craig_foster

Yo folks, Well I left Bangkok on the 21st of June after a sad farewell to Corinne. The doctors had given her the all clear to fly once a flight was available and so I felt able to leave without worrying too much. We`d been together 24/7 for 4 months and it felt strange to be heading off on my own again. Traveling together by bicycle truly is a baptism of fire for any relationship especially in SE Asia with it`s inherent risks but we`d gotten to the end closer than ever with plans to meet up once my journey was over. I arrived in LA with the prospective of 1800 miles in 27 days to look forward to if I was to complete my round the world in under a year. It`d mean an daily average of close to 70 miles without a single day off. It was more than I`d averaged at any point in my journey and I didn`t hold much hope of managing it. There was a number of factors which worried me. The first was that I hadn`t been healthy since falling sick in Vietnam. I`d have maybe three days where I felt good and then four days of stomach problems as well as feeling weak and nauseous. The second was the headwind I`d been warned about by everyone who knew anything about the Pacific Coast. My intention was to cycle LA to Seattle and everyone said I was looking at a month of headwind. The third factor was the terrain. The Pacific Coast isn`t renowned for being flat with constant rolling hills from Santa Barbara to San Francisco and then short sharp hills from there north. Things weren`t looking good. Things went from not looking good to being bad quite quickly. I arrived in LA to find the airline had managed to lose my tent, sleeping bag and pedals. Tent and sleeping bag were a big problem but not as much as the immediate problem of being unable to propel my bike. I reported the loss to baggage claim and they responded with the complete disinterest I expect from baggage claim all over the world. Unless someone came over and smacked the guy over my head with my bag then I could forget seeing my things ever again. I pushed Bessie out of arrivals to grapple with the immediate problem of getting myself some pedals. I saw a bus for Santa Barbara where I knew there`d be some bike shops. The bus driver pointed out that I couldn`t put the bike on the bus unless I had it boxed but after a bit of grovelling and an explanation of my predicament he let me and Bessie catch a ride to Santa Barbara. I arrived in SB around 5pm and ran round looking for a bike shop which would stock the same style of pedals so that I could use the same shoes. No luck so it was a $200 bill for pedals and shoes. Things really were starting off a treat. Next I headed for an outdoor shop and bought a fleece sleeping bag liner just to get my through the first night and then it was some hard pedalling to get out of the suburbs of SB so I could find a place to wild camp for the evening. I`d pretty much lost the first day and once I started on my way I got a taste of the headwind and it was brutal. I managed 60 miles and I reckon I spent 9 hours on the bike. I had the advantage of plenty of daylight hours but sitting on a bike for 9 hours into a headwind isn`t fun. I passed plenty of fellow tourers coming the other way all wearing that smug smile of people being pushed along by a 20 mph tailwind. I had other problems as well. No tent. I`d been checking the weather reports and it looked like I`d be OK until I got to Oregon with the chance of rain increasing as I headed north. I decided to change my plans and stay in California. I decided to head north for 850 miles and then spin round and return to LA again. This had a number of advantages. First being I wouldn`t have to shell out another $200 minimum for a tent. Second being that I`d get some of that tailwind for the last two weeks of my journey. Apart from increasing my chances of finishing in under a year it`d mean I could enjoy the end of my journey that bit more. An obvious downside would be I wouldn`t get to see as much of America as I wished and I realise that any opinion I have about America are really an opinion about California. I continued north into the headwind. The wind pretty much ruled my life. It dictated when I got up as I had to be up with the sun as the wind didn`t pick up till around 8 am. It dictated my mood as at 8 am I knew how bad my day was going to be ranging from bad to god damn awful. The wind was all I thought about and all I heard. I had little interest in my surroundings as it was just constant pain from when I got up till when I stopped cycling. Time moved at glacial pace. I`d received an email from a friend who couldn`t believe it was only a month till I was home but with the headwind that month may as well been another lifetime away for me. If I averaged 8 miles an hour for the day I was doing well and with 70 miles needed every day it meant 9 hours sitting in the wind every day. The thing that made it bearable was the American people. I can safely say the people were the kindest and most interested I`d found anywhere in the world. I`d discussed this with people in the past who seemed to think the 'have a nice day' you get in McDonald's is indicative of the sincerity of your average American but the two are completely unrelated. Ordinary Americans are genuinely kind. Everywhere I stopped people would ask what I was doing and where I was heading. Another great thing was the way Americans would always end a conversation by asking if I needed anything. They didn`t ask if I needed a ride or food but if I needed anything. An unconditional offer being the best type of offer. A bit weird was the constant offers of money. Maybe I needed to shave and wash more? My route took me up Highway 1 which hugs the Pacific Ocean pretty much constantly. Most of the highways I`ve cycled in the world that bill themselves as a coastal drive could find themselves prosecuted under the Trade Descriptions Act. Not the American Pacific Highway. It`s just miles and miles of tarmac which is usually no more than a few metres from the crashing surf. A few Americans had warned me about the RV`s and the general traffic but when you`ve cycled Vietnam most roads in the world feel like the ones you see in car adverts. As I headed north I continued to meet Americans from all walks of life from your aspiring American Dreamers driving their mobile palaces to the hobos who`d opted out. The great thing about travelling by bike is the range of people who will give you their time. A constant was their desire to discuss the war in Iraq which, in California at least, is universally opposed. I felt sorry for the people I met as they felt mislead by their own government and confused how what they saw as a chance to make the world a better place had ended up making things worse. Eventually I reached San Francisco which ranks as one of the cities in the world I reckon I could live in. I read in the newspaper that a 'cycle to work' day had got 53% of commuters on their bikes which amazed me. We`ve had similar initiatives in England and still my daily ride to Bradford saw the same three cyclists I see every morning with thousands of people stuck in their cars on Bradford Road. That`s the interesting thing about America. We hear about fat people, big cars and the excessive consumption but it`s a place of extremes so while yeah those things do exist there`s also the plenty of people who ride to work everyday, people who have given up the car and dropped off the power grid. The media isn`t interested in that side of America so we just get fed the negative stereotypes. In San Francisco I slept in the Marin National Park which is just next to the Golden Gate Bridge and in the morning I awoke to views of the city, the bridge and Alcatraz. As the days went by I noticed the people I met where changing. As you head north you leave behind the money orientated culture of southern California and head into hippy country. The smell of dope becomes more prevalent, the people become even more friendly and the anti-war sentiments grow stronger. Maybe I was changing a little as well. I hadn`t shaved in a month or showered since Thailand and noticed I was becoming every hobo`s best friend. I like the hobos but for everyday conversation I like a spread of people and when a guy sat down in a mask and had a genuine conversation with me about how Paris Hilton was stalking him I figured it was time to find a river and have a shave and a good clean. I hit the town of Mendocino which is another in a line of beautiful little Northern Californian Pacific towns. The great thing about cycling north of San Francisco is that there is a town every 10-15 miles but each town is small enough that it`s a pleasure to stop and chat to the locals. I`d been making good miles and was only 4 days ride from my turn around point so decided to give myself a break and buy some books. I hadn`t had time to read since Corinne had fallen sick and sometimes it`s great just to sit outside a cafe and watch the world go by with a good book. I found a great little second-hand bookshop in Mendocino where I got chatting to Carl the owner. We had similar taste in books and I was able to recommend some books he`d never heard of and vice-versa. After hearing about my journey he offered me a place to camp. I headed up to his house to meet his wife Elaine. I had a feeling that even though he`d offered me a place to camp, if his wife decided I wasn`t a psycho then`I`d be offered a bed and a shower. I passed the wife test and spent a wonderful evening discussing books, music and politics. I was also offered that much needed and appreciated chance to shower and shave. In the morning I left Elaine and Carl`s house and continued up to Fort Bragg and then a 2000ft climb then down to the town of Leggett. I`d kicked inland to the home of the Giant Redwoods some of which seem impossibly wide and had the pleasure of cycling up the famous Avenue of the Redwoods. The wind was having less effect inland and the trees were also giving me plenty of protection. North of Klamath and I was 850 miles north of LA and it was time to turn round. It`d been a tough 850 miles, possibly the toughest of my journey so far. Sure I`d spent 30 days battling a headwind along the coast of Oz but that was a long time ago when I was probably fitter and far more enthusiastic. The last leg of the journey was proving to be the toughest and every morning I dreaded getting back on the bike and spending hours crouched up against the wind. I`d also developed an interesting and strange fear that something would happen which would stop me from getting to the end. A cycling accident being the obvious main fear. Where in the past I`d be nailing it full speed down big hills, tucked in for maximum speed, I was suddenly braking when the speed started to feel like anything remotely dangerous. If I saw I car at a junction I`d slow down to make until I was 100% sure they`d seen me. I think I even booked my flight home with Aer Lingus on the basis that the luck of the Irish would make sure I got back to England safe and sound. Turning around and heading south was a revelation. I did 90 miles and then 100 miles the first two days. The wind which had tortured me for two weeks was suddenly my best friend and miles disappeared without me noticing. I think only someone who`s headed into a headwind for a long period of time can understand the joy and pleasure of suddenly being able to freewheel along flats and climbing hills with the speedo showing double figures. I now had time to look properly at the amazing scenery around me. I`d been told how great Big Sur was but I didn`t begin to appreciate it until I did it with a tailwind. After 6 days of heading south and some big miles it was pretty much a dead cert that I`d finish the round the world in less than a year. I had a problem just north of San Francisco when my left crank snapped clean in half as I was climbing a hill. Turned out my previous shoes were a little wide and had worn away enough of the crank arm wall which weakened it enough to allow a crack to develop and after climbing out the saddle one to many times I snapped it in half. As always it was an opportunity rather than a problem and after 20 minutes and hitch hiking I was picked up by typical Californian surfer dude who`d finished hunting waves for the day and was heading home. I`d done enough surfing in South Africa to be able to understand his excited talk of off-shores and point breaks and passed an enjoyable 20 miles in his car before he dropped me at a bike shop and headed off to a waiting wife. I got lucky with the shop as they had a second hand crank arm which was the wrong colour and length but with 500 miles left to go I wasn`t willing to spend a possible $150 on an entire crankset and for $20 was happy to suffer a bit for 10 days or so with a wonky Bessie. The 10th of July was my birthday but emails from friends and a phone call from Corinne meant I didn`t feel too alone. Plus as per usual the friendliness of Americans came through to save the day. I was cycling near Monterey when I met a guy called Ollie on his daily commute. After hearing about my journey and that it was my birthday he invited me for a meal out of the blue. I had a few hours before dark and the pressure of the miles was now off so I figured why not. We spent a good few hours in a restaurant having a few beers and some food and, as always with Americans, discussing politics and the Iraqi War. I had to leave when I realised I was losing light and with my camping spot still 8 miles down the road I knew I`d be doing some cycling in the dark. It was dark when I got to the place I`d be sleeping for the night and when a guy stopped in a pick up truck, I thought he was going to have a go at me for cycling in the dark with no lights but it turned out it was just another American being kind and asking if I`d like a lift to the next town. I continued south with the wind at my back. North of San Luis Obispo I offered to help a woman who was struggling with her new bike. It was no big deal and it turned out she`d just misaligned the front wheel. I adjusted the brakes as well but all-in-all it was 5 minutes work. She asked me where I was heading and I told her about cycling round the world for cancer and as I left she asked me name. I only gave her my first name but when I stopped at the next town and checked my email I noticed she`d made a $100 donation to Macmillan which was just another example of the kindness of Americans. Eventually I reached Santa Barbara which I thought was less than 100 miles north of LA which was perfect as I`d done 15903 miles and I wanted to pass the 16000 mile mark in England. I went into a hostel for the evening as I felt like a treat and figured a shower would be the least I could do for my fellow plane passengers. Ironically the hostel turned out to be anything but a treat as I`d forgotten how noisy hostels can be. Strange that I can sleep like a baby next to a three lane highway but put me in a dorm with a bunch of people asking each other the banal traveller`s questions of 'where you been, where you going to' till 3 in the morning and I can`t sleep a wink. In morning I set out for LA and discovered I`d made a slight miscalculation. While SB is less than 100 miles north of LA if you can drive on the highway it isn`t if you`re on a bicycle and required to take alternative roads. It turned out it was 115 miles and so I crossed the 16000 mile mark just somewhere near Malibu but hey ho. The next day I cycled into LA Airport and had my usual battle with the airport staff with regards to Bessie being unboxed. As much as I like America I can safely say they have the worst airport staff anywhere in the world. The increased security precautions seem to translate into an excuse to act like members of the SS. By the time I left JFK I was happy to leave American airspace and head for home. In terms of people I met I`d say America was my favourite place but I`m also aware it`s the place I spent the least time. I noticed a pattern that places like NZ, where I spent a long time relative to it`s size, were the places I enjoyed the least. I left America with a real desire to go back and check the place out some more. For one I`m curious if the kindness and the intelligence of the people I met in California is the norm throughout the States. If so, then who voted for Bush? My impression of America is that it contains a diversity that people who live in smaller countries struggle to understand. I`d like to go and learn more about that diversity. I get the feeling the Pacific Coast just showed me a snapshot of American culture. I met some great people but then school kids in the inner city of Chicago are being killed at a rate of two a week. America is the land of extremes and everything in between. You have no real hope of understanding the place no matter who much insight you may think the media gives you. As I said I hope to go back one day and understand a little more. Anyway that`s the end of the American section of my journey. I`ll do a summing up when I get some more time and a bit about how all this ended. Lots of love as always, Craig. XXX

Yo folks, I'll get straight to the point and give the details later so no one is worried. Corinne contracted Dengue Fever about 10 days ago which is a disease transmitted by mosquitoes which kills thousands every year. The chances of it killing you is seriously reduced providing your aren't in a third world country like Cambodia which is ummmm.....where she contracted it. She's been in hospital for over a week now and is on the mend and we're hoping she'll be flown home to Switzerland tomorrow. Her original plan was to cycle down to Singapore when I fly to the States but Dengue leaves it's victims exhausted for up to 4 weeks so even though she's bitterly disappointed it's time for her to go home. My last email was from Siem Reap which is where we believe she contracted the disease. We cycled past the local hospital and it warned of a Dengue epidemic but we were taking plenty of precautions as part of our malaria prevention programme so hoped it'd be enough. Turned out it wasn't. We left Siem Reap for the capital city of Phnom Penh; 320kms to the south-east. Our aim was for a 4 day ride and then a day off in Phnom Penh before heading south the sihanoukville. The going was tough as the rainy season hadn't started and the temperatures were usually around 40C. I was also still recovering from my illness from the week before so Corinne had to take the front more than normal so we could get through each day. Along the route we got to meet plenty of ordinary rural Cambodians as the people are incredibly friendly and curious by nature. Every time we stopped for a drink the owner of the shop would ask to look at my map and then it'd be a half an hour discussion on where we've been and what our plans are. Men seem to love maps no matter where you go in the world and they're great when you don't have a shared language. The people of Cambodia have a great nature, always smiling and trying to communicate which is amazing if you consider their history. In the West we really only became aware of Cambodia in the late 70's when the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge caused mass famine and the death of millions. Even after 1979 the civil war continued right up until the end of the 90's with the resultant death of even more people. It's a tough place because you see the people trying to improve their lives but with such a recent trauma you still have the constant reminders of the war with hundreds of amputees and orphans begging in all the major urban areas. It's heart breaking because you feel powerless in the face of it all and you can only give to the worst cases or you'd have nothing in a second. On a positive side you can see a real future for the country. Trials are on the cards for the former Khmer Rouge leaders and tourism is on the rise every year. The place has enormous potential which will hopefully be fulfilled in the coming years. We went to the Killing Fields or Phnom Penh and Tuel Sleng prison. Both are horrific places but if you've spent anytime with the people of Cambodia you feel it's the very least you can do. Phnom Penh feels like the wild west of SE Asia. Coming in from the north, the city is probably the worst for traffic I've encountered in SE Asia. Corinne was cycling in front and I lost count of the number of cars that were inches from taking her out and presumably the same was happening to me. You can't do anything but keep moving and hope. Phnom Penh has a 'anything goes' feel to the place. A five minute walk and you'll be offered enough drugs to last a lifetime. On the way to the Killing Fields our happy-go-lucky tuk-tuk driver asked if I liked to shoot. Apparently I could go to a shooting range right near the Killing Fields and shoot live animals with everything from guns to rocket launches. I have no idea what type of sociopath would think a 'Killing Fields - shooting cows with an AK-47' combo sounds like a great day out but I'd rather not meet them. After Phnom Penh, Corinne and I headed south to the small town of Takeo. We both had a terrible day, both struggling to turn the pedals. We arrived in Takeo and Corinne was exhausted. I put her straight to bed and took her temperature which was running at 39.5C. We figured it may be similar to what I had suffered from in Dalat so decided to sit it out for a day. Next day things weren't any better and when other symptoms started to appear which sounded like Dengue we took the decision to taxi it back to Phnom Penh in the morning and get to the nearest hospital. At the hospital they diagniosed Dengue but there's different strains with the haemorrhagic strain being the dangerous one but we wouldn't know for a few days which it was. We settled in and waited while the hospital took daily blood tests. If the platelets hit a certain level then it's haemorrhagic and because they don't have blood transfusion facilities in Cambodia you have to be airlifted out to Bangkok. By the third day Corinne was found to have the haemorrhagic strain and her insuarce company swung into action. Although Corinne could fly to Bangkok on a normal commercial flight providing she had a doctor as an escort the paperwork involved makes it a poor option in emergency cases. Instead the insurance company arranged for a medical team to fly out to Phnom Penh on a chartered plane and then fly back to Bangkok on the same plane and then an ambulance direct to Bumrungrad Hospital. At the Phnom Penh end the ambulance driver arrived earlier than expected so it was decided he'd take the bikes and load them into the airplane. Anyway this guy has the ambulance parked in the middle of the street, sirens on, blocking the traffic and I go in to get the bikes. Obviously loads of people start gathering round for a morbid look at the sick patient. Out comes me with two bikes which are loaded into the ambulance and then driven off without anyone in it. Locals must have thought Westerners are the most spoilt people on the planet. Later when we were driving to the airport the doctor from Bangkok could believe the madness of the traffic. When people from Bangkok start worrying you know you're somewhere special. It was a strange feeling having an 80 seater Bangkok Airway flight all to ourselves. The air hostess looked a bit confused with only myself and the doctor to serve and kept on offering my orange juice every 30 seconds. Corinne joked that this is the closet we'll ever get to being rock stars and having our own plane. We arrived in Bangkok and Corinne was whisked off to the hospital and I was left to get the two bikes from the airport. I got myself a taxi and marvelled how Bangkok had now come to represent safety and civilisation to me. I remember arriving for the first time, 9 months ago and being awed by the place. Now after where I've been, the places I've slept and the things I've seen it feels like normality. Strange how traveling just destroys your sense of what's normal. As I said earlier Corinne is now on the mend and it's just a case of the insurance company sorting her flight out of here for tomorrow hopefully. I fly to the states today and start the final leg of my journey. Recent events have meant I have very little chance of completing the challenge in under a year but Corinne's well-being obviously far more important. I've worked out I have about 25 full days on the bike but 3000kms left to cycle. It isn't impossible but with my recent health issues probably not a good idea. I'll probably do it at the pace I can and then any remaining miles I have left to do I'll do in England before I head home. Anyone fancy a weekend in the Lake District? Anyway best go as I still have a few things to sort out before I fly to LA. Catch you all later, Lots of love as always, Craig. XXX

Yo people, Yeah I know it's a bit confusing. Logically I should still bein Vietnamand I was, up until last night at about 7pm, but I'll explain everythinglater in the email. First Vietnam. Vietnam, whereto start. I read a quote in Lonely Planet about Vietnam beforeI came here. They said you either love or hate the place butI disagree. You love AND hate the place. Your opinion changesfrom day to day, hour to hour minute to minute. It's the people andthe place. One day you can be cycling along some ofthe most spectacular coast line you've ever seen and the next day you'restuck on a hard shoulder with trucks honking their super powered air horns twoinches from your ear. One minute you're sitting, laughing with somecurious villagers, using a globe to explain where you'refrom and where you've traveled and the next minute you're being ripped offblind by some street vendor who obviously hates you and everything aboutyou. Then there's the other variable which is you. With all thenoise, all the aggression and the curiosity of the people you have to befeeling 100%. Have a bad day on the bike or wake up on the wrong side ofthe bed and you'll hate everybody and everything. It's a place of endlesspossibilities both good and bad. We left Hueabout 20 days ago and it was back to the madness of Highway 1. Nodescription of Vietnamis complete without explaining the driving. It's utterly insane. Maybe they drive worse in Laosbut they have 6 cars in the entire country so it matters less. Thereare more cars per 30 metres of tarmac in Vietnam. Someone told medriving in Vietnamis like playing a video game and the analogy couldn't be more accurate. You need fast reactions. The noise will make your ears bleed. Youneed to concentrate 100% and of more relevance is that you only need to worryabout what's going on in front of you. As a Westerner it's a completelyalien concept. We're taught to be aware of what's going on allaround us. You change lanes you look over you shoulder. Youturn right or left and you look behind you. You use your mirrorsbefore every manoeuvre. Doesn't worklike that here. You just look in front and make sure you don't hitanything and let the people behind worry about you. It seems to workalthough when you see what's going on in front it makes you skeptical about thepeople behind you. I reckon we see 3 or 4 incidents a day where you thinkthere's going to be an accident but somewhere everyone seems to avoidthem. Maybe without all the safety trappings of Western society peopleconcentrate more on the road. It's the honking that drives you crazy. Honking in most places means thatsomething bad is about to happen. Honking behind you usually meanssomething bad is going to happen to you. You hear someone leaning on thehorn back home and you get off the road. It's a reflex action but youhave to break it if you're to spend more than 5 seconds cycling in Vietnam. Here honking the horn can mean anything from 'I have a very small penisand I'm trying to compensate by intimidating people with my massive horn'to 'hey you on the bicycle, I think what you're doing is really cool andwant to lean out my window at 100 miles an hour and wave to you as I gopast'. In fact the last thing it means is that something bad isgoing to happen behind you. You think you've gotten used to the horns butsometimes you'll find yourself dreaming and a truck will catch you unaware andlet off their high powered air horn two inches from your head and the oldinstinct comes back and you head for the bushes. The horn also serves as a warning that a driver is about to do somethingincredibly stupid. Over take on a blind bend for example. The ideapresumably that in the event of an accident the guy who did the dumbass overtakingmanoeuvre can say I told you so if anyone survives. The real problemis that you have no idea if the horn you hear coming round the corner is a guywith size issues if it's a 20 ton truck on your side of the road. We usuallyplay it safe and get as far to the right as possible but it makes for some hairraising descents. From Hue weheaded south towards Danang. Just before Danang is the famous Hai VanPass which is a ten kilometre climb up the side of mountain with the Gulf of Tonkin shimmering a perfect blue on yourleft. The climb isn't easy but you barely notice it and I'd put thatstretch of road in my top ten favourites of all time. Just a warningthough if you're ever tempted to do the climb. Don't stop at thetop. The top is populated by the most aggressive business women I've comeacross yet. They offer you cold drinks and before you know it you'vebought all manner of utter dross you don't need. We skipped Danang and headed for Hoi An which is one of those towns where youfeel you've stepped back in time except the shops all seem to sell the sameT-shirts you can buy anywhere else in the world. We got ourselves a roomover looking the river and spent 3 days sampling the famous Hoi An cuisine. We even booked ourselves into a half day cooking course so you can look forwardto my squid in chili and lemon grass when I get back. After Hoi An we headed back onto the highway and either we're getting used tothe madness or the traffic is improving. I suspect the former. Ourroute down the coast of Vietnamwas decided on after much consideration by yours truly. I'd read that thewind blows from the north-east which would give us some much appreciatedtailwind for a 1000kms or so. Turns out this isn't actually thecase. We've had a head wind about 90% of the time in Vietnam. Heyho. Another thing that amazes you when you cycle here is what people manage tocarry on their bikes. We have state of the art racks with waterproofpanniers with lightweight equipment and you feel slightly humbled when you gopast a guy carrying three pigs on the back of his bicycle. So far I'veseen someone carrying an entire tree, a whole bicycle (which is taking thecarrying of spares to the extreme), three pigs, three dogs and someone carryingwhat looked like 10 ducks strapped to the handlebars. That's ignoring therun-of-mill people I've seen carrying what looks like an entire crop in twobaskets on either side of the bike. We kept heading south and eventually ended up in the town of Q. Nhon where we spent a sleepless night in abedbug ridden room. Luckily we intended to be up early anyway as we'dread in Lonely Planet about a great little beach 30 km south and we were due arelaxing day. Things didn't quite turn out as planned. Appears thatLP got their town names mixed up and we eventually hit the town they mentionedafter 50 km. Unfortunately they got a lot more than the names mixed upand the town turned out to have zero accommodation. We were offered a hammockfor the night by one of the locals but it was one in the afternoon so wefigured we're press onto the next decent sized town which turned out to beanother 60 km down the road. In total, our 30 km easy day turned into a110km slog. On the plus side the room we got in Tuy Hoa got my vote as myfavourite $12 room ever with a bath tub I could do lengths in. It was another 160 kms to Nha Trang and we decided to split it up into two daysas we'd been putting in some big days without any rest. The road to NhaTrang is fantastic. Some of the best scenery I've had in SE Asia. The traffic had calmed down a fairbit as well so it was a great ride into Nha Trang. In Nha Trang we made the decision to cut west into the highlands as we'dbeen on the coast for 10 days now and fancied a bit of a change. The heatwas also becoming more of an issue as we headed south and gaining some attitudewould lose us some heat. The plan would be for me to leave Nha Trang theday before and Corinne would catch a bus up. Dalat was 1500mabove sea level and we weren't sure if it could be done in one day fully loadedso Corinne would take some of my gear on the bus and I'd tacklethe mountains on my own. Turned out to be a bit of a mistake. I hadn't been feeling 100% for a few days before. Hills I'dnormally race up were proving tougher than expected. On theride up to Dalat things got worse. It's a tough climb anywaywith two nasty alpine style climbs of about 15 km each but normally theywouldn't be a problem. By the time I got half way up the secondhill I could hardly turn the pedals. I had to lie down and restevery km and eventually I had to push the bike. After walking for 10kms and still with 25kms to go I couldn't even push the bikeanymore. Eventually I conceded defeat and caught a taxi the rest of theway. I got to Dalat and by the time I made it to the hotel I was shivering like itwas below zero. Corinne took my temperature and it was running at 39.5Cwhich isn't healthy. It was bed for the next 3 days. Losing threedays at the moment isn't ideal for me. I'm hoping to do 4500 kms in SEAsia which would leave be 2500 kms to do in America in about 25 days. Thefewer miles I do here the more I have to do in America and once it starts gettingover 100 kms a day then things start getting tight. I still want to dothe 25,000 km in under a year and time is getting short. After Dalat, we started the 300 km ride down to Ho Chi Minh City. I still wasn'tfeeling great but we needed to get going. As I said earlier, Vietnam isn't a place you won't to be whenyou're feeling below par and Ho Chi Minh Cityprobably the last place in Vietnamyou want to be. As we got closer to HCMC the madness of Vietnam justseemed to intensify. In the four day ride I can safely say there wasn't a30 second window of peace from the blaring horns. We got to within 30 kmsof HCMC and then formulated a plan which would get us some extra cycling daysin SE Asia. Crossing into Cambodia from Vietnam using our original planwould involve a day on a boat and then we had the problem of getting from SiemReap to the Thai border as the road isn't sealed. So we decided on a spur of the moment change of plan. Fly from HCMC toSiem Reap and then travel south east to the coast and get a fast boat round to Thailand. It has the added bonus that it also means we should have enough kilometresbetween us and Bangkok. Anyway, so that's how we ended up in Siem Reap, Cambodia. We arrived last night after a nervous flight. Not because of the flightitself but because in our rush to get to the airport we forget to check out thevisa regulations for Cambodia. As with most things though we got here and an ATM dispensing the required Americandollars was located two feet from the visa desk. Today we did the usual tourist stuff and cycled out to the amazing AngkorWat and back again. I like Cambodia so far. People arehelpful and friendly even though we're in a major tourist area. Tomorrowwe head east to the capital city of Phnom Penh. It's around 320 km and we're looking to do itin 4 days. It'll be interesting to get out into the countryside asthat's a better measure of a country's character. We were talking today about what our favourite country has been so far in SE Asia. 10 days ago, Vietnam was mine and Corinne'sfavourite. Today Laosis my favourite whereas Corinne's is still Vietnam. I think it's justindicative that I got ill in Vietnamand it's not a forgiving place. If I had been 100% all the way through Ihave no doubt that the people and the place would have made it a firmfavourite. As it is I have mixed feelings. I have some greatmemories but I also have some negatives. Maybe that's what makes for anexciting place? I've booked my final tickets back home and will arrive back in Manchester Airport on the morning of 20thJuly. I have 2100 miles left to reach my target of 16000 miles and around45 days. It's doable but I've put a lot of pressure on myself if I stillwant to finish in under a year. There isn't much room for errorthere. For the last 1600 miles I'll be on my own again and it'll be backto sleeping under bridges and in ditches again. Anyway best be off as it's late here and we have to get an early start. Here's hoping for tailwind. Lots of love as always, Craig. XXX

