Mono and cruising around Jersey sightseeing has been wonderful. Putting a list of great days in order of best to worst sounds like a hard task. Everyday I have had over the last few years seems to automatically jump to the top of my list day by day. My friend Anne, who is the best dive instructor in the world, used to slag me because I would come home from every single dive proclaiming it to be the greatest of all time. Maybe I am easily pleased haaa but I just feel like I am doing the right thing lately. Really learning something new every day, either about the planet or myself. I don't rate seeing one particular thing over another, my scale is not by size or rarity. It goes by feeling, the moment, the mood, not by tourism hype. What I am happy about is my appreciation and understanding of the natural world. So my time spent with Mono has easily been the greatest time of my life so far, for his ridiculous level of hospitality and his obsessive cleanliness!

The beauty of islands are the sea views

So tomorrow I jump on the ferry and start my slow crawl through France in search of the perfect French-fry. It will be hard to get to sleep tonight. This is the big one now, travel in a non English speaking country. Pumped up is an understatement. I know lots of people will speak English but I cant wait to try and explain that I want to pitch my tent in a farmers field, me with zero grasp of the language. Haaa are you kidding me, this is gonna be hilarious stuff. Real French stick, fingers crossed some (loads of) real French kissing. Finding the bread will be easy, getting a French kiss with this mush will be the hard part. I wanna try snails, frogs legs, the stuff I would never of tried last time I was in France.

I am hopefully going to meet a friend I worked with during the summer in the Porterhouse. Geraldine has kindly offered to show me around Paris! Fingers crossed I will get the grand tour of Paris by a local.

Unemployed and too much time to think

A quickie from Eve Ensler of Vagina Monologue fame, off her video clip on TED.com:

"Happiness exists in action, it exists in telling the truth and saying what your truth is, and it exists in giving away what you want the most"

Inspiration

2008-10-23T01:44:00.022+01:00

The word on the street is that Stonehenge aint all that compared to what is in Avebury. Wow ye mean there is better than a World Heritage site, along the same route, I cant be missing that. So I roll into Avebury village to find a huge stone circle.

Pasta in a bus shelter

We are talking boulders as big as a... well as big as boulders get in the world. Dragged along and placed in a field that would be pretty boring without them. I skipped the museum there and went straight into the field to get the low down off a few people who had been inside to hear all the different theories on why they bothered to build it. Also I just wanted to talk to people. Its interesting chatting to people to hear their own thoughts, personally I just like to be around stuff that was put in place ages back. Way back before anything really existed, back when people thought pushing boulders around was fun, suppose it would be like playing the Xbox for us now.

I love the place names

Stonehenge was next. The road signs stated that it was straight ahead, keep going, I'm tired, are we there yet? It was getting dark and the signs still said it was straight ahead. So I pull in and camp in a forest. Wake up the next morning and I go around the corner and Stonehenge is right beside the forest haaa. So next time your there ye cant miss the little forest I camped in.

I try not to think about the Blair Witch Project too much

Its a place I have been looking forward to visiting for a long time. It certainly gets you thinking about the old days, back when it was cool to pull a woman by the hair into your cave for some lovin. My theory is that there isnt any deep meaning to these places. They were not meant to around this long. It was just a fluke, it was a few drunk ass cavemen with nothin to do one Saturday night. The ice age had left a pile of rocks in one spot and for the craic, they decided to push them up on top of each other to show who was the strongest. Like when guys get drunk now and show off doing drunkin one arm push ups or giving each other dead arms for no reason. Fast forward six thousand years and we are being charged £6.50 to see a pile of rocks.

Is it just me or are they doing it doggie style?

South England was a big change from the Welsh valleys. At first I was put off by the lack of mountains but the flat crop fields grew on me. The quaint villages with oddly shaped houses and pubs were everywhere. The weather was crazy, one minute I am getting sun burned, the next its pouring down hailstones. When this happens I used to jump into my rain gear and continue on but now I just run for cover and pull out a book and chill. I was reading Paul Theroux, Kingdom By The Sea, about his trip around Britain but he was a bit grumpy for my liking right now so I started a John Grisham book instead, 50p at a charity book sale and ye cant go wrong with some court room drama.

