Having a blast in Africa…

Getting used to the African way of life took us a while.  Not only does everyone stare in utter amazement at the sight of white people on bikes (i’m told they think its because we are too poor to own a car..which is true) people also constantly remind you that you are in fact white with the chant of ‘muzungu’.  To be fair though most people, us included, thought it certain that we’d get shot passing through South Africa, we even had one gentleman approach us and tell us we need to be very very careful around here before showing us his handgun he had placed in his car door. Luckily for us the reality was quite the opposite with the vast majority of people both very friendly and helpful.

South Africa provided great roads, a welcome tail wind and some tremendous wildlife that included the sighting of giraffe, gizzles and baboons.  The weather was sizzling and the sights breathtaking, the highlight however had to be the moment we realized we had to cycle through a game reserve that had no fencing to protect us from the animals.  You’d think then it would be wise to cycle through as quickly and quietly as possible but no not us we sighted a giraffe in the bush and decided it wise to try and sneak into the shrubs in order to get a snap; a plan that quickly changed when the giraffe turned and faced us in an unwelcoming manor!  Still at least we managed to dodge the lions, for now!!

We crossed unhindered into Swaziland after a few days cycle where our African experience really began.  South Africa was great but it could quite easily be part of Europe such is the level of development.  Here in Swaziland though everyone resides in wooden shacks, wears battered clothing and speaks mysterious languages.  The place was awash with some truly awesome scenery and amazing views whilst the sight of locals using the most basic of tools to farm the land and transporting water upon their heads satisfied our perception of ‘real Africa’.

It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows however our evenings presented us with some of the most intense thunderstorms we have ever witnessed.   The constant lighting up of the sky coupled with the crash of thunder only aided wild thoughts of sure death by lightening strike.  Luckily Del’s theory on the law of attraction appears to be false, we all survived in one piece.

By the time a week had passed we had found ourselves in the capital of Mozambique, Maputo.  Sadly generations of civil war had really shown their toll in Mozambique with our limited experience so far demonstrating  a really very poor country that had very little to offer other than basic farming in the sticks and a very polluted capital city crammed with people merely surviving on the corners of streets living in make shift shelters and cardboard boxes.

Despite such realities the people were some of the nicest on tour, we had little trouble finding a place to stay each night, we’d simply approach a small village and communicate through sign language that we needed a place to stay (not easy when your trying to explain you have tents!) and we would all most certainly have somewhere  to sleep.  We had by now decided it wiser to stay with locals rather than risk wild-camping as the number of dangerous creatures lurking in the bush was unknown.  We had also been informed that unexploded mines still littered the countryside and it seemed logical for us to keep our legs intact in order for us to remain on track!

Emirates your 5star airline.

So the luxury of an emirates flight really did pamper us, receiving complimentary drinks and watching DVD’s are things unheard of to us these days!  Even the sleep in Dubai international Airport was a treat with the free pillow emirates had provided and burger-king making the place seem like a 4star hotel!  We found ourselves almost dragging each other into Durban airport to collect our bikes!

The taxi to the youth hostel we were staying can only be described as  insane.  We some how squeezed four packaged bikes and the four of us into this poor guys car.  Coops found himself sandwiched between the bikes and the boot door whilst the remaining three of us shared the one seat remaining in the front.  I must say the driver deserves massive credit for taking us and getting us there in one piece, not only did he manage with just gears 1,3 and 5, he also avoided the police roadblocks with a skill that saved us all a night in jail and a hefty fine.  In hindsight maybe two taxi’s would have been wiser.

After spending a couple of nights in Durban we returned to the road with the realization that in order to reach Mombasa with a week to spare we would need to average 82.5miles per day for the next five weeks with only four rest days.  We had only once previously cycled over 80miles and that was in the relative safety of Europe, as expected then we were a tad concerned.  For those of you that no us i’m sure your unsurprised at our lack of preparation; we always leave everything to the last minute and this was no exception!

 

Blown off course..