Sabaai-diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii dudes, Sabaai-di, man do you hear that a lot in Laos. In Thailand most of the kids speak some English so you have to really get out into the sticks to hear a Sawatdi but outside the main towns of Laos it's just one constant Sabaai-di from the kids. Sometimes you cycle through a village and it feels like one of those cop target practice sequences where a kid pops up in a window, fires a Sabaai-di at you and you have to spot him and return fire before cycling past at 20 mph. Anyway what have I done since my last email. We went elephant riding for one. The actual tour was billed as a Mahout training course but I think that was pushing the definition a bit. I don't actually know anymore about being a Mahout than when I started apart from pick the elephant that looks the most placid. Corinne chose one that looked a bit wild to me and she spent a few hours on the back of an elephant that did pretty much what it wanted and tried to get into fights with other elephants. The highlight of the tour was getting to wash the elephants. We woke at 6, fetched the elephants from the forest and the rode them into the river where we spent a playful half an hour washing the elephants although at the end it looked more like we'd been given the wash. After that it was a 4 hour kayak down the river back to the town of Luang Prabang. Kayaking was mint although it's amazing how sitting on a bike for 10 months makes you rubbish at everything except cycling. I can pound out hundreds of miles no problem but a few hours of kayaking and I was knackered. We got back to Luang Prabang and collected our bikes from the tour office where I'd found someone had been messing with my speedometer and so it'd been zeroed again. Not the end of the world but a bit annoying. We set off from Luang Prabang the next morning with Corinne a bit nervous about the impending hills. I'd been reading about a guy who'd followed a similar route to us a few months before and he caught a bus for the 200 kms south to Vien Vang so I figured he was either a bit of a wimp or the hills were serious. We left the town and a few kms later we started climbing. Then we climbed and climbed and then climbed somemore. 20kms later we got to the top of the hill and I could see Corinne wasn't having much fun. Then it started raining. Coming down hills in the rain in Laos isn't much fun. The corners are sharp and there's no crash barriers. The first corner I came round a guy had come off his motorbike and so after a quick check that he was fine we carried on down the hill braking all the way. 12kms later and going down had become as tiring as going up. Then we started climbing and climbing and then climbing somemore. 25 kms later we were still climbing and Corinne was having even less fun. It was still 20 kms to the next town and it was 20kms of climbing as the town was on top of a mountain. I worked out we had three hours of climbing left to do an hour of daylight so we flagged down a bus and got ourselves to the next major town. On the bus I noticed a kid in front was carrying an AK-47 and I was told he was the guard for the bus which didn't create the sense of safety I expect the bus company was hoping for. Few days later we got to Vientiane and had a day of the bike and spoilt ourselves at the local restaurants. Laos is an interesting place for it's contrasts. In the major towns of which I reckon there's about 4 or 5 you can get great food from all corners of the globe. Outside the cities and noodle soup can be your only choice in some towns which has led me to have a pathological hate for noodle soup. Outside the major towns the place is truly third world although I've noticed that even the towns where they have no schools or medical facilities there will always be an extravagant temple. Religion truly is the opium of the people. We left the capital city and headed south-east. The next major town would be Savannakhet 500kms away so we had a minimum of 5 days of the ubiquitous noodle soup. The other noticeable change outside the major towns is the quality of the accommodation. Cockroaches and squat toilets become the norm with a constant paranoia about bed bugs ensuring a fitful night's sleep. Having said that no matter how bad it gets I know it's better than some of the places I've slept in the past. Our first night was spent in Ban Hai which seemed to be populated mostly by men who flirted outrageously with me. I'd walk down the street and you could be sure a few guys would just reach out and feel my arm. A non-English speaking English teacher sat down with us at dinner and proceeded to chat me up while obviously ignoring Corinne. She just sat their and laughed while I made doomed attempts to include her in the conversation. The next day the rainy season started in earnest. The rain was torrential but it was that beautiful warm tropical rain that feels more like a shower. In the middle of the day we overtook some kids on bikes who then came after us obviously fancying a bit of a race. Being the lovely person that she is Corinne let the kids catch her and then pass her on the downhill. Me being the overtly competitive person let them get within 10 feet of my back wheel, dropped down a few gears and gave them some stick always keeping them the same distance behind but continually increasing the speed until they cracked. I knew Corinne would eventually catch up with me and have a disappointed in me look on her face but hey ho. I'm sure someone will get revenge on my next Monday night club ride. The next day Corinne was feeling a bit tired as we'd done 3 sequential 100 km days and a nasty headwind had kicked up. She decided to catch a bus after about 50 kms and I'd do the remaining 60 kms on my own. As she's correctly pointed out it was me who was stupid enough to want to cycle 25,000 kms in under a year so it's me who has to stick it out on those days when the going gets really tough. I had to laugh though as 5 minutes after she flagged down a bus I met our first fellow cyclist since we left Bangkok. Even more bizarre was that the guy was from Corinne's home town of Basel and he was on his way back home from Darwin, Oz. 5 days after leaving the capital city we reached the town of Savannakhet on the river Mekong. We planned to have a day off the bike as Bessie was needing some serious TLC as my gear and brake cables of been playing up for a while now so I figured I'd replace them all and retape the handle bars at the same time. Plus it'd be great to have a day or two eating something other than noodle soup. The guesthouse we stayed in wasn't fantastic but it had a great mix of people. Before I started on my travels I was probably a bit cynical about the travelers I expected to meet. My vision was one of people out in the world "trying to find themselves" or people just spending a year getting hammered in the backpacker hostels. I know those people exist and certain countries do have a reputation as places where people are just looking for the next cheap party and not caring what impression they make on the local people. In Laos though I've met a different type of traveler. Most are genuinely interested in the region and many are actively helping the people. Everyone has an interesting story with a genuine passion for making a difference. One night we had around 10 of us sitting round a table and it was 10 different nationalities with all the differing viewpoints that come from different parts of the world. After a day off the bike we headed east for the 250 km ride to the Laos/Vietnam border. The wind had been coming from the east since we'd headed south down the Mekong so I anticipated a tough ride over to the coast and it turned out as expected. It was a fairly non-descript ride except for the masses of kids who instead of shouting Sabaai-di as we cycled past would shout bye-bye. It's difficult to explain how excited the kids get when they sees us coming but a few times we'd have groups of kids running next to us shouting bye bye and doing high-fives. At one point I went past 5 kids standing in a row and managed to get them all high-fived. All those years as a bowler coming in handy at last. We sailed over the border and into Vietnam with no great hassles apart from the usual thing of being stopped every 5 metres to show our passports. One thing Communist/Socialist countries have in common all over the world is too many people working at the border who have nothing to do and so they all just ask to see your passport to look important. Eventually we left the border with our only problem being a lack of the local currency. Luckily, Corinne had some universally accepted dollars on her which got us a bed and some food for the night. A strange thing about Vietnam is that the restaurants and cafes all have these little tiny chairs and tables. I know the people are smaller but not that much smaller than Laos and Thailand and yet you sit in these places feeling like Gulliver. The ride from the border was something special with great views and minimal traffic. That leads me to my current impression of cycling in Vietnam. We left Dong Ha this morning in torrential rain but with a beauty of a tailwind and managed the 75 km ride in about 3 hours riding time. The traffic is chaos though. The drivers here are probably as bad as Laos except in Vietnam they have more cars/trucks/buses in a km than they have in the entire of Laos. To make things even more interesting, Vietnamese truck drivers communicate via high powered horns and use them at every opportunity even if it's just to let you know they're three feet away from your right ear. We have a hard shoulder to ride on which is a great help but it doesn't make for a great ride. Our original plan was to stay next to the coast all the way south but we're considering kicking inland after Nha Trang which is about 600kms south. It'll mean some some climbing in the central highlands but I can see the coastal route wearing after a while. We'll see. Anyway so now we're in Hue. Our first tourist town since Savannakhet. It's notable for the number of tourists being pushed around in cyclos. When we go out for a walk we're constantly hassled by people who want to cycle us round the city which seems somehow perverse. For me it makes a pleasant change to get out and have a walk. Tonight we're going to find a decent restaurant that serves wine and have a bottle or two before we start the ride south tomorrow morning. Hopefully that tailwind will continue for a while. Catch you all later. Lots of love as always, Craig. XXX

Guten Tag zusammen, Yeah I know it's only been ten days since my last email but I've left Thailand and I always like to do a bit of summing up so here goes. My last email was written from the town of Lampang in Northern Thailand. On our last day in town we rented a motorbike and headed out to the Elephant Conservation Centre which is on the road between Lampang and Chiang Mai. I've never ridden a motorcycle but I assumed I'd get one with automatic gears so it'd be no different to riding a motorised Bessie. My assumption turned out to be wide of the mark but once the helpful Thai lady gave me a 2 second summary on how the gears worked I hoped I could figure the rest out for myself. She neglected to mention the whole clutch thing to me which made for an interesting couple of hours but it's a rented bike so I wasn't too concerned. The elephant place was pretty cool. We just went for the elephant shows which is a couple of hours with the elephants doing tricks like playing musical instruments and painting pictures. Afterwards we fed them sugar cane which they go mental for. The place also did elephant rides but it was just an amble round the park and I figured I'd rather do it as a trek. We left Lampang the next day with big plans to do 150kms but things didn't quite turn out that way. By 10 pm I reckon it was easily 40C and getting hotter. To add to the fun we also hit some serious hills. The minute you're going up hills you lose speed so bang goes that bit of wind that makes cycling in 40C heat bearable. We dragged ourselves over the hills for 80kms and then stopped in a road side minimart to ask if there was any accommodation up ahead. The guy working in the minimart said he had a bungalow for rent just next door and we could come check it out when we'd finished eating. We said sure and off he dashed. I could see the place from the minimart and I was watching this guy doing what looked like cleaning things up. We went round to have a look and the bungalow was fantastic but I reckon it was actually his house and I kind of felt bad about turfing him out for the night even if we were paying money. It really was great though with a verandah over a pond he'd built although he seemed to think we needed a romantic setting so he kept playing rubbish music by Phil Collins. Still we had a great time and the guy was a fantastic host. Next day we headed for the town of Phayao. It'd rained for the whole morning which made for a much cooler ride. The town of Phayao is located on a lake of the same name. We cycled along the lake and were looked forward to finding a great place to stay lakeside. Amazingly although the town is built around the lake there isn't any accommodation actually near the lake. Ironically we ended up in this strange guesthouse in he middle of town were the beds were surrounded by curtains just like you get in hospital wards. As a bonus we got our own pet cockroaches for the night and cockroaches are one of the few things in the world I'm scared of so a fun night was had. After Phayao we headed for Chiang Rai. On the way I saw one of the more amazing Wats I've seen so far. In a country with thousands of temples it takes something special to stop you in your tracks. I'd try to describe it but it's one of those things you just have to see so you'll have to wait for the photos. We arrived in Chiang Rai in the late afternoon with plans for a day off but the previous days hadn't been too taxing so we skipped the day off and headed for the Laos border which is two days ride from Chiang Rai. The ride to the border is pretty sweet as you're cycling large parts along the Mekong River. It'd be a lot sweeter if it wasn't for the steep hills for the last 20kms or so. They really were nasty hills probably as steep as any of the passes I climbed in Kiwiland but obviously the heat just destroys you. We eventually arrived in the town of Chiang Kong which is the border town on the Thailand side. From there you catch a boat over to Houei Xay in Laos. We were stamped out of Thailand and then made our way over the river. Once on the other side we noticed there were a fair few people waiting for the boat to take them over to Thailand but what worried me was that it was the same people who'd just left Thailand before us. Turned out the immigration officer and stamped the wrong date in our passports so we either had to get it changed or spend a night on the pier. I headed back to Thailand and the immigration guy was very apologetic and so after some quick changes on my passport it was back to Laos for the second time that day. I enjoyed my second time in Thailand although maybe not as much as the first but that's because the place isn't new and exciting anymore. It's still one of the countries I'd recommend first to anybody wanting to get into cycle touring although the ride down the south coast is more enjoyable then the ride north simply because of the great beaches and the islands. Anyway I'll be back in Thailand in about a month and a half for the ride from Cambodia to Bangkok so more time to continue the love affair. Corinne and I had decided to catch a slow boat down the Mekong to the town of Luang Prabang and then head south from there on the bikes. It's a two day boat ride with an over night stop in the small town of Pak Beng. We were told to be down at the pier at 9 in the morning to secure decent seating but as we found out time is a flexible concept here in Laos. The boat eventually left at 11:30 but it's the third world so you expect these things. There were a fair few fellow tourists on the boat and it was interesting to see how the English managed to conform to their national stereotype and were hammered by the afternoon and playing drinking games by 5. A few of the older passengers were annoyed but they weren't doing any harm so I didn't see the big deal. The next day was pretty interesting as the English tourists had obviously been up till late partying and were far more subdued for the rest of the journey as they nursed hangovers and concentrated on not throwing up. To add to the general discomfort the ferry company had pulled a fast one on us and used a different boat for the second day with half the space but the same amount of people. Honesty appears to be another flexible concept in Laos. The boat journey itself was great. I know everyone is always trying to avoid their fellow tourists and look for the quiet spots but Corinne and I get that anyway because cycling means you tend to spend more time in the bits that other people just pass through on the bus. It was actually fun to spend some time with people and we met some interesting people and everyone had a good story to tell. I even got to do my round the world cyclist dance that I hadn't done in ages as there was a dutch guy who'd done a fair bit of cycling so we passed the time comparing notes. Corinne sometimes takes the mickey out of me because I'll go off to find some information we need about a place and then she has to come find me because I've gotten talking to someone and I'm chatting about cycling instead of finding us a place to stay. We arrived in Luang Prabang yesterday late afternoon. The boat journey down the Mekong was a great experience and one of those must do experiences even if it does mean two days sitting on a wooden bench with zero space. Luang Prabang is a beautiful city, one of the best looking cities I've seen so far in SE Asia. It's small enough that we keep on meeting people from the boat which is amazing considering it's one of the bigger towns in Laos. Our original plan was to head off south pretty much straight away but we kind of fell in love with the place so will stay an extra two days. We've also booked ourselves on a two day Mahout Course which is a day and a half learning how to ride and care for Elephants with a couple of treks through the jungle and then half a day kayaking back down to river to Luang Prabang. So far Laos is more touristy than I expected. I'd heard some stories about Laos being a difficult place the last time I was in SE Asia but I've seen more tourists here than anywhere in Thailand outside of Bangkok. Maybe that's because there's really only a few decent sized towns so everyone ends up in the same place. I've enjoyed it so far but you have to be more careful when dealing with the locals here as they seem more inclined to try and rip you off. I've been in a few situations where a coupe of thousand kip has appeared on the bill and the mistakes are always in their favour so I've discounted bad math. Also you're dealing with multiple currencies and if you ask them to convert to a new currency it's best to work out what you're getting beforehand and then make sure you count it. It's also important to check any transport you're getting as that luxury boat they show you a picture of suffers from the fast food picture syndrome when you turn up and it's actually a rust bucket. Another downside is that the Americans left enough unexploded bombs lying around for a couple of world wars so you have to stay on the beaten track when you're doing any exploring but that shouldn't effect our cycling. For it's these quirks it's still an exciting place though and I'm looking forward to getting into the countryside on the bikes and seeing things outside the main population areas. Anyway it's time for bed as I have to get up in the morning and learn how to ride an elephant which is one of those sentences I won't type very often in my lifetime. Lots of love as always, Craig. XXX

Yo dudes, Well it's been about 20 days since my last email so figured I'd get another one out before my Mom gets the Thai police out searching for me. Having read a few books about the Bangkok Hilton that's something best avoided so here we go. My last email was sent from the town of Plimmerton about 50kms north of Wellington on the North Island. We had two days rest as we'd done some hard cycling from Christchurch and had spent a day in Wellington which was taken up with sorting flights out for Thailand and the required visas. We set off from Plimmerton with the aim of spending 4 days on the bike before catching a train to Auckland. The plan was to get to Auckland a few days before the flights as we needed to sort a number of things out before heading to Bangkok. This time my trip to Bangkok was going to be a bit more complicated. For one Bessie isn't young anymore. She's done 20,000 hard kilometres and it's starting to show. I really needed to get her a quality service in Auckland but time constraints meant this wasn't possible. The other complication is that my route this time requires me to be more self sufficient. I've needed to buy pretty much all the major components for both mine and Corinne's bike because if anything goes wrong somewhere like Laos you're pretty much on your own. I left Kiwiland on the 31st of March. My feelings about NZ are mixed. It's a beautiful country but not the amazing cycle touring experience I imagined or had been told about by others. Culturally the entire South Island is too similar. You don't get the feeling you're cycling through a real country but more a eco-disney park for adults. The North Island is supposed to be more culturally diverse but as a cyclist you have the problem that NZ doesn't have a secondary road system so you share the road with all the other traffic. To me it was too similar to Europe but without the advantages of a well developed road system where you can pick a road and not see a car for hours. Maybe I spent too long there or maybe it just came at the wrong time in my journey but NZ is the only country I've left with no real interest in either going back or learning more about. Even Serbia stirred emotions and got me reading books and trying to understand the Balkans. I arrived in Bangkok late on the 31st. Corinne was on a later flight so I spent a stimulating few hours in the baggage area trying to finish Crime and Punishment. Corinne arrived and it was out of the airport and into the madness and heat of the Bangkok night. It was 30C at one in the morning so after the usual haggle with the taxi drivers we headed for the air-conditioned luxury of an 8 quid hotel in Chinatown. We spent two days in Bangkok mainly to sort out our visas for Vietnam and get any last minute supplies we couldn't organise in Auckland. Shopping in Bangkok is a great test of how two people get on. Shopping and dodging the traffic in 40C heat not my idea of fun. After Bangkok we caught the train 70 kms north to Ayutthaya. Last year I cycled out of Bangkok but I figured it'd be more difficult with the two of us so we braved the world of Thailand's third class public transport. We arrived in Ayutthaya with a plan to head off early in the morning. Temperatures of 40C were predicted and it was Corinne's first time cycling in anything approaching that type of heat so I figured we'd get up at sunrise and see if we could get some miles in before the heat got unbearable. That night we did some touristy stuff and checked out the temples by night. Afterwards we went for some food and had one of those small world moments when I met a French guy I'd seen a month ago in Christchurch. Not sure if it indicates the world is small or that people tend to travel the same road. In the morning we were up with the sun and heading for the town of Lopburi 80kms to the north-east. I was worried about Corinne coping with the heat but by 10:30 we'd made good time and had done around 50kms. We had 30 kms left to do and while the temperature was starting to climb we could take it easy and increase our stops for cold drinks. We arrived in Lopburi at 12:30, a town famous for it's marauding monkeys. In the morning we set off even earlier than the day before as the distance to the next town with accommodation was over 100 kms. It was the first time Corinne had ridden over 100kms and the heat was a worry again with 40C plus being predicted again. As usual I was worrying about nothing and Corinne managed the distance without any problems. We were probably helped by a downpour mid-afternoon but the rain only clears the air for an hour here before the oppressive heat starts again. Most days we keep our mind off the heat with my attempts at learning German. I've bought a German phrase book and the days on the bike are spent seeing how much I've learnt. Usually not enough and the principle of gender in language makes a tough job just that bit tougher. We continued heading north increasing the daily distances as we went along. By the time we reached the town of Sukhothai and had our first day off the bike, we were averaging a similar daily distance as when I was on my own. The only difference is that we're having more days off for enjoying the country. I'd still like to finish the round the world in under a year for numerous reasons so it's a case of getting that balance right. Obviously the other thing is that Corinne isn't trying to cycle round the world in under a year so I have to balance the miles I need and ensure we have enough time off the bike for Corinne to do the things she wanted to do before she agreed to cycle SE Asia. This may include her traveling ahead by public transport to give her more time but I think she enjoys the challenge as much as me so we'll see. We left Sukhothai to time perfectly with the Thai festival of Songkran. I'm sure the festival has some deep cultural meaning but from what I can see it's an excuse for kids to throw water over people passing by with tourists on bikes seeming to be some kind of bonus. Every town we go through involves running the gauntlet of kids armed with buckets, hoses and water pistols. As in keeping with Thais being polite it's always done with an apologetic word and we've had kids say "I love you" before emptying a bucket of water over us. Corinne even had the police single her out for a special drenching when we cycled past a police station. As with the last time I was here, the Thais have been as friendly and as courteous as you could hope for. We had a puncture one afternoon in the hottest part of the day and after fixing the puncture we were beckoned over by some guys working for the highway agency who fed us and watered us before sending us on our way. I was even challenged to drink some of the local whiskey which didn't help me cope with the heat. We're in Lampang now which is about 250 kms south of Chiang Rai. We have one more day off tomorrow and we're planning to head for the Elephant Conversation Centre and do some Elephant riding and if we have some time head over the hills to Chiang Mai. Chiang Rai is about three days ride from the Laos border and after crossing the border it's a 2 day slow boat ride down the Mekong to Luang Prabang. Laos is going to be different and I anticipate a tougher ride than Thailand. Gaps between civilisation will be greater and it'll require more thought and planning. It'll be great to experience another country and a different challenge. Anyways best go as it's to try something new at the local restaurant. Oh and for those people interested, my mobile is now working again although I'm not sure if I'll have coverage in Laos. Lots of love as always, Craig. XXX

