Munich - Budapest: The Race Out Of Western Europe

Thursday 15th – Wednesday 21st May

Munich was my kind of place. Steeped in history, warm people, ample beer, cycle friendly and naked sunbathers (no, really). It’s fair to say that for 2 days it was a good home to me, but dear god was it expensive. I’d looked at how much I was spending and in short it was too much, it wasn’t like I was splashing out either. I’d been camping for the last week and whilst the hostel was an indulgence, it was used as my motivation for getting there in the first place.

Something was very clear; I needed to get out of Western Europe. But the problem was that for the first time since I’d left I didn’t want to get on the bike. I’d had a good 2 days, met some great people and as I left all the safety behind I was stuck with the realization that I needed to get used to being on my own. I’d had to have the last of my inoculations in Munich, and by the time I’d left the city it was already close to 5 and the roads were packed.

I wasn’t in the mood but knew I had no choice. The target was the Danube, as I knew that after the harshness of Germany’s hills this would be an easy relaxing ride to Budapest. Of course, not wanting to make things to easy I decided on saving some money by not bothering to buy a map. I was following a river which had a famous cycle path, how far lost could I get?

With flawless logic like this I was racing towards the river, like a beady eyed child looking for the sea when driving near the beach, I finally got my target after a day and a half of up and down roads. I would do my best not to lose sight of the river until I got to Budapest, and along the flat tarmac roads I was in my element. Entirely level, well maintained cycle paths, busy with other cyclists but not over crowded and some beautiful scenery. My average speed was also up, which was nice and when an old guy on a mountain bike started racing me it was a good chance to test the legs. Neither of us spoke to each other, but we exchanged the occasional smile as we passed each other several times: Me on Tullula and her 18 kilos of luggage, him on a mountain bike. Neither of us had the equipment to race, but I knew how fit I was and judging by the size of his calves he was fit as well and over the next two hours we enjoyed a sporting rivalry and what felt like a blisteringly fast 32 miles. Racing random old men along Europe’s longest river: I think I’m going to like it here.

More of the same for the next day, the only distractions being the beavers that were moving around a bit to close for my tent for comfort before, at around 30km from Vienna, it rained. From having not seen a cloud for 2 weeks, my god did it rain all of a sudden, and it wasn’t going to stop. I’d got caught and didn’t get my waterproofs on in time, feet wet, legs wet and feeling along way from home, the final straw was falling off coming over a bridge towards Vienna. I’d had enough and I’m happy enough to admit I wussed out and went to a hostel for the night. It was a good chance to dry out (I also got a free beer with my booking, can’t complain eh?) but in truth I felt like I’d failed. The first day of heavy rain and I’d ended up in a hostel, in a city I didn’t want to be in.

Vienna is, and always will be, my ‘Pulp Fiction’. Everyone else loves it, will rant about how great it is and at times will never shut up about their love for it, but whatever it is has bypassed me. I’ve been twice now and didn’t enjoy the first time, and this time, whilst really not being in the mood, I didn’t find it much better. I didn’t see the beauty that others do, I saw rows of shops that I could get in most European towns. I didn’t see the fantastic buildings people talked about, instead as I’d come on the bike I’d seen, not to mention smelt, the eyesores that were on the outskirts. Vienna didn’t seem to like me whenever I’ve been, and in turn I don’t like Vienna.

What was even worse was trying to leave Vienna was even harder. The signposts on the cycle path had disappeared 10km before I’d got to the city, and leaving Vienna not only had the signs disappeared, so had the bloody cycle path. I spent the morning and early afternoon going down tracks that led to nowhere, paths that led to private fishing huts and roads that would stop without notice. I eventually gave up on the river, hit a main road, my frustration summarised by a sign which told me Vienna was 34km away. I looked at my odometer, I’d traveled 63.

Frustrating? Yes. A problem? No. I was on the road to Budapest where I was spending time with my friend Sophie, but she was currently studying to be a vet and had exams all week so we’d arranged for me to get there on Friday. In Vienna I’d realised I was more likely to get there on Wednesday, so I’d tried to go as slowly as possible and my main aim upon leaving Vienna was not to get to Bratislava. Even after wasting an entire morning, I was still going to fast and in the end decided to stop just 11km from Bratislava still on the Austrian side of the border.

