Bish & John

here I am

Say hello to Pam, I met her today at Tim Hortons and she took pity on me, offering a bed for the night. Pam is full of good stories and likes to hear mine too. We talk through dinner and then late into the night while she matches me beer for beer. Just up the […]

hospitality highway

Here I am on hospitality highway. But back to that later. First how I got to be on it. From Fort St. John it was an easy two days to Chetwynd, where Tom was waiting and we spent a day there hanging out. Then the next afternoon Tom stuck out his thumb and I began […]

Winds

I headed out of Fort Nelson, climbing and into a headwind. Fortunately I had bought doughnuts and so all was good in my world, cycling to dark, 6pm, and snug in my down bag by 6.30. During the night I heard coyotes howling, though I thought they were wolves at the time, then I thought ”but […]

Some incredible rides

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ride 1
We woke up on the 9th outside a lodge at Contact Creek. My toes were numb from where they push my sleeping bag against the end of my tent. It had been 9 below over night. The cold wasn’t doing Tom’s continuing knee troubles any good either, he was now forced to go […]

cold knees

On the 2nd we left Whitehorse, population: 25,000. Despite our brave face and hollow threats, we spent our last two nights in an old barge (on land), seeking safety from the missiles of our stone-throwing nemesis. Then, after loading up on food and a last night in Flippers, hearing such remarks as “my grandfather would […]

Skagway news and a spot of cycling

From Seattle I cycled up to Bellingham, where I stayed with Katie and Khale and Luke and Eli and Kate for a couple of days. Tom arrived a couple of days later, just missing Eli and my heroic comeback in Pictionary only to be defeated on the last square by Katie and Khale (though they […]

A second crack at the north

It took about 4 days to recover from the ironman. I was traveling around Kentucky with my parents and Sarah. We had hired a car and went to see some of the attractions in the state. We saw some caves and went canoing and I played golf with dad and stuff like that. On the […]

Ironman

After another broken sleep I woke up at 5am on the 31st and tucked into my first powerbar, along with a salt tablet and swig of water. My parents and sister Sarah had come out for the event so I said goodbye and wandered out of the hotel towards the transition area. Another powerbar and […]

Training

The ironman is becoming a priority in my life and I am now in full-time training. I was reading a book about it yesterday and learned a number of shocking things. Firstly that training for an ironman may have had detrimental effects on my job and I could even lose my girlfriend. I also learned […]

Return to Salt Spring

After my invitation for responses we quickly made up our minds without you and left before the first piece of advice was sent. Thanks anyway though. I decided to cycle down to the ferry (about 100 miles) and Tom was taking a bus. But we went for just one beer first. At 3am we both […]

Thinkings

Hmmm. Tom and I are still in Whiteshorse. We were about to leave but Tom’s ankle was still hurting so we decided to get it looked at the next day and went to watch Hulk instead. Followed by the new Batman film.
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Anyway, the doctor said Tom should rest it for a week, which was highly […]

Whitehorse

We are now in Whitehorse, the last blog was from Haines Junction, which is 103 miles west of here. The reason for our slow progress is that Tom has continued to have some problems with his Achilles tendon. You may remember that he first felt discomfort coming in to Haines Junction and so hitched a […]

Riding Alaska (updated)

Tom and I stayed in Anchorage with Chad for two and a bit days. I thought Anchorage would be a small community with a single, homely pub, where everyone would have a big bushy beard and stories about bears. But actually it has a population of 150,000 (people). We left on the 28th, stopping to watch […]

Reunited

I left Vida, Sam, Gemma, Erin, Natalie, Billie, Josh and Greg among others on Salt Spring Island and took a ferry over to Vancouver Island. I then had to suffer another interrogation at the border, along with the usual “you don’t look much like your photo” (”yes I agree I do have a beard and […]

Last days on Salt Spring Island

Today is my final day on Salt Spring Island.
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One of the highlights of my stay was definitely not the four consecutive days picking rocks out of a field. On top of the four mentioned rock-picking days were another three rock-picking days. It’s not a very fun way to spend a day and is only barely […]

Island life

I was in Vancouver, bags packed, water bottles filled, directions to Bellingham written down - I just had to put my jumper on and then I was ready to go. But, a couple of days before I had received an email from Neil with a suggestion of work. I had met Neil at the Richard […]

I really hope this is the last blog from Vancouver

I am still in Vancouver. It has now been over three months. It is time to leave.
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There have been a string of things keeping me here, most recently the bike shop (the one that replaced my position with someone better) took ages to get my parts i, and even then failed to get some of […]