Yo everyone, Yeah I know I haven't written for a while but I haven't done a great deal of round the world cycling so I figured I'd chill it with the emails for a while. That's not to say I haven't had an interesting time of late just that it may not be of interest to anyone else. Apparently my family have been a bit concerned about me because I haven't sent an email since February the 17th. I think my Mom even sent people emails asking if they'd seen me which for a round the world cyclist is one of the more embarrassing things that can happen to you. I wonder if Sir Edmund Hillary's Mom was sending mail to all his mates checking if he was OK but I suspect the answer is Yes. To anyone who was worried I apologise My last email was on the 17th February from the town of Greymouth. I'd decided to head over Arthur's Pass and then over Lewis Pass which would mean I'd cycled all the major road Passes in the South Island. Arthur's Pass was quickly put to the sword (get it?) and it really wasn't that difficult. The last mile or so is tough but most of it is just about patience. Arthur's Pass was more notable for the possum that ate through my right hand front pannier while I was camping one night. I'd left some Weetabix in there and hadn't taken my pannier off the bike so he'd had the whole night to munch his was through. Even more annoying is that it turned out he didn't even like Weetabix as after destroying my pannier he took one nibble and then ran away in disgust. I patched the pannier with industrial strength insulation tape which I'm hoping is waterproof. It was Lewis Pass which I found the more difficult not due to the steepness of the road but because the top of the pass is over 100 kms from the nearest town of Culverden and I had a headwind for those 100 kms which took me to the cleaners. I most have looked exhausted as I started to climb the actual hill as a farmer took pity on me and pulled over and offered me a lift to the top. If I was a religious man I'd have assumed it was a test from God. I said no thanks and told him that I was climbing all the hills in South Island but he just looked at me the way farmers do when you tell them you're punishing yourself for pleasure. I guess their lives are hard enough without having to make challenges up. I headed down Lewis Pass and for the town of Murchison. The sandfiles were still very much part of my life with cooking and eating being the biggest challenge of my day. Trying to eat when you have a fly net on is something I'm not sure I'll ever master. Maybe soup would work but anything solid becomes more difficult. I'm personally still amazed that humans haven't come up with a way of destroying the entire sand fly population. I've never wanted to kill another human in my entire life but the govt still spends billions every year developing weapons that do exactly that. I've spent my entire time in NZ wanting every sand fly killed but the govt spends nothing on making it happen. So much for democracy. I left Murchison and headed up towards the north of the South Island. I'd had a hard few days with the two Passes and hadn't had a rest day in three weeks so when I went past a Backpacker place called the Hu-Ha Bikepackers I figured it'd be a great spot to spend a day off the bike. In fact I'd kind of stopped enjoying what I was doing. My life just seemed to consist of cycling and sleeping and while I appreciate that cycling round the world is going to have a heavy bias towards cycling I'd been really struggling to stay motivated. I felt like I wanted to get home which isn't good when you still have 5000 miles to cycle. I was in Hu-Ha Bikepackers when I met a Swiss girl called Corinne. We just got on straight away. I've met a lot of people on my journey who I connected with but with Corinne it was more than that. Within a few hours of meeting we were having great conversation like we'd known each other for ages. I explained about how I was feeling with regards to my journey and we got talking about my favourite countries and my biggest regrets. My biggest regret so far is that I didn't apportion enough miles to the SE Asian part of my trip. If I knew at the start what I know now I'd have given far more miles to SE Asia. Corinne asked me why I didn't just go back if I loved the place so much. I couldn't come up with any reasons why not apart from the obvious financial one. We sat talking about it for ages and the more we talked the more it felt possible. Corinne was planning on heading to SE Asia around the same time so the idea was floated that we could meet up and do a bit of traveling together if and when we crossed paths. I spent a few more days at the hostel and after exchanging contact details with Corinne we went our separate ways and I continued heading north. After a few days of cycling I still wasn't enjoying myself. Corinne and I had been in contact and I asked if she'd like some company for a few weeks and I'd take a few weeks off the bike and we could travel round together by car. It'd give me a chance to do the things I'd missed while on the bike and she'd have someone to share costs with. Bessie was relegated to the back of the car and it was time to do some touristy things. I had a great time but after a week or so I was getting a bit restless for the bike again. I suggested to Corinne that we cycle the Otago Rail Trail together. It's a 150 km off road track and perfect for someone new to cycling. She was keen on the idea and the only proviso was that I had to carry all the luggage. The night before we were to start the trail we met a Kiwi guy in a pub who had a spare bike and he offered to let us have it for a few days which was great and meant a healthy saving on hiring a bike. He was a bit hammered when he made the offer so when we went round the next morning to pick the bike up we were just hoping he'd remembered. In fact he'd more than remembered and when we got round there the bike was cleaned up and ready for us. All the beer we'd bought him was more than worth it. We headed onto the trail and I started off slowly for Corinne's benefit as she hadn't been on a bike in a long time and I wanted her to enjoy it. I needn't have bothered as the first time I nailed it a little she kept up no problem and we managed 50 kms the first day in about three hours including stops for drinks and food. I doubt I'd have done it any faster if I was on my own. The next two days were the same. 50 kms every day done in around three hours. Remembering back to when I started riding bikes with all my mates back home there's just no way in the world I could have covered that distance in those times. On the trail we started talking about SE Asia again. Corinne had enjoyed the cycling enough to consider the possibility of cycling SE Asia with me which would mean we could cycle together and I could still complete my round the world journey in under a year. I explained that cycling the rail trail unloaded was nothing like putting in sequential big days with a fully loaded bike so we agreed on a compromise that she'd hire a touring bike for a week and tour NZ fully loaded and we'd decide from there. We headed for Christchurch and hired a Cannondale T800 with panniers for a week with an option to buy. We then headed up the east Coast for Picton. It's about 300 kms and we managed it in 4 days for an average of 75 kms a day. I'm amazed that Corinne could manage this and even though it's been tough, going from not cycling to doing 75kms a day fully loaded she's made it look easy. I doubt I could have done the same if the roles were reversed. When we got to Picton we sat and spoke some more about SE Asia and amazingly she was still keen on cycling. I've booked my flight back to Bangkok for the 31st of March. Financially it isn't one of my smartest moves but this is my journey and the chance to go back to somewhere I enjoyed with someone who's company I enjoy isn't something that happens every day. We're just north of Wellington and will cycle up to Auckland with an aim to get there on the 30th and get some spares for the bikes My plan is to stay in SE Asia till the 21st June and then spend a month cycling in America before returning home. It's a plan at the moment and as likely to change as all my other plans. Anyway it's dinner time so I'm off to grab some food. Later. Lots of love as always, Craig XXX.

Yo lads and ladies, Yeah so what's been happening since my last email? Cycling and lots of it. My initial plans of taking it easy have pretty much taken a back seat now. The meandering aspect of my plans have remained intact and I've now cycled 1600 miles in NZ but I'm only about 120 miles from Christchurch, my initial starting point. I left Dunedin on the 31st January and headed for the Catlins. After going on about how great cycling in NZ is I experienced some of the worst weather I've had since the start of my journey. Freezing conditions, fearsome headwinds and constant rain. To make matters worse I also experienced my first night of being unable to find anywhere to camp for the night. The Catlins is supposed to be one of the scenic highlights of NZ but I couldn't see further than 100 metres for two days so I have no idea if this is true or not. While tackling the Catlins I met a German cyclist called Jochen. It was great having company for the two days as we pounded out each wet, miserable mile. I was cycling with Jochen when I noticed my front tire was on it's last legs. I didn't have a spare but figured I'd make it the 130 kms or so to Invercargill. We got to Curio Bay and made camp for the night and I arranged to meet Jochen in the morning as I figured it'd be better having company for the last 100 kms to Invercargill with my tire looking so flaky. We'd arranged to meet at the junction at a specific time but I got on the bike in the morning and found I had a puncture. By the time I got the bike sorted and cycled on to the arranged meeting place, Jochen had set off. I set off for Invercargill on my own into the driving rain. All the time worried about my now very dodgy looking tire. Part of the road from Curio Bay to Invercargill is unsealed and 6 miles after setting off I had another puncture. I fixed the puncture, carried on and managed 4 miles before I had another puncture. I managed another 3 miles and then another puncture. The tire was now truly history and fixing punctures was just an exercise in futility. The tire had a penny sized hole and the tube was pushing through. This combined with the unsealed road meant it was walking time and praying I could get a lift. Being an unsealed road, traffic was a bit scarce and to make matters worse, I was a bit restricted on the type of vehicle which could pick me up. It was a pick up truck or nothing really. I pushed the bike about 10 kms with no success on the lift front. Eventually I saw a farmer working in his field and asked him if he'd give me a lift up to where the road joined the main highway and then hopefully I'd have more chance of a lift. We lifted a sick Bessie into his pick up and headed for the Fortrose junction. It was still 50 kms to Invercargill but I was hoping the increase in traffic would increase my chances of a lift. I walked another 10 kms without any joy. Pick up trucks would go past and just carry on going. Ironically I eventually got a lift when I wasn't even trying for one. I was just sitting on the side of the road having another fruitless bash at fixing the tire when I couple stopped and asked if they could be of any assistance. They had a nice big pick up with nothing in the back so once again a sick Bessie was loaded into the back and off we set for Invercargill. They even dropped me off right outside the bike shop and as an added bonus, the shop had the make of tire I was looking for. All this could have been avoided if I stuck to my New Year's resolution of doing the small things. I'm great at doing big projects. Cycling Round the World, yeah, no problem. Something small and insignificant like walking into a shop and buying a new tire, I'll just keep avoiding until I'm trudging through the rain in the middle of nowhere. This isn't the first time I've done something like this and I've tried to analyse why. I came up with two conclusions. The first is that I don't like doing mundane things. The second is that I enjoy the excitement generated by the possibility that something might go wrong. I knew that the tire would implode and then I'd have to walk for miles and hope for a lift but I viewed this as some kind of adventure. After Invercargill I headed down to Bluff which for me is important as it's the furthest away from home and the furthest south. There's a sign post there with all the distances from the major cities in the world and London is over 19,000 kms away. For me it's the end of my general heading of south, my direction for over half a year. From there it's north until the day I return home. Another change after Bluff was in the weather. I had my first day off since leaving Christchurch as the guy at a campsite heard what I was doing and gave me a night free in one of the cabins. I spent the day enjoying some of things I miss while traveling like steak and a bottle of red wine. I was happy to have the day off as the weather was still atrocious with a howling headwind. The next day the skies were clear and the wind had died down and changed direction. I headed along the southern scenic route in the direction of Te Anau. Just south of Te Anau I met Lucy, a Scottish cyclist heading in the opposite direction. She was looking for a place to camp for the night and after sitting talking for an hour or so we figured we may as well camp together. She liked to wild camp where possible but felt better doing to with someone else so we headed down a side road and found a great spot next to a river. If there's such a thing as status symbols and brands in the world of cycle touring then Lucy had the best everything. Hilleberg tent, Koga-Miyata World Traveler, Icebreaker merino wool cycling tops. She took the mickey out of herself about it but secretly I think she loved having the best kit. I shouldn't be too hard on her though as she introduced me to the great tradition of bathing the Kiwi way as well as cooking me up a great feed. She said she was heading down to the river for a bath before dinner and asked me if I was coming. I said I didn't have a swimming costume and when she replied neither did she it took me a few seconds to twig. Being English, bathing naked in front of people I've only known for a few hours makes me a bit uncomfortable but in keeping with my saying Yes to new things policy I figured what the hell. I'm sold on the idea and since then my main way of keeping clean has been bathing naked in the rivers and lakes of NZ. Hopefully I've scared a few tourists so expect reported sightings of dirty, naked Mexican fruit pickers to hit the local newspapers. In the morning we went our separate ways with a general plan to maybe meet up on the West Coast. I can't see it happening though. As a sense of perspective, in terms of the miles I cover compared to most cycle tourists, Lucy was just north of Christchurch on Christmas Day when I was half way up the east coast of Oz, 500 miles north of Sydney. That's one of the differences between NZ and Oz. In Oz, the cyclists you meet are mostly long distance cyclists not cycle tourists. Here people cycle maybe 30-40 miles a day and have every 4th day off the bike. In Oz, everyone you meet is covering outrageous distances with no rest. If you're cycling in Oz you're doing something serious. In a way it's left me feeling a bit unfulfilled. Don't get me wrong, I love NZ. The scenery, the great cycling roads, the climbs and the descents all make for a quality cycling but sometimes it all feels a bit easy after Oz. I've started inventing little challenges for myself. My current challenge is to complete all the famous road passes in the South Island. I have two left to go being Arthur's Pass and Lewis Pass. Arthur's is supposed to be the most fearsome and I'm doing it from the most difficult side tomorrow evening. I'm looking forward to it but it does feel a bit strange that I have to hunt these challenges. Maybe it's because I'm meandering for the first time. Up until NZ every stage was point-to-point. Meandering sometimes feels like I'm padding out the miles. I'm not going across a continent, I'm kind of just wandering around. It doesn't feel right that a round the world cyclist is wandering around. In a way, it's left me looking forward to the States where I can get back to point-to-point cycling. I've decided on my route through North America now. I bought a ticket from New York to Manchester for the 21st June so my North American route is now set. I believe it's 4200 miles from LA to New York and I've given myself about 80 days in which to do it. With time at either end for preparation, this is an achievable target and I may even end up finishing early. Based on my current pace I'm going to leave NZ with around 12800 miles. You'll notice that with the 4200 miles across America this means I'll be cycling 17000 miles rather than the original 16000. The extra 1000 miles is obviously optional but cycling across America is an achievement within itself that I'd like to complete. Not sure if it's a coincidence but since I booked the flight I've started to feel a bit homesick. I've been thinking a lot about the people and things I care about back in England. Nothing serious but booking the flight has raised a lot of very real questions with regards to what options I have when I return. How do I balance my work ambitions with my desire to travel? Traveling is great but at what point does it become the norm and stop being an experience? It's change that keeps life interesting. Having goals and dreams. There's still three big rides I want to do. I want to cycle the full length of South America. I want to complete the full circle of Oz, taking the route from Darwin to Perth and then across the Nullabor. I also want see more of Asia. I reckon each could be completed within three months. My options then become to do all three in one hit which would essentially be another round the world or to work and do one of the tours and then work again. If I actually have a choice then I'd prefer the second option. Maybe find a job where I'd be allowed 3 months out every three years or so. I guess it's all food for thought. After leaving Lucy I headed for the town of Gore. I met Tony, a Kiwi bloke traveling through to Christchurch from Bluff. Ironically meeting Kiwis is a bit of a rarity in the South Island. Generally three types of people exist in the South Island. Farmers who you never meet, kiwis who service the tourists and tourists. You get that walking wallet feeling a lot. Meeting normal kiwis just engaged in every day jobs is difficult. I met Tony wild camping next to a river and after it started bucketing it down we did the only thing two blokes can do and headed for the pub. It was great to spend an evening talking to an obviously intelligent guy and getting an insight into NZ. A lot of the time it's difficult to get past the tourist guff that's handed out because it's just so prevalent. I think that's another reason NZ doesn't really suit what I'm doing. I'm not a tourist and it makes it difficult when the whole place is geared towards extracting your tourist dollar when you're trying to get by on a tenner a day. In most countries you have the option of getting out the tourist areas but South Island is pretty much one big tourist area so it's unavoidable. The locals see everyone as a tourist and the tourists see the the locals as there to serve them. You meet people and they'll exclaim how friendly the kiwis are and I wonder how many they've even met. Sure they're friendly in the visitor centre but that's their job. How many real Kiwis are people even meeting? I reckon I've met maybe four so far which is pretty poor considering the miles I've covered and the places I've been. I said bye to Tony in the morning and headed north to Queenstown. I had a pretty bad day which wasn't helped by my hang over and the continuing rain. First I found out some money I'd been hoping for wasn't going to materialise which put a bit of a dent in my finances. Then my cassette lock ring came loose as the guy back in Christchurch hadn't tightened it enough. I haven't got the tools to tighten it so had to stop every 10 miles or so, unload the bike, take the back wheel off and tighten it by hand until it loosened again. This also put my hard gears out of action so I was spinning along at 6 miles an hour even on the flats. To end the day in style I also had a puncture. I eventually reached Queenstown after stopping off at a local bike shop to sort the cassette lock ring out. Queenstown is just tourist central so my plan was just to cycle on through and head to Glenorchy. Lonely Planet had described the road as a killer for cyclists so it had to be done. It's a tough ride but the old lady/devil ride out of Akaroa is still the toughest day I've had in NZ. It's a great cycling road though. You skirt the lake all the way with mountains all around. I also had my first encounter with the dreaded sandfly on the way to Glenorchy. Each place seems to have some form of winged insect which makes my life hell. I figured out another reason that Kiwis are so active. If you keep moving then they don't bother you. It's when you stand still that they get biting. Question then becomes how do you do such life essential activities like cook. There's been a fair few nights I just haven't bothered and just got in the tent with a pint of milk and a 250g slab of chocolate. I could be the first man to be starved to death by sandflies. After returning from Glenorchy I got to tackle the highest sealed road in NZ. There's a cycling book called Peddler's Paradise that the cycle tourists all have and it lists this road as an alternative which is blasphemy. It's a tough climb but anyone who loves riding a bike should consider the highest unsealed road in NZ a must-do rather than an alternative route. It's a great climb as well. Unlike most hills in NZ it's more like the european alpine climbs which plenty of hair-pin bends so you've got plenty of time to admire the views of Queenstown and the surrounding mountains and lakes. Once at the top you're greeted by a sign warning you it's a 40 km down hill. Seems odd to be warned about something which feels so great. I pretty much free wheeled the 40 kms down to Wanaka. After Wanaka I headed for Haast Pass which is another of the passes on my must-do list. I climbed over the pass and set up camp for the night just on the other side after finding the best camping spot of my journey so far. Just down from a waterfall, next to the river with a piece of perfectly sized flat grass away from the road. A bit of Kiwi style bathing was in order but man is that water cold when it's coming off the mountains. Luckily I was on my own this time. I'd done 5 days of serious climbing including the highest sealed road in NZ, Haast Pass and the road to Glenorchy and I reckon this, combined with the great spot meant I didn't wake up till 10:30. Haast Pass is the gateway to the West Coast. The ride down from the pass winds through countryside of stupendous beauty. Every corner takes you breath away as you go past another waterfall, another lake and all this time you've got the peaks of the southern alps around you. After the town of Haast you're in West Coast proper with mountains to your right and the Tasman Sea to your left and all the time you're cycling through lush rain forest. I've been really lucky with the weather on the West Coast. I headed up to the two famous glaciers, Fox and Franz Joseph. Franz Joseph gets 7 m of rain a year but I've had perfect weather every day. I checked out Franz Joseph Glacier rather than Fox as it's a shorter walk so less time worrying about the bike. All along the West Coast I've been finding camp spots that money couldn't buy. I have no idea why people pay for a camp site when you can just pitch a tent in some of the best looking spots in the world for free. After Franz Joseph it's been a fairly flattish ride up to my current location, Greymouth. I met a Bob, a 60 year old Scottish cyclist in the town of Whataroa. I seem to get on with the older travelers more and we sat and had a good talk for a few hours. I told him my journey was to raise money for Macmillan. He gave me his number back in Aberdeen to give him a call when I return home. He said he owed the cancer charities some money and I'm guessing he'd lost someone close to him but he obviously didn't want to go into details so it was left unsaid but there. Today I had a shortish day. I've done some big days of late with some tough hills and tomorrow is supposed to be the toughest of them all. I'll head East over Arthur's Pass and then come back on myself to do Lewis Pass. After Lewis Pass my intention is to head north to Picton and catch the ferry to the North Island. I'm still a bit undecided on my route as I haven't heard great things about cycling in the North Island but I wanted to get to Cape Reinga as it's the northern tip of the mainland of NZ. If I want to head to Cape Reinga I'll need around 1500 miles on the North Island which means I have to leave the South Island in the next two week or so. Anyways catch you all later. Lots of love as always, Craig. XXX

Yo peeps and peepettes, Well I managed to get out of Oz. Left Andy's house after a great 3 days chilling and doing normal stuff like eating take-aways and going to the cinema. Andy was a great host although she was a bit shocked to hear Morgan had only known me for a few days. She was under the impression that we'd been mates in SA. She handled this new found knowledge with aplomb though and didn't throw me out which was a bonus. I had a bit of a hiccup at the airport as it turns out you need a flight out of NZ before they'll let you in. I found this out at the check in desk so I had 15 minutes to decide when I'm leaving NZ, where I'm flying from and then buy a ticket to America. After a quick rush round to the Travel Agent, which is no easy feat when you have a bike balanced on a trolley, I managed to get myself a ticket from Auckland to LA for March 31st. This gives me around 75 days in NZ. Each section of my journey I seem to have a theme. The theme for NZ is going to be meandering and taking it easy. The theme in Oz was meeting great people and making sure I did enough miles so that cycling round the world in under a year was attainable. With that pretty much done I can now meander and take it easy so I've given myself a target of 3000 miles to be cycled in 75 days. I arrived in Christchurch (ChCh) at 1am on January 14th. Rowena and Morgan had arranged a place for me to stay in ChCh with Rowena's sister, Ange and her husband, Ives. Ange had offered to pick me up from the airport but, in true cycling round the world fashion, I declined and decided to ride the 20 miles or so from the airport to the suburb of Sumner. Probably not one of my brighter ideas as I was cycling through the city at closing time for the clubs so took a mixture of abuse and well wishes from the drunkards staggering home. I also happened to get my most random bit of abuse ever when I guy shouted at me "You look like a terrorist mate" which got me wondering what terrorists look like in NZ and made my instantly suspicious of anybody on a bike with panniers. Additional excitement was provided once I got to Sumner and attempted to find Ange's house. Ange had said she'd leave the key outside in a shoe. In NZ a lot of the houses are sub-divisions so 2/15 means the second house of number 15. Morgan had just written down the number 2 and I didn't know about the whole sub division thing so went looking for the first house with a 2 on the outside. I found some shoes outside number 2 but no keys. After searching for a while I figured I best knock on the door and after some serious knocking an old lady answered the door and I figured this wasn't the right house. Luckily she was the old lady of the confident and sprightly sort rather than the panicky call the police sort and wasn't vaguely worried about inviting a stranger into her house at 4am. I had a phone number and a surname so she went through the phone book and found me the correct address I was looking for. 100 metres more pedaling and I was at the right place and into a welcome bed. Next afternoon I woke up and met my hosts Ange and Ives. Like her sister Rowena, Ange is one of those people where nothing is too much trouble. I thought it was pretty revealing when I noticed a book on her shelf called "How to Say No More". If you've met someone who everyone thinks needs to say no more then you've usually met a great person. I recommended she read Danny Wallace's "Yes Man" in an effort to counteract the negative effects of the other book. Ives is one of the most active people I've ever met. One day while I was lying around reading he went rock climbing, surfing and mountain biking. In a way he reminded me of one of those religious people except his religion is fun. If they weren't out doing something fun and active then they were planning something fun and active. On about my third day there, I had the option of mountain biking with the guys or a road ride with the girls. I'd been out with Ives for a quick jaunt on the MTB the day before and apart from being beasted up a hill, I realised my MTBing skills were even more appalling than when I was in England. I had zero balance. Maybe if someone had chucked on 35kgs of panniers I'd have been better but that didn't seem in the spirit. So I decided to go out riding with the girls hopeful I'd get a bit of an easier ride. I'd like to say that my decision was in no way influenced by the idea of cycling with 5 lycra clad women before anybody says anything. The easier ride didn't quite materialise as I expected. The ride was short but involved a 6 km climb straight from the off. The girls were all pretty fit and we set a decent pace going up the hill. I had the excuse that I was on an unloaded Bessie, with her big racks and wide tires, and they were all on light road bikes but it's just that, an excuse. It was a great ride though and riding without panniers felt like heaven. I pushed the pedals and the bike actually responded. I was climbing with the speedo showing double figures instead of the usual 4 miles an hour. The weather was also great and the views of ChCh and the surrounding bays were awesome. It was just an added bonus that I was cycling with 5 women and got big smiles of "lucky expletive deleted" from the blokes we'd pass going the opposite way. That's what amazed me about ChCh. At any given time the ratio of male to female cyclists was pretty much equal. In England most cycling clubs are pretty much all male and it's a shame these divisions exist as it's great that weekends and activities can be planned where everyone can take part fully. By Thursday I'd run out of excuses to hang around Ange and Ives' place. Bessie was fully serviced and with a new chain, rear cassette and front rings, we were ready for the hills of NZ. I'd had a great time and, once again, I was completely in awe of the kindness of strangers. Every time I start a new section of my journey is feels daunting for some reason. Like it did the day I left home. The feeling goes after a few days but that first day is a bit of a "first day at school" moment and I have no idea what to expect. "Will I be able to find places to sleep?", "Will I be able to find Stagg Chili?" and "Are the cows as friendly in NZ?" are just some of the questions troubling me. Yes, with great difficultly and no are the answers in case you were wondering. Luckily I was ready for the hills as within 2 minutes of leaving it was climb time. Evan's Pass was first on the agenda, a little 3km, 250 metre climb to let the legs know they ain't in Oz no more. This was following by Gebble's Pass, similar to Evans and then 20 miles of flat before my main course of a 6 km, 450 m climb over to the French town of Akaroa. None of the climbs were that steep, just long and constant. Having said that I had the reward of the great descents and as with pretty much every descent in NZ, I was accompanied by great scenery to take the pain out of the climbs and add even more pleasure on the way down. That night, I arrived in Akaroa and set up camp next to the lake. In the morning I headed into the small French town of Akaroa. It was founded by a group of French settlers in 19th century and has tried to retain some of it's French charm so you cycle down Rue Lavaud, turn left into Rue Benoit while passing all the shops with cheesy French names. While there I was asked by a old lady if I'd take part in a questionnaire. I say old lady but now I realise she was actually the devil in old lady form. After helping her with the questionnaire she suggested an alternative route back out of Akaroa that, while a bit steeper than the way I'd come in, would mean I wouldn't lose any height once I'd done the climb. One half of her advice was an outrageous understatement and the other half was an outright lie. The road she sent me up was a 4 km, 650 m world of pain. It works out to an average gradient of around 1 in 6 but this only tells half the story as the first 2 km aren't that bad, maybe 1 in 8 before you get to the last 2 kms of 1 in 4. You know things aren't looking good when the cars go past in 1st gear with the passengers looking at you sympathetically. At the top I started pedaling along what's the lip of an old volcano. This would be the section where I don't lose or gain any height that Beelzebub had been referring to but which turned out to be a sequence of steep down hills followed by steeper up hills. I eventually dragged myself into Little River, having taken 5 hours to cycle 30 miles, set up camp and passed out. After Little River I headed inland, avoiding the main highways, heading for the quieter, more scenic regions along the Southern Alps that run down the spine of the South Island. My intention was to head south and then kick further inland again towards the Lakes region before coming back out to the coast again along the Otago Rail Trail. My route took me over Burke's Pass which was my first climb since Akaroa. It was 750m and after my pasting at the hands of the 650 m climb out of Akaroa, I approached it with some trepidation. I got to the town of Burke's Pass which is at the foot of the climb and, engaging in some top class procrastination, I got talking to some locals. First question I asked was how high was the climb and I was told it was 750 m which I already knew. Next question was the important one, how long was the climb? 2 kms I was told. I did some calculations and worked out I was looking at a 1 in 3 climb. Luckily the women I'd asked saw my look of horror and explained that I was already at 550 m and had been climbing unnoticed for the last 40 kms so I now had a nice little saunter of 1 in 10 for the remainder. One thing I've learnt about NZ is that it isn't the mountain passes you need to worry about. They're usually gradual and the biggest test is of your patience as you twiddle up them for hours on end. It's the rolling hills that'll hurt you as you constantly lose and gain height over a very short space of time. It was here that I also figured out why Kiwis are the leaders in the world of extreme sports. I reckon they suffer from danger envy. Kiwis have been hearing Aussies go on and on about how dangerous Oz is and how they have 9 out 10 of the most dangerous snakes and how "YOU'RE GONNA DIE" if you do anything, that the Kiwis had to even things up by doing bungee jumping, cave rafting, river sledging and anything else you can think of that'll kill you. After Burke's Pass I headed to the stunning Lake Tekapo. The lakes in this region have been given the most vivid hue of blue from fine rock left behind when they were created by the encroaching glaciers. If you get there on a clear day, the shade of blue is enhanced by the reflection from the sky and even more special. It was 30C when I arrived and there wasn't a cloud in the sky so I sat and had a nice long lunch by the lake before setting off for Lake Pukaki with it's much vaunted views of Mt Cook. Since I'd come over Burke's Pass I'd had majestic views of the Southern Alps. It makes putting in the miles so much easier when you have such amazing scenery around you. I arrived at Lake Pukaki and noticed a spot by the lake with a few tents already erected. I headed over that way and pitched my tent. I was dying for a cup of tea but didn't have any milk so asked one of my fellow campers if I could borrow some milk. She looked at me a bit funny, said yes, so I wandered back to my camp and brought my cup over. We got talking and I asked if they wanted some books as I had some I'd finished and I know it can be difficult to find decent books to which they said yes. After I came over with the books they invited me to join them They introduced themselves as Nikki and Heather, two Northern English girls from over the Lakes way. They'd been traveling round India and Sri Lanka before coming to NZ and after talking to them, India and Sri Lanka are now on my agenda. We had a fair bit in common as Heather worked in a bike shop when she wasn't at uni and had been to a talk given by Alastair Humphreys, a guy who's the round the world cyclist of round the world cyclists and someone I'd gotten some advice from in the past. We lit a fire and Nikki pointed out one of the most awesome comets I've ever seen which easily took up a third of the sky. Nikki also explained why she'd looked at me funny when I asked for milk. A guy had asked them for milk the night before and they'd said yes. In the morning, they'd left their tents and gone for a walk and the guy had gone into their tents and covered the inside of the tent with honey which was one of the more random acts of tent vandalism I'd heard of. Hopefully I left them with a more positive impression of milk borrowers. Great thing that came out of our meeting was that I think I convinced them to cycle the Bangkok to Singapore route as their next place to go. They left their email addresses so I can send details when I get back and I can also answer any questions they may have. The more long distance cyclists the better. The next morning I headed for the fearsome Mt Cook which just a few days before had claimed the lives of some Japanese climbers. The road hugs Lake Pukaki for the 55kms from the turn off and so you've got the majestic Mt Cook in front of you and the distinctive blue of the lake to your right. A truly awesome ride. I camped in the DOC park for the night and set off again in the morning. Along the way I noticed a bloke riding an Orbit bike which are made in Sheffield so I figured he'd be a northerner. Turns out he was from Seacroft in Leeds just across from where I used to live in East End Park. He'd cycled across America twice in both directions so I got some advice from him with regards to my route. Seems everyone I meet has an influence on where I'm heading. I left Paul in the small town of Twizel and headed for the town of Omarama where I found another great spot to camp next to the river. Seems I find a great spot to camp every night in NZ and they've all been free which increases the pleasure. In the morning I left Omarama and headed over Lindis Pass which is a 1000 m climb but one of those long gradual climbs with an even better long gradual descent on the other side. Think I measured that I didn't have to pedal for 10 kms on the other side. I also met a great looking Chilean girl called Claudia in the tiny town of Tarras. Her English wasn't that great and she was trying to explain to me that she'd seen some guys cycling the South Island on unicycles. This involved a game of charades with her trying to describe their seats to me which looked more like she was telling me she'd met some guys with massive erections. I was going to say fair enough but eventually I figured out the unicycle thing. She was amazed that South America wasn't on my itinerary and set about selling the place to me which wasn't too difficult. Further down the road I stopped to help a young guy who was having problems with his bike. After we had it sorted, we cycled along together. He asked me how old I was and when I told him he said it was great that someone my age was cycling round the world. The highs of Claudia to the lows of some 14 year old kid making me feel my age in the space of 15 miles. The next day I joined the famous Otago Central Rail Trail (OCRT) which is 150 kms of disused Railway Track that the DOC have converted into a trail for cyclists and walkers. It took me in the direction of Dunedin which I was headed for as I'd ran out of books a few days before. Running out of books is fatal to my attempts to take things easy as I start increasing my mileage in an effort to get to a bookshop. The OCRT is brilliant with no steep hills, unbelievable scenery and most of the time it's just you out there on your own. With it's tunnels and viaducts you really get a sense of traveling the gold fields of the past. The track is a bit rough in places but Bessie handled it all with her 2 inch wide MTB-style tires. It made a welcome change from pounding the roads. As a bonus there's a sequence of huts along the way and I spent the night in one of the better ones and had a great sleep. People ask me if I ever get lonely when I'm out there on my own but the time I most wish I was with someone is when there's something positive to share. The tough times I get through on my own and the monotony of endless miles I can cope with. It's those moments when you see something amazing or find that great place to sleep for the night that you kind of wish there was someone there. I guess more so that you'd have someone to reminisce with when it's finished. As I said earlier, my theme for NZ would be meandering and taking it easy. I'd decided to go for an average mileage of around 40 miles a day, a lot less than the 60 miles a day I'd been aiming for in Oz. I wanted to see more of NZ and I'd figured reducing my mileage and meandering more would help. So far I've succeeded only in the meandering aspect of my aim and I'm still averaging similar miles to Oz. I just seems that's the mileage I feel comfortable doing. I've done 700 miles since I left ChCh and a direct route would have been 200 miles. This may mean I leave NZ with more miles than my target which will have an impact on my route through North America. After talking to Paul I'm considering another route which wouldn't involve Canada and, weather-wise, would be a better option. I don't have to decide for another month or so but I need to buy a ticket to the UK to fulfill my visa requirements before I leave NZ. Anyways best go. Apologies that it's another long one and well done to anyone who makes it to the end of this email. The South Island is low on internet cafes but high on great things to write about. Later, Lots of Love, Craig. XXX