We left Belgrade having absolutely decimated the youth hostels supply of ‘complementary tea’ to the value of more than the £10 per person per night room price.  It goes to say they made no money from us and were grateful to see the back of us!

We had set ourselves an ambitious target of 70+miles per day, a requirement if we were to make our flight from Istanbul in a little over two weeks time.  I should explain, with the tension and fighting occurring in both the middle east and North Africa we had decided it wise to fly ourselves to South Africa, obviously the frost bite on our toes had absolutely nothing to do with it!  Our deadline was always going to be a tough one, not because of the 70miles a day requirement more because daylight was becoming extremely limited now, we were dragging ourselves out of bed, in the dark, at 6am, leaving at first light in the sub zero conditions and cycling until twilight each day.  You can imagine then we prayed for optimum conditions…we didn’t get them!  Far from it in fact we were met by a tremendous headwind that blew at a gale force for a whole week straight.  It was so extreme at one stage that we actually couldn’t cycle without being blown to a complete standstill at which stage we would loose our balance and fall ungracefully off!  Progress was slow but perseverance paid off and we made Bulgaria, after a very brief stint in Romania, vaguely on track and despite the extremely tired legs the excitement of finally leaving Serbia egged us on for the tussle that awaited us…the Balkan mountains.

Boy was it one heck of a tussle, funnily enough fully loaded bicycles don’t climb mountain ranges to well!  Add to it the ever increasing icy conditions and a glimpse of snow and you will be someway to understanding the torture our fingers and toes were going through.  Each accent would result in tremendous sweating and delayering of clothing whilst each decent would invite the bitter breeze to freeze our faces into a portrate of shock and disbelief; surely it cant get any colder.  By the time we had climbed to our highest point of over 2000m we were exhausted, our toes were constantly numb and fear of missing our flights had well and truly set in.  Still I’ll never have a better bowl of cornflakes on a Monday morning, the view was simply out of this world.

Turkey was our next stop after a very brief stay in Greece, now we know these guys don’t really get on to well but the level of military activity at this border was beyond a joke.  The troops, bunkers and tanks reminded us more of Afghanistan than Europe although to be fair such a place isn’t all that far from here!  Turkey was the first place we slept in conditions above freezing for the first time in weeks.  This allowed some items of clothing to be removed as up until now we were sleeping in 5 layers, 3 pairs of socks and using T-shirts as neck warmers just to stay vaguely alive.  Needless to say our hygiene had gone down hill big time!

Despite the headwinds, mountains and guns our most challenging experience yet greeted us upon entry to the suburbs of Istanbul.  Cycling into the city required us to pedal along the motorway!  Such a road here can only be compared to mayhem, ranging between 3 and 6 lanes the road  compromised of millions of crazy Turks winding in and out just like those crazy taxi drivers you experience on your holidays.  Cycling such a mess resulted in near death on more than one occasion!  We were thankful then to make the relative safety of our youth hostel in time for our flight out of Europe with a few days to spare and all our limbs intact.

Istanbul is a great place to visit offering some beautiful sights just make sure you avoid the youth hostel we stayed in, the drone like voice of our host singing ‘all day and all night’ still haunts us now!

Keeping the Mind Occupied.

From Budapest we had Dell’s birthday to look forward to.  I don’t think he will ever have one like it; fixing punctures, cycling 60 miles into headwinds and eating birthday cake somewhere in the middle of Hungary!  His birthday was finished with an early dinner watching a beautiful sunset which no money could buy.

From here we met another cycle tourer named Ben.  He is planning to cycle the world in a year, so after seeing four cyclists lost in the middle of Baja, he kindly showed compassion and took us in.  His family greeted us with open arms, while shoveling kilo’s of pasta down our throats!  We had a guided tour around this charismatic little town, finished by catering to our new sugar addictions and feasting on chocolate cake at a local coffee bar.  We had to repay them for their kindness; we cooked them a chicken risotto for dinner.  Whether they liked it or not we shall never know, but at least everyone went back for seconds!