The heavens opened again but this time I toughed it out and felt pretty good about it. I got to Slovakia at around half 9 only to find no-one on the border, and at the risk of sounding a little Daily Mail Slovakia was the 6th border I’d crossed and I still hadn’t had my passport checked. And what’s even more annoying is that most of the countries didn’t even want me to know I’d arrived. When leaving home I’d imagined ‘my trophies’ as such, being photos of me and the bike in front of big signs saying “Welcome to …..” I reality most of the countries I’d been to didn’t seem to care to much that you’d crossed their border. Belgium didn’t have a sign, Luxembourg had a sign that had the letters peeled off so you couldn’t read it and entering Slovakia cyclists were sent down a side path which meant you weren’t exactly sure where the border was and what country you were in. Come on world, I want some pride in your country (or at least a sign it looks impressive to stand next to), not a sign that’s smaller than the one you see for crossing counties at home.

After the disappointment of the border crossing, Slovakia at least, I liked. I was only there for the afternoon but the first 30 miles were spent along the river and some of the more bizarre tourist destinations I’ve seen on the trip. The River Danube Museum was housed in an odd building about 50 metres away from the road and out on its own little pier. It looked as depressed as a building can look, with absolutely no customers and housed in the battering wind and rain my only thought was ‘they’ve nicked this from the Craggy Island tour guide’.

After crossing back over I lost the river (its easier to do than it sounds), hit some roads and all the time Slovakia was growing for me. It felt that for the first time, if I shut my eyes and opened on them again I could tell I wasn’t in England. The roads were different, the cars were different and the buildings were different. It was a country that also seemingly didn’t bother with nonsense. You want to advertise a bike shop? You put up a picture of a semi naked girl on a bike. You want to advertise beer? You put up a picture of a semi naked girl drinking beer. You want to advertise a Spar Supermarket? You put up a picture of a naked girl in a shopping trolley with her nipples covered by duct tape. For the first time, coming through small village’s people didn’t seem interested and I in turn enjoyed being left alone.

In the village of Cicov, the no-nonsense approach continued. I’d sat down for a rest at a bus stop and out came a guy from a guest house opposite. He must have been around 60 and walked with a limp, smiling with his 3 teeth. He came over and started talking to me in Slovakian whilst gesturing towards his guesthouse. Obviously my Slovak isn’t great, so I said the only words I knew how to say: No thank you. This clearly didn’t register, and the fact I didn’t speak Slovakian clearly didn’t matter as for the next 5 minutes he stayed out, talking at me in Slovakian, always with the genuine expectancy in his eyes I knew what he was saying. He eventually gave up, went inside, only to return moments later and start talking in Slovakian again. Surprisingly I hadn’t learnt the language in the moments he’d been gone, he looked pretty disappointed by this. But as opposed to giving up he just stared at me. Starting to feel a bit uneasy I managed to leave, and when I got to the town of Komarno I realized just how badly my plan for not getting to Budapest was going when I found out I was 65 miles away. Hmm, can I make 65 miles last 3 days?

The answer was probably not. I called home as I knew my Dad had a friend out here and he put me through to Tibor, my Dads coworker who’d stayed with us whilst I’d been away at university and he offered to let me stay with him until Friday. I crossed another border (no sign, no pass port checking – poor show Hungary, especially as the passport control guys were huddling in their office waving people through to avoid the rain) and with the knowledge I had somewhere to stay lined up I just had the simple task of finding somewhere to sleep. I settled for going down a quiet village road thinking it’d be easy to get in and out unnoticed. Very wrong. Every house in the street had a guard dog, some had 2 and the sight of someone cycling down a dead end street at 10 at night was enough to set them all off as I went further and further down before finding a field and spending a very wet night camping (it hadn’t stopped raining since Vienna) being barked at from 50 metres away and in the morning I was on the final road to Budapest.