G'day Cobbers, Man how to start this email eh? First off I'd like to say a few thanks to the people that have tried to keep the fund raising ticking along of late. I know a few of you in particular have tried to raise awareness by hassling family and friends as well as by posting links to the websites in various places on the internet and by also trying to contact a few newspapers. We've gotten some donations using these channels and as the cliché goes, every little helps. On top of that, even if these channels don't bring donations, we're still raising awareness for Macmillan Cancer Relief. I'd also like to thank the Brighouse Echo for running the story in their Christmas edition with plenty of mentions of the website and how to donate. Well I've finished Australia. I arrived in Melbourne yesterday evening on the 10th January 2007 after what was, by my usual standards, a fairly sedate 13 day, 1050 km meander round the SE coast of Australia. My original plan was to do a 10 day ride to Melbourne and then spend a few days in Tasmania before flying to Christchurch on the 13th January 2007. This was probably unrealistic and foolhardy for a number of reasons. The first reason is that I hadn't had a day off the bike since Mackay which was on the 8th December 2006 and close to 2000 miles ago. I'd averaged around 70 miles a day since, day in, day out without a rest. The second reason is that it wouldn't have allowed for a rest period between Australia and starting New Zealand. I think a bit of contemplation about where I'm going and where I've been is vital so I binned the idea of Tasi and decided on a more sedate ride down to Melbourne. When I left Sydney I reckon I may have been suffering from a degree of physical exhaustion. It's sometimes difficult to measure whether the aches and pains are real because I've noticed that when the end of a continent is in sight, I start noticing physical problems that I've been ignoring for the last few thousand miles. I try and tell myself that if I've gotten this far without noticing these things then I should be able to continue doing so but to no avail. The legs start feeling stiffer in the mornings, the lactic acid burns more when I'm tackling hills, the skin on my hands and feet starts cracking and bleeding from the hours spent putting oressure on them and I seem to have developed a problem where my right shoulder goes numb after a few hours riding. None of this was helped by the terrain when I left Sydney. I had a choice of routes to get me to Melbourne being the scenic Princes Highway or the monotony of the Hume Highway which crosses the Great Divide and then ploughs through barren Outback for 750 kms. I obviously chose the more scenic 1050 km but as always on a bike, you have to pay for the views. An interesting development is how my perception of distance has changed. I was discussing the impending leg from Sydney to Melbourne with a guy I'd met and realised the idea of cycling 1000 kms didn't seem remotely daunting. When I entered Germany I remember looking at the map, measuring out the 1000 kms and just feeling awed by the miles ahead. I think there's a number of reasons for this, the first obvious one is that Australia has readjusted my definition of distances. It does that to you. "Down the road" can be two months cycling. The second and most important reason is that every distance in the future is a proportion of what's gone in the past. 1000 kms in Germany was 60% of what I'd ridden up until that point. Now, 1000 kms is around 7% my total distance. This means that each time I contemplate a distance in the future it becomes less daunting. Unfortunately this doesn't work for individual days as the physical reality of sitting on a bike for 6 hours still over rides everything. The physical reality of the Princes Highway is a lot of very real hills. You climb constantly from Sydney in NSW to Orbest in Victoria which is around 600 kms of climbing and descending. Forget your image of Australia being flat and barren. After 8 days of climbing I know I had. The hills are very similar to those I found in central Germany. Short and sharp so you climb for long periods before a quick sharp descent then it's back to climbing again. None of this is helped by my bike which is now in desperate need of a new chain so I only have about 5 gears out of the 27 which don't slip every time I put some pressure through the pedals. Choice of gears now limited to what's available rather than what's needed. As I've said in the past, I don't really mind hills and prefer them to flat terrain with a headwind. The downside of hills south of Sydney is that they involve a reaquaintance with my old friend the fly. I'm pretty sure that at the bottom of each hill there's a little fly bus stop. Millions of the little bastards wait for some poor unsuspecting long distance cyclist to go trundling past and then they hop on the back of the bike and get a free lift up the hill. I wouldn't mind if they were well behaved and just sat on the bike but they have to swarm around and pester the driver. This involves making darting dives at my eyeballs, trying to get up my nose or in my mouth. Obviously I'm climbing out of the saddle most of the time so need both hands to stop me from falling off the bike so the flies have carte blanche to torture me as and when they wish. I use the fly net for the big hills but I try and wear it as little as possible as it makes me look like spiderman in the descents and acts as a kind of cheese grater on my nose. I continued south down the coast line for a couple of days before I reached the small town of Kiama. I found what I thought to be a beauty little spot but which turned out to be some Wetlands. Lesson number 459 of cycling round the world is never attempt to sleep near any Wetlands. The grass is always too long to get any tent pegs in and mosquitoes just love Wetland so you'll be mozzie fodder as soon as the sun goes down. Finding places to camp has been tougher of late, mainly because I made the conscious decision to always put my tent up. This decision was very much influenced by the last few times I'd looked up at the sky and thought "no way, I mean no way is it going to rain tonight. Tonight I sleep under the stars" only to wake up at 4 in the morning in a tropical storm. I was considering getting a tattoo at some point and I'd been trying to think of something relevant to my journey but "PUT YOUR F***ING TENT UP" across the back of my hands seems the most fitting. I gave up on the Wetlands and headed into town to see if I could find anything. I was standing in the middle of a field trying to look like I wasn't looking for a place to sleep (difficult with a fully loaded bike) when I met an Aussie couple out walking their dogs. With them being Aussie, we got chatting, they introduced themselves as Mart and Julie and after I'd told them I was looking for somewhere to make camp for the night, they offered me a bed back at their place. I think it was that maternal thing again which seems to have saved me on numerous occasions during my journey. Women with children of their own, look at this daft expletive deleted wandering around a field and think that could be their son. Their offer came at a very opportune moment for me. I don't think I'd had a shower in about 10 days, I was seriously struggling for clean clothes and everything I had that required power needed charging. On top of that a night in a bed and a chance to eat something other than packet noodle or tinned food is always appreciated. They were fantastically kind people. You can always tell good people by how much they consider what a guy who spends his entire life outside on a bicycle needs. Julie was always weighing up what she thought I needed and getting it spot on pretty much every time. People forget that just being indoors is novel for me and when I get the chance I just want to stay out of the elements for a few hours and relax. Julie and Mart thought of all this. I left them the next day with half of Julie's Christmas leftovers on my bike. I think there's an opportunity being missed there as all over the world, there are people who have Christmas leftovers and starving round the world cyclists just passing by. Put them together and everyone's happy. I continued on my way, forever climbing and descending but energised by the kindness I'd been shown. I was sitting in a rest area when I saw a fellow long distance cyclist going the same way so after downing my free cup of tea I headed out after him for a bit of a chat. His climbing wasn't too hot so after a couple of hills I managed to catch up with him. His name was Koen, a Dutch cyclist who'd just set off from Sydney and was heading out to Perth across the feared Nullabor. He suggested we ride together and has I hadn't ridden with anybody since Thailand I figured sure, why not. Now I don't know if I've changed but I seem to have lost the ability to cycle tour with others. The guy just started annoying me after our first break. He was wearing full lycra and those cycling shoes which make you prance everywhere. Oz is a bit of a man's type of country and if there's one thing I can recommend to anyone thinking of touring Oz is DO NOT wear full lycra and racing cycling shoes. If you decide to ignore this advice then don't blame me when the good ol' boys in the outback consider you a welcome change from the cows. The other thing is that people tour differently. I've become a point-to-point cyclist trying to spend as little cash as possible. This creates it's own routine and ways of doing things. I cook my own food, I'm always on the look out for that perfect wild camping spot where no one can see me and having a 6 ft 5" Dutchman dressed in a fluorescent yellow lycra cat suit with shoes that you can hear from 5 miles away kind of puts paid to any attempts at remaining hidden for longer than 2 seconds. I didn't have the heart to tell him I really wanted to cycle alone. You know, give him the old "listen Koen, it isn't you. it's me man, I've changed and well I think it's better we go our separate ways". We headed for a campsite which really didn't make me happy. I've grown to pretty much detest campsites. The idea of paying for $20 for a piece of grass in a country the size of Oz with a third of the population of the UK offends me. To make matters worse it was New Years Eve and all the normal rules were abandoned for the night so I had to pay for the privilege of listening to banging house music till two in the morning instead of being asleep in a beautiful bit of forest somewhere. I woke up the next morning in the foulest of moods, trying to come up with ways of getting rid of this guy. We cycled on for 10 miles when I was saved by my drunken friends phoning me to wish me Happy New Year. I told Koen not to wait for me and I'd catch him up later. I sat talking on the phone for a few while and then when I set off, found the first turn off and went the long way round. In fact Koen did me a favour because for the next few days I went on a bit of a go-slow for fear of catching him again and got the much needed rest I needed. I did sequential 40 mile days, finishing early both days and although it wasn't a day off the bike, the short days helped me recover slightly. It was on one of these short days that I met Andrew and his pregnant wife Kate in a rest area. They lived out of a campervan and were traveling the East Coast until Kate was due. Andrew was a great bloke and we hit it off immediately. Think John Peel but alive and without the ability for discovering fantastic music. Andrew appeared to be putting all his talents into living a life doing pretty much what he wanted. Maybe you won't understand this and it probably won't come across in print but he had a bit of a thing about stealing particular signs and then modifying them and putting them back again. In Oz there's a bit of a thing going on where they keep making the rest areas no camping areas and obviously there's a counter-movement that fights this. Coincidently it's the caravan parks that want the rest areas closed to camping so we have to pay their scandalous prices for a bit of grass. Andrew's thing was to travel around modifying the signs to say "YES CAMPING." Yeah I know it sounds juvenile but, I don't know, it's a harmless form of protest I like. We stayed the night at the rest area and Andrew had some New Years JD so we sat up talking rubbish, looking at the stars and trying to come up with ways to modify Australia's army of DO NOT signs. We said our byes the next morning and it was back to the hills again. We met up a few more times as they'd pass me on the road and stop and give me something bizarre like some corn on the cob they'd just picked. A couple of days later I made it across the border and headed for Genoa, the first town you come to in Victoria. Like any other country, the inhabitants of each state/county have disparaging stereotypes about the other states/counties. I'd been told in NSW that Victorians were considered simple country folk and I think I know what they problem is. Genoa is the first town over the border and I reckon people come from NSW, stop in Genoa for a drink, expletive deleted themselves and head back to NSW again. Honestly the place is Hicksville with all manner of interbred people staffing the one hotel and one shop. A barman with a face like he's looking down a gun barrel, an old lady in the shop who treats your request for a Coke like you've walked in and took a dump on her counter. I half expected to find the cycling equivalent of the banjo playing kid from Deliverance. I'd leave on my bike and he'd cycle along and I'd speed up and he'd keep pace and no matter how fast I went he'd be keeping pace without breaking a sweat. Eventually I'd be unable to keep up and he'd prove how even with all my fancy city ways sometimes, simple animal instinct conquers all. Later on his uncles would find me in the forest and it'd be squeal piggy time. Luckily none of this happened and I managed to escape unscathed and back to the hills. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. More hills saw me to the small town of Cann River for some much needed milk and chocolate. I was sitting outside the general store next to a woman when a South African guy, sitting opposite, piped up "so chocolate and milk is what gets you round Oz then?". We got chatting and I went into my usual song and dance about what I'm doing and why. Turned out the woman sitting next to me was his wife and after spending a while chatting away to the two of them she disappeared into the shop and came out with their address and directions with an offer of a place to stay about 270 kms down the road. They introduced themselves as Morgan, Rowena and the two little girls they were trying to keep control of were Emily and Olivia. The condition of my stay was that I'd have to baby-sit joked Morgan. I asked Morgan about the terrain that lay ahead and he told me it was pretty much flat from here which was great to hear. Eventually two other long distance cyclists wandered up asking me about the terrain that lay ahead and Morgan and Rowena headed to the pub for a beer. I sat talking to the cyclists for a while, scaring them about how much climbing they had to do before they arrived at Sydney. It's quite interesting how a hierarchy of cyclists exists and with more miles I move up the ladder. I remember being in awe of the people I'd meet who'd done big miles and almost apologising for my measly few thousand miles or so. Now it's me that people talk to in an apologetic manner because they're staying in campsites or only doing a 1000 kms. I certainly don't feel any better than these guys and cycling 1000 kms is still an immense achievement that most of the population would never dream of doing but you still notice that hierarchy. I find it makes me always try and play down what I'm doing which when you're trying to raise money for a charity probably isn't the best thing. 15,000 kms? Outback? 45C heat? Easy dude oh and will you donate to my charity for this feat of easiness I'm undertaking? I headed out from Cann River, looking forward to this flat run that Morgan had mentioned. First thing out of Cann River I found a perfect little camping spot and called it a day. In the morning I started off cycling again and the first thing I did was start climbing. 8 kms later I was till climbing and starting to doubt Morgan's word about it being flat from here. Maybe it's after this hill I thought. 100 kms later and I was still climbing and descending. I reminded myself to have a word with Morgan when we met again. Eventually the road flattened out near Orbest. I put in a couple of easy days again as I didn't want to arrive at Morgan and Rowena's place on a Saturday night as I assumed they'd be out or busy. I'd left myself about 40 miles from where they lived, the town of Sale, so I'd arrive at their place early afternoon. This turned out to be a bit of a mistake as I cycled my way into a front that was producing 40-50 knot side winds. It's probably the strongest wind I've ever cycled in. Much stronger than the winds I'd encountered in the Outback. The only saving grace was that the wind was blowing from my right so I was getting blown off the road rather than into the traffic. I was blown off the road maybe 10 times and to the car drivers I must have either looked drunk or like it was my first day out of stablilisers. I turned into Sale which then gave me a headwind for the last 2 miles to the house. I reckon it took me 30 minutes to cycle that 2 miles and when I arrived I was pretty goosed and covered in a thick layer of Victoria's finest soil. The drought down here is severe and when the wind kicks up the dry soil gets everywhere. Upon arrival I was handed a towel and bundled towards the shower. Luckily I'm not a sensitive guy as this seems to happen to me an awful lot. It turned out they weren't joking about the babysitting and after a few hours chatting they headed out for a short while, leaving me with some phone numbers and a baby asleep in the bedroom. Now you may think this was pretty trusting but it turns out Morgan and Rowena had done their homework and checked out my website with all my musings. I guess the advantage/disadvantage about having your soul bared on the internet is that people have a distinct advantage in as much as they can get a handle on your personality before you've even met them. Sometimes I'll be sitting chatting to people and I get the impression they know the answers to the questions they're asking me. It's slightly unnerving because you're not sure if someone is being incredibly insightful or if it's just that they've read your writing. I asked Morgan about the hills and he laughed and said it was to keep my hopes up. Rowena reckons it's because, being a pilot, everything looks flat to him. I reckon it was a bit of cruel South African humour. I spent two days with Morgan and Rowena and they really are two of the warmest, most open people I've ever met and great parents as well. It was interesting for me just spending time around a young family and watching the complexity of dealing with two young children. Makes you realise that sometimes, those of us who think we're out being adventurous and daring in the world are taking the easy path. Morgan and Rowena couldn't do enough for me. Nothing was a problem. I'd wake up in the morning and Morgan had been getting maps for me to get to Melbourne via the back roads or putting my photos onto CD. Rowena made sure I had the meals she knew I couldn't get on the road and this was after a day working as a doctor in the hospital. We'd have great conversations about the world till late in the evening even though she had work the next day. I told them about my planned motorcycle journey through South America and a CD of Che Chevara's Motorcycle Diaries appeared one night. I left their house after they'd organised me a place to stay in Melbourne and in Christchurch. I'm not sure my writing can do justice to how grateful I am. I'm also not sure if my writing can do justice to how kindness like that affects you when you're on the road. One of my reasons for starting this journey was to test my faith in humanity. I was a theoretical believer in humanity before I left England and this journey has been about putting that to the test. Don't get me wrong I've had bad things happen and I'm not naive enough to believe bad things aren't going to happen. That isn't the point though. The problem is that when you sit at home in a world of comfort you think you negate the effects of the world's negativity but you don't as it's drip fed into you through numerous channels. All you do is cut yourself off from the positives, the day-to-day human kindness that exists. Kindness that humbles you and gives you the confidence to be kind and open. I headed for Melbourne with a monster tailwind pushing me for the first day and made 70 miles with half a days riding. I found a fantastic camping spot just south of Drouin. It was on one of the back roads Morgan had written out for me. The next morning I made contact with Andy, a friend of Rowena and Morgan who lives in Melbourne City Centre and I arrived here last night. It's the perfect place just to gather everything I need before my flight to NZ on the 13th and also to rest and relax. I've made contact with the people I'll be staying with in Christchurch. Turns out there's a mountain bike I can use so I'm going to check out some of the famous NZ single track. Should be amusing just to see what riding a fully loaded 50kg bike for half a year has done to my balance. I remember taking the panniers off somewhere in Germany and heading for the shops and being unable to ride the bike because I was so used to accounting for the weight distribution. Well now I'm finished Australia. Jesus it's been an epic journey. 5000 miles through some of the most unforgiving parts of the world as well as some of the most beautiful. I've met the most wonderful and interesting people you could wish to meet. Amazing to think that when I was in Malaysia it was Australia I feared more than any other part of the journey. Amazing to think that for the first three days on the stretch from Darwin to Katherine I didn't think I could do it yet I adapted and even learned to love it. Interestingly it feels like yesterday. I get the feeling time is starting to accelerate as the miles mount up. I'm sad to be leaving and a few times yesterday I'd climb over a hill and feel moved that this was the end of my journey through Australia. I've had people question whether I've seen enough in Australia. I've missed out a lot of the sights that the tourists usually aim for but that isn't what I came for. It's people that interest me and in that respect I couldn't have asked for more. I think I took the correct descision with regards to my route. 2000 miles in the Outback was perfect and then the variance of the east coast for the remaining 3000 miles. It means I got to see most facets of Oz from the outback of Central Australia, the tropics north of Rockhamption, down through the sub-tropics and then the forests and hills of the south-east coast line as well as most of the major cities. It's the Oz people who have been the stars though. Kind and open in a way that's a lesson to Europeans. Obviously I'm also excited about New Zealand. I new challenge, new people and new experiences. If it's as enjoyable as Oz then I'm in for a treat. I've also done some research into the North American leg of my journey and I've decided on cycling up the American Pacific coast, cross into Canada and then run parallel to the Canadian border till I reach my goal of 16,000 miles and then take it from there. 16,000 miles would put me half way across Canada which gives me the choice to keep going or get a plane home. Guess it depends if I have a tailwind or not. Anyways best go as I have city things to do. Catch you all in New Zealand. Lots of love as always, Craig. XXX