After saying farewell to Ben and his family the next week was met with the worst stretch to date.  As we entered Serbia we were met with straight and boring roads, wet weather and frost in the mornings.  Yet despite that team spirits remained high.  The locals of Serbia are incredibly friendly, loud and happy, so it’s fair to say that they certainly rubbed off on us!  Boredom on roads like this is one of the hardest things to deal with.  There are only a certain number of games of ‘eye-spy’ that you can play before the novelty wears off, so you have to be a little more creative with some in-depth discussions; where is Dell going to be in five years time, what country will Mike be in this time next year, should Welchy do a Masters and will Coops be fat at 30.  With four strongly opinionated people on the team, I’m sure you can imagine that time flies by…

We made it into the Serbian capital, Belgrade, on day 43.  Belgrade is enormous, but to be fair after the week that we’ve had any town with a population of more than 200 seems pretty large.  We were pleased to have another rest; with the little that Serbia offers it really is a mental test while touring through the country.  Boredom and your mind playing tricks on you is far harder to deal with than the physical side of the trip.  Not only that but with eight consecutive days waking up to frost over the bikes and tents, a warm bed is certainly needed!  We entered the hostel at the kick off between United and City.  The two United supporters in the camp were rather silent for the rest of the weekend. . .

Who said cycling through cities was quicker?

We left Vienna on the Sunday evening after some impressive sightseeing, camping just outside the realms of the city.  By the same time the next day we were booked into a hostel in an entirely different country in the shape of Bratislava; the capital of Slovakia!  We had crossed into Eastern Europe now and some of the changes were quite drastic, there was instantly a noticeable drop in welfare and change in culture both in terms of physical objects such as the architecture of the buildings, and the people themselves whom were arguably more open to conversation and friendlier than there Western counterparts.   Some things don’t however change, a massive Tesco greeted us around one corner, they even did clubcard points!

After completing our laundry and agreeing on our route to Turkey we left Bratislava and within two days were inside Hungary.  Over the previous few days the quality of the Danube cycle route had dropped significantly, being reduced to mere mud on numerous occasions.  We had quickly learnt that potholes were a considerable problem if not avoided!  Once in Hungary the cycle route didn’t really exist and we instead followed the main roads rather than the river.  These roads were decent and wide and as long as we paid attention to potholes very safe and enjoyable.  There was however at times some rather large hills, including some climbs that lasted 20-30 minutes up slopes over 10% in gradient.  These moments were less fun!

We really have now moved out of the western way of life, since leaving Austria we have seen only a handful of cyclists, whilst the looks we get off the local populations are of pure fascination; clearly the idea of cycle touring is not so clear here yet.

We finished our fifth week in the capital of Hungary; Budapest.  The city is split in two with the River running right through the middle, we stayed here for a total of two nights and still felt that we hadn’t fully explored Pest let alone Buda the place is absolutely massive.  One of the highlights had been the spa we visited within the city, soaking in the warm outdoor pool when the air temperature was so low was a unique experience whilst the sauna and steam rooms were just pure heaven! The city really is amazing and arguably the prettiest place we have been and well worth a visit if the opportunity arises.  The beers cheap too coming to just a pound a pint!

Our fifth week had covered less mileage due to the number of large cities but we had seen some great places and integrated into a whole different kind of society; the communist era may have well and truly ended but its remains are everywhere to be seen here in Eastern Europe.

Some things change, others don’t.

So six days after leaving Del’s families it was a Saturday night and we were in the capital of a new country; Austria. We had covered a considerable amount of distance over the last week helped by the fact our routines were much more organised and efficient these days.   We were away by 8am, we were procrastinating less in supermarkets and we were camping at much later times, all in all we were absolutely smashing the distances, averaging over 70miles a day!

We had collected ourselves a guest upon our entry into Austria in the shape of a young chap named James.  Having bumped into him in a spa supermarket he had joined us for two days, touring alongside us.  It was only as we approached Vienna that we parted company, safe in the knowledge there were still crazier people out there; James see intended to cycle for two years around the world and this was only his first month!

