British Cycling Expedition – 1st Google Map Adventure
In the summer after college had finished, I as most students do, had far too much spare time. I found myself spending hours on google maps, looking at all the incredible places in the world. I found patterns which are so alien to anything we see in the UK, that they inspire a new way of thinking about travel (take a look at the area around the Kara Sea). One which addresses modern age technology, and seeks to use it as a inspirational tool . This lead me onto another set of adventures, the Google Map Adventures, In which I would look for a natural point where a journey was at the B part of A to B, and go there.
For this trip, I looked at the southern tip of Italy, Reggio di Calabria. I left it at the back of my mind while I travelled around some of the rest of the world (much of which is documented earlier in LongTimeSpent). But last summer, this idea came into fruition. Laura, whom I met at University, had a family home in Malta, and so I decided to extend the trip onto Sicily and then across the Mediterranean to little island of Malta.
So in the olympic summer of 2012, one of my best friends, Louis, and I went on a cycling trip. Naturally I took my camera along for the ride, and Louis, brought a guitar… which he strapped on the back of his bicycle. We aimed to only spend money on food, and drink, and vowed NEVER to push our bikes. (this resulted me walking probably less than a kilometre that month, most of which was around supermarkets.)
Initially we aimed to cover 100 miles per day (the London to Brighton bike ride is 56 miles) but we probably averaged 90 miles, and only reached 100 a few.
Our route would take us through France, Germany , Switzerland, Liechtenstein (if we’re counting), back into Switzerland, Italy (the Vatican City…again if we’re counting), Sicily, and then Malta
I’ve posted a few of the photos below, and will write a little description below each. This is a pretty long post, with lots of photos, so please bear with it and let them load, I hope it’ll be worth the wait.
Stopping off in a (seemingly) ghost town, for dinner from a pizza van after day one of riding. We almost got as far as Paris, and were very proud of ourselves.
We passed through so many idyllic french villages, which you don’t get to see when travelling any other way, and its a real pleasure. “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”
a bit of a skip in the Journey here, this is the bridge in Zurich, Switzerland. In northern France, around the Alsasce region however, there were some beautiful golden evenings sunshine which I will never forget. The way the sunlight reflected off the corn was surreally enchanting.
The stunning Lake Walensee, we followed a line of lakes down from Zurich while approaching the Alps, these proved a good spot for taking much needed washes, and the icy water would sooth our muscles
A well earned sunset
This was our camp spot, free of course, and incredibly peaceful.
Liechtenstein, a pointless goal in the trip, and a kind of mental halfway point, even though it was less than a third of the way!
Just about to start our highest climb of the trip, and it was clearly going to be a ….
Another free camping spot, halfway up the Alps. We hadn’t carried any food with up except 5 biscuits, and Louis had ‘accidentally’ eaten 3, leaving me with a mountain to cycle up and only 2 biscuits for fuel. But it rained and the wind blew like a hurricane that night, repeatedly pulling the pegs out of our tent and blowing our things away, which Louis fetched, and so redeemed himself.
At the top of the Julier Pass (about 50km from bottom to top, and reaching 12%), feeling very smug as the only cyclists amongst a bunch of lazy motorcycle tourists… Until a man pulling his kid in a cart behind his bicycle reached the top.
If you’re lucky enough to have ever felt that feeling where you know everything is going to be easy, and ‘downhill from here’. That is the precise feeling I had when I began rolling down this road. literally hours of freewheeling followed.
some nice Swiss scenes
and the border to Italy… still not the end of the freewheeling yet, got a good hour or so of that left.
and finally at Lake Como, just in time to watch the sun go down, and pull open a bottle of red. The next day took us through some of Nothern Italy’s flatland which was dull, but we powered through it and achieved our longest distance day.
And over the Apennine mountains which run the length of Italy, these actually seemed harder to ride over than the Alps, there was a heatwave with temperatures over 41 celsius, thats 105 fahrenheit. But the pleasures of a sunny Tuscany would soon follow.