Yo guys, Umm yeah, Brisbane. In years from now they'll make a movie staring the son of Kurt Russell where he has to get into Brisbane on a bicycle and out again in 24 hours before being killed by someone in a V8 ute with "Black Beauty" written on the back. I haven't decided yet if Brisbane is the worst city I've ever cycled through. It's in competition with Athens but I don't know, the Greeks are chaotic by nature. Athens is an expression of their culture so I can kind of forgive them. Plus in Athens I didn't get the impression the car drivers were trying to kill me. More they were trying to kill everyone and I was in the cross fire. Brisbane felt personal. It felt personal on a number of levels. There's a cycling magazine in England called Cycling Plus and they have a feature where people send in the most stupid cycle lane design they encounter on their travels. It seems the people who designed Brisbane's cycle lanes read this, maybe missed the point of English humour and thought it was how cycle lanes should be. After being "politely" instructed by numerous car drivers that maybe I'd be better off on the cycle lanes/pavements I thought I'd give it a go. So it was cycle lanes that just end with you on the wrong side of the barrier, cycle lanes that end up on roads where cyclists aren't even allowed so you have to track back miles, cycle lanes constantly interrupted by traffic lights where you have to dismount from the bike and walk across the road. Then there's the drivers. Obviously taking their lead from the council they've also developed a pathological hatred of cyclists. Kids lean out of cars and try and scare you into falling under the wheels of following trucks. People beep violently if you've had the temerity to get in their way. There's also a clever little cyclist killing trick of making the far left lane for left turning traffic only except when it isn't but which is kept a secret. So you stay in the left lane only to find out it's a left turning lane and so every car behind now wants you hung, drawn and quartered or you get in the second lane to find out the left lane is actually a straight on lane and so find yourself in the middle of the road with a bunch of V8 utes screaming up your inside. Hours of fun. I say hours literally because Brisbane a big city. Everyone wants a couple of acres so it sprawls for miles. Hopefully you're getting the impression I wasn't keen on Brisbane. I'd rather tackle Bangkok blindfolded than cycle through Brisbane again. One more thing happened to me in Brisbane that really sealed my dislike for the place. The newspaper had asked me for a Christmas photo of me in a Santa hat. I cycled past a fancy dress shop, popped in and explained I was cycling round the world to raise money for cancer and would they mind letting me use one of their Santa hats for 3 seconds just to get a photo. The guy behind the counter said yeah and charged me 17 dollars for the privilege. Thank you Brisbane. Eventually I escaped Brisbane and headed south for the 1000km journey down to Sydney. Brisbane left me feeling pretty down but the beauty of this journey is that there's always something positive around the corner to lift you. Leaving Brisbane involved a great little climb over Mount Tamborie. The locals had all warned me about tackling this climb. Trucks avoid it I was told, 90 degree climbs and plenty of hairpins as a bonus. I was considering chickening out and going the long way round but I thought I'd try out one of the lessons I'd learnt that hills are relative. If people live on a flat then every hill becomes a 90 degree climb. Turns out this maxim holds true and the hill was maybe a 7 km 1 in 10. Just perfect and when I got to the top my mood was lifted by fantastic panoramic views of the entire Gold Coast. I headed out towards Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast. Surfers Paradise looks to be a complete misnomer. The place should be renamed to Paris Hilton's Paradise as it's just blingtastic and oozes nouveau riche. Massive houses and gold Mercs are two a penny and as with many of these places, not really suited to a dirty touring cyclist. I kept heading south trying to find the point where the madness of development and bling stopped so I could find a place to camp for the night. Eventually I found my way across the Queensland border and into New South Wales. An instant and welcome change was that signs started to appear warning car drivers to be careful about cyclists. As soon as you cross the border the hard shoulder of the Pacific Highway becomes a 10 foot wide cycle lane which is a complete contrast to the "NO CYCLISTS" signs you're faced with north of the border. This also has an effect on the way car drivers treat you. Now you belong on the highway and the drivers respond accordingly. I started meandering along the coast line, kicking in to the small towns if I felt like a break from the highway or saw a famous name I recognised. I cycled through Tweed Heads and Byron Bay my idea of what Oz beach life would be like. Byron Bay was important from a personal perspective because it's the most easterly point on mainland Australia and meant that from now on I'd be heading in a westerly direction and away from the cursed wind that'd been torturing me every day for 3 weeks. Instantly my mood lifted. Riding the bike became a pleasure again instead of a constant grind into a vicious headwind. It's amazing how giddy a tailwind makes you. Next thing I'm riding along thinking that maybe, just maybe I'll do more than the 16,000 miles I'd set out to do at the start of this. This got me thinking about taking a different route through North America. My original idea was to head straight across the southern states from San Diego to Florida but I'm now considering heading up the West Coast of America into Canada and then heading East and running parallel to the border until I reach my goal of 16,000 miles and then decide if it's time to come home yet or stick a loop in. As always we'll see. I'd been doing some calculations on my mileage and it was looking like I'd be halfway round the world on Christmas Day. I didn't need to do anything special for this to happen, just keep putting in my usual daily miles. I knew Christmas day was going to be tough for me and thought it an amazing coincidence that I'd pass the halfway mark on the day I'd most need something positive to focus on. I met a guy in a rest area just south of Coff's Harbour. He was sitting in his car doing massive bongs and invited me over to join him. I declined his offer of the bong explaining that if there's anything that'll stop me doing any miles, it's doing bongs in a rest area. He was a cool guy though and offered me a place to stay when I got down to Sydney. He also recommended a place to stop for Christmas Day. A place called South West Rocks which he explained had a great little campsite in the national park for a few dollars a night. On Christmas Eve I headed for South West Rocks not really having any idea how far it was but kind of hoping it wouldn't take me over the 8000 mile halfway mark. As luck would have it I reached the campsite on 7998 miles. In the morning I woke up and headed out of the campsite and noticed a sign saying it was 2 kms to the South West Rocks lighthouse. It felt like fate that my half way mark would be exactly at a lighthouse which would have served so many travelers throughout the years. I headed up the hill and exactly at the top and I mean exactly to perfection, I crossed the half way mark in front of the lighthouse. I took some pictures, hassled some kangaroos and sat contemplating how I felt. I know it's just a number but being half way is significant. I remember when I was a third of the way and it was somewhere in the outback. It was 43C and I remember thinking that even with all the miles I'd traveled, all the difficulties I'd had in the outback, I still had to do it again, twice over. Half way felt different. What lay ahead was the same as what lay behind and I'd conquered what lay behind. Also it felt like I was now heading home. As expected I spent Christmas Day on the bike. It wasn't too bad though as I had a lot of calls from people wishing me well and the customary drunken call from all my mates drinking the Black Horse dry while singing Christmas songs. Santa brought me all that a long distance cyclist could wish for on Christmas Day. I even had a monster tailwind. Other good news was that we'd made the front page of the local newspaper which was a great little piece with plenty of mentions about Macmillan and quotes from friends. The link below is for the article on the Brighouse Echo website. http://www.brighousetoday.co.uk/ViewArt ... ID=1940807 From South West Rocks I had another 300 miles or so to Sydney and with the tailwind it was easy cycling all the way although I started to encounter my first serious hills for a long, long time. As I approached Sydney I decided to stop off at an internet cafe and do some research about the best way to enter the city on a bicycle. I found a website by some Aussies who'd done the run from Brisbane to Sydney which had some good details about the best way to get in there. I cycled to the ferry near Woy Woy and then across Broken Bay to Palm Beach, then a short ride to Manly before catching the final ferry which brings you into the terminal between the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. I don't know why but coming into Sydney on the ferry was emotional for me. I guess Sydney is special from an English perspective because it's one of the most famous cities that's on the other side of the world from England. It's also a fantastic looking city and I was arriving at sunset with the sun dropping down behind the skyline and the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge starting to light up. I guess the ferry also gave me more time to reflect what had gone before and what was needed to get me to this point. I took all the clichéd tourist pictures, sat around and watched the city go by. After a few hours I decided to head out of the city and made the wise choice to train it a few kms out of the centre to Sutherland and make camp for the night near the National Park. I left Sydney feeling much more positive about the city than I had Brisbane and I think it's a lesson learnt that I don't always have to try and tackle big cities on the bike. My original intention was to spend New Year in Sydney but as with everything I cycled too fast and arrived too early. I hit Sydney on the 28th and spending 4 nights in a big city at that time of year would be both expensive and impractical. The other issue was that my flight for New Zealand is booked for the 13th of January and it's 1000 kms to Melbourne and allowing for hangovers, I'd have realistically left Sydney on the 3rd which would have meant 1000 kms in 10 days. Granted I've done that a fair few times but there'd be no allowances for any breakdowns. The bikes done a lot of miles now and while it's been fantastic I can sense a few things aren't 100% so I figured getting as close to Melbourne before taking by foot off the gas would be the best option. The other thing is that I knew nothing about the terrain which lay ahead and if the hills I'd encountered north of Sydney were to continue then 1000 kms in 10 days would be a tough call. So I left Sydney and headed for Melbourne and the final part of my journey through Australia. Catch you all later, Lot of love, Craig. XXX

Hey Shelias and Bruces, Well I'm in my first city since Singapore which in all honesty feels like a lifetime ago. I'd forgotten how unwelcoming and difficult city riding is for a guy on a 50kg bike. I'd been in Brisbane maybe 30 min before someone told me to "f**k off and ride on the pavement". It's strange but you can sense when you approach a city. You go from being the all conquering hero of the outback into an obstacle costing people their precious 30 seconds. Suddenly signs start appearing telling you when and where you can't ride but they offer no alternatives. Just "NO CYCLISTS" plastered everywhere. People stop talking to you and questioning where you've been. Ah well, quick internet break and I'm out of here. What's happened since I left Mackay? Surprisingly little. As the population density increases so the opportunities to meet people seem to decrease. One of the great mysteries of modern life. More people, less contact. The day I left Mackay the weather took a turn for the worse and so after 50 miles of riding I decided to find cover and rest for the night. I found the only dry spot for miles under a bridge. People ask me how I can sleep under a road bridge with the cars and trucks passing overhead but I guess the sounds of trucks and cars are pretty much a constant in my life now. 3 days riding got me to the town of Rockhampton, back over the Tropic of Capricorn and into the sub-tropics. It was a tough ride as I had my usual South Easter blowing 30 knots right in my face. I did some calculations the other day and since I left Cape Tribulation 21 days ago I've had a headwind everyday except for a 4 hour break I got a few days ago. It's my fault as I'd checked the prevailing wind directions before I cycled Oz but then changed my route and didn't recheck. I should have headed down to Adelaide from Alice Springs and then headed North up the East Coast. A positive was when I met a Swiss professional cyclist coming the other way and he said he doubted he'd have the motivation to face that wind everyday. I felt pretty honoured to be complimented on my motivation by a guy who cycles for a living. From Rockhampton I headed to Bundaberg. I decided to take a different route and leave the highway as I knew the route would have more hills and when I'm getting hammered by a headwind I find the hills tend to negate the effect to some degree. I pulled off for the night into a small town called Rosedale looking for some water and a place to camp for the night. While there I got talking to the a couple of locals. A bloke on a motorbike explained he had 100 acres of land just a few kms out of town and I was welcome to set up camp there. He introduced himself as Bill and I followed him out of town and onto his land. He'd bought 100 acres of bush land with no buildings and lived there on his own in an assortment of shacks and caravans. After cooking me a much welcomed meal we sat talking over a bottle of wine and his story was one that's become a familiar one to me now and always seems to start with a woman. If I had a fiver for every eccentric who's story starts with a woman I'd be able to cycle round the world indefinitely. Why is it that women just get some crisps, dips, a bottle of wine and hire out Bridgette Jones yet men feel the need to withdraw from society or get pulled round Oz by a pair of camels? Actually I think I know that answer to that question. I headed south out of Bundaberg and got my 4 hours of tailwind. I'd forgotten what tailwind felt and how much of an impact it has on my mood. Sometimes when I've been up against a headwind for a few hours I'll turn back on myself and cycle the other way just to feel a tailwind for a few metres. Sad I know. I guess every silver lining has a cloud though and in this particular case it was literal. As I climbed up a hill towards the town of Tiaro I noticed what looked to be some pretty ominous dark clouds ahead. I figured that with the wind behind me I'd be able to stay in front of the storm but man was I wrong. As you enter Tiaro from the north there's a sizeable mountain beyond the town and in the space of a few seconds the mountain just disappeared and I was looking at storm clouds which normally appear in Hollywood blockbuster movies. I took shelter in a servo and a few minutes later the storm hit town and after taking out the power managed to provide one of natures more awesome displays. I haven't seen anything like it since I lived in South Africa and it was pretty exciting with winds that took trees down and hailstones the size of golf balls. Of course all the Aussies told me that was NOTHING and normally they have hailstones the size of New York but I was impressed. I left town after the storm had cleared only to get 20 kms before getting hammered by another storm. I've never cycled in anything like it and the weather was severe enough that I had people stopping and offering help. Luckily I knew there was a rest area a few kms up the road so I battled through and arrived at the rest stop to a rousing cheer from the people who'd gathered in their cars for protection from the storm. I arrived in Brisbane last night and camped in a place called Nudgee Beach just to the NE of the city. My intention now is to leave the city and begin the 1000kms or so south to Sydney. Based on my average mileage I should hit Sydney around the 29th/30th December. I have no idea where this puts me for Christmas day but I'm not sure how relevant it is. I have a feeling this will be the time of my journey when being alone has the most impact on me. Christmas is a time for family and friends and so I reckon my chances of meeting people are seriously reduced and with this in mind it's probably better that I spend the time on the bike. It's not a big deal as I knew this would be the case and it's a fair trade for all the wonderful experiences I've had so far. On a positive note I expect to be exactly half way round the world on Christmas day. I'm quite curious how it'll feel as from that moment I'm technically on my way home. For New Year I may spend a few days in Sydney and check out their world famous celebrations. It depends on the time really. My visa runs out January 13th and I plan to fly from Melbourne which is another 1000kms from Sydney. This equates to about 10 days riding time so I'd need to leave Sydney pretty much on New Years Day or maybe the day after. I'm now flying to Christchurch instead of Auckland as these were the only flights I could get. Not sure what this does to my route plans but it won't be the first time my route plans have changed nor the last I suspect. I'm expecting to spend 3 months in NZ but as with everything so far, we'll have to see. I'm going to see if I can take a little of the pressure off myself in NZ. I set myself a pretty difficult target for Oz of 5000 miles and based on my current progress, my round the world would take just over 10 months. Since I started I've wanted to do it in less than a year. Round the world on a bike in under a year has a nice ring to it don't you think? This means I could take longer on the second half of my journey and still make it under a year. I don't know. Sometimes I think I just love to keep moving and so I'll keep this pace going. If I get home and I want to start moving again then I know the answer. Anyways guys and gals best go and see if I can get the hell out of this city. If I don't get to fire off another email before Christmas have yourselves a merry one and have a few drinks for me. Lot of love as always, Craig. XXX

btw if anyone has their own websites/blogs/journals etc and wouldn't mind creating a link to my http://www.cyclingroundtheworld.co.uk it would be much appreciated. A link has been added to the donation webiste so it'll increase awareness of Macmillan. Likewise if anyone knows of any companies that would like to donate and in return have some kind of corporate logo displayed on the site then this would be possible as well. Kind regards. Craig.

Paul Waddington has kindly made me a website with all my emails and I've added some pictures so feel free to have a gander and forward to anyone who's interested. Address iis amazingly simple. http://www.cyclingroundtheworld.co.uk Kind Regards, Craig.

Hey peeps, btw I haven't mentioned donations and the like since I've started but if any of you know of anyone who's enjoying the emails or even anyone who's interested in donating but just hasn't got round to it, I'd appreciate it if you'd give them a gentle nudge. If anyone is doubting the difficulty of what I'm doing, send them a map of Central Australia and a weather report of the temperatures out there. Plus it's Christmas time. Cheers guys. www.justgiving.com/CraigFoster The bus journey across from TC was pretty eventful as far as these things go. I sat in a seat second from the back and there was a bloke on one side and a girl on the other. They started talking and after sharing a couple of rum and cokes decided that having sex on the back seat would be a good idea. I haven't got a problem with people indulging their exhibitionist tendencies but buses just aren't designed for this type of thing due to space constraints and with the two of them being 20st a piece it just made matters worse. I'm not fattist are anything but I really needed to get some sleep so moved a few seats forward. What was even stranger was that they completely ignored each other after that. I got to Townsville pretty much wiped out. Coaches are never easy to sleep on so I headed for the nearest backpacker hostel and crashed for the night. In the morning I set off for the 500km ride north to Cape Tribulation. First off I had a bit of a tailwind which was a joy after the constant headwind I'd battled with in the Outback. You may detect a slight obsession developing with the wind. I'm at the point now where I'll be sitting with people having an in depth conversation and if I detect the wind has changed direction I jump up and stand in the middle of the road, holding a wet finger up to check if it's changed. It really makes such a difference to your life. Tailwind comes and I'm dancing on the pedals making beautiful plans for the future. Even with the tailwind I didn't make much progress the first day. I think I was still exhausted after my 3 day, 320 mile race to TC. 20 miles out of Townsville I was stopped by the police for not wearing my cycling helmet. Seems bizarre that in the state of Queensland, ex-home of Steve Irwin and general shenanigans involving shoving your thumb up the bottom's of wild man-eating beasts, they won't let you pedal a bicycle at 12 miles an hour without a piece of plastic on your head. I was going to get into an in depth discussion with the police about the relative merits of helmet usage but he just wound the window down and told me to put it on or he'd fine me so I did as I was told. I found a free campsite in a small town called Rollingstone about 40 miles north of Townsville and made camp for the night. I'm back in the tropics now and north of Townsville is wet tropics so putting a tarpaulin down and kipping for the night isn't as much of an option as the chances of rain are much higher than in the Outback. The problem is that my tent just isn't designed for the tropics so it's usually just a night spent in a sauna. The two nights after that I found some rest areas to sleep in with undercover protection meaning I didn't need the tent. Only problem then is the mosquitoes. I usually just use my mosquito net as a kind of blanket but one night they were so numerous and determined that I had use my ear plugs because of the insistent racket they were making as they tried to get at me through the net. To be fair the rest area was just north of Mosquito Creek and I've noticed Aussies are pretty literal with their naming of creeks. I was cycling the other day and looked around me and thought man, that's some long wavy green grass and then a few seconds later came across Long Wavy Green Grass Creek. I had to laugh when I came across Crocodile Creek and then they'd still bothered to put up a crocodile warning sign. I was sitting at a servo just south of Cairns when a load of Aussie lads pulled up in a van and asked me where I'd cycled from. I explained the whole trip to them and they were impressed enough to invite me to a barbie and offered me a place to stay for the night. If I don't make my target of 5000 miles in Oz, it's the hospitality of the Aussies that's to blame. They really are just fantastically hospitable people. I cycled over to their place and after a much appreciated meal they asked me when was the last time I'd been out drinking. I had to wrack my brains a bit and when I said I hadn't been out on the lash since Thailand, a night out was organised. It was Saturday night so we headed for Cairns. While we were queuing for a bar I realised I didn't have any money so headed for the cash machine. Unfortunately the cash machine wouldn't give me any cash from my account so I had to embarrassingly tell the lads that there was a problem and I'd get a taxi back to the house. They wouldn't hear of it and just kept on saying how paying for a night out was the least they could do after what I was doing for charity. Just another example of great Aussie hospitality. By midnight two of the lads were hammered and had to go home and that left three of us, me Jay and Snipes. We headed for a club. We got to the club and I couldn't figure out if it was a club or the venue for the North Queensland gurning championship. Maybe the lads were using it as a pick up line but every women we came across they'd tell them what about how I was cycling round the world for charity. I'd be standing there and they'd drag the women's finalist of the gurning competition over and tell her she just had to talk to me because of what I was doing. As a rule of thumb people on drugs just don't really care about this type of thing. The sequence was that they'd drag a girl over, she'd looked bored and I'd look embarrassed. They dragged one bored girl over and she drawled at me that my mates had said I was doing something or another round the world for something or another. I'd gotten tired of explaining the story to bored people so for a laugh I told her I was doing a 16,000 mile line of coke around the round and it was the first spark of interest I'd seen the whole night. I felt bad though and told her I was just joking and you could just see the interest disappear as she wandered off to find that elusive man who really was doing a 16,000 mile line of coke round the world. We left the club at about 6 in the morning. The lads were of the mold were going home while there was still a phone box open somewhere was sacrilege. I'd been up for 25 hours at this point and cycled 90 miles in between. Man I felt my age. We were sitting in the taxi on the way home when Jay turned to Snipes and said "dude, didn't you feel old in there?". They were both 25. It appears that for all the things I've experienced on my travels my lack of interest in clubbing has survived completely intact. In the morning everyone just sat around recovering from the night before. We got a rubbish DVD and some takeaway and it made me a little homesick for those Sunday evenings we used to spend at 369, hung over watching some garbage Pete or Alex had chosen. On the Monday I said my byes to the lads and headed off north to Cairns. These blokes had just met me in a petrol station and then pretty much paid for my entire weekend without even questioning it. It just amazes me the constant warmth and generosity you get from Aussie people and how easy it comes to them. When I headed for the East Coast I was worried that I wouldn't experience the same kindness I'd come across in the Outback but my fears turned out to be completely unfounded. I made it to a place just north of Port Douglas called Newell Beach and it looked like it was going to rain so I decided to pay for a campsite. I found a nice little place for $5. I was making camp when I met Peter and his family. In true Aussie fashion they wandered over, introduced themselves and invited me for dinner. Peter worked as a nurse in the Aboriginal communities around Cape York which is basically as far north as you can get in Queensland. The tarmac road ends at Cape Tribulation and then you get another 1000kms of dirt road that takes you north until you can't go any further. It was good to talk to Peter because I'd struggled to get any positive views on Aboriginals when I was in the Outback. In a way Peter was just repeating what Melissa had told me in Tennant Creek but, as a nurse working in the community, he was able to give me a better understanding of how the loss of culture and land had effecting people due to the sheer alien nature of Western culture. After a breakfast supplied by Peter I set off for the last part of my journey north to Cape Tribulation. I was in true tropical rainforest country now. The contrast to my time in the Outback was just immense. I had massive rain forest covered hills to my left and the ocean just to my right. It really is a beautiful part of the world. The road hugs the ocean for most of the journey and you're cycling along just looking out over the Great Barrier Reef. I'd been told that the road was fantastic but as usual it was from a car driver and they'd neglected to mention that it involved some serious hill climbing. I don't mind hills and prefer them to headwinds but climbing through rain forest just reduces you to a puddle of sweat in a matter of seconds. The climb was worth it through as there's some fantastic lookouts at the top of the hills with panoramic views of the landscape and the reef. I rolled down the other side of the hill enjoying the cooling breeze and stopped at the bottom when I noticed a bar. I was just sitting there when an Aussie wandered over, asked me what I was up to and if I fancied going down the beach for a beer. I left the bike at the bar, climbed into his ute and we headed to his place to get some beers and to say hi to his wife. Being an Aussie she was completely nonplused by her husband turning up with a random round the world cyclist. We headed down to Cow Bay, an idyllic stretch of beach completely unspoilt with no one in sight. After our beers we headed back to the bar and I headed off again. That's the other thing is that things like this are just the norm. It's no big deal, no swapping of email addresses, just two blokes having a chat, a few beers and then going their separate ways. I arrived at Cape Tribulation and made for the campsite there. The campsite owners were sitting around having a few beers and asked me where I'd ridden from and why and after I told them they let me stay in the campsite for free and gave me some beers. To be honest heading for Cape Tribulation was similar to heading for Ayer's Rock. Yeah I did the jungle walks but really I went there for the people I'd meet along the way. Traveling by bike really is about the journey. The end point just isn't as important as it is for people traveling by bus or car. It was time to head south again. I'd arranged to meet some old friends from South Africa who I haven't seen in about 7 years and who now live in Mackay. This would be the first time since the start of my journey I'd be getting to see someone who I'd already met before and I was looking forward to it. It's a 900km ride to Mackay from Cape Tribulation and as 500kms of it would be retracing my steps I did my usual and did some big miles. Strange enough I was in a servo just south of Cairns when I got talking to a girl who'd met Klaus the camel guy just a few days earlier in the Outback. She'd mentioned she was going to the East Coast and he'd mentioned she may come across me. Pretty amazing coincidence considering I'd seen him about 5000kms and 25 days ago. That whole big country, small world thing cropping up again. Just south of Ayr my back tire finally gave up the ghost. It did it in spectacular style and just disintegrated. It'd gotten me close to half way through my journey so it's done well all things considered. I quick tire change and I was back on the road again. I'll pick up a new tire in Brisbane as I still have some pretty big gaps ahead of me and while there shouldn't be any problems, it's best to be prepared. I arrived in Mackay two days ago after putting in some big miles. I still want to get down to Adelaide before my visa runs out on Jan 13th so any rest days need to be earned. I'll probably set off again tomorrow morning after spending a great few days with Linda and her family. I've known Linda since I was a kid so we've just sat around reminiscing. People usually think I need to be entertained when I'm on my days off but we know each other well enough that she understands I just want to sit and do nothing. We even went bowling yesterday although she did kick my arse all over the place but such is life. Anyways I'm off to bed. I'll try and post some new pictures tomorrow but if you follow the link I gave last time you'll see some new pictures under the Australian section. I've split it up by state for ease of use. Lots of love as always, Craig.