By now it was easy. I knew where I was going and by lunch time I had met with Tibor and was free to spend the afternoon asleep in a comfortable bed with a nice warm shower before we went out for a meal.

This was 3 days ago and it’s been good to be off the bike, letting the body recover and for the first time in over a month, having a celebratory night out (3 weeks constant exercise has done something to my alcohol tolerance levels though). Its also been good to recap as well: In just 23 days I’d made it from Banbury to Budapest, around 1,400 miles. I’ve lost 7 kilos in weight and my body is as fit as it’s ever been.

But the reality is the real challenge starts here. So far I’d been to most of the countries I’d visited before, and as far as Budapest goes this is my 3rd time here, but up next is Serbia and Macedonia, and then after that Greece and Turkey. Countries I’ve never been to before, countries I don’t know what to expect from, countries where I don’t know any of the locals. Who knows, they may end up all being the same, but stepping into the unknown is why we travel, and that, for the first time in a while, is exactly what I’m looking forward to doing next week.

Pictures!

I'm pretty sure it never stops raining in Austria



Austrian Sunset



American Tourists who thought I was German...



Bratislava



Budapest - familiar ground



I'm staying out of the argument as to whether the lions have tongues or not...

Brussels - Munich: A Lesson In Remembering Why

Monday 5th May – Tuesday 13th May

After a day’s relaxation, leaving Brussels almost ended up as hard as getting there. First my alarm didn’t go off (I know what your thinking but before anyone says anything, you don’t sleep through an alarm in a hostel when there’s 13 other people in the room to remind you your alarms going off at 7.30 in the morning) so not only was I late getting up, I made the criminal mistake of missing the ‘all you can eat’ breakfast and after eventually getting my act together ventured into central Brussels to pick up some bike spares and more importantly a map, only to find that Brussels as a town doesn’t open till 11 o’clock on Mondays.

Frustrated and stressed at 10 in the morning isn’t a great start to any journey, but things took a turn for the better when I was approached out of the blue by Vinz, a bike mechanic who was on his day off so was off to ride to Holland for the day. He came over, introduced himself and started talking about where he’d been riding. Today he was just off to Holland on a weed run (smoking weed and cycling hundreds of miles definitely sounds like a safe idea), but in the past he’d done most of Europe and had spent a lot of time in Spain, whilst last year he took a few months off to go right down the West Coast of America and he was currently looking for inspiration as to where to go next (The inspiration may have been linked with his ride today). He was a useful guy to meet, taking me to a specialist cartographer where I was not only able to get maps, but maps with all roads and cycle paths on so not only now did I have a map, I had good maps and enough to get me through the next two weeks. I eventually set off around midday, with Vinz giving me exact directions to where I wanted to go and with that I set off into another day of 30 degree heat.

It’s easy to forget why we choose to do things sometimes, and as I spent the next day and a half covering 90 miles along a very boring, not to mention dangerous dual carriageway it was very easy to forget whatever made me want to spend so much time on a bike. And then I got to Luxembourg. This tiny country of under half a million people has all a cyclist could ever want: Long meandering climbs, magnificent tall pine trees, crystal clear lakes and some flying descents – I was in heaven. The sun hadn’t stopped shining since I’d left England and from 5 o’clock onwards I had the pleasure of all the riding being done in the shade, on excellent countryside roads. If I was better at writing I’d be able to express just how great this is.

After stopping in the city for a day just to have a look around and staying at a campsite where I clearly wasn’t wanted, it felt good to be back on the road again. A 10 minute descent out of Luxembourg and as easily I’d entered it, I was out the other side and into the 5th country of the trip: Germany.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, in terms of personality types Germans are the most similar nation to the British. Undoubtedly an unpopular opinion with some of the people I’ve shared it with before but with the simple crossing of the border I was back to having abuse yelled at me for simply being a cyclist, back to drivers not giving way and back to guessing which kind of car it’d be that flattened me. Stereotypes about BMW drivers often ring true, the problem was in Germany there’s a hell of a lot more of them.