Little compares to cycling in Tuscany.
Getting some shade and looking for a route at a petrol station. (no need for refueling)
My Stallion, the Mercian, this was a bike hand built for my Dad, he had cycled it to Venice, and around Sri Lanka.
One of the best camp spots of the trip, just off a sheltered holiday community beach south of Naples. After a party, at which we hadn’t yet worked out that everyone knew everyone (apart from us) we became quite notorious.
Mozzarella and Salami Shop
Stopping for a rest on the Amalfi coast, which has to be one of the most pleasurable, and toughest coasts to cycle.
I had been here a few times on holiday before, but this time It felt the best.
Louis finally managed to get the Guitar out. While cooking up dinner (half a kilo of pasta and tomato sauce…again!) on the promenade we managed to confuse an Italian policewoman to turn a blind eye to us cooking there. A compromise of moving our pans slightly to the left was drawn up, and she left.
Torrential rain is never welcome when you have very little places to keep dry.
With nowhere to pitch up for the night, and it being in complete darkness, we found a lime grove to set up in. Mud would be an understatement. If ‘Stuck-in-the-Mud’ was to be played in real mud, rather than a school playground, this is the mud they would use. We spent 2 hours in the morning cleaning it off everything.
Avola Antica mountain goat.
Avola Antica, the ‘Grand Canyon’ of Sicily.
Noto, the whole town was buildings like this, nothing modern, and it was incredible.
In the sea on the last day before catching the ferry to Malta! We had about 10km to cycle, very little indeed. So we ended up falling asleep on the beach. We had both burnt in some very distinct tan lines, and so I fell asleep naked in an effort to even them up… much to the dismay of an Italian family.
Relaxing on the yacht. A photo which always makes me feel fat now.
Louis and I took the dinghy out, and it ran out of petrol, so we had to paddle the whole way back… possibly the only upper body exercise we got that month…
I hope you enjoy the photos, and thanks for getting all the way to the bottom! If you have any questions please do ask!
Two from Brighton
It has been too long since my last visit here, it’s ben almost a year since my last post, and at first, as the months drew out I felt almost guilty over my lack of long-term commitment to it. I can blame it on my studies, or lack of digital camera (grumble), but to tell the truth, I just haven’t been getting myself out there. It’s been a long winter in London, and I haven’t been exploring as much as I should.
So here are a few photos of Brighton, well Hove actually… One in the summer, and one from the winter.
I hope everyone has endured, and is now looking forward to the summer we are about to receive.
Trainline
With only a month left until exams are over and the summer begins, rather than revising I’ve been looking through some old photos of my travels around Europe. Its not often you see this view of the track, and I think they make surprisingly effective photos. Although I won’t be travelling on trains this summer, I’m thoroughly looking forward to getting out into the world again and having some new adventures. I’ve just bought my first film camera too, and am eager to get some great photos soon. Another photo which fits particularly well with this series is in my first ever post Long Distance Train Travel
The clouds come in over Tian Shan
I dug up some more photos from Tian Shan, The first shows the clouds coming in the evening before we left the mountains and retreated back to the city. The second is of the man who invited us into his yurt to keep dry out of the rain.
Tian Shan, China
With the billion or so people in China, I needed to get away and have some peace and quiet, and what better way to do so than with a camping trip. A 4,600 kilometre, 2 and a half day, train ride from Shenzhen took Shane and I to the north-western Chinese city of Urumqi. This was pretty much the end of the line, a city where the communist hammer and sickle is displayed proudly, and the buildings are grey concrete blocks. Surprisingly KFC had still made its way here, but at least they had given it the address of 666.