Adventurous travel through a war torn country

So now I have made it to Jersey island and I am staying with Mono and Kate. Their flat has a stunning view of a hill top seaside castle. They have also kindly offered me an iPod shuffle which is still in its box unused so I will probably be taking up their generous offer after my old iPod went for a swim in the Welsh lake. I will gladly slum it in the "real world" and stay here for a few days to chill and catch up with Mono and Kate. UFC 90 is on Saturday night and I dont wanna miss that. I caught UFC 89 in Jacks house last week, seems like I am timing my visits to the UFC calender hmmmmm.

Coast to coast!

The news I keep up with at times can be a bit different than the 6 o clock news about insurance rates or road deaths over the bank holiday weekend. I like to know what is going on in my world, not the world of shares, I dont have any. The world I am interested in is about science, nature and adventure. So I read sites like nationalgeographic or TED. I also religiously check some blogs, like Alastair Humphreys. I like to get motivated and inspired by what I read on a day to day basis.

I spend most of my day trying not to cycle over beautiful creatures like this

Evan Tanners blog is one which I have enjoyed the most. He is a UFC cage fighter who kept a very honest and open blog in which he talked about his struggles through life in detail. He traveled all around America in many ways and took random snapshots on a crappy digital camera. The shots were never really framed like most peoples, he just clicked away to show his life from day to day. He liked his alone time which I can appreciate but he also had many great friends. He had a unique outlook on life and wanted to see and do it all. I could relate to how he talked about life and his place in the world. I felt like I had made many of the same fundamental changes in my life that he has.

His latest trip he had been planning was to go alone by motor bike out into the desert, way out there. Well it appears he found his limit. It looks like he died from heat exposure after running out of petrol and water. I was sitting in a cafe when I seen the news online and got really sad, the same sadness I felt when Steve Irwin died. I truly feel my world is worse off without him. He was flawed in many ways like all of us, he was no saint. But there are no saints, just real people with real problems. Its how we progress in life that should define us, not the moments when we slip but what we do when we have a chance to turn our lives around.

There are many ways of looking at his death. But once your brown bread does it really matter how or why it happened. Its over for him. All you can do is go through life and try make the right honest decisions. To do it with a ton of passion. To do some good, to live free. To wake up with a smile on your face because you know that the day your about to have can happily be your last because you are being true to yourself. Be honest to that voice deep down that tells you how your living right now is bullshit, that its half arsed. To ignore that voice is wrong, if you hear it screaming you have to answer it. I did answer it and half the reason I have gone on this journey was because of Evans blog. The ride that has already given me so much and its only just begun. Strangers ask me why I am doing this? I do it because I can. Because one day I will take my last breath and have a flash back of my life and I want to be to able to just smile happily knowing I gave it everything I had.

Live like you mean it

Wait, wait, wait for it, ok now laugh!

2008-10-18T23:10:00.005+01:00

Every single day something incredible happens. Last Tuesday stands out from the crowd!

I camped at the side of a reservoir in Brecon Beacon Park in southern Wales. The water was still, the woods were quite, a paradise spot to camp. Just as I parked up a kingfisher flew away, electric blue, my first and another life moment of the trip. I was only one more day away from Cardiff and decided to get up the following day nice and early and head into Cardiff to stay in a hostel. I tucked into bed around 7pm and put pen to paper on how easily I made it all the way through Wales, trouble free. Struggling over mountains and cruising through the valleys. Soaking up the scenery, not much to this wandering cycling lark, just keep pedalling and enjoy the ride. So I get up before sunrise, eat my usual ton museli, fruit, sandwiches, vitamins and glucosomine tablets to keep the old knees lubed up. Unlocked my bike and packed up the tent and got ready to freewheel down to Cardiff for my open top bus parade around town organised by the mayor.

It was just when I was about to load up my food bag onto my bike and I was imagining the press interviews when I heard a splash. I turned around to see my bike had achieved the impossible. It had done a ninja style somersault down the eight foot bank and into the deep dark lake. I stood at the edge of the bank staring down at all my gear, my life, sinking into the abyss. I have suffered in the past from some earth shattering moments and events but this one destroyed them all in an instant. I took my jacket off and dont ask me why but also my sandals and just leaped and slide down the thorny bank, ripping my feet to shreds and lunged out for my bike. The handle bar bag just flopped open and my wallet with a few hundred quid, iPod, camera, knife, gloves, hat, book, torch, vaseline, vitamins and of course my Passport dissapeared into the lake. None of that mattered as all my brain could think of save the bike. So there I am trying to swim around the corner to anywhere I can rest my bike to grab all the other gear.