But the cycling was more of the same: Beautiful countryside, large hills and increasingly more rivers, and for the first time since I’d left home – Wildlife. Since spending time on the road you get used to seeing most wildlife in pancake form; cats, rabbits, badgers, birds, a fox, a deer, a ferret and even a snake are all animals I’ve seen ready to be used as bookmarks at the time of writing, so it was somewhat of a surprise when camping down a hillside of a road near Tholey, I was woken at 5 am to the sound of a deer going through the impromptu bin that had the leftovers of last nights meal in it just 3 yards away from the tent.

One of the more interesting ways to wake up, then it was back on the bike and back to getting abused by motorists, this time seemingly for being on the road during the school run. By this point I’d been on the road less than 2 weeks but had found other cyclists were more than happy upon seeing me to come over and ask who I was, where I was going and always taking time to tell me about their rides. In this time I’d met Vinz who’d been everywhere, Gary who was a New Yorker who came to Germany to cycle for a month every year and Jean who’d cycled from Canada to Mexico, all of whom I’d found it easy to make conversation with, shake hands and enjoy a laugh. This is what made it even more frustrating when I met Lucy and Keeanna, two beautiful German girls who were studying at Karlsruhe but had taken a couple of days off to cycle round parts of Germany. They asked questions and were really interested, hell I was even cracking jokes and using the odd bit of German! So I was kicking myself 5 minutes later when I realized I’d made excuses to leave to quickly and had also managed to depart without a) getting an e-mail address b) telling them about the website c) finding a way to incorporate them into my trip. It seems old habits, such as choking when around women, die hard.

I spent the afternoon reminding myself of the lesson I’d learnt: If you ask the hot girls where their cycling to and they say ‘Heidelberg’ and they then ask you where you’re going you say ‘Heidelberg’.

At least I had a fantastic descent to keep me company, 15 minutes spent at 30mph as I left another of Germanys excellently maintained Nature Parks, but by now the excitement of the first week had died down and I was getting firmly into a routine. Wake up, eat, cycle, eat, find somewhere to sleep, eat, eat, eat, sleep and eat. In truth I took to it, I found myself enjoying the simple life of exercise and a diet of pasta and jam sandwiches and finding a place to sleep always offered entertainment. Wild camping is technically illegal in Germany but I knew I wasn’t the only person out here, and after stopping for the night in dense wood just south of Eppingen I could hear music from the top of a hill. I had lost track of the days since being away and it suddenly dawned on me that not only was a rave going on, it was a Saturday as well. I spent the night in a well hidden area but able to hear a lot of drunk kids coming a bit to close to the tent for comfort. Some people fear violence when their camping, I didn’t. To strike myself with fear I just think back to when I was 15 and what we would have done if we were drunk and had found someone camping on their own in the middle of nowhere. Not violence, but ‘practical’ jokes such as covering the persons tent in beer, or god knows what else is what I was wary of.

Of course I wasn’t found, and I woke up (still with rave in full flow) only 2 days from Munich. My journey had fallen on a German holiday weekend, so not only was I in scorching heat, most shops were closed meaning I couldn’t get my hands on sun tan lotion that I really should have bought before I’d left, (Catching a glimpse of myself in a mirror when I finally made it to the Hostel was frightening, my sunburn making me look like a cross between Rudolph and ‘Where’s Wally’) it also meant food was harder to come by and being only 100 miles from your destination on an empty stomach is no way to go. Having not showered since Luxembourg, I was also very aware that I stank.

Onwards and upwards, the friends at home who’d asked me ‘But how far are you really going to get?’ so nearly had their answer in Giengien. Coming along through a quiet street I’d moved a bit to close to the curb, and I hit a pothole. The front tyre suddenly turned to a right angle and stopped dead, with me leaving the seat the flying over the handle bars and landing a foot in front of the bike on my right arm and shoulder. In truth, whilst the handlebars had turned a full 360 round and a front pannier clip had broken the bike was easily fixable, and walking away with just a few cuts and bruises I was glad that the biggest dent was to my pride.

