Richard's Journey So Far

Richard set off from Sheffield, England in September 1990. His first catastrophic break-down was only 7 miles out from his parents home, but we won't go into that. Re-starting from Northampton, he cycled to London and on to Ramsgate, leaving England by ferry to Dunkerque, France. An almost straight line took him across Europe to Venice, Italy, where he took a ship to Egypt.

On his bike again he pedalled southwards into Africa, tracking the Nile upstream to Aswan, Egypt, and then crossed the northern, road-less desert of Sudan by train, to Khartoum. The war in south Sudan only allowed a little cycling in that vast country, before he had to hop over and on into Uganda. He rode a circuit in Uganda, back north a bit to recover some of the Nile he had lost in the flight. Then he pedalled on into Kenya, down the Great Rift Valley, to Nairobi and Mombasa.

He was forced to take a flight again to jump the Indian Ocean to Karachi, Pakistan. He then cycled every inch of the way from there to Beijing, China, cranking over the Himalayan masif by the Nepal-Tibet route. He also had an extended year-long break in the middle due to a torn knee-ligament sustained when he stepped into a man-hole on a house-boat in Kashmir, India, one dark night. While his bicycle waited in Kashmir, he underwent surgery in New Delhi and then in England, where he slowly rebuilt waisted muscles and recovered knee movement, though not the ligament. From China, he sailed to Japan for two and a half years' teaching English, exploring country and culture, and finding friends.

A swift boat back to China deposited him in Shanghai. There his bicycle saddle was stolen, but fortunately, after a long search, he found an adequate, though not perfect, replacement. Fortunately indeed, because the subsequent ride to Hong Kong would have been completely intolerable without it. He reached Hong Kong in time for the hand-over of power back to China.

He spun his cranks from Hong Kong and China (again) via Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Malaysia, clear to Singapore, and has rolled almost teh full lengths of Sumatra and Java in Indonesia.

And he still doesn't know what Java script is.

Richard's Road Ahead

In a nutshell (or in a nuts' hell); He plans to -cycle in Australia, from Cape York to Melbourne, -tour New Zealand and fashion the beginnings of a book there for a year or so. -island hop the pacific; preferably working passage on someboat or yacht to get to the Americas. and -tour Canada, USA