Oh my god I could just not stop laughing, I broke myself up trying the get the bike out of the lake. After finally popping a vein I dragged her to safety then had to jump back in the lake and swim around the corner and go fishing for the rest. Passport luckily did not float to far away. I had to pretty much go free diving and duck down underwater and feel my way around on the side of the lake and grab my stuff, it was like Supermarket Sweep. I would feel the rocks and slime then all of a sudden I would brab my torch, yippee, then my knife ha forgot all about that. My wolly gloves, hat, Treasure Island book and vitimins looked like they were in a race to the centre of the lake so I let them keep their freedom. Got all tangled in bushes and crap trying to find things like my wallet and diary.

All through it I knew it was not actually going to end my trip but I was still freaked out that all my stuff got soaked. I swear on my life the bike was standing no where near the bank, it was the first time it fell on the whole trip and they way the bags sit on the back makes it ideal to do a roll once it falls. I dried off and got into half wet clothes from the bag and made my way into town about 40kms away. Flying down the hill I hit a rock and tear my tire, so I change the tube and tire in the rain on the side of the road with the dirt from the trucks destroying me. All ye can do is laugh, nothing else needs to be said or done but to just laugh.

So I spent two days in the cracking Riverside hostel just chilling out and chatting with a real character from Sydney, Ellen. Watching the presidential debate and talking about coffee and travel. Met up with the two German touring cyclists by chance in the city. Left the city happy and dry with a new waterproof camera, ready for England.

The generosity of strangers is what has made this trip so special already. Rambling around yesterday evening somewhere east of Bristol I asked a cyclist which way to go to buy milk and make a phone call. Next thing I know I have pitched my tent in his back garden, and I am eating the first course of our feast with John and Maggie. Turns out they are mad keen bike tourers and have been all over the world together on a tandem bike. Stayed up late talking about travel and adventure. He let me use his phone to ring a friend of mine I met three years ago in Byron Bay to arrange to meet him and gives me a map to get there in the most scenic way.

So I stayed the night in Swindon, staying with Jack and his Dad. Jack had to work but left the house in my capable hands. This is what I live for, to meet extraordinarily kind people. The little things people do for you, the trust of strangers. This level of excitment, wonder and peace is exactly what I have wanted for a long time. No rush, just chill, eat, read, chat and move onto another place I have never been.

I am only going around the next corner!

2008-10-13T12:16:00.002+01:00

Hey hey there guys,

Everything is going good so far. Angelsey was a rough start for me as it absolutely poured down for the first couple of days. The whole area is flat farm land with no shelter and no real towns. So to stop and make a sambo was a fair old struggle in the rain. Was crashing out in old barns and ruined houses to make some food and get out of the rain for a bit. At one stage I pulled in under a garage at the side of a house and seconds later this frail old granny pops out for a chat and then whips inside to make me a cup of tea, haa two minutes later she comes back out with a delicate little tea cup and saucer with a freshly baked scone with home made jam on it. Delish man, my hands were a bit shakey from the cold and I was shitting it that I would drop the fecking cup, then I imagined she would of dropped dead with a heart attack and I would be left to explin this to the police! Haa she lived and I enjoyed the cup of tea no end.

Once I made it onto mainland Wales it changed, the sun came out and there was alot more character to the land. I rambled along stopping to chat with locals to find my way and get more water. This part will be a struggle in France and beyond. Loving the small town people here. I am in a library here and they wont let you upload pics but hey its free haaa. Bumped into some German tourists, bloody tourists eh, they told me about a national cycle lane running the length of the country. They also bought me a coffee, loving your work Pita and Angelica. I had already been on bits of it but thought it was just a local thing. So I have been going on and off that trail, some of it is pure hiking stuff which led to me pushing my heavy bike for many Kms but even then I was loving it as you dont bump into anyone for hours.

On one section of the bike trail I was cycling alone down this tight country lane parallel to a river for hours with thousands of pretty pheasants running and flying away everytime I got near them. The most skittish animal I have ever seen, so no pictures of them, dam it. They do the funniest jump when the see you and then not so much fly away as gracefully glide away in shear panic, it had me in stiches every single time.