I shakily got back on about an hour later, with confidence rattled and proceeded slowly. By now the weather was getting silly: I hadn’t seen a cloud since I’d left England and I wasn’t going to see one anytime soon, and riding past lots of lakes and rivers on a holiday weekend when all the locals are out swimming was to much temptation. I eventually stopped for a swim in the River Lech, which had clear pools and stone beaches at both banks. Getting into water for the first time in a week felt good, but what felt even better was a weeks worth of grease, dirt and sweat floating away from my body before my eyes. I felt partly guilty as the scum that had encased my legs floated away, turning my part of the pool from crystal clear to a temporary murky grey, but I won’t lie – it felt good.

Leaving the river I met another cyclist who was a bit to cheery when he said ‘You won’t make it to Munich’ by tomorrow night, but he wished me luck and as he watched take an hour to climb the next 2 km hill I knew he was right. I camped 31 miles outside of Munich and was more than happy to saunter into town the next day.

So that was that! From Brussels to Munich in just 8 days, covering 537 miles, I’ll be honest, I’m pretty chuffed with myself. I’ve arrived with a few cuts and bruises, but the legs are growing almost as quickly as the confidence is and I’m in the mood to celebrate, now if only I can find a place to get beer in Munich…..

Up next: Budapest!

A few of the scenes from Luxembourg





As my friend Ellen said - 'That's what I wish England was like!'

Banbury to Brussels: Small steps, but all in the right direction

Tuesday 29th April - Saturday 3rd May

So this was it. The dream dreamt up over 2 years ago was now a reality and here I was: ready to leave my friends, family, job and everything else you could care to mention for the next year to follow the stupid idea of trying to cycle to Vietnam.
In my mind I had expected the moment at which I left to be the boiling point of my emotions; the point where I realised where I`d bitten off more than I could chew, the point I realised I didn`t know enough about the bike, the point I realised I was too scared to even try. In reality this didn`t happen and I left feeling strangely relaxed; Sure I was underprepared but then again I had always known that, and the following year alone would give me plenty of time to learn all I needed to know.

No, this was it, definetely time to go and after having planned to set off around 9ish I eventually left the driveway at 12 to set off for one more trip through town, saying my final goodbyes, then off out the otherside with the destination for the day being Woodley and a night at my cousins. I had done the ride before and it would be a nice easy 60 miles to ease into the tour - oh how wrong I was. The day was an utter disaster. The moment I left Banbury the skies opened and for the next 5 hours when I´d hoped my mind would have been away dreaming of stunning foreign beaches, long hot summers in Central Asia and how it would feel if I actually achieved everything I set out to, I was instead left with the depressing realisation that the waterproofs I had which I`d bought 5 years ago for a trip to Morocco (did we seriously need those?) weren`t up to scratch and at the same time trying to work out just how far away the frequent bolts of lightning were. It also began to click that maybe, just maybe, a bit of fitness training wouldn`t have gone amiss.

I struggled through Bicester, struggled through Thame, pushed the bike up Christmas Common (to be fair its a bloody big hill) and began the decent into Henley. In the 15 miles or so leading to Henley I was so sure there was something wrong with my back wheel that I was to preoccupied to notice that my front tyre was losing pressure. Pulling away from traffic lights, just 4 miles from my destination and the tyre was gone. As luck would have it I had punctured right outisde the canoe club where James and his friend were headed, so instead of fixing it by the roadside I gave him a call and he picked me up in his truck and I was left to reflect on a day where not only had a cheated on the cycling front already, but the weather, the toughness and the bike itself had all hammered it further into me just how hard this was going to be.

After a warm shower, a hot meal and a good nights sleep all seemed right with the world again and leaving the next morning (still in the pouring rain) my spirits were back up again as I headed off on the 35 miles to Kingston. Its a frustrating distance 35 miles, not far enough to warrant a full day assigned to it but not short enough to think it can be done in an hour or so, and the day became even more frustrating when a `navigational malfunction` took me down 400 metres of the M40. I was only there for around half a minute, but even in high-vis jacket the M40 in the pouring rain its not something I ever want to do again! Eventually arriving in Kingston after 2 and a half hours, I spent the rest of the day getting my final innoculations, catching up with old friends and more importantly, buying some better waterproofs, before heading off for what should only been a couple of beers, but ended at 5 in the morning and as result left me to leave the next morning 3 hours late, a monstrous hangover and only 2 hours sleep.