Hey you guys, Yeah well I'm going to write this update in two parts. Mainly because I consider my time in the Outback to be pretty distinctive and also because it's been a while since my last update. After my last email I met up with Damien, an Aussie bloke I'd met in Ayer's Rock. He had some family in Alice Springs and organised us a place to stay for a few days. We sat around the pool for three days doing nothing. Sometimes we'd manage to go the few hundred metres to the servo (Aussies take pretty much every word and add either "o" or "ie" to the end. Think pokie, saltie, freshie, schoolie, smoko, bowled waaaarniiiie etc). After spending 3 days lazing around the pool I decided it was time to get moving again. I think the moment came when I was sitting having a beer with Damien and he said "man, it's rubbish when you can't see forever". I agreed and started getting ready to go back where I could see forever. I set off back up north to TC (Tennant Creek) on the Friday night. My intention was get the 320 miles to TC on the Tuesday, bus it across to Mount Isa and continue on to the East Coast. It never quite worked out that way though. The first day I cycled 126 miles up to a roadhouse called Ti Tree. I don't normally do days like this and when I do, it normally means I want to be somewhere else. This was the first sign I'd been in the Outback for long enough. At the start of the next day I noticed a twinge in my left knee. Nothing serious but I knew it was there but I knew I wanted to get to TC as fast as I could so I pressed on regardless. Unfortunately for me this was the day the wind decided to pick up full in my face. It was more of a head hurricane than a headwind and it beat me mercilessly. It's difficult to express to a non-cyclist the sheer damage a good headwind wreaks on you both physically and mentally. The fact you're in the Outback just makes the situation much worse. In most places you have the comparative luxury of choice where you can either sit out the wind or you can make short leaps from place to place resting in between. In the Outback you don't have that option. You have to make those miles to your next water stop and your next water stop can be well over 100 kilometres away. Try and sit it out and you could just end up running out of water. On top of the physical realities you have the psychological impact. You start the day and you have 60 miles to do. So you start cycling and you're trundling along at 10 miles an hour so you figure you have 6 hours riding ahead. An hour later you have 50 miles to do but the wind has taken so much out of you that you're down to 8 miles an hour. You do the math and you now have more than 6 hours riding ahead of you. You've ridden for an hour, you're exhausted and you've actually lost time on your initial calculations. Over the next hour the wind picks up a bit more and you're down to 6 miles an hour and you've got 42 miles to go, so you're now looking at 7 hours riding. You've been riding for two hours and yet somehow your riding time just keeps going up. It's only when you've reached pretty much your lowest possible speed and your lowest physical point that you can make an estimate of your riding time. This seriously messes with your head and Mother Nature and I have had some choice words about her chosen method of torture on many a day. Eventually I staggered into Barrow Creek. I was exhausted but irony of irony is that there was a couple there who'd passed me earlier and marveled at how quickly I'd made it. I didn't have enough energy to prevent an incredulous look leaping on to my face before I collapsed on the bar mumbling for a carton of cold milk. The people at Barrow Creek were pretty kind though and kept on giving me free things. I asked for a bowl of Weetabix and when the bloke asked how many, I said as many as you can fit into the bowl. He did a top job and managed to cram 10 Weetabix in to a single bowl. Never ask a RTW cyclist how much food or drink he wants. In my last email I mentioned Daisuke, the crazy Japanese cyclist I'd met who'd had his bike stolen in Alice Springs. I was sitting in the roadhouse at Barrow Creek when I picked up the Alice Springs Times (I may have made the name up) and noticed my insane red-haired friend on page 5 holding up a brand new bike. An Aussie bloke had heard about his plight and felt bad he'd be leaving Oz with a bad impression so had bought him a new bike, fully kitted out with all touring extras. That's the type of kindness you run into in the Outback and it's probably one of the few places in the world where something like this would happen. I had to laugh as the article contains the following quote from Daisuke, "I'm happy because I would have had to walk around Australia". That's madness. As a side note, a few other people had obviously read the story and kept stopping in their cars and asking me if I was the Japanese dude in the paper and even though it was pretty obvious I wasn't, they'd still manage a look of disappointment. It's pretty crushing when you're cycling through the Outback in 43C heat and people still find you a disappointment. From Barrow Creek I got it into my head to try and get to TC a day early. This would involve doing the full 320 miles in 3 days, an average of over 100 miles a day. As I said earlier, when this starts to happen, I know it's time for a change. I'd spent over a month in the Outback and while I'd gone from hating it to loving it, I'd kind of gotten the point. 2000 miles with what amounts to about 25 places containing any humanity with the rest made up of a lot of desert and heat has a finite level of interest. I also noticed I'd stopped looking for that special contact with people. I was content to just sit in the roadhouse with a book until it was time to hit the road again. As another side note a highly recommended book is "Dispatches" by Michael Herr. Brilliant book, a kind of Fear and Loathing for Vietnam. I nailed it all the way back to TC. Unfortunately, Melissa, the girl who'd given me a place to stay last time I was in TC, was away in SE Asia so there was even less reason to hang around. I made it to the bus station with 30 minutes to spare. Damien turned up to see me off after he'd driven up from Alice Springs having spent a few days waiting for spares for his motorbike. We'd joked that I'd beat him back to TC but the expletive deleted overtook me with 12 miles to go. I had the intention of getting the bus over to Mount Isa and then cycling to Townsville but I'd had enough of the Outback and it was time for some ocean and some greenery. 320 miles in three days had finished me and I was exhausted, dirty and ready to get out of there. I made the decision to bus it all the way over to Townsville. I'd also done some calculations and I had a number of choices. If I cycled Mount Isa to Townsville I wouldn't have the time to cycle Townsville to Cape Tribulation as it's a 1000 kms round trip. Cape Tribulation had been recommended to me as destination and the ride had been mentioned as being scenic with some great ocean views so Townsville it was. I was sad to see the end of my Outback adventure. I'd met some fantastic people and had experiences that could only happen in the Outback and only if I was on a bicycle. People always ask me the same question, "don't you get lonely out there?". Strange enough it was probably the place I've been the least lonely during my travels. People are just too curious about what type of person is stupid enough to cycle through the Outback during the summer. I'd also seen beautiful sunsets and fallen asleep to the stillness of the desert under skies that we just don't get in Europe. I'd also learnt a lot about myself and how far I was prepared to go to finish this challenge. The days after I left Darwin I was honestly concerned both for my health and my chances of cycling round Australia. Every person I'd met had told me I was crazy to be cycling central Australia at this time of year. Cycling central Australia really is a different world. You can't make any mistakes. You have to be organised and know what resources are available as well as how much you'll consume. This only comes about through experience and you just have to hope you get the experience fast enough. So I got on the bus and headed East. Unsure I was making the right choice in sacrificing time in the Outback for time on the East Coast. Only time will tell I guess. Later dudes and lots of love as always, Craig. XXX

Hey people, Well this could be a tough email to write. For the first time since I started my travels I'm going to have to miss out writing about some of the kindness I've been shown since my last email due to the sheer quantity. Thailand is in danger of losing it's number one spot on my "Top Ten Favourite Places to Cycle" list that I like to compile in my head during the endless hours I spend in the saddle. Strange to think that after the first few days it was rivaling Serbia for my least favourite place to cycle. That's not to say that Australia isn't a tough place to cycle. I'm not saying that it isn't a country that unless you show it the correct amount of respect it'll kill you with unnerving speed. It's just that if you get it right, if you treat it with respect, the rewards are enormous. I left Tennant's Creek about two weeks ago. It's 500 kms to Alice Springs and I decided to aim for a 4 day ride with a day off as a reward if I managed it. Constant days in excess of 100 kms are difficult in Oz because you're really at the mercy of the environment. Get a head wind and a day where the temperatures are pushing 40C in the shade and you don't get a lot of cycling time. With the terrain being flat, and the vegetation sparse, there isn't a great deal to stop the wind so the winds roll across the open plains and can reduce you to a gibbering wreck. On my second day out of Tennant's Creek I put in an 8 hour day and still didn't make 100 kms. The headwind was so strong I was using gears I'd normally reserve for 1 in 5 gradients up the side of mountains. Psychologically I'd say headwinds are the most difficult to cope with of all the adverse cycling conditions. Mountains you get the sense of achievement and the views. Headwinds you get nothing. The first roadhouse stopped at after Tennant's Creek was the famous Wycliffe Well which is labeled as the UFO capital of Australia. It also has the widest selection of beers in NT and I'm guessing there's a connection. Call me cynical but there's a roadhouse 10 miles up the road and no one has seen any UFOs there so I get the impression it's a theme to get the punters in. The story goes that maybe the aliens are interested in the Devil's Marbles which are to the north but I had a look at the Devil's Marbles and yeah, they're interesting, but I wasn't sure my 2km diversion on a bike was worth it so I can't see anyone coming light years to check them out. The next roadhouse was the infamous Barrow Creek. This is the nearest roadhouse to where Peter Falconio was murdered/abducted. I spent a few hours there waiting out the midday sun and people would cruise past taking pictures from the safety of their cars. I tried looking menacing to help the tourists out but while I've mastered dirty Mexican fruit picker, I haven't got menacing down yet. Thousands of people all over the world will be having to explain to their family and friends why there's a dirty Mexican fruit picker in their holiday snaps of the infamous Barrow Creek. After 4 days of hard riding I approached Alice Springs from the north. I passed two landmarks just before I arrived got there. The first is a rest area located on the Tropic of Capricorn. I have a cheesy tourist photo of me with my left leg in the tropics and the right in the non-tropics. You can tell which leg is in the tropics as it's sweating slightly more. I also crossed the highest point on the Stuart Highway between Darwin and Adelaide. Now I've crossed some highest points in my journey so far and the common denominator is that I've had to do a fair bit of hard climbing to get there. This one was unique in as much as I had no idea I'd even been climbing to get to it. I would have just as easily believed it was the lowest point. You could tell that even Aussies are a bit embarrassed about the whole thing as it doesn't even mention the elevation. I rewarded myself with a day off in Alice Springs as out of the 4 days riding, 3 had been in excess of 140 kms so I figured I needed a rest. Something has changed in me though. I don't feel as comfortable in the populated areas as I do out on the road or in the roadhouses. I stayed in a backpacker hostel and people just don't look like they're having fun to me. There's a vibrancy of life in the roadhouses that I just don't feel in the towns. Seems that when you stick people in the middle of nowhere they instinctively draw together and that's when you get your great times. In the populated areas everyone seems to be trying to avoid each other. Like they're trying to rediscover their personal space. I left Alice Springs in the evening. On the way out I met a fellow long distance cyclist without a bike as his had been stolen a few nights before. I was pretty annoyed because the place where his bike had been taken from was the room where the hostel had told me to put my bike for safety. Luckily the guy was Japanese anyway and as mad as a hatter so didn't seem vaguely bothered he'd lost all his things. He only looked annoyed when I reminded him he should be annoyed. The rest of the time he looked thrilled with life and seemed to think I was some kind of international cycling star and insisted on taking pictures and calling me crazy constantly. You start to worry when Japanese long distance cyclists call you crazy. My target after Alice Springs was Ayer's Rock. In essence Ayer's Rock was the reason I'd gone straight on at Threeways and started a 2000 km detour by bicycle. I nailed it after Alice. Maybe the rock was calling me but I just felt like I wanted to get there. It's 450 km from Alice to the Rock and I was aiming to do it in 3 days. The first day I stopped off in Stuart's Well which is a non-descript roadhouse except it has a camel farm. I put my bike against a fence and wandered into the roadhouse for a carton of milk. When I came back the camels had wandered over and for some reason thought my bike was edible and were chewing away at my panniers. My bike was now covered in camel slobber. This was the start of what was to develop into a bit of a camel theme for the rest of my trip. On my second night out of Alice I pulled up at a rest stop to make myself a cup of tea. There were two grey nomads settling in for the night. They introduced themselves as Billy and Stella and they couldn't have been more aussie short of wearing cork hats and singing "Waltzing Matilda". They were also two of the kindest people I've met. Billy asked me the last time I'd had a cup of tea and you could tell he loved playing the host and so I lied a bit and neglected to mention I'd just had one 60 kms up the road. By the time I'd left them I'd had three cups of tea, a slap up meal and they'd sent me packing with some magnesium and salt tablets to help with dehydration. After I left them I was cycling down the road when I startled a kangaroo. The kangaroo couldn't go left because there was a fence and couldn't go right because it was scared of me so I had this kangaroo racing next to me for a good kilometre or so before if realised I'd just sail by it it stood still. I turned off the Stuart Highway for the last 250kms to Ayer's Rock. I stopped off at Mount Ebeneezer roadhouse which inevitably has me singing "Ebeneezer Goode" every time I think about it. Another thing that's started happening in Oz is people offering me places to stay once I hit their part of the country. I've got a place to stay in a fair few places down the East Coast which has all come about just from sitting in the roadhouses. I was cycling from Mount Ebeneezer to Curtin Springs when I noticed what looked like a horse drawn cart up ahead of me. The cart was going pretty slow so I pedaled towards it. As I got closer I noticed there was a guy running alongside the cart holding onto whatever was pulling the cart. At this point I realised the cart was being pulled by two camels. At the same time I had this realisation, the camels noticed I was coming up behind them and not being used to bicycles they bolted for the horizon leaving their owner stranded in the middle of the road. I asked their owner what I should do and he suggested I chase the camels, get in front of them and then they'd stop running. So I head off up the road in pursuit of the runaway camels but the things had a pretty decent turn of speed and I couldn't get near them. After a while I realised this was going to end with me chasing these camels all the way to Ayer's Rock so I stopped and went back for the owner who was a good few miles behind by now and see if we could figure out what to do. Eventually a car comes by so we flag the car down, the owner gets in the car and chases after the camels, gets in front of them and then gets back in the cart. He then motions for me to go past while he's got hold of the reins and of I speed up the road. I must have laughed for about 5 miles after I'd left them. I have some mint pictures of the moment I overtake the camels and you can just see them wanting to bolt again. I arrived at Ayer's Rock Resort in the evening. On the way there you keep catching little glimpses of Ayer's Rock but it's never a proper view due to the surrounding hills. It's like nature is keeping the rock hidden until you can truly appreciate it. While I was waiting for a call I got speaking to Patrick and Carol, a South African couple who invited me for a drink. After I set up camp I headed over to the camp bar for a beer. It turned out that Carol was from my old home town of Durban so we had plenty to talk about. They were on a bit of a world tour themselves but you could tell Patrick was excited by the prospect of doing some traveled by bicycle so the evening was spent with Patrick asking me questions and Carol getting worried that at some point in her life she was going to spend a very long time on a bicycle in some far away country. I always try and be as truthful as I can about the difficulties of long distance cycling and I hope I conveyed that. I don't believe it is for everyone. If you're the type of person who views traveling as something where everything is perfect because you've paid for it to be perfect then you'll hate long distance cycle touring. If you accept that part of traveling is having having some pretty awful days but they make you appreciate the great days more, then I'd recommend long distance cycle touring. I went to see both the Olgas and Ayer's Rock. They are pretty amazing and while I preferred the Olgas it does all feel a bit contrived. I guess that's to be expected though. Many people just get off the plane, go look at the rock, get back on the plane and that's their experience of Central Australia. I'm not questioning other people's method of travel and I appreciate that a lot of it is due to time constraints but it doesn't look satisfying to me. I left the resort about 4 days ago. I felt like taking it a bit easier on the way back. The first day out of Ayer's Rock, I was cycled along all happy and merry when I turned around and noticed the sky was pitch black behind me and worse, I could see it was blowing up a sandstorm. I was between roadhouses so had no real way of finding decent shelter so pulled off at the nearest rest area. The rest areas usually have trees and a couple of concrete tables. The storm hit me and there was no way I could stay in the open as the sand was being driven at me at ferocious speeds and it felt like I was being sandblasted. I crawled under the table and tried to build a bit of shelter just so I could get some sleep. It worked to some degree but no matter what I did I'd get the odd gust of wind from a different direction that'd blow sand into my face. It was like trying to get some sleep with someone kicking sand in your face every 15 minutes. The most annoying thing was I'd just paid 3 dollars for my first shower in days and when I emerged from the table in the morning I was plastered with sand. The next day in Curtin Springs I was sitting down talking to a load of elderly tourists from the UK. I was sitting next to the sweetest old lady who kept on asking me loads of questions mainly about my health and making sure I was eating properly and looking after myself. A few minutes later their tour giude came over to shepherd them all into the coach and as she was getting up she slipped a 10 dollar note into my hand. The way she did it was the way grandmothers have given their grandchildren money for all of eternity. All discrete and when I asked her what it was for she said it was to get myself something nice. Can of pop and a packet of crisps I'm guessing. Things like that only happen when you're on a bike in the outback. On the way back I also met the camel guy again. He does about 20 kms a day so hadn't got very far since I'd last chased his camels down the road. He was holed up in a rest area, the camels were outback munching on the trees. He introduced himself a Klaus and he'd been traveling round Australia for 12 years with only the mode of transport changing. The first 8 years he'd traveled by bicycle with his dog. He'd built a little trailer for the dog as it could only walk for about 25 kms a day. Problem is the dog got clever and as time went on he wanted to spend more time on the trailer and less time walking. Klaus would have to chase the dog off the trailer but the dog got clever again and noticed that if it just wandered into the middle of the road, then Klaus would chase him back onto the trailer again to keep him away from the cars. After 8 years he got sick of traveling by bike and built himself an amphibious bike. The idea being he'd travel by river where he could and then if the river dried up he could cycle to the next river with water. He managed this for 3 years before he decided he was a rubbish sailor and came up with the idea of the camels. Ignoring that they run off when approached by bicycles, it's a pretty good way to travel round Oz. The only downside he says is that the tourists are always stopping and hassling him for photos and to pet the camels. The Oz govt should make the man a National Heritage site as I reckon a lot more people go home talking about the guy being pulled across Oz by camels than they do Ayer's Rock. While I was in the resort I met a lad called Damien who's doing a big tour by motorbike. One of those times you meet someone and think yeah this is a bloke I could be mates with irrespective of the circumstances. His plans are to head north over to Malaysia and then across Asia to Europe. We kept on bumping into each other as I was heading back to Alice and he was taking detours on his bike so we spent a fair bit of time chatting in the roadhouses. I pointed out that he's heard my cycling stories for the tourists so many times that he can tell them while I take a bit of time off. Damien is one of those blokes who's always hatching plans and I made the mistake of saying I'd love to do South America by motorbike and now I've agreed to a 3 month journey sometime after I get back. I seems to have turned into a man who agrees to everything. My future list of things to do grows everyday and now includes climb Mt Kilimanjaro, cycle the Croatian coast and South America by motorbike. This doesn't include the plans I'm keeping to myself. I'm back in Alice Springs now and will hopefully catch up with Damien later as I haven't had a night on the beer since south Thailand and I reckon I could do with one. Was it worth the 2000 km detour to see Ayer's Rock? Not really. Was it worth it for the people I've met and the experiences I've had? Definitely. I'd have done double that distance just for the great two weeks I've had. Anyways best go and find a campsite for the night. Lots of Love As Always, Craig.

Today I have that rare commodity being a day of rest, free internet time, an endless supply of cups of tea and a comfy chair so yes, it's email time. I sent my last update from Mataranka after solving the great Aussie question of "how the hell do you cycle through this damned place". The riding at night thing has proven to be of immense benefit in so many ways. In reality I haven't actually had to do as much cycling at night as I expected. On average the roadhouses are around 60miles/100kms apart and my day usually consists of leaving the roadhouse at around 5ish, cycling till 9 which gets me around 40miles/64kms before I make camp for the night, crack open a Stagg Chili with baked beans and have a cup of tea. In the morning it's then up at 5:30, leaving camp at 6 and riding the last 20miles/32kms to the next roadhouse for breakfast. The roadhouses usually have grassy shaded areas where I spend the next 8 hours or so reading, dozing and drinking copious amounts of liquids. Cycling this way has been beneficial in numerous ways. The first, most obvious and most important is that I've reduced my chances of dying from heat exhaustion/dehydration. Most of the time I'm cycling into my next water stop with around 3 litres to spare and that's with being pretty liberal with the water and using it for luxuries like cleaning pots and pans and making cups of coffee at night. If the gaps were greater I could rein that in and have more water to spare. The second benefit is that I'm now in the roadhouses/rest areas during sociable hours which means I'm always meeting the various people that flow through this great part of Australia. Apart from reducing the sense of loneliness, this has really increased my interaction with the real outback with it's myriad of characters. After Mataranka and a swim in the hot springs I headed for the next town of Larrimah. I pretty uninspiring place. Northern Territory (NT) isn't renowned for it's customer service standards. I guess we need the goods and there's nothing for miles in either direction so we're going to buy the goods whether it's served with a smile or not. Add to that the notorious laid back NT attitude and you're getting your food pretty much thrown at you at some point in the distant future. Someone told me that a famous NT saying is "not today and not tomorrow". The strange thing is that amongst all this hardness you still find plenty of kindness. It was in Larrimah where I met Fritz the mad German cyclist. I was sitting minding my own business reading War and Peace when this excited looking and sun burnt man ran up to me and shouted "YOU WITH BICYCLE YA???". He sat himself down without waiting for an answer and started talking at 500 miles an hour in a strange German/English hybrid. We did the usual where you been, where you going and it turns out he's been cycling round the world for the last three years and has done pretty much the entire South and North America coast line including Alaska. I'd read about this guy when I was researching my trip and it just feels weird that I'm now a fledgling member of this group of people doing stupid things like cycling the Oz outback. People who I consider to be my heroes I'm meeting in roadhouses in the middle of Oz. The strange thing is that even though I'm not on a level with the likes of Fritz, other people now look at me in the same way. I don't feel crazy, brave or even that what I'm doing is special and it just seems like this is what I do. Sometimes it doesn't even feel like it's me that's doing this. It's like I'm watching someone else cycle round the world. Fritz was definitely crazy though. At one point we were chatting and he was telling me how much he loved South America and then said he'd been mugged there 5 times, laughed out aloud and did the Greek slapping me in a hearty way thing. His English wasn't good enough for me to figure out if he loved South America BECAUSE he'd been mugged 5 times or in spite of being mugged 5 times. A measure of his craziness is that even now I have no idea which it is. I assumed he'd be hiding from the heat of the day in the roadhouse for a few hours but after an hour he stood and declared he was off again. I pointed out it was 38C outside and maybe he'd be better off waiting for a while but winking at me he led me to his bike to show me his secret weapon. His bike had a BOB trailer attached which is pretty common amongst long distance cyclists. He'd modified it so that half of the trailer contained a closed box which was insulated like a cooler box. He bought a packet of ice, loaded it into box and explained that he stops every 10 miles and dips his shirt into the cooler box and so manages to keep his body temperature down. The rest of the trailer was taken up with bottles of normal water and I reckon he was hauling around 20 litres with him. Crazy or not the man's a hero. After Larrimah I headed on down to Daly Waters which is a famous outback pub. I arrived at Daly Waters around 8 in the morning for my usual breakfast and 8 hours of War and Peace. The girl working behind the bar was a great looking girl from my birthplace of Birkenhead. We got chatting and she asked me what I'm doing and I explained about the round the world charity thing and then sat down with my endless supply of milk and a book. At the end of her shift she came over and said the staff were donating their tips for the day to Macmillan which considering where we were and how hard the life is in these places, is pretty fantastic. Before my next planned stop of Elliot I had that rare luxury of a spare roadhouse. Two roadhouses in a 100km stretch is pretty much unheard of round these parts so I stopped and had more milk. The lady behind the counter asked me which way I was headed and when I said Elliot she said "Oooooooohhhhhhhh it's dangerous down there". I asked her what she meant because one of the things I've learnt about NT is that when someone tells me somewhere is rough or dangerous it means it has a big Aboriginal population. She wouldn't say though and just told me to avoid the place at night. The Aboriginal situation in NT is an interesting one but I'm not going to pass judgment because in the absence of enough knowledge I don't consider it fair. I can see that something isn't quite right and I can that people are trying to help. The results don't look great to me though. You walk into any town at any time of day and there's usually large groups of Aboriginals hanging around and you can see there's just no hope there. Domestic violence, low life expectancy and alcoholism look to are common problems. I've been trying to find some books which will give me some historic insight so I can form more in depth opinions but, as a subject matter, it's still quite raw and fresh here so the books tend to be incredibly polarised. I'll keep searching but bookshops are a bit thin on the ground for now. After Elliot which was nowhere near as threatening as Halifax on a Saturday night I made my way to Renner Springs. What's amazing about most of these places is that they aren't even on the national grid and all power is supplied by generators out back. The lady who owns the place was saying they use 375 liters of fuel a day just to keep the place powered which is one of the reasons everything in the outback is so expensive. Renner turned out to be a busy little spot by outback standards. Some guy was there who I'd been talking to back in Mataranka and it's surprising how often you bump into the same people even though they're traveling by car or truck and I'm on a bike. A lot of people head up to Darwin and then back down again so I get to see them again on the return trip and everyone is always interested in how I'm getting on. The bike is a bit like having a cute dog or baby as it gives everyone an in on talking to me. If I'm feeling like a bit of quiet time I have to sit away from the bike or pretty much everyone comes over to have a chat and I can spend an entire day repeating the same stories. It's strange because sometimes when I'm not with the bike I feel a bit like a a major part of me is missing, almost that I have nothing of interest to offer people. I guess it's because what I'm doing HAS become my life. I haven't seen an international newspaper in such a long time that my current affairs knowledge is zero. I haven't watched television since I left England. I know nothing about sport or current popular culture. I don't have all the normal conversation hooks that other people use to communicate. I've become a kind of one trick pony. Another interesting thing is that because people I meet instantly assume that what I'm doing is more interesting than what they're doing, it's difficult to have a two way conversation. I ask people what they're doing, where they doing and they usually mumble something and then say it isn't as exciting as what I'm doing, like they feel guilty for not cycling through the outback. It can become frustrating because I love hearing about what other people have been up to and what they've seen but I have to really make the effort to get them talking about themselves. On the plus side everyone wants to take pictures of me with the bike so I'll be in people's photo collections all over the world. At Renner I also met a French guy hitch hiking round the world. For those who have seen Monty Python's Life of Brian he was just like the mad guy living in the hole with the Juniper Tree. In a previous email I'd said that it seemed like a great way to travel but I've changed my mind for a couple of reasons. The first is that hitch hikers don't have that ability just to get up and leave if they don't like somewhere. They're always dependent on the help of others and I'm not sure I could do that constantly. The second is that no one respects the hitchhiker. People just seem to view then as someone trying to get a free ride in life. The view is more prevalent in places where resource is scarce but I think I'd rather know I was getting round on my own steam. The guy got a lift eventually but not before he'd had to hassle a lot of people. People don't mind offering help out here but they don't like being hassled or to feel you're trying to get something for free. Everyone just has to work too hard for what they've got for that to wash. I stopped off at a rest area 30 miles after Renner as I had the mother of all head winds and had no way of making it to the next roadhouse before the midday sun kicked in. While I was at the rest area the kindness of the various travelers came to the fore and I had a constant supply of people stopping, making sure I was alright and giving me food and drink. It's mostly the oldies traveling Oz with their gigantic caravans that seem to stop. Think they're called the grey nomads as they spend months, even years just traveling round Oz after retirement. It's like having loads of grandparents and they're always worrying and fussing I'm fully watered, fed and know exactly how hot it is. Some old fella stopped off just to tell me it was 42C. As long as they don't start giving me dire Christmas jumpers then I'm happy. I've also had a few conversations with the guys driving the road trains. I like to check if they can see me at night and the reassurance that they can see the "dickhead on the bike" from miles away is good to hear. The road trains all talk to each other via radio which is how I've come to be known as the "dickhead on the bike". They'll go past me and then radio the other trucks just to let them know where I am. One of the blokes told me the truckers know where I am better than any GPRS system. I slept up at the old Tennant's Creek Telegraph station two nights ago. It's an historic building from the 1800's but there's no one around at night so a good place to camp. I did the tourist tour on my own at 2 in the morning and noticed that some guy had cycled a similar route to mine in 1899. The roads there would have been single track dirt roads with literally nothing for thousands of miles. When you read things like that it gives you a real sense of perspective. I rode into Tennant's Creek yesterday. It's my first town with a supermarket since Mataranka so a good place to stock up on tinned food. After a bit of shopping I headed for a cafe for some breakfast. While I was there I got talking to a girl called Melissa who's living here for a few months, house sitting for some friends. We chatted for a couple of hours as she'd been traveling all over the world so we had plenty to compare and discuss. When she got up to leave she said I could come back to the house for a shower and after I established there was also some internet access I flew over to the house. After showing me round the town she said I could stay for the night. I was thinking about it last night and this is the first time I've been inside a house since I left England. She's treated me like a king since I got here. Constant supplies of food and cups of tea and all those luxuries that you just don't get when you're traveling. I think because she's traveled she understand the things that you miss. This morning I woke up to find she'd gone out and bought me some cereal because I'd said it was one of those things I missed. It takes an immense amount of trust to invite a complete into your house and christ do I appreciate it. She's cooking me a lunch at the moment and then I'll chill for a few hours before heading off again. Those of you with a knowledge of Oz will know that if I'm in Tennant's Creek I've missed my turn off to head to the East Coast. The turn off to Queensland is about 20 miles back the other way at the Threeways roadhouse. Reason for this is I've decided on a bit of a detour. I guess this in itself is a measure of how much more I started enjoying Oz after my initial problems. My plan is to head down to Alice Springs and then out to Ayer's Rock before making my way back to Tennant's Creek. In terms of a detour it's around 1200miles/2000kms so will be about an extra 20 days riding. I've started enjoying the outback and it seems only right that I go check out the Big Rock. After that I'm going to reward myself with a 400mile/600km bus trip across to Mount Isa in Queensland and then it'll be about another 400miles to the coast line. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to head up to Cairns once I reach the coast. I'll check the timing and then see how much visa time I've got left to get me down to the more populated South East where the main airports are and my eventual jump off to NZ. Anyways best go as lunch is ready and I'm going to have a couple of goes on the Playstation. Lots of Love as Always, Craig. XXX