We persuaded a hotel to let us leave all our belongings in a box in their storage room, stupidly I had sent all my camping gear home a couple of days previously, so this would be a rough and ready trip. I bought a length of rope from a local DIY store, and “borrowed” a bed sheet from the hotel which I could fashion into a hammock. We filled our back packs with tins of food, and some sausages from the supermarket in town, and caught a bus as close to Tian Shan (Heaven Mountains) as we could get. Immediately after getting of the bus a man offered to drive us further into the mountains, by this point we had learnt that westerners seemed to be some kind of prize in China, as everyone wanted to do everything for us. Chinese people are bloody brilliant.
There turned out to be the Xinjiang Camping Competition happening that weekend, and we got waved through all security like VIPs without paying any fees to enter the mountains, another stroke of luck for two almost broke travellers. The competitors had to camp at the bottom of the mountains guarded by what seemed like an army of police (I think it may have been the army) complete with riot vans. Shane and I hiked our gear to the top of the mountain before returning for the evening festivities we had been invited to. We had become hardened drinkers by this point, so the news of a beer drinking competition excited us no end. But first some of our new Chinese friends were insisting to get us wasted on rice-wine over dinner. Shane won the the first round of the competition, earning him the title píjiǔ wang (啤酒王 – Beer King). We both advanced to the final, where I managed to quaff three 600ml bottles in just over 2 minutes, winning a crate of beer which I promptly gave away due to feeling I was about to pop and not wanting more beer. The locals stood no chance!
Night had come, and in a drunken state we retreated back up the mountain to find our camp site, which was hidden in the trees. With only our phones for light this proved to be quite a challenge. I was ready to give up and sleep on a rock on the top of the mountain, but Shane being well versed in finding his way through trees was determined not to give up and eventually found us back to our camp. I fell asleep in my makeshift hammock straight away, and woke up shivering, after what has to be the coldest night I’ve ever experienced. We swiftly collected some dry moss and twigs together and built a fire to warm our frozen skin.
Each day we walked across the ridge of the mountain further away and set up camp further afield. Incredible peaks went on for as far as the eye could see. The air was distinctly un-Chinese in it’s lack of smog. Eagles flew overhead. In the knowledge that I would be heading home in ten days, this felt like a perfect way to draw my travels to an end.
Determined not to freeze to death, and armed with a Pocket Swiss-Army knife, we set up our second camp and proceed to cut down a dead tree with the tiny saw blade. This took hours and hours and hours. But eventually we had a fire which successfully lasted through the night. We speared a couple of sausages on sticks, roasted them over the fire, sang about our worldly conquests and hummed away on a harmonica. This is the life.
After five days, the weather turned worse, torrential rain poured down, our food had run out, and my hammock had ripped so badly I was practically sleeping on the soggy ground, so we decided to head back to Urumqi. Soaked to our bones we set off back to the bottom of the mountains when some local Uyghur people ran out calling us into their yurt. they stripped us down and dried our clothes over a cow pat fuelled stove while we waited for the rain to subside. They fed us some offish kind Naan bread (which apparently originated there) and what must have been yak butter. Delicious….
Two chinese guys happened to be also in the yurt, and they happened to be going back to Urumqi. Much to our surprise they had managed to order a taxi to drive up the mountains to come and collect them. I thought this must be from the road at the very bottom of the mountains, but no, the taxi had driven up the mountain in the rain and came right to the door of the yurt. All in all this is going to be a pretty hard camping trip to beat, and it proved to be a successful remedy to the hustle and bustle of city living.
Estelle in the Woods
I love to walk, but unfortunately at the young age of 21 its hard to find anyone else who shares the same love for stretching their legs. This is a good friend of mine, Estelle, we sometimes go on walks around London, we walk all day, for hours, until our feet hurt. Not to get anywhere, just to walk, we have been completely lost, we’ve walked round in circles without knowing it. We’ve seen some pretty cool things, and we’ve learnt a little more about the city we live in.
This photo is taken in a park near Muswell Hill, London. My memory of this moment is exactly the same as how this photo looks, we were both exhausted and slightly delirious. But it was a fun day.