More days in Vancouver and a spot of learning

Sara, Conrad and Max have a dog called Rolex, who I managed to get to come running with me a little although he only accepted on the condition that we stop at every street corner for a breather. They are possibly the most relaxed people I’ve ever known and were incredible hosts, I stayed there […]

Kitsilano

On the 14th I moved across vancouver from Denise and Brent’s house to stay with my second cousin, Sara, and her family, Conrad and Max. They live in an area called Kitsilano, they are a road behind the cinema that shows double-bills for $7, and if you don’t have money let you in anyway and just ask […]

Bike repairs and warmer weather

As you may have noticed, this part of our trip has been fairly slow. Tom and I had planned on reaching the states last August, we then hoped to get straight up to Alaska and begin cycling south. According to this timeline, by the time winter arrived we would be long out of Alaska and by now […]

North Shore resident

On my arrival in Vancouver, I found my way to Stanley Park and made myself at home there. I was on a pretty tight budget for a while, and so things like the half-full packet of naan breads I found in the library one day, lifted my mood intensely. But after a while I got […]

Canada

My second attempt at escape from Seattle was successful and so by the evening of Valentine’s day I was snug in the bushes outside a little row of shops. I don’t yet have a map of the region and so was traveling to Bellingham on notes I made from the web. The route I chose […]

living the dream

After all my talk about moving north I’m still in Seattle. I was thinking about using the ’sleepless in Seattle’ opener but people here don’t seem to enjoy it very much and anyway I’m getting plenty of sleep so it would be a lie. Something else people here don’t tend to enjoy is the use of “let’s […]

Itchy feet

In the past 2 weeks or so, we’ve had a fantastic time and made no progress north - we’re still in Seattle. Actually, we did make it up to Bellingham for a while - which is pretty much on the border with Canada - but then we came back.
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If you remember, or even if you […]

storms, trains and girls

Some big storms came through just after my last blog, cutting electricity in the area. I was with Jessie and family at the time and so it was a good opportunity for some chirades. I have become remarkably good from the time communicating by mime in Asia and so it was to be expected that […]

ho ho ho and a bottle of rum

Tom and I had a great Christmas with Jessie and her family. The family consists of Jessie’s little brother, Zach, her mum, Joanne, and her dad, Ed. We arrived on the 22nd, exhausted if you remember from a little hill. On the 23rd we felt well enough to spend 3 hours with Zach firing his […]

California

This is a more experimental kind of blog. It might be quite long.
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So we got to long beach and spent some nights on the pier and met a guy called Bernard, that much you know already and it takes us up to the 17th of December. On the 17th a guy called Dominic said Tom […]

Pacific

We arrived at the docks and boarded our ship 10 hours early. That was partly through our improved organisation and partly because the contact lied about the departure time (by 7 hours). Tom and I were shown to the owner’s cabin as we had been upgraded, it was very impressive but very out of our league and […]

Tokyo

Today it`s spitting. It`s the nearest we`ve been to rain for almost 2 weeks. I`m not bragging, just mentioning it because it`s my first chance to use my new jacket, whereas it`s also the first day in that time that Tom hasn`t dressed as a trucker.
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So we are now in Tokyo, we got here last Saturday in time […]

Tom`s older

Yesterday was Tom`s 26th birthday (if you pedantically add the actual one) making him 25 years old. To celebrate his quarter century we went out for a few beverages and had a fun evening as we made our way round a fair amount of Yokohama. We stumbled into a British bar fairly early on and got talking to […]

Fuji

After a calm, relaxing weekend at Maggy and Fuzz`s, Tom and I were surprisingly tired. We left on Tuesday afternoon and that night unrolled our bivis in Fujinomiya. As we were getting ready for bed (about 6 O`clock) we found a pretty big spider, I was getting Tom to pose with it for a sense […]

Bad boys bad boys

Having said about the incredible, scenic cycling in Japan, it then disappeared - we reached a city called Nagoya a few days ago and then never really found the countryside again. Cycling through the city was fun, hairy at times but fun. Finding somewhere to sleep was more problematic though. The first night we found […]

Nagoya

hello all (mum and dad?), so Tom and I have reached Nagoya, which is a little less than half way to Yokohama. We had planned to get there by tomorrow so that we could take Mike`s mum up on her offer of dinner but then realised that 2 places separated by just a letter or […]

Osaka

This time Tom and I made it to the terminal 2 hours early and the nice security guys allowed us on the ferry. We spent our time on the crossing with Alex, Ben and Dan, mainly playing poker and watching pirate DVDs. We avoided the Australian guy and his really annoying, whingy girlfriend.
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We had arranged […]

er, Shanghai

A while ago now, Tom and I missed our ferry from Newcastle to Bergen. It was very unfortunate and hardly our fault at all. More recently we missed our ferry from Shanghai to Osaka and would you know that it wasn’t our fault again? Strange how something like that can happen twice to two fellers […]