Yo dudes, Thought I'd do another update mainly because I've decided that I am heading down the east coast and also because I did my first night ride (one for Dan) last night and I thought I'd get the results down on email. I set off from Katherine last night at about 7 after spending a day recovering which consisted of just hiding in a dark room with the aircon on full and drinking gallons of juice/milk/water. I also stocked up on more provisions and was thrilled to find BOWL NOODLE SOUP!!! in the supermarket. As part of my plans to ride at night I also bought some spare lights and back up batteries. I met a few Aussie blokes yesterday who kindly donated a hi-vis jacket to the cause as Aussies are just convinced that the guys driving the road trains will just run over anything that gets in their way. As I said, I set off at 7ish last night. I'd noticed when I was cycling the other night that the wind seemed to die down at around sunset and sure enough I had less of a headwind when I set off. The pace I was setting was around twice that I'd managed during the day on the way from Darwin which felt great. Whereas previously any hill had me leaking like a teabag and emptying my water bottles, I was now dancing lightly on the pedals and having to force myself to drink as although the thirst wasn't the same, the night temperatures here are still around 25C so I still need to keep hydrated. The road trains turn out to be less of an issue at night than during the day. For one you can see them coming miles away. The Oz outback is a dark, dark place and anything producing any light is easy to spot. I've installed a mirror on my bike so if the sky starts getting lighter behind me, I know I've either been cycling too long and the sun is coming up, or there's a road train coming. I usually just cross over onto the other side of the road when they come up behind me as this means they don't have to move and the wind doesn't buffet me around and blow the various things I have dangling from my bike all over the road. They appreciate the gesture as well and usually give me a wave as they trundle past. Another added bonus which I didn't mention in my previous email is the lack of flies. The flies in Oz are a different breed to their European counterparts. Faster, smarter and generally more annoying. In Europe anything above 10 miles an hour and the flies can't keep up. In Oz I've been sailing down a hill at 20 miles an hour and there's still a swarm following me. They also seem much more friendly than European flies and try and get in your nose, mouth and eyes and ears which added to the immense heat and the headwind can get annoying quickly. Couple of times I've just stopped and unloaded a stream of expletives but the flies just take this as a chance to get me while my mouth is open. Anyways, cycling at night removes this problem. Hey presto, no flies. Brilliant. Granted I now just keep running into moths attracted to the only light for miles but moths I can handle. They just bounce off my face instead which I'm cool with. By 11:30 last night I'd managed close to 60 miles which is a pace I haven't managed in a long time. This is with a headwind so hopefully if it ever turns into a tailwind I can up the pace. Having said that I haven't had a tailwind since Macedonia so it's best I just learn to live with it. More importantly I'd only used around 2 litres of water. I'm carrying close to 10 litres at the moment so this gives me a pretty good range which far exceeds any of the distances between water I've seen on the map. On top of this, I feel a lot better today. The ride from Darwin to Katherine I just didn't enjoy at all. When I stopped, I was in no fit state to speak to people or to enjoy the country around me. Today I've made it to Mataranka by 7 in the morning after camping just outside town last night. After writing this email I'm heading out to the Hot Springs for a swim, some breakfast, a cup of tea and to try and make some inroads into War and Peace, the perfect book for cycling through the Oz outback. Then I'll do the same tonight and head off down to the next roadhouse which is also around 60 miles away. I feel much more positive today. Now I have a way of cycling Oz, enjoying the cycling and still having time during the day to enjoy the country. I still have some pretty tough stretches ahead and it's another 1300 miles before I hit the east coast at Townsville, which will be around 3 weeks away. I also have some friends down the east coast who I'm really looking forward to seeing and may even get to see Jason and Shel so all-in-all I feel a lot better. I was pretty worried a few days ago and it's a load of my shoulders that this all feels possible again. Anyways, some Craig time awaits before I get cycling again. Lots of Love Again, Craig. XXX

Hey all, Just thought I'd write a quick one. Quick because internet access out here costs a bomb and an update because I've had a bit of a change of plan. I left Singapore on the 16th, last Monday night, and arrived in Darwin the early hours of Tuesday morning. When I was in Malaysia I met up with a couple of Aussie lads who'd told me that the humidity in Darwin was much worse than Malaysia but it isn't true. Don't get me wrong, it is humid, it just isn't as humid as SE Asia. With this in mind I felt pretty confident about the cycling aspect of things. I stayed in a backpacker hostel in Darwin for 2 days because I needed some serious preparation time. Oz is just a different level of cycling to everywhere else. The distances between civilisation or even water can be pretty enormous and this changes the complexion of everything. I started off carrying around 10 litres of water and 4 days of food but I'm starting to question if that's enough. I have sterilisation tablets for up to 25 litres so could resort to the water in storage tanks if need be. I left Oz on the Thursday morning around 9ish which was my first mistake. I planned to bang in a 100 miles by the evening but by midday, with the heat, cycling was bordering on impossible, if not outright dangerous. I started off all breezy and light, averaging 13 miles an hour but by 12 I was struggling to maintain 8 miles an hour as I toiled and grovelled up the slightest of hills. I kept going and dragged myself into Adelaide River by 5ish and I wasn't feeling too great. I'd used pretty much all my water which didn't bode well for the bigger distances. I think I was suffering from a degree of heat exhaustion but I spent about half an hour lying on the grass amongst the sprinklers which helped no end. The same water sprinklers woke me up soaked at 3am so the love affair was short lived. The following day I set off earlier at 8 but it didn't make a great deal of difference. By 10 o'clock it was just too hot to cycle. I struggled on till 11 and then found a closed cafe and spent 4 hours sitting, reading and waiting the heat out. I set out again at 3ish but even at that time it's impossible to average more than 10 miles an hour and water is still being consumed at a rate of knots. On top of that I've noticed a beauty little headwind always seems to kick up at around 3ish so then it's heat and headwind to contend with. I managed about 70 miles for the whole day and managed to get to Pine Creek but in reality I wasn't in a much better state than the day before. Yesterday I tried to get up even earlier and was on the road by 6:30. I managed 40 miles by 10 o'clock and then found a drainage pipe under the road and sat the heat out till 5ish. I'd laid my bike along the road which meant that cars kept on stopping to see if I was alright. This is pretty reassuring as they all asked me if I needed water so it means that if push comes to shove, I'll always be in a position to get myself out of any trouble. I set off again at 5 but although it was cooler that damned headwind just wasn't letting up. I couldn't believe how tough it was and I'm not ashamed to admit I'm having serious doubts whether I have what it takes to cycle in Oz. If you have any doubts, any insecurities, any questions, anything, then cycling through this place just takes you to the cleaners. It really is the toughest challenge I've ever faced and the scary thing is that it's going to get tougher. I was making my way to Katherine when in the distance I saw two cyclists coming towards me. Seriously I thought the heat had finally got to me. Turned out to be two Aussie guys at the end up their tour from Adelaide, which is around 4000 miles. We sat talking for a while but it was me doing most of the talking as I was just pumping them for information. A lot of it I already knew but it was good to hear it confirmed. No one is cycling NT during the daytime. They'd found a German guy suffering from heat exhaustion because he'd been cycling during the day. These guys had been getting up at 3 in the morning, getting in 50 miles before it started to get hot and then sat out the heat until just before dark and then put in another 30 miles. I asked about how they were coping with the road trains but they just pulled over or even crossed onto the other side of the road so they had that sorted as well. They also asked me about my route and I said I was heading down to Perth and then across to Sydney. They reckoned that doing the Nullabor in December would be bordering on suicide as there's nowhere for shade and it's the height of summer. They'd come up the East Coast and recommended I took that route as there's more civilisation and just more to see and do. It was great to get some first hand knowledge and tips from guys that had actually cycling through Oz. I need to serioiusly modify when I cycle and have a think about my route. Even getting up at 5 isn't good enough and I need to look at doing a lot more cycling in the dark. I have enough lights to make me visible for miles so it definitely seems the way to go and I don't think I have much choice. By the time I left them to head for Katherine it was about 7 and the sun was going down and with this the wind also calmed down. I was back to doing 13-14 miles an hour and feeling pretty good. Maybe it was just the pleasure of meeting other people and getting some good information but it definitely confirmed riding at night will get me some valuable miles. That's the tough thing about Oz. You can't just say you'll do 30 miles a day because you'll run out of water and you can't do big miles during the day because you'll also run out of water. The key is obviously to cycle at night when you aren't consuming as much water and then try to sleep during the day. I stopped off in Katherine last night as my last real point of civilisation before I decided to go East Coast or West Coast. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go down the East Coast for a number of reasons. The first is that if Aussie cyclists are telling me that a particular route at a certain time of year is suicide then I should listen. The second is that my visa is 3 months and while it would get me round whichever way I go, the East Coast gives me more options in terms of airports if my visa runs out. Also I'll just get to see more of Oz. I don't want to have to cycle 6000 miles in 3 months. I want the option to stop and chill if and when it's possible. Anyways best go as like I said, everything here is stupidly expensive. I'm going to sleep in Katerine tonight and then set off fully watered and lit up like a Christmas tree tomorrow evening. Lots of Love, Craig. XXX

Yo peeps, Greetings from Singapore!!! Yeah well that's SE Asia done dusted and put to bed. Bring on Australia I say. Hopefully that conveys a sense of bravery and daring but, in reality, Oz scares me a bit. I'm looking at a map of Oz as I write and well, ummm, there's nothing there. Just a lot of nothing with big bits of nothing in between. I keep on staring at the map, willing towns to appear with names like Cokesville, Foodstown and Waterdorpe but it's futile, the nothingness stays. Ah well. Well what's happened since my last email? I left the island of Koh Tao a little over two weeks ago. I felt a bit stupid after my last email because I ended it with a slightly melodramatic line about being on my own. In terms of waking hours I was probably on my own for about 3 hours. I caught the nightboat out of Koh Tao and landed at Surat Thani around 6 in the morning. As I was loading my bags back onto the bike I heard a voice say "Hi" and turned around to find a couple of fellow long distance cyclists doing the same thing. I knew they were long distance cyclists by that hungry look we all seem to develop after a few months. Their names were Mike and Petra, a Dutch couple who'd been on the road for 8 months taking in a pretty hardcore route of Hong Kong, China, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. We went for breakfast and afterwards I asked if they minded if I joined them for a while. I'd made the mistake of showing Mike my mileage through Europe and I think there were a bit worried I'd be pounding them into submission demanding 100 miles in a single day but the island had taken the wind out of my sails and I was finding the cycling pretty tough going. It was tough enough that I was starting to worry that maybe I was losing my motivation a little. Whereas in Europe, banging out sequential 100 milers didn't seem like a big deal, in SE Asia anything over 60 miles was proving to be difficult. We crossed over to the West Coast of Thailand, heading for the town of Krabi. Somewhere along the way, Mike and Petra seemed to get used to the idea of cycling with someone else. I think initially they weren't too keen and I can understand that. Cycling with someone else can cause problems, especially if you're talking about people of differing abilities or/and differing interests. There's no faster way to take the enjoyment out of cycling that to have someone who's pushing you over your comfort level for hours on end. I tried to take this into consideration and figure out their preferred pace and also to cycle a bit ahead to give them some time alone. We ended up cycling together for 4 days and it was great to have the company as well as someone to share the beers with. On the 4th day we rolled into the town of Trang and turned up at the usual backpacker haunt to be greeting by the owner of the restaurant and the guesthouse. It's pretty embarrassing because whenever you tell anyone in SE Asia what you're doing, they always exclaim how strong you must be and usually follow this up with feeling your arms or something. Embarrassing because, in the main, long distance cyclists don't actually look very strong. We just look underfed and a bit dirty. Anyway the owner grabs my arm and says "Ahhhhhhh you strong like chicken". First thought is what type of chicken has this guy got on the menu and I start looking round for big 6 foot muscle bound chickens but then I just realised his English is probably based pretty much on what he serves and I should be grateful he didn't say I was strong like prawn. I left Mike and Petra in Trang the following morning. As I said, it was great to have the company but I think they were compromising slightly on the distances they were doing and so was I. Their type of traveling is more the meander and take in the sights whereas mine is very much the pick the start of a continent, pick the end of a continent, and go for it. If something stops me like Koh Tao then I'll stop for a while but I like to keep moving. I think 4 days together was the correct amount as I think that's probably the amount they were willing to compromise and the same for me. Trang is about two days riding from the Thailand-Malaysia border which I rode on my own. At one point, some guy on a motorbike pulls alongside and starts chatting away to me. He asks me if I'm on my own and, when I answered yes, he pointed to the surrounding countryside and said no, that I wasn't alone, that everyone was with me. Now I have no idea if he knew how poignant that was but, for me, that moment encapsulated Thailand. He's right I never was on my own. I'm not sure I can ever convey how fantastic Thailand was. How it suited me and what I was doing perfectly. The best way I can explain Thailand is that it felt like anything was possible. I don't just mean for me but also for the people I met. Every time I thought something would be a problem, it turned out to be just another positive experience. It changes the way you think. You just stop worrying about the future because you know that when you get there, something will work out. From a cycling perspective it was more than perfect. It's like God asked a cross section of cyclists what they like and so we got roads with wide hard shoulders, drivers who respect you and give you space, a flat landscape but with beautiful rock formations that the roads meander round, restaurants every 5 minutes serving rice the perfect food, stupidly cheap accommodation and to top it off the friendliest and most helpful people you could wish to meet. Obviously some weirdo asked for lady boys as well but hey ho. I stopped wearing sunglasses when I was cycling in Thailand because I noticed that when I wore them, the people waving and smiling weren't quite so open and I wanted to experience that openness to it's full effect. One of my best moments was when I went past a school of kids who were just leaving for the day and they were all waiting outside and I reckon every kid in the school waved and said hello to me. As luck would have it, my rest day fell on the day I was leaving Thailand. Instead of taking the land crossing, I caught the ferry and entered Malaysia via the island of Pulau Langkawi . As usual, customs was interesting. Something about being on a bike instantly makes you safe in the eyes of customs officials. I remember entering Greece and I wasn't even asked to show my passport. I was entering from Macedonia , through one of the major entrance points for illegal immigration and the guy just waved me through. The same thing happened in Malaysia. Everyone else was being searched and sent through the metal detectors and I was just waved through. This could be an important tip to any potential illegal immigrants amongst you. Just get a stupidly heavy bike and you're laughing. In terms of a holiday destination, Pulau Langkawi is fantastic but it's probably a bit too perfect for a long distance cyclist. There's certain places which make you feel a bit self-conscious that you're a little bit too shabby, a bit too starved looking and this was one of them. I left the island after my rest day and headed back to the Malaysian mainland. From there I headed back over to the East Coast. I must confess I cheated a little here and caught the bus. The main reason was that I'd read that Highway 4 was an engineering masterpiece. As a cyclist, I don't like engineering masterpieces because that usually means tunnels and I hate cycling through tunnels so I had my first experience of SE Asian public transport. My over-riding impression was one of being frozen. I'm not sure what it is about the public transport here but if you aren't freezing to death, then they think there's something wrong. The bus stopped for 5 minutes so I went and got my rated to -17C down-filled sleeping bag and, I'm not joking, but I was still cold. I have no idea why or how people put up with it. After reaching the East Coast I started trying to put the miles in again. I say trying because I ran into the same problems I was having in Thailand. 60 miles was proving to be difficult and usually after 40 I started feeling physically ill. I thought it may be dehydration but I was stopping for plenty of water so I had no idea what the problem was. It was around this point I had a couple of bad days psychologically. When you start struggling like that, you start to question everything, "why the hell am I doing thi?s", "what's going to happen when I get home?", "how can I expect to cycle through the Australian outback when I can't manage 60 miles a day?", "will I have enough money to complete this?". I'd read about this when I was researching my journey but, even in Serbia, when it was really tough, my motivation was still there. Just turning the pedals had begun to feel like a chore. These feelings are obviously made worse by being on your own. You haven't got anyone to reason with you or to encourage you so, once you start going downhill, it's difficult to stop. I named it my Damascus moment as I'd read about another guy feeling the same on the road to Damascus. Plus mine happened on the road to Pekan and Pekan moment sounds like a dessert. I got out of it partly by accident and partly by design. The accident was that one evening, around 4ish, the rain bucketed down. This was the first rain I'd had since Thailand and I ended up missing my hotel because I couldn't see a thing. I stopped for a few minutes and when I got back on the bike again I felt a lot better so I thought I'd press on. I'd done 50 miles by this point and usually I'd be groveling into some town with a pounding headache but today I felt good. I kept on going and by 7 I'd done another 50 miles for my first 100 miler in SE Asia. The point was I'd been cycling during the worst part of the day, during the build up to the monsoon season and I was just asking too much of myself. Especially when you're doing it every day. The next day I got up early, did some miles in the morning, and then rested for a few hours before getting some miles in late afternoon to early evening. Suddenly doing 90-100 miles was achievable with a bit of planning and forethought. The good thing is it took a load off my mind about Oz. I may even do some of my cycling at night as I've read from a water pov, it just isn't profitable to cycle during the hottest part of the day. The design was that I took a day off in a great little town called Mersing and put my photos on the internet. The guesthouse I stayed in was how I'd imagined backpacker hostels to be and the perfect place to take a day off. I spent a day sorting the photos and this got me thinking about the great experiences I'd had. Sometimes when you just press on, getting in the miles, you forget what's gone before and going through the photos really helped. Here's a link to the photos which should hopefully work. I've put split them by country but when I get more time, I may add comments although some of them are pretty self explanatory. http://s66.photobucket.com/albums/h248/thecrankerRTW I left Malaysia yesterday. I think my impressions of Malaysia are slightly tainted because I went though a difficult time there. From a cycling perspective, it suffers in comparison to Thailand, but then so does everywhere I've ever cycled. It's a wonderful country shaped heavily by religion. The mosques are stunning and there's something incredibly atmospheric cycling though town when the call to prayer sounds. The people are still friendly but there's a hint of shyness. None of this holds for the children though who can spot a westerner on a bike from a 1000 yards and still get a "HELLLLLOOOO" in. The tourists also differ in Malaysia. In Thailand, I was usually one of the older travelers but, in Malaysia, it was the opposite with pretty much everyone being not only older but they'd also usually been traveling for a long time. I think it's because in the main, the nature of Malaysia means who have to be interested in the traveling rather than the partying. Things you could get away with in Thailand, just wouldn't wash in Malaysia so you have to make sure you appreciate the people and the culture. Now I'm in Singapore and it's great be here. Mainly because I ran out of books about 200 miles ago and I suffer without books. I found this brilliant bookstore and spent hours just stroking and cooing over the books like a demented lover. They even stocked a book I've been searching for since I left Europe. I've also developed an interest in Balkan history and found a couple of cracking books to keep me going. Think my main weight on the bike will be books and water in Australia. I found a campsite on the East coast of Singapore. It's between the city and the airport which is perfect. Camping is free, which is great, as Singapore isn't the cheapest of places although, as usual, I seem to have camped in some lovers area as young people were still whispering sweet nothings to each other at 5am and keeping me awake. The campsite also looks out onto the shipping lane into Singapore port and it's just miles and miles of boats. Looks like another city at night. Bizarrely, the campsite also has a bowling centre and so I went in last night and had a few games. Lanes suited me and it was like I'd never stopped bowling. Pro-shop owner came out and we spent a while talking about bowling. I even got invited to their anniversary tournament but I won't be here as I fly to Darwin on Monday night at 20:00 to begin the Australian stage of my journey. Once I leave Darwin, I have no real idea when I'll send my next email but I get the feeling it'll be a while. Maybe Broome but I literally have no idea and plus I suspect things like water may be of more interest to me. Anyways best go as Singapore is famous for it's food and I'm off to sample a few of the food courts. Lots of love as always, Craig. XXX

Yo guys, Greetings from Koh Tao!!! Well this should be an interesting email. An email from a guy who's cycling round the world but hardly has anything to do with cycling. More a glorified postcard. I left the town of Hua Hin about 2 weeks ago. I reckon I've cycled maybe 200 miles in that time. Thailand does that to you. You fall in love with the place and you don't want to leave. I've met people who came here for a week's holiday and have been here for seven years. Sure it has it's negatives but unlike most places, you have a real choice if you want anything to do with those negatives. There's always an option. You'll find a Thai hospitality and sense of fun that'll bring joy into your life no matter how weird your upbringing. From Hua Hin I cycled down to a town called Prachuap Khiri Khan and found a place to stay which, by my standards, was the height of luxury. Running hot water and everything. During the evening I went out to check out the town and find some food. First restaurant I came across, a young Thai girl ambled towards me, looking down at her order book. She looked up, saw me and just turned and screamed "Farang" which is what the Thais call foreigners. What must have been the Farang expert came out to inform me that they were full just as about 10 busloads of Thai tourists turned up for their pre-booked meal. I tried a few more restaurants but couldn't really find anything I was keen on so returned to the hotel. I got chatting to a guy at the next table who it turns out is hitch-hiking around the world which tbh, ignoring the safety aspect has to be one of the best ways I can imagine to travel. I mean how can you not meet people? If you don't then by definition you don't go anywhere. He'd been traveling pretty much non-stop for 9 years, always looking for the next big challenge which I'm guessing is how he arrived at the idea of hitch-hiking around the world. Makes me wonder where all this will end. Are some people just pre-destined to keep pushing the boundaries of travel? I left in the morning and headed for a quiet beach town called Wat Tan Sai. A place which possesses the type of beaches you see in travel magazines. I have a photo of me sitting on the beach and there isn't another person for miles in either direction. I slept in the local youth hostel which had a few, but not many tourists. The rest of the youth hostel was home to 250 students from Bangkok University on holiday for the weekend. I met the other tourists at the resort and had your standard travel conversations. As you'd expect of 250 university students, the whole place eventually turned into a big party. The owners kept coming over and apologising but tbh it was pretty tame stuff compared to what their equivalent Western counterparts would have been getting up to. Later on in the evening they started a ritual with candles and some cool songs. None of us tourists could figure out what was going on so I figured I'd go and ask a few of the students to satisfy my own curiosity. Turned out it was just how they create a bond between the 3rd and 1st year students although looking at the booze they were consuming, I had a sneaky suspicion there'd be plenty of bonding going on later anyway. They were really curious about what I was doing and after showing them my bike, I sat and told a few tales about my travels so far. Eventually I left them to the latter stages of their bonding process and headed for bed. In the morning I met another of the tourists I'd missed the night before. The guy was an American and couldn't have been more of a traveling cliche if he'd tried. He'd obviously watched Val Kilmer's performance in The Doors and figured that was the look and persona for him. All laid back and plenty of "duuuuuuude" thrown around the conversation. He'd been coming to Thailand since 93, "before this became all touristy, just jungle" was how he put it. Like once he arrived in 93 they should have just closed off the borders and halted all development. I kept on expecting him to tell me he'd been in "Nam dude" but his age made this impossible. Turned out he had that one covered anyway as he'd been in "Bosnia dude" where he'd seen some "expletive deleted". He even looked off into the distance all haunted when he said he'd seem some "expletive deleted". He said he's been in Cambodia and when I asked him how he'd found it, he said it was just to the right of Thailand. I assumed he was joking but he wasn't. I figured I'd get going before the Jim Morrison tracks started playing. Around this point I decided I wanted to try some diving. It seemed sacrilege to travel through Thailand without sampling some of their world famous diving spots. I decided on the island of Koh Tao which is considered one of the best dive spots in the world and accessible by ferry from the town of Chumphon, about 85 miles south of Wat Tan Sai. I arrived in Chumphon around 7 in the evening with the intention of catching the midnight ferry to the island. The night ferry was billed as being either a fantastic experience or one of the worst nights of your life depending on the weather. Sounded perfect. The ride down was fantastic. I took some quiet roads and cycled through some small villages and, after a few hours, the part of my body getting the most tired wasn't my legs but my arms and face from returning the smiles and waves of the locals. I cycled through one village and the entire town was out on their veranda and everyone waved and said hello. I felt like a visiting president. That's what I said about Thai hospitality earlier. You just can't help but be seduced by it. If you read the Lonely Planet guides you could have a degree of cynicism about people's motivation but being away from the city on a bike, removes any negatives I can see. I can usually measure a town by how long it is before I'm asked by a prostitute if I'm looking for a good time. Chumphon was about 45 seconds. I told her I'm on a bike so I'm already having a good time but thank you for the offer. Luckily I'd only be in town for a few hours. In Chumphon I came across another of my traveling cliches which, unfortunately, seems particular to the English. I was in a bar, reading a book, when two girls came over, both absolutely hammered. I was polite but made it obvious I'm just here for a bit of quiet reading. They left me and returned to the bar where they just sat, argued, swore and shouted for a few hours. The background to this is that the Thais hate confrontation. They'll avoid it at all costs which is where the famous Thai smile comes from. You could see the distaste the local Thais had for these girls, who were oblivious to everything. At one point they were f-ing and blinding there way through an argument about who'd done the most traveling and I just sat amazed that you could travel for so long but never learn to respect the local culture. What's the point in traveling if you never learn anything either about yourself or the people around you? I caught the night ferry and seemingly got lucky with the weather as I slept all the way. The boat itself was a fantastic rickety affair where we all slept on a big communal mattress on the top floor. The scariest moment was when the guys carried my bike onto the boat across, what looked like, the most unstable plank known to man but, as with everything in Thailand up until that point, there was "no probleeeeem". I arrived in the morning on the island of Koh Tao to the sight of a guy holding a sign up with my name on it. I've waited all my life for this to happen so it was fitting it happened in Thailand. The diving course started in the evening where I met my co-students. I was to take the course with two people, Eyan, a 32 year old Israeli guy working in IT and Irene, an attractive 22 year old student from Regensburg in Germany a city which I'd cycled through a month before. Luckily we were all traveling on our own so, after the diving was over for the day, we'd stick together, go for meals or check out the local bars. The bars here are fantastic. Right on the beach with cheap beer and everyone just chilling out on the comfy mattresses. You could spend hours just lying there, listening to the surf, the various languages floating around you while staring up at the sky. Eyan was an interesting guy but it became a bit of a standing joke that he started every story with "When I was in country>, I met this girl.....". Probably a little unfairly he was labeled as the ladies man in the group but I suspect it's a label he quite enjoyed. After a few days the group had grown to around 8 people mainly due to Irene's boredom at having to hear Eyan and I discussing politics in high speed English for hours on end. Her English was excellent but it's understandable that you need to seek out people speaking your native language from time to time. The people we met were wonderfully considerate anyway and, even though it would have been a million times easier to speak in German, they'd converse in English most of the time just so Little Englander me could take part. It's kind of shamed me into wanting to learn German when I get home. Irene tried to teach me some German but I kept on asking for random translations and my memory is a bit rubbish anyway. Strangely, the only word I remember is "verfuhren". The various people in the group started leaving a few days ago. It's one of the downsides about traveling that you meet people you care about and it's entirely plausible that you may never see them again. I stayed an extra day mainly because I needed some time to reflect and write this email. Time on my own to think has been in short supply of late although I've enjoyed it. It's time to leave the island now. I've done what I wanted to do and met the people I wanted to meet. My ferry leaves at 21:00 back to the mainland to Surat Thani and then it's time to get cycling again. I think I've used up all my rest time so it's time to go earn some more. Time to be on my own again. Lots of love as always Craig. XXX