The organised cycle routes had continued over the border and if anything the scenery had become even more special at times.  By far the biggest change was the weather which had decided to abandon us at the border; the temperature had fallen overnight from highs of 23degrees on the Thursday to just 8degrees on the Friday.  Austria’s population density had also noticeably fallen for one of the first times on tour with distances between towns huge and even villages rather large, we had quickly learnt that food and water planning was more essential now.

Our travels to the capital was dominated by the beauty and uniqueness of tiny congregations of people living the countryside lifestyle upon the Danube River.  All around we saw preparations being made for winter with firewood being collected alongside day to day rural livelihoods consisting of fishing and log cutting.  Occasionally we would pass a small market town but that was rare and even here seeing more than one or two in a que was non existent.   It was nice to enjoy a society underpinned by a more relaxed way of life, far from the hustle and bussle found so far and at home.

Having said that Vienna soon sorted that balance out as again we were thrust into the busyness of western cities.  We had ambitiously booked ourselves into a youth hostel in Vienna 40km before we had actually reached the city, worse still it had been dusk when we had done so and as a result we had spent two hours cycling in the dark without lights to reach it.   Despite our arrival well after 8pm the city was well and truly alive although thankfully there was no need to use the roads as the cycle path practically took us to the door of the hostel.  After such a productive forth week it was only right that the saturday nightlife of Vienna be explored (nothing to do with our ambitious cycle to the city) albeit by only three members of the team as for the first time on tour illness had caught up and as a result Welch was left behind to get to know the nightlife of hosteling internationals toilets instead!

 

 

Its all about those small, beautiful and hard to find places…

With a bike you really do have all the freedom in the world; go off the beaten track (even in Germany) and you’ll surround yourself in gorgeous countryside landscapes and sleepy scenic towns that otherwise would have been missed.  Following the Danube, it is fair to say, has certainly been worth while (and not just to avoid the hills), we have passed some absolute gems over the past week, sensational little known towns such as Stellingenstradt, Wurzberg and Bamburg are worth particularly worth a mention (and a visit too!).

The cycle routes of Germany really had been well thought out, clearly signposted and specifically designed to pass through the best sites and features of the nation whilst conveniently avoiding busy traffic, unsightly places and run down neighborhoods. I guess what else would you expect from a country infamous for its organisation?!  Despite the easy navigation and places to see we were all seriously craving a rest day after 2 weeks of continuous cycling; conveniently for us then Del had organised a place to stay with family of his in Southern Germany.  Knowing that Nuernburg was only two or three days cycle away we pedaled on safe in the knowledge that the two weeks worth of sweat (and who knows what else!) we had accumulated upon us was soon to be washed away.  You can imagine the sheer disbelief and then despair when Del realised that they in fact lived in the much smaller Nurnburg, not Nuernburg!  A  spelling mistake that granted the parasites feasting upon us a further two days to live.  Before you all refer to us as unhygienic tramps and question whether its safe to greet us upon our return, we had in our defense showered numerous times in waters of the Danube river – the trouble is its ice cold, full of fish and often visible to passers by even after dark so our ‘baths’ were rather ineffective.  As for a defense on our navigation skills…

Safe in the knowledge we were at last clean (and slightly embarrassed by Del’s cousin referring to our stench as a group of cattle), we rested for a couple of days.  We really did let our bodies recuperate during our stay engaging in pretty much just amazing home food and family guy whilst lounging around.  Oh and we attended the world renowned Octoberfest in Munich where, as people who know us best appreciate, we only had a couple of alcoholic beverages, afterall its not like one of the biggest street parties in the world or anything!  I’m sure you can appreciate then we were in tip top condition once we resumed our trip on Day 23!

Cleanliness is KEY..