We’re in China

Last time I wrote I was in Mongolia and now I’m in China, amazing heh? Tom, Jacob, Noah and I accomplished this with the help of another train, I spent the night in a strange position as I shared a 5 foot bunk with all my luggage and in the morning we were in Beijing. We stayed at the Saga […]

end of holiday

From the Gobi we headed out to the western edge of Mongolia, the plan had been to ride ponies out into the national park for a few days but on the way we heard that the ponies had left for winter or been eaten or something so our refined plan was to hike in to the […]

an unexpected blog from the Gobi

Well, I know I said we would be without internet for the duration of this trip but I was wrong and so for those of you still checking the site here is a little blog just for you.
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So, we left Ulaanbaatar not so early in the morning and headed south into the Gobi desert. At […]

Intermission

This is a silent announcement to say that Tom, Noah and I have decided to take a 25 day trip around Mongolia and so will be without internet access for the duration. Michael, I don’t know what you will do, I’m sorry for that. For those concerned we safely made it out of Russia with the […]

trains mostly

Since the last blog, we have traveled to Irkutsk, via Moscow and a number of other places. Moscow and St. Petersburg were both great cities in their own ways but I’ll let Tom tell you about them (he says he really is going to write). Lots of lovely culture - I wouldn’t like to say […]

Welcome to the Motherland

We are now in Russia. I told you we would be. Not much happened on the train, my battery ran out and I replaced it, nothing more. So, at 3 this afternoon we got to St. Petersburg. We haven’t really done all that much here but decided to get a drink tonight. Well, beer is […]

Yet more from Helsinki

You may be wondering why we’re back in Helsinki, it’s because we took a ferry here. Stockholm is a really nice city, probably, we didn’t really see much of it. When we got there we met up again with Linn from the north, as in her name’s Linn and she’s from the north, not like […]

back in sweden

Tom and I spent a few days with Matti (see past blogs) in Helsinki. He is in a similar position of employment as we are and so showed us around the city quite a bit. Our bikes were, and are, securely locked up in a secret location so we were on two of Matti’s many […]

a week in Helsinki

Well, Tom and I are still in Helsinki. There have been a few “we’re still in…” starts to my blog, sorry if it gets boring to read about the same places too often, feel free to petition for a faster trip.
 
 
Helsinki is a pretty lively city and it is very possible to go out on […]

Helsinki (now)

Before we begin, as of writing this there is a small glitch with the site, as you may have noticed, but fear not because my technical support team are working their socks off to right it again.
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By Monday we couldn’t find any more excuses to delay our departure from Turku and so we left. Our […]

Helsinki (soon)

Tom and I cycled up the hill out of Turku on Friday, expecting to reach Helsinki the following evening. It is now Monday and we’re still in Turku (still no museums).
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The reason for our delay is that we recognised a familiar face on our ascent, there aren’t many 2-year beards around. The man beneath this […]

a note from Turku

Tom and I have been making our way down the west coast of Finland now for about a month, and now we are just about as far south as we could get, in the old capital city, Turku. The first 27 days of this southward leg were on flat, tree-lined roads, pleasant for a while […]

Ziggy says hi

Here are a few things that have happened recently: a fifty year old woman flirted relentlessly with both Tom and I, going in for the kiss with Tom; we cycled 90 miles through our first day of really heavy rain; Tom bought a new pair of sunglasses for the third time on this trip; I […]

Oulu…again

This morning I woke up, looked out my tent and had that funny feeling us English call deja vu. There was something very familiar about what I saw, I had a think and realised that in fact it was the same thing I had seen first thing in the morning for the last week - Oulu. How […]

Hot Hot Heat

As Tom and I approached the Finnish border (as tempting as it was to use the ‘Finnish line’ pun, I knew Tom was going to use it and so haven’t done so here) we faced a dilema. 1 mile to the east was a jazz and blues festival, and 70 miles to the north a […]

Midsummer

With the exception of my sister’s birthday, midsummer has never meant much more to me than shortening days, or shortening days and birthday cake if you include my sister’s birthday. But in Sweden, and all of Scandinavia, midsummer is a big occasion - the most celebrated day of the year, after Christmas and the day […]

Back with Bish

I didn’t want to, but I left the ferry in Harstad, leaving a trail of wet footprints (I accept no blame - reception denied my request to borrow a towel). My trip back to Jokkmokk was supposed to be easy, but having been sold a ticket, I was told by the conductor that bikes were […]

Nordkapp

To remind you, previously, I had left Bish behind, heading to Jokkmokk. From there I planned to cycle 500 miles to Nordkapp in 4 days although really I wanted to do it in 3.
 