Yo guys, Grettings from Hua Hin!!! Well this should be a quick one. No introspection in Thailand. You don't get the time. Everyone is just too damned friendly and everything is just too damned interesting. You couldn't be an introvert in this place if your life depended on it. Even riding your bike is a social event. People on motorbikes pull up beside you and just chat along to you. Trucks go past with scores of people on the back and they all wave and smile at you. Thais are the smiliest people on the planet. I left Athens on the 11th. I took a bit of a chance with the bike and didn't bother packing it. I had to sign a waiver saying that if they accidentally threw my bike out the plane, I couldn't complain about it and I had no real choice but to sign it. I wish airports would try and be a bit more accommodating towards cyclists but there you go. While I was on the plane I was selected for one of those "what do you think of our service" questionnaires and I sat boring the poor stewardess to death with how airlines should really do more for cyclists. Of course it was pointless as that wasn't her department so I have to hope the "looking after you baggage" guy asks me the same questions next time but I get the feeling he doesn't do customer satisfaction surveys. Luckily bike survived in tact and we had an emotional rendezvous at Bangkok airport. The journey was about 24 hours in total. I had a 9 hour stopover in Dubai which was an opportunity to buy more books and then read them straight away. I read a PJ O'Rourke book which was too right wing and now I'm reading a Chomsky book which is too left wing. I need a book in the middle somewhere to suit my vague middle of the ground politics. Vague middle ground people never seem to write books though. I also broke new ground and bought myself a Lonely Planet guide for Thailand. I did this for a number of reasons. First reason is I get the feeling Thailand is the type of place you can get yourself seriously ripped off if you don't know what the score is. I'm interacting with the service industry much more over the next month and it really helps to know which guest houses to aim for, which restaurants to eat at and what I should pay. The second reason is that along with NZ, Thailand is one of the places I've always wanted to visit and it really helps having a guide. I'll never be a fully fledged tourist, doing all the usual tourist things, by the very nature of what I'm doing but it helps to know which towns to head for and what to expect. I arrived in Bangkok on the 12th at about 19:00. The traffic outside the airport was just mental and, with it being dark, I decided on a safety first policy and caught a taxi. The taxi was a fiver for a 15 mile journey which seemed worth it all things considered. It was a wise decision as there's no way I could have found the main guest house area and that's assuming I would have survived the journey which is open to debate. I headed for Banglamphu and the main strip known as Th Khoa San. It's the mad, decadent place you always see in the movies. I got propositioned by three prostitutes just trying to find a guesthouse. I have no idea why they'd think a guy pushing a 50kg bike would be cruising for sex but maybe there's some really kinky cyclists out there who can only perform with a fully panniered bike in the room. Personally I just wanted to hear one of them say "Me love you long time" but alas I doubt many of them have watched Full Metal Jacket. I found a guest house just off the main strip. It was 120 baht for the night which is less then 2 quid. Don't get me wrong we're not talking the Hilton here but to a man who's spent over a month in forests, drainage ditches and abandoned houses anything with a bed in it is luxury. After dumping all my stuff in my room I headed out to check out Bangkok by night. Seemingly a guy wandering round on his own in Bangkok must be looking for sex because I was some sort of prostitute magnet. They tap you on your arm as you walk past which I'm guessing is code for "Me love you long time". I guess without the bike I was more of an attraction. I met a few fellow travelers on my wanderings as everyone is very friendly. Obviously all the conversations are very much in the "where you been, what you done mold" and obviously my story is pretty interesting even to people who have just spent a month milking yaks in Nepal or whatever crazy travelers do for kicks nowadays. I only stayed in Bangkok the one night as it's probably just a bit too decadent for me. There's just too many Western guys going out with Thai girls for my liking and while it's not for me to cast aspersions on the relationships of others, I'm just a bit suspicious of the validity of such relations. I'm not sure who's exploiting who but there seems to be an awful lot of it going on and it just isn't for me. I don't like meeting people and having to question their motives all the time. I intended to leave Bangkok super early before the traffic became utter madness but the plane journey really knocked me for six and I didn't get out of bed till 11. This meant hitting the streets at 12 which, as expected, was chaos. In reality I didn't find it that bad and found the drivers better than in Athens. I don't think I had a single moment where I felt in danger but maybe Athens has readjusted my danger levels a bit. It took me ages to get out of the city although I was impressed I managed it without getting lost. Once out the city, things improved somewhat. All the main roads here have big hard shoulders which are populated by me and a load of friendly motorcyclists. It was 85 miles to my intended target which, with my late start, meant an hour ot two cycling in the dark but with the hard shoulder and all the motorbikes I felt completely safe. I arrived in Phetchaburi last night at about 20:00. I found my guesthouse eventually and as per usual it was stupidly cheap. A room, a meal and about 5 pints ended up costing me around 8 quid. Pretty much every town has budget accommodation and if you lay off the beer you could manage bed, breakfast and a quality supper for about a fiver. I set off this morning at 9ish. I had a choice between doing 40 miles and finished the day early in Hua Hin or heading to Prachuap Khiri Khan which would have made it 100 mile day. tbh it seems like a crime to rush Thailand so I opted for the 40 miles and I'll do the 60 miles tomorrow. The toughest part of cycling in Thailand is actually getting my lazy arse onto the bike. It's just so fantastically interesting and the people are so wonderful that I don't want to leave. Deep down I'm probably also a bit apprehensive about Oz. I'll still stick to my 60 mile a day because I really need to get to Oz early October but I'll take it a bit easier than I did in places like Serbia. Rather than cycle every hour God sends, I'll try and bang in my miles quick and early so I can enjoy the country a bit. If any of you are a little undecided on your next holiday destination I'd honestly consider Thailand. It's a place I have a feeling I'll come back to and maybe next time, bring some fellow cyclists along and do a big circuit of Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Malaysia. It'd be a fantastic experience doing it with a couple of mates, just chilling and I reckon the money you save here offsets the additional cost of a plane journey to somewhere like Spain. Anyways I'm off to the beach. Later dude and dudettes and as always lots of love, Craig. XXX

Yo peeps, Greetings from Atina!!! Well I made it. The European leg of my journey is complete. It's a very tired yet mildly euphoric Craig sitting here. Just over 3000 miles in total in 46 days for an average mileage of 65 miles per day. I've had two rest days since leaving England and used a campsite 3 times. The rest has been hard riding and hard sleeping along with some fantastic experiences. First of all I'd like to thank everyone for their support so far. I don't think I would have gotten this far without you. The phone calls, the emails and the general well wishes have been over whelming. Obviously my closest friends have been fantastic as I expected. More surprising has been the support from people I hardly know. People I haven't even met or only met once in my life. In an age of cynicism it's great to experience such altruism. One of my hopes was that this would increase my faith in people and it has. I'll start with the positives about Greece. It's a beautiful country as most of you know. When I saw the Aegean sea, it was incredibly emotional. The last time I'd seen the sea was in Denmark and it was an immense feeling knowing I'd cycled from the Baltic to the Aegean sea. The great thing about this journey is that you get to see the real aspects of a country. It's the Greek love of hospitality that's stood out for me. On numerous occasions I've entered a cafe on my own for a bite to eat and been asked to join a group of people. I've had no idea what they've been talking about but like the English, the Greeks just shout at you if you don't speak the language. They also have a habit of slapping you affectionately which is great but they tend to be big hearty slaps from big hearty men and after 3000 miles I don't have much meat left to absorb the blows. I met a bloke in a small fishing village in NE Greece. He was obviously the town lothario even at over 60 and after insisting he cooked me a meal we sat watching the sea while he shouted at me and slapped me heartily. That represented Greece for me and it was by no means an isolated example of the hospitality I've experienced while here. As some of you will know I'm mildly asthmatic. This seems to have completely disappeared on my journey and I haven't used my inhaler since Newcastle. Ben the Frenchmen joked that maybe I'm allergic to England. I was trying to figure out which European country I'd choose as an alternative and it'd be Greece for me. The weather is obviously perfect for what I'm doing and I've slept under the stars every night since I arrived with no fear of rain. The downside of this is that it makes for tough cycling but I modified my cycling slightly and tried to make sure I was up with the sun and so got a good 30-40 miles in before the heat got unbearable. Then I'd find a cafe and sit and get shouted at and slapped till it cooled down. The downside to Greece is the hills. It's a seriously mountainous country and unlike other countries in Europe, the nature of the mountains means it's impossible to go round them. Usually I've tried to stay close to the motorway as one thing I've learnt is that motorway engineers know their hills. The secondary roads have still been tough as they would have been built before people had the means to blast through mountains or build bridges so they tend to wind up the side of the mountain. Sometimes I'd be climbing for ages and look down to find out that even though I'd covered plenty of ground as the crow flies, I'd moved maybe 20 feet. One day I got a bit bored of following the motorway and set off for the coast which turned out to be a bit of a mistake. To get back on track again I had to cross a 1500m mountain. I reckon I was climbing for over an hour and, if my math is correct, it was an average incline of 15%. Bessie doesn't like mountains at the best of times and it was tough climb. At one point I cycled through a section of fruit trees and it seemed like every fly within a 5 mile radius decided to swarm me. If I stood still I reckon I had upwards of 60 flies following me. 6 miles an hour got it down to 40. At about 10 miles an hour they disappeared but 10 miles an hour wasn't really on the cards so, when shouting at them didn't work (flies don't seem to take things personally), I wrapped my shirt round my head and used it as a make-shift mossie net. God knows what people thought of the mad Englishmen swearing his way up the mountain with a shirt wrapped around his head. At some point, my minimal daily target of 60 miles per day turned into 80 miles. The strange thing about Greece is that I found it difficult to motivate myself. I think this was for a combination of reasons. For one, cycling in Greece doesn't really feel right. Imagine you find yourself in Greece, you're on holiday and you've just woken up. Naturally you're looking forward to a day by the pool but someone comes along and says you have to cycle 80 miles in 32C heat. It felt a bit like that. I'd wake up, look at the beach and head off into the hills. I think the other problem was that after Serbia, the numerous distractions were just too tempting. The Greeks are experts at predicting when and where you want to buy something so, on numerous occasions, I'd climb some monster hill and there'd be a little Greek guy with ice-cream and ice-cold coke standing at the top. Sometimes they're a bit too enthusiastic and at the top of one climb, I noticed an out-of-business shop which had sold jeans. I have no idea who'd want to buy jeans at the top of a mountain in 32C heat and the answer is obviously nobody. I think the other problem is that Greece was the last country of my European leg and when I arrived at the border it felt like I should be finished. I'd aimed for Greece for so long, it's like I expected something and that something wasn't another 500 miles of monster hills. The 50 miles I did this morning was unusually difficult. My body suddenly decided it was time to remind me of all the aches and pains that I'd been ignoring for the last 3000 miles. I know it's just psychological though as I'd gotten this far without noticing them. Now I'm in Athens. I friend had told me that the Greek drivers are crazy and, up until I hit Athens, I'd assumed he was just making it up. Man I've never seen such chaos. I'd like to say it works but on the way in I saw two car accidents and some guy get knocked off his scooter. You have to cycle assuming the guy behind you knows what he's doing even though everything in front of you pretty much contradicts this assumption. Initially I rode like I do in England, all polite and ordered but I wasn't getting anywhere so I started following the examples of the scooter riders and made it here unscathed. Still, with that and the heat, it's great training for SE Asia. I've booked myself into a hotel for a couple of days. My original plan was to campsite it but the one I headed for turned out to be closed so I headed for the nearest hotel. I'm happy I have as, ignoring the cost, it's great to have my own space just to sort myself out. I had my first bath in about 10 days when I got to my room and the bath looks like a water buffalo's had a wash in there. It's great to have a bit of time to do things like wash clothes, camping kit and do some bike maintenance. Bessie has taken a bit of pounding and some work will be needed for SE Asia. Now I have to organise the next stage of my journey and the complexities of traveling with a bike and 30kgs of equipment. It'll be interesting to see what the airline make of all this. Macmillan have kindly provided me with a letter explaining the nature of my journey so hopefully this will give me some leverage but we'll see. At a personal level I was trying to figure out what and if anything has changed. I've lost weight. Probably in the region of 7-10 kgs. I also seem to have picked up numerous cuts and bruises. My feet is the thing I've noticed the most, probably because I stare at them when I'm groveling my way up the mountains. They've gone all dark, hard and with numerous cuts and scars. With the feet and the weight loss I look a bit like a Mexican fruit picker. Like I've spent too much time outside and not enough time in the bath. Apologies to any Mexican fruit pickers on the mailing list btw. Someone told me I look like Jesus the other day which opens me up for plenty of Christ on a Bike jibes. Mentally, I've obviously gotten tougher. One of the most important aspects of this journey is patience. I know it sounds strange but it takes a lot of patience to continuously get up every morning and put those miles in. Most days you barely make a dent in your map. It also requires motivation. Many a day I've just wanted to lie there and watch the world go by instead of tackling the hills I know are waiting for me. My confidence has increased as well. Some people would argue that my confidence wasn't really an issue but it's different. Whereas before, I'd never feel at ease in situations outside my comfort zone, now I do. It feels easy to talk to complete strangers whereas before it didn't. As mentioned, my faith in people has increased. The kindness and interest shown has been fantastic. I've also experienced an increased interest in people and places. I mean an interest at a personal level rather than what you're read in a newspaper. When a guy says he's Albanian and definitely NOT Serbian why is it so important to him and what aspects of Albanian history is he so proud of? It's these things that I want to find out. It's a strange trip because it's like you want to do it over and over. You want to do it once and find out what you don't know, stop and educate yourself and then go back again and find out what you still don't know. It's also shown me the travesty of border controls which keep talented people from traveling and increased my belief that the European Union should be continuously expanded to give those people a chance to prosper. I know people worry about the homogenisation of cultures but from what I've seen, people are still culturally proud whether part of the EU or not. All of this is given me thoughts about what I want to do with my future. The thoughts aren't complete as yet but they're getting there. I have another 13000 miles or so to make them concrete and then hopefully, this journey will have given me the motivation and discipline to put them into action. As with everything, we'll have to see. 13000 miles is a long way and there's plenty of things to come. Both good and bad. Anyways I'm off to enjoy Athens now, have a few drinks, relax and enjoy a good hot meal. Once again apologies for the introspective nature of the email but 10 hours a day on a bike is a lot of time to think. My next email will probably be from Thailand so bye until then. As always, lots of love, Craig. XXX

Hey folks, Greetings from somewhere in Northern Greece!!! Well I've made it to the last country on my European travels. You can't imagine the sense of elation on so many different levels. Pride, relief, just so many different emotions. In my previous email I mentioned unfriendly border guards but this proved to be way off the mark. Having said that this could be that on trying to exit Hungary I used the wrong border post and tried to use the bilateral one instead of the international one. They seemed to find plenty to smile about sending me to the next border post which involved a 40 miles detour. Ah well I guess it's all miles in the bank. Serbia was a tough ride. Probably one of the toughest experiences of my life. It's a tough country to ride. As you'd expect from a former communist state and recent war zone, it was hardly a tourist trap. I'll start with the bad bits first and then move on to the better bits. For one, it rained all the way through Serbia. The great thing about this trip is the sense of relativity it teaches you. You think it rains a lot in Germany and then Serbia takes you to a whole new level. You think the roads are bad in Hungary and then Serbia takes you to a whole new level. Difficult to find places to sleep at night, new level. You get the picture. I arrived in Serbia last Sunday and it started raining on the Monday and didn't stop till I left. When I say it didn't stop I mean it in the literal sense. I worked out that I cycled for 20 hours over a two day period and for 19 of those 20 hours it rained constantly. When it stopped raining it made no difference anyway because the Serbians haven't yet figured out the concept of drainage so if it isn't raining, you're cycling through rivers anyway. Now normally, I'd cycle round the massive puddles but this meant driving out into the road and that'd involve making myself more of a target for the Serbian drivers. The puddles were a risk themselves because most of them housed potholes that could swallow me and Bessie whole but being swallowed whole by a pothole was preferable to the 20 ton trucks that were trundling by. On the subject of the Serbian drivers, that was a challenge in itself. I'd read a lonely planet page in Budapest which stated that Serbia wasn't cycle aware. This is a complete lie, they're very aware they just don't care. The biggest risk was from a row of cars coming towards you. The varying degrees of car quality inevitably meant that there was a Lada in the front with 55 Serbians in the front seat and a high powered BMW behind it. No problem, just overtake and bollocks to the guy coming the other way on the bike. Self preservation dictates he'll pull onto the verge which I obviously did. Add this in with the rain and the roads which threatened to vibrate my fillings out and you have a tough, tiring ride. At the end of each day I was physically and emotionally exhausted. Sometimes I just couldn't take anymore and I'd just pull over, sit on the side of the road, in the rain and wonder what to do next. Equally disconcerting was the Serbian habit of putting the graves of people who die on the road right next to that section of road. It's like driving through a graveyard. You'd expect this would make the drivers think twice a little before their next near suicidal overtaking manovure but no such luck. On the plus side this meant I was always keen to keep moving. I managed three rides in excess of 100 miles last week. Another three days were 85 miles plus for a total of 620 miles for the whole week. This was also helped by the difficulty in finding places to sleep. I couldn't find any trees so most nights it was a case of just sleeping next to the road which sure as hell makes you get up nice and early. That was the interesting thing about Serbia, there is no luxury. Every other country there was always the option of bailing out and maybe finding a quality campsite for the night. Granted it's an option I rarely took but it was there. Serbia doesn't have any campsites. In 500 miles I saw one hotel that looked tempting. Sometimes I'd feel like a bar of chocolate just to lighten the occasion but the chocolate would taste like it was from the communist era. There was just nothing you could do to alleviate the difficulty. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining btw. This is all part of the experience and I knew it would be. It's made me a better, more appreciative person and I'm thankful for it. Another strange thing is that I didn't meet any Serbians. Not in Serbia anyway. I met plenty of Albanians, Croats, Hungarians, Slovakians just no Serbians. Every person you meet defines themselves by not being Serbian. "Hi I'm NOT Serbian, I'm Hungarian" is a common greeting. It's very odd. I have no idea where all the Serbians are. Maybe they're in hiding with Slobodan Milosevic avoiding prosecution for war crimes. I don't know. On a positive note all the non-Serbians you meet in Serbia are kind, friendly people. I'd stop at traffic lights and people would chat and offer me cigarettes which means they've kind of misunderstood the idea of cycling 100 miles a day on a 50 kg bike but it's the thought that counts. I'd sit down at a cafe for a rest and a non-Serbian would give me a cup of coffee free of charge. It was these random acts which kept my spirits up. On my first day in Serbia I met two non-Serbians who were two of the kindest people I've yet to meet. It was getting dark and for the life of me I couldn't find a single tree to camp near so I headed for a town. One non-Serbian was mock offended by my observation about the lack of trees and pointed out they had one 6 kms down the road so I pointed out that if this clump of trees needed a direction and some distance, then they could do with more trees. I was cycling through town just looking for anything when a guy fell in beside me and asked if I needed any help. He was on a top end MTB bike which in Serbia is a rarity. I explained I needed a cash machine and after helping me he asked if I'd mind sitting and chatting with him for a while. He introduced himself as Bela and we sat talking for a while and you could tell he was in love with cycling. We sat and spoke about cycling for a while and then he offered me a place to sleep on his boat for the night which I was obviously grateful for. Bela then explained he needed to do some training before turning in for the night and tbh I thought he was joking but he wasn't. He asked if I'd mind sitting reading for a few hours and seen as my social diary was looking a bit bare for that night, I agreed. Off he went and five minutes later he returned in full team kit with his attractive younger sister Judith in toe. I expected 84.6 Father Christmas' to turn up as well but no such luck. An internet test told me btw although it didn't ask if I had a habit of doing stupid things like walking in front of cars or cycling through Serbia. This was one of the more surreal nights of my life. I was sitting on a park bench in Serbia, chatting to his lovely non-Serbian sister while in the background he kept whizzing past at 20 miles an hour as he did circuits of the town centre. To add to the experience, Bela had told the locals kids about my journey and two young kids came over and asked for my autograph. I slept in Bela's boat that night. It was the closest I've been to a real bed since I left. In the morning Judith brought us breakfast and coffee. Man how I wanted to take her round the world with me. Later they showed me the town which killed all of 13 seconds and then it was back to the boat. Judith was some kind of athletic goddess and taught the local kids how to kayak in her spare time and seemingly up for anything at the moment, I asked if I could have some lessons (kayaking that is). Apparently I was a natural and there was much debate about me lying to them and refusing to reveal my previous kayaking experience. Tbh, it the balance aspect of it isn't dissimilar to surfing so yeah I guess I did have a slight advantage. Before I left we had a meal at a local restaurant and it was the least I could do to pay for the meal. I guess it was pass it on for the meal in Austria. Everyone had fish, coke, beer etc and the cost for everything came to 6 quid. More than worth it for the kindness they'd shown me. Bela and I agreed to to a tour of Croatia one day. Apparently the coast line is an experience to behold and I've marked it down on my list of things to do. I gave Judith a book I'd been reading as a leaving present. It's called History of the World in 10-1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes and really is a cracking read and one I recommend wholly. Man, cycling round the world, kayaking and book reviews. Next watch me juggle. After I left I met someone else. A guy who worked in a bike shop. I wasn't too sure about him though and didn't stay for too long. He was one of those fast talking guys and one thing this trip has taught me is that if I'm not 100% about someone, I just walk away. Eventually I left Serbia and entered Macedonia. Tbh I cheated in Macedonia as I couldn't find any small roads so I cycled on the main highway. Now I know it's illegal and I know my mother will be fretting but I didn't have any choice. Anyway it was the safest 150 miles of my trip. I had 12 feet of hard shoulder to myself and the well wishes of the entire trucking community it seemed. On top of that I had permission from the Macedonian police. I stopped off at a cafe on the motorway and parked the bike outside. Five minutes later two policemen walk in and asked who the bike outside belonged to. I figured the game was up and at best would be told to leave the motorway. They asked where I was going so I said Australia. This seems to impress pretty much everyone so they asked if I minded if they joined me (Ummm YES) and we sat down and discussed my trip. Once again two fantastic guys. Just as they were about to leave they asked if I knew it was illegal to cycle on the motorway. I couldn't lie so I said yes and they laughed and said now I had official permission to use it all the way to the Greek border. Armed with this knowledge (and their names) I nailed it through Macedonia in under a day. Helped by a glorious tailwind and some quality tarmac I was big ringing it at speeds between 15 and 20 miles an hour. Big ringing it isn't some sexual deviance for the non-cyclists amongst you but refers to using the biggest ring on your front mech and the smallest on you back. Basically your toughest gear. Now I'm in Greece. An interesting thing about my knowledge of southern Europe is the lack of it. I thought when I hit Budapest it'd be a quick trip down to Athens. Well Serbia is one big country and even though I'm in Greece I'm still around 400 miles from Athens. Hopefully that'll be about 4 days riding and then it's on to SE Asia. I think I'm going to try and make Oz by October. Sure it'll be tough riding but it's preferable to trying to kill time elsewhere and it means I hit other parts of the world at preferable times such as the States. As I've said previously, my current rate for exceeds anything I expected but I'd rather have a bit of time at the end than be killing time now and having to rush with the seasons later. Anyways best go as I still have to find a place to sleep. Apparently it's Saturday night night but it makes no real difference to me. Kind regards to you all and as always lots of love, Craig. XXX