So we forgot to mention a little incident that occurred in Luxembourg City as we first arrived.  We locked our bikes up and got ready to hit the city when one of us realised they had misplaced their lock key after locking their bike up.  Can you guess who that might have been?  Its the same guy that only brings one key on the trip so without a spare and an expensive high security D lock attached its likely to become a tad of an issue when we’d like to continue cycling!  A frantic retracing of steps, digging in the dirt and general frustration led to nothing, this key had actually faded away.  Nope in the end there was no magic it was merely placed underneath Mike Cannons helmet on the step beside his bike, virtually the one place we hadn’t checked.  Mike Cannon is really getting a reputation as the biggest time consumer on this trip, an award may well be coming his way upon our late arrival in Mombasa.

So lets talk about Germany.  Not quite the pollution ridden industrial robotic state that we had expected it to be, rather an absolute gem of a nation or at least along the River Mosel with its splendid scenery, cosy villages and picturesque grapevines.  The weather was still really very nice for late September too, reaching temperatures of 26degrees at times.  The last thing we expected this early on was a tan!  Things really were bliss until day 12 when we once again hit a hill, this one though was a 1.5km climb up a 11% hill, apparently the only supermarkets in town were located up here so we had no choice.  On reflection id have rather starved for the next hour; then again though maybe we’d be moaning about that now instead had we done so!  In reality though we had got lucky with the topography of Germany, although we covered maybe double the miles we would have using roads the river provided a much easier cycle, just a shame it had to meander so much.

On the River we stayed until a place just short of St Goar where we dared to take a short cut across land to avoid a ridiculously large bell shaped bend in the river.  It turned out to be a challenging climb over a seemingly endless mountain but boy did it turn out to be totally worth it.  Little did we know St Goar is famous in the motorbiking world for its windy down hill roads.  We may have no engine but swinging around the hairpins and avoiding the pot holes on the straights turned out to be the most exhilarating 10km of the trip so far, so much fun even if a tad dangerous!

We finished our third week eating a delicious tin of chili alongside some mash and a cheeky alcoholic beverage on a beautiful sandy beach overlooking the river Rhine just short of Frankfurt.  We even managed to get ourselves a wash for the first time in nearly a week by braving the cold of the water once twilight had passed.  I’m not so sure on what the law says about skinny dipping, thankfully we didn’t have to find out…this time.  It wasn’t all fun and games though we still had a main road and a railway line as well as one of the busiest rivers in Europe for company, still it could be worse we could be waking up for a 9-5 at work tomorrow!

On the note of silence were finish with a classic quote from Del – ‘one could argue you cant experience true silence until your death’, thoughtful.

 

Let’s Cycle in Circles for a While . . .

So we last blogged about Namur which was fantastic.  Shame the same can’t be said for the hangover!   After making contact with the real world to let everyone know we were safe we continued south through some of southern Belgium’s valleys.  From this point onwards the country increasingly started to get significantly hilly, which after nearly a week of flats, was a massive pain quite literally but then again the views were truly outstanding.  We ended up spending our next night in the garden of what can only be described as a very charismatic  gentleman; Thiery, who offered us a place after a mere 30 seconds of pleasantries.  Thiery had the most amazing but random garden; growing his own organic vegetables alongside a stone camp fire and  two vintage train carriage After a night of torrential rain we were glad to find out that he also makes a great Espresso in the morning.  We said our goodbyes with comprehensive directions towards Luxembourg via  cycle routes, what could go wrong?

Well in the end a productive  day consisting of around 70-80 miles cycling resulted in one large circle.  On the map we pretty much made 30 productive miles south, getting lost and cycling two sides of triangle (vintage Mike quote) numerous times.  Well done lads.  Never a dull moment.  With tensions rising we were obviously pleased to wake up to buckets, buckets and more buckets of rain.  Oh and more tretuous hills.  I love travelling . . .

As they say the only way is up.  Literally.  Then the enjoyable parts come with the downhills.  Apart from Mike’s derailer playing up we made good progress over the next two days, passing through Rochefort, Neufchateux, Arlon and finally passed the Luxembourg border.  Belgium was finally finished with.  It’s a beautiful country and despite some murderous hills to climb in the south (which are apparently also easily avoidable) it was a pretty good experience (excluding cycling around and around and around and in circles).  From emotional highs to some real lows though the awful weather and killer hills it was another stage complete.