Stayed a night in Coed Y Brenin National Park which is just fricken spectacular. They are in the middle of preserving all the old trees and cutting down all the ever greens which are not native to the forrest. Aw just the most beautiful night there over looking a huge autumn coloured valley with a huge eagle stalking an ickle (my cute word for small) bird high up and making a dive for him and missing only to begin a 60 second dogfight which led to the ickle birdie flying away safe and sound.

Most nights I have to drop in and ask a farmer can I stay in one of his fields as its all farm land. I have cycled right down the centreof Wales. Which last night led to a one hour talk with old man Mr Bowman about his travels around the world with the local farmers association in Builth. Hilarious stuff, he has no teeth and a mean old face until he starts talking and he just does nothing but laugh and every few minutes will say aww but us poor farmers have it soo bad even though he collects vintage tractors, 40 so far! He was just loving me for my little trip.

Let it be known that the hill outside Staylilttle village in the heartland of Wales was were I met my toughest match so far in a hill.

So here I am on the outskirts of the Brecon Beacons National Park. Just doing a bit of food shopping to last me through the park till I get to Cardiff. The countryside here is stunning, the roads are surrounded by big overhanging old trees ful of grey squirrels and birds of prey. To cycle so freely along with no rush and no worries is the greatest experience I have had while travelling. I am really starting to settle into it now and am enjoying every moment and the feelings are getting stronger along with my legs on the Welsh hills.

See ye soon!

I am just going as far as the horizon...

2008-10-06T21:44:00.008+01:00

The time has come, earlier than expected. Work cut my last week down to only 2 shifts so I politely told them to shove it. Coming home after two and half years away was one of the most nervous times in my life. Had everyone changed? Would I fit in? Did I turn odd while I was away? Luckily I got the right answers. People had changed, in a nice way. I did fit back in with my friends and family. I turned only slightly odd, sandals! My summer back in Ireland has been one filled with some magic moments. The time spent with friends new and old has been special. I want to thank everyone I have been hanging around with in the last while, sorry for leaving a bit early but I feel its time to go now. I am walking around pumped up to 90, ready to lift a mountain and its making me tired.

Hopefully I will be able to make another video like this when I get off my bike

Aussie and New Zealand

When its raining out I want you to think of me sitting on my bike soaking wet and miserable and laugh out loud at me but remember when its sunny I will have my top off getting a tan and I will be the one doing the laughing while you are in work.

Travel is 10% scenery and 90% the friends you make, I am glad I came home and had the opportunity to get to know all the new gang!

This is the single biggest adventure I have attempted in my life and if I think about it much longer my head will actually explode.

I leave in 10 hours.

Lots of love

Sea x x x

What can one man do?

2008-09-26T15:32:00.003+01:00

Its been a crazy week for me, again. I witnessed a head on collision between two cars only a couple of feet in front of me. The passengers were ok but it got me thinking how happy I am about how I am living and what I have planned incase it all ends as quickly as that crash happened. Emotionally I am getting tired of being so excited about my trip. I was extremely tempted to just jump on my bike and go but I remembered I needed to get it serviced so I dropped the little beauty in for a pampering. I had 3 days off work in a row this week and wanted to take it easy on my legs for once so decided not to do too much cycling. Luckily Orla had a couple of days off before uni started so we went for a walk up around Bray head. Topics were varied from, nature (me) to cooking (Orla)! I paid attention to her directions, stolen from dutch gold, on how to make sauces as I recon some of my dishes over the next while will definetly benefit from a bit of spicing up! We stopped and had lunch in a pretty scenic spot facing south looking out to sea and down the coast to Wicklow town. It was right then and there that I was tempted to do the ole yawn trick but I felt as Dara has suffered enough this year with Bray Emmets without me stealing Orla away on my bike.

I took a ramble along the Dargle and found what I think is the most scenic spot in Ireland. Obviously claims like this are huge but I am not afraid to make outlandish claims like that! Ha anyway it was just perfect. It was late afternoon, the light just crept through the branches and created a mystical atmosphere on the bend of the river surrounded by steep cliffs. I suppose it was the combination of the light, the bend and my imagination. It could of been anywhere in the world. I should really get a decent camera and brush up on my photographic eye cause the picture doesnt do it justice.

America is falling apart from every angle, China successfully sends men into space for a space walk. Great publicity stunt and only a month after the Olympics. I would say the PR men in China are sipping a fine cognac and laughing to themselves how quickly they are catching up (if they have not already gone into the lead). Brush up on your Chinese my friends.