I was shattered but what had to be done, had to be done and I set off for Dover. More rain, more thunder and more bike problems, this time with a mud guard which hadn`t been properly screwed on. My logic had been that as Kingston was a couple of hundred metres above sea level, getting down to Dover would be an easy downhill ride. Yet again I was proved very wrong. By the time I got to Sevenoaks at least the rain had stopped, but I was struggling with the hills and eventually gave up for the night after 72 miles, just outside of Wye, but the tests for the day didn`t end there - I needed to sleep.

The first night wild camping was, in short, petrifying. I had found a spot just up a bank where I knew I couldn’t be seen from the road, I was sure of that, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t vulnerable. I slept with one eye open, every noise amplified by a million, whilst in my mind every car that drove past was coming for me. For the next 8 hours I wished I had never seen 28 Days Later.

Of course, nobody found me and I was up and out the next morning, even satisfied with myself enough to cook a breakfast of noodles accompanied with coffee (note to self, next time I’m buying water to cook with, don’t buy flavoured water) and I set off on the final 20 miles to Dover.

The sun was out, my legs were warming to the idea of constant exercise and a part of me loved having the morning to myself. Until I then arrived in Elham, where I stopped to check my directions only to hear from the field across the road the voice of man who I hadn’t seen until he shouted across.
“Are you lost?”
“No.” In my defence I really wasn’t.
“Where are you going?” he said, as by now he’d walked over to join me.
“Swingfield”, I said, “I think its right up here into the village and then turn left.”
“NO.”
He cut in, short, sharp and with a condescending air of discipline in his voice as if I was a guilty school boy who had just kicked a football through one of his windows. Without asking he grabbed the map from my hands, me with a somewhat bewildered look on my face at what was going on and still not fully switched on as it was 8 in the morning.
He studied the map for a good 30 seconds. “Hmmm, no, hmmm, no, what you want to do is go right up here into the village, and then turn left just after the shops. That’s how you get to Swingfield.” And with that he gave me back the map and walked off.
Feeling rather bemused by it all I was back on the bike and shortly in to Dover and aboard the 12.05 ferry to Calais.

On a quick side note, in a day and age when a return train from Banbury to London costs £55, a bus in London costs £2 for a single and Gordon Brown’s Tax Dictatorship means petrol is expected to cost £1.50 by September, how great is it to get a ferry to France for me and the bike for £12?

It felt good to leave England. I’d never cycled much on the continent before but getting to France was like cycling in a different world: drivers were giving way for me, there were well maintained cycle paths along every road and instead of having abuse shouted at me for no reason, the locals seemed interested in the bike. I was in my own small part of heaven.

Celebrating the fact I’d made it out of England by stopping at the first Patisserie I saw, I spent the next half an hour basking in the sun before setting off along the French Coast, through Dunkerque before realising the map I’d bought on the ferry was pretty much useless. I thought I’d done well in finding a map which specialised in Northern France and Belgium but only after I’d made it to Dunkerque did I realise it only showed main roads, and it didn’t show all of them. I spent the next hour travelling in what I thought was the right direction, only to end up on another motorway. None of the places I was visiting were on my map, none of the roads lead to anywhere that was on my map and to top it all off it was starting to get dark. After leaving the town of Hondschoote and crossing into Belgium I was well and truly lost, but seeing lights I headed for the town up ahead. I won’t repeat the words I said when I saw the place name Veurne, but needless to say they weren't said in celebration. I had effectively drawn a massive ‘S’ on the map between myself and the town of Leper that I was aiming for, adding around 30 miles to my journey. It was now half nine, darkness was setting in and what was worse was not only was I in a town I didn’t want to be in, I couldn’t find my way out. Signposts lead to nowhere, cycle paths stopped suddenly without warning and I meandered over several level crossings before finally getting to the main road I was looking for 45 minutes later, by which time it was pitch black.