I left Jokkmokk at 12:45 in the morning on the 9th June, I had meant to leave 45 minutes earlier, I had […]

North

Well, I said things were going to change and lie I didn’t.
 
Bish and I pushed our pace from Ostersund, including a 100 mile night ride towards a town called Storuman. Storuman was the last time I saw Tom.
 
We had talked about going up to Nordkapp (if you’re looking for it on a map now, look further […]

A day in the life/saddle

Yesterday, our odometers told us that we had reached 1000 miles. We were extremely happy to hit a landmark and celebrated with something looking like a bottle of champagne (costing 2 pounds). But, on reflection, we realised 1000 miles in 6 weeks isn’t exactly speedy and so I decided to make an account of a typical day to see […]

no need for a tent

I would like to write a little about our sleeping habits, or more accurately our chosen spots for slumber. We are not fussy about them and neither are we shy.
 
Most of the time there are plenty of grassy areas to pitch our tents and pitch up we do, whether it’s by small stream or by […]

petrol, couches and hills

So, it’s been a while since we last spoke. I’ll let Tom explain most of what’s happened in that time, I’ll concentrate more on the mundane activities.
 
So, yesterday we were in a funny little town called Dokka, and by funny I mean that there were dirt bikes and rally cars racing around a track 50 […]

I am like the yolk in an egg

We are in Bergen. Fact. Bish has been trying the pickled herring on a regular basis to make sure but we are here, we can tell from the lack of pikies. Bergen is the second largest city in Norway but it’s amazing really, like a really big Little Missenden, and for those of you that […]

Race against time

Our ferry left Newcastle last night, promptly at 6:30. Things worked against us, we raced the clock to catch the ferry but would we make it? Read on to find out.
 
We were staying at my cousin’s flat yesterday and planned to leave at about midday for the ferry port. Tom had already booked our tickets and […]

People we’ve met

Tonight we’ll be on the ferry over to Bergen, leaving sunny England behind us for a little while. We kept saying that this trip is all about the people we meet so let me introduce you to some of them.
 
Geoff recently lost or quit his job (I forget the details), sold his house, bought a […]

notes from Caistor - day 8

This is my blog, where you will find the truth behind all of Tom’s stories. I will try not to bore you all too much with details like what we’re eating or which of my 3 pairs of boxers I am wearing and if I do please feel free to read Tom’s blog instead. By the way, […]

Good news, is this karma at work?

The benefit of losing our bikes is that a lot of people have become more interested in our journey. If you will excuse this mixed and confused parallel - imagine our journey was a hot cross bun and the bad news as butter, putting the butter on the hot cross bun makes our journey much tastier to eat. This is the silver […]

Day 2

Long awaited, our bikes arrived at Cycle Care in High Wycombe on the 1st of this month, shiny new. Built, tuned and fitted they were ready to ride by the 5th and to date, our bikes have travelled 73 miles, that’s 70 miles from John’s house in Prestwood to Tom’s house in Cambridge and then […]

We got bikes

Cycle Care of High Wycombe have our bikes in now, we will go in early next week to build them and then we will be the proud owners of 2 sparkling new Dawes Ultra Galaxies. We are getting most of our remaining cycling kit from Ben Hayward cycles in Cambridge and so this time next week we […]

Getting equipped

We are now about 6 weeks from departure so it is a little concerning that we still don’t have bikes, which is potentially a stumbling block. However, the situation is being dealt with and Cycle Care of High Wycombe are on the case for us. Bikes aside, some of our equipment has started arriving, including our […]

Are we famous?

Fame at last! Well maybe that’s going a bit far but we’ve now had 3 newspaper appearances and 1 radio appearance. We’re also on the BBC website, OK so it’s not exactly the home page but if you click on enough links you will get there. Congratulations to Chris Cockle by the way, who’s photo has now […]

Point of no return

We are getting ever closer to the point of no return. We have our first newspaper appearance this Friday in the Bucks Free Press, I doubt it’ll beat the Chelsea-Wycombe story to the front page but we’ll wait and see.
We’re planning a mini-tour in March, when we hope to visit a few friends in the […]

Ready to rumble

Welcome to our webpage. Currently we’re trying to organise everything before we leave at the end of March, which suddenly seems very close. We are keen for people to join us for stages of the trip and we’re unashamedly looking for friends, however tenuously made, to stay with along the way. Have a look at […]