There’s not much to say from about Luxembourg.  The center is a beautiful town with lots to do but it all comes at a very high price.  Thus, we scooted out of Luxembourg towards the border to reach Germany fairly quickly.  The endless stay in Belgium is well and truly behind us after three countries in just three days.  Moral is higher, bring on Germany!

New Zealand Dave

So the reality check of a 5am start on day two hit us rather hard, as did the hurricane like wind and rain.  What can only be described as an abismal cycle along the A2 was made worse by the consistant roar of huge lorries, road spray and gale force cross winds.  Safe to say we were all greatful to reach the port in one piece, and even more greatful we made our ferry.  It was 744am when we arrived at the booking desk and yet we amazingly still made the 8am ferry we had paid for, such a result.

Day two did get better with us getting a sneaky shower in the lorry drivers part of the boat and a huge tailwind in France that alongside reduced rainfall made the trip far more enjoyable.  By the time nightfall arrived we had made the third country of our trip, Belguim.

Still we hadnt found a suitable place to wild camp instead we paid 5euros each for a campsite somewhere short of Brugge where we used our cooking stove and tents for the first time and got a wash in a sink.  After finally awaking and packing up we were back on the road at 1pm!  Rediculously late but after the hype of the previous few days a much needed rest.

On we travelled towards Brugge where we unexpectedly bumped into a fellow cycle tourer, a young chap by the name of Dave.  Dave originally from New Zealand had just finished a spell of working in Cardiff and was now on a sabatical,  begining his trip in the UK had crossed into France and Belguim and was now also on his way towards Brugge where he intended to go North and visit Holland and Scandanavia.  He joined us for a beer in Brugge, and ended up wild camping with us in a random woodland we found just outside of Brugge.  Day three had been eventful and Brugge really is a beautiful place, shame there wasn´t much cycling that occured.

The next two days saw us follow decent flat cycle paths down through Gent and on towards the capital Brussels, the routes were well maintained, flat and we had a decent tailwind behind us so we really did make some decent ground.  Much less organised however has been our ability to purchase and consume food.  We went without eating any until 6pm on day four which is clearly rather stupid.  This came about from a combination of bad planning and lack of shops on route and resulted in some rather touchy moments within the group.  This was made worse by the fact that our cooking stove appeared broken after just a couple of uses and therefore cold tinned food, if it wasn´t for the fact that we had secured free accomadation in a Monks courtyard we would have all gone to sleep in a right huff.

Day five saw us wake up late again and head towards Brussels where we chilled for a while to look around and consumed a cheeky beer and some Belguim chocolate.  Was a beautiful day and a great city, hugely enjoyable.  All had gone well until we were required to exit the city before nightfall, something that turned into something of a nightmare.  By the time we made a youth hostel on the outskirts of town it was almost dark, yet once they quoted us a price of 18euros each we decided to go on.  Now it was virtually pitch black, we had no lights and no plan of action, we were in trouble.  In the end we eventually stumbled accross a path up the side of a motorway which we followed for around 500yards and found a spot to set up within the woods on the side of it.  Cold, cheap, rubbish food followed before we attempted to sleep, although the consistant thunder of lorries through the night made it rather hard to.

Our first week ended in better spirits however as we stumbled across the small town of Numer at a big time, it happened to be their festival weekend.  So the story goes they have a massive street party once a year on this day, we thought it would be rude not to attend.  Our only issue was finding cheap accomadation and as the day progressed our last remaining option was a youth hostel on the outskirts of town.  The lady on the desk told us that ´they were sadly full…that is unless you have a tent?, well funnily enough we do!  This was such a result and allowed us to go out and enjoy the evening, which we did!

So after seven days we are slightly hungover and rather fatigued as we have made it from London, Uk right down through France and Belguim to Nemur.  Along the way we have already had many ups and downs, met some new people and seen some great places.  Long may it continue.