I stopped to evaluate the situation. Ok, its pitch black, your stressed and you’ve spent the last 4 hours going in circles. But on the plus side, the bikes fine, its not raining for once and, as much as you don’t trust your map, your now only 90 miles from Brussels and at the start of a road which goes all the way to the centre of Brussels meaning theoretically it’s impossible to get lost. Hell, even the grounds as flat as a pancake meaning the riding was easy.

It was at this point I made the decision to ride through the night to get to Brussels. 90 miles? At an average of 15 miles an hour? So that’s 6 hours, be there by 6 am at the latest I thought. Easy.
Of course I’m sure you can see the theme by now, and that I of course would not be arriving in Brussels for 6 am. I made it to Leper, only stopping once on the way to check the map. During this stop a local had stopped his car to see where I was going and if I was alright, he thought I was crazy for trying it but left with the advice ‘Be careful, this roads dangerous’. He needn’t have worried as for the next 30 miles I had the pleasure of a fantastically well maintained tarmac cycle path, well away from but parallel to the road and the miles were flying off the back wheel. I passed through several small towns that night, all unique in there own way but all connected by the mutual point of having a mass graveyard for victims of the two wars, a depressing reminder of the history of the area.

Shortly after leaving Menen I realised I couldn't go through the night, so stopped for an hours rest only to wake up absolutely covered in slugs. Now very slimey, cold and incredibly smelly, I found it impossible to get back to sleep so I carried on, only now road markers had appeared counting down the distance to Brussels: All this effort and I was still 80 kilometres from my destination. But still, I had no choice, I carried on as the sun rose, the breaks from riding becoming more frequent and the amount of food I was eating becoming more and more before eventually my body crashed.

I had just left Oudenaarde and was on a quiet piece of country lane and I stopped, propped the bike up against a tree and stopped for what was supposed to be 5 minutes rest. Body aching and eye lids drooping, I was out like a light. The next thing I know I was woken up by a Mum who was doing the school run. She had stopped her car after seeing a guy flat out on the pavement next to a bicylce and had ran over to see if I was ok. With me somewhat embarrassed to have fallen asleep in such a stupid place I reassured her I was ok and that I was grateful for her stopping, but not in need of medical attention.

I knew now I had to move, but my body was struggling so instead I moved into a more upright position to make it look more like I was resting as opposed to being the knackered heap of bones I truly was. It didn’t work, whilst no-one else stopped, the noise that I could hear getting closer was a siren. ‘It won’t be for me’ I told myself, but then why was it getting closer? Please dear God don’t be for me. It was. Someone had seen me, not bothered to stop to see if I was alright but had called me an ambulance. Seriously.
The siren was now about 100 metres away: That got me up, I was on my feet again and stood by the bike as the paramedics approached.
“You called the ambulance”
“No, I have no phone”
We stood for a few minutes scratching our heads, me apologising for what had happened and the men wondering who would call them out for something like this.

Needless to say, I left very quickly, an overriding feeling of guilt and shame that I’d let my own fatigue waste the time of others. But the fatigue didn’t go away. I was still 55 kilometres away before a puncture wasted another half an hour of my time and at 4 o’clock in the afternoon I was still 20 kilometres away.

These final 20 were painful. My body was aching, my eyes were tired and god knows where the sun had come from but it was focusing right on me. The earlier puncture had torn the tyre meaning on top of this I had no spares. The final 20 km took 2 hours but when I saw the sign saying welcome to Brussels there was nothing that could hide my excitement: I had made it, the first leg was over and I found a hostel and settled down for two nights well earned rest.

In just 5 days I had made the 340 miles from Banbury to Brussels. Looking back it had been a baptism of fire which had involved bike problems, extreme weather at both ends of the spectrum and the first night of wild camping, not to mention my poor map reading making a difficult journey even harder. But what excited me was that I had done it and whilst I had been pushed, I knew I was nowhere near my limits. I had proved to myself I had the stomach for this fight, I could solve the problems my bike would throw at me and I could live if I didn’t find somewhere to comfortable to spend the night.

This may have only been the first leg, but already I knew this trip would have everything I was looking for.

Pictures!

The last pictures of home



Not a fun first day....



The last time I'll see these for a while



Menen Church



The first success!