Cycling Around The World
Where am I? - Live TrackerPrevious
01/07/2009 - Following the Rivers
Spending 5 years learning German was completely wasted because still after wekk here all i can say is, thank you, do u speak english and can i water? Fortunetley most the young people her speak a little english and understand my basic questions.The older generations over60start talking to me about my bike, but after finding out i'm english just walk away. Maybe they're stilll thinking of when we thrashed them 5 - 0 in the fottball.
The riding in Germany has been realatively simple, I've just followed the signs and river. On one day I did venture away from the river, on a hellraising road marked 50 but cars must have been doing double.Now back on the river its just about seeing how many km's i can can do before having to jump in the river. I do get a few odd looks when people see me swimming with a big cargo ship going past.
I'm sure at some point I will leave the river before turkey, but for now I'm sticking to the easy, maybe a bit booring riding. Tommorow I'll be in Austria, hopefully there a bit more lively than the boring, sensible germans. But as long as the beer and salami is cheap i'm sorted.
25/06/2009 - Too Short
I got to the Netherlands at 8:00 and after having my bags checked for illegal imigrants, i hit the road. Throughout the netherlands there are more cycle paths than actual roads. So from the moment i got there, i was on a cycle route to rotterdam. Soon the the route kept crossing other routes, and not long after i was lost. I spent the day circling, until eventually i found the river and with several consultations with my mum(she has a better map than me) i got there. At one point I hit a dead end but a Friendly engliah speaking dutch cyclist pointed me to the tunnel under the river, he also gave me a biscuit.
After getting used to the direction findimg, the next day went much smoother. But i would always ask the nearest dutch person around if it was the right. As i got talking to all these dutch people they all said the same thing, English weather is much better than theres. Which was hard to belive as i was in 30 degree sunshine. Even with the circling and not much cycling, I was still through the Netherlands within 2 days. Shame really as it's the nicest country I've been to so far, apart from the USA. Few to many bikes for my liking though.
I forgot to mention there are bike everywhere, apparently every person in the Netherlands owns 3.
21/06/2009 - Starting Again
After a long time recovering from my injury, I am now starting the next part cycling round the world. On tuesday after cycling up the straightest road in Britian, I will be catching a ferry to Rotterdam. From there I will be following the Rhine and Danube rivers east until I hit the Black Sea. Skirting ariound the coast to Turkey. Then following my compass east until I run out of land.
I have finally got round to setting up my Spot satelite tracker. So now my website will show my current position every 24 hours. As well as this I have updated my kit and made a few additions to my bike. All these upgrades will enable me to live cheaper and stay drier, with a new weekly budget of 20 pounds a week.