To find out the answer to to my posts title just watch the video below.

Time and time again someone will push the boundaries back so that was impossible last week is just ordinary this week. Obviously flying over the channel is not ordinary but in 20 years its possible we will all be flying like that haaa. It was inspiring to watch Yves Rossy fly through the air, not just glide. One man had the world watching, not two teams of overpaid footballers. One man, alone and flying. Clearly he had a huge team of supprt in building and preparing for it but when it all boils down to it and he steps out of the plane and flying solo there is not much the "team" can do and he relies only on his skills. For me it easily ranks as one of the greatest achievements of mankind.

It is the dreamers that inspire and motivate me. The people who say "why not". Not the people who say "sure what can one man do".

Nothing is impossible

Borge Ousland

2008-09-19T12:09:00.008+01:00

Last night I went to a talk in Dublin by Norweigan Borge Ousland who is one of the greatest polar explorers of our time. It was a very interesting talk about all his expeditions to the North/South poles, Patagonia and even Everest. Some of his pictures were breathtaking and his video clips were an eye opener to the extent of the conditions they faced.

The most insiring part of the lecture was about how he travelled to the North Pole in the middle of winter with Mike Horn, who wins my vote for most hardcore traveller, in 24 hours of darkness. He was the only person who thought it was possible, everyone else said it could not be done. It was facinating to hear his train of thought and how he confronts challenges. There is something really cool about hearing people ramble and say what they feel. Alot of people hold back on what they say and make sure it will portray the right image and attitude.

One of his earlier points on dealing with Polar Bears was that if you could see them coming from a distance it was no problem, now in the dark it was a different story. Who ever was the back was more than likely the one who would get a tap on the shoulder from the polar bear, so they split the time at the back fairly evenly! Each day, 6 times on average, they would have to cross open water by putting on a dry suit and swimming across pulling and pushing the sleds.

When the talk was finished question time was funny. Some old guy in the audience asked him why try climb Everest even though some 2000 people had climbed it already. Even though he had already explained why he wanted to in his section on Everest he patiently said "because its the highest mountain in the world". The old guy was clearly looking for some convoluted answer and was not happy with his reply haaaa. Borge did not make it to the summit as his oxygen bottle had a leak and he would not have had enough to make it to the summit and back safely so turned around after 2 months getting that far and only 200 meters from the summit.

The worrying thing was the evidence of global warming, the pictures he has in his collection from 20 years ago of the thickness of the ice are shocking. In the next couple of years there will be no ice at the north pole during the summer. This will have some serious consequences for the wildlife and on the global scale for all of us.

On one of his solo trips to the North Pole he finally reached the pole after 2 months when he heard a helicopter. Out jumps a Saudi Prince, he had only left the base camp 30 minutes ago and laughed when he heard how long it took Borge to get there!

I have always enjoyed reading about expeditions to the poles so getting to hear personal stories from a true explorer was a delight. How do you take a dump at -40 celcius? hmmm 10 times faster than you normally would.

I finally knocked the bastard off...

2008-09-17T18:50:00.003+01:00

Where to begin with my first post in my blog eh? I was going to wait until my big journey began before starting this blog but I think it already started October 5th 2005 when I left for australia.

As the title of my url says, I have skinny legs. Which I am constantly reminded of by friends, friends of friends, family, work mates, girlfriends and anyone elses who feels they know me enough to get away with slagging them.

"what do you mean cycle, you?, haa sure look how skinny your legs are!"

"you are feckin mad, you are too skinny"

(lying naked in bed with a girl, which is rare) "oh my god your legs are actually skinnier than mine!"

But these legs have never let me down, scuba diving, snowboarding, running, cycling or hiking. You see they have a secret weapon, my stubborn brain never letting them stop even when they ache, sun burnt, muddy, cut or freezing. So I decided a few months back to leave Ireland by bicycle and just go wherever I wanted. Yes, it is probably the worst thing to pick for me, it would be easier by train or even fairly cheaply by flying Ryanair all over. There are two reasons why I decided to cycle.

One: Because I like to travel, I like seeing new places, getting lost and finding yourself again. Seeing all sorts of strange and beautiful creatures. To see things most people will never see. To live free of societies pressures in nature. But to do this you gotta go slowly and trust me there are not many modes of travel slower than me cycling a bike. To do it extremely cheap in a tent to make it last as long as possible before I have to work again.

Two: For the challenge, to get stronger, to find out what I can do with these skinny legs. To take the next step in my evolution.

I leave on the 12th of October, even if its raining!

So while I tick off the days on the calender till I leave I am not gonna sit around on my super smoothe ass and do nothing. So I got out of bed at lunch time today and decided to go for a wander up Little Sugarloaf mountain in Bray but believe it or not it was raining so I said I better not risk leaving the house and getting wet. Haaa there are so few days of the year when it is not raining here in Ireland that if you acted like that you would do nothing. All my time living in Bray and I have never been up the Little Sugarloaf, terrible.

So off I went and as usual I was not sure of where to go so I just headed in the general direction, up past the McNamees house, past the scene of one of the most (only) horrendous wasp attacks of our childhood, past where we tried unsuccessfully as kids to catch pheasants using fishing line and raisins. Blindly walking along a dirt road through the mist, cracking twigs and scaring rabbits, pheasants and kestrels away. It was typical Irish "rain" hanging around the hill, not really falling yet soaking me.

I got to what looked like a trail off the road and up the hill. That trail stopped after a few yards but I continued anyway. Eating blackberries and half tempted to see if any of the crazy little mushrooms had any magic in them! The forrest cleared and I could see past the open space and into what looked like another wooded area that felt like the right direction. With no trail to follow I was making my own by standing on the thorny blackberry bushes which were taking lumps out of my beautifully formed ankles. So I was at the point on hill walks where the bush is getting too thick to follow and I have a couple of choices. Turn around and retrace my steps and find another easier way. Or convince myself of something that is blatantly not true "sure it looks like its thinning out over there". Never one to turn back I pushed on. The blackberry bushes where now up past my naked knees and busy painting detailed dotted red lines like roads on a map all over my legs. Minutes later I was kicking my legs higher than I thought was flexibly possible by me just so I could get them high enough to bring my sandled foot down on top of the branches that where now five feet high. It only took 30 minutes to get through haaa.

Now for what I hoped was the sugar on the Little Sugarloaf. If sugar is the worst ankle breaking territory of all time then I found a ton of sugar. A few hundred metres of slippery, unsteady, perfectly designed ankle breaking rocks later and I had summited one of Brays skyline "mountains". I did it all unsupported, without food, water, phone, supplemental oxygen, sherpas, camera crew and with no view as the mist was really thick haaa. But I did get hazy glimpses of the peaks of the other hills around, which gave a surreal feeling of being at the top of a vast Tibetan mountain range. I could almost picture little Tenzin sitting on the other peak meditating. Another unexpected all time life moment provided not too far from my house. On my way back down I decided against retracing my steps precisely as my legs didnt have enough skin left to deal with round two with the blackberry bushes from hell so I stayed on the trail. Turned out I saved myself a 10 minute walk on the trail by taking my trip through the blackberry part haaa.

No matter how big or small the goals I set in my life are, I always get more out of the journey than the accomplishment. I got some quality quiet time away from noisy cars and people and away from day time TV and into nature. Only a 20 minute walk from my house and I am with the animals, well maybe not with, but at least I can see them haaa. Its not exactly the vast eco system of Wellington diving but there is so much beautiful Irish wildlife and charming countryside right on my doorstep! Not to be counting down the days but its only about 25 to go before I leave. There is so much I want to do around here before I leave but the nice thing is it will all still be here when I get back eventually so I have decided not to do a big tour around before I leave.

"What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from." T.S. Eliot

I am not leaving to get to a particular spot on the map. I want to go to every single place in the world so naming any as an end goal would be pointless. I just wanna get out there and see it all, have some (alot) adventure, not have to work for a while, to live a life less ordinary. I dont want to just fly past on a bus, I wanna be a part of the view. To find myself in a place like Wellington, not speaking geographically but to be truly happy with how I am living and surrounded by amazing people like Halena, Mike, Tony and Libby.

So I wait, hiking, cycling, swimming and working in a degrading job as a barman. Preparing mentally to have nothing but my bike and tent and some money. To cycle along slowly, dropping in on friends to have a wash, steering clear of work and hopefully continue being as happy as I am now and finding myself in another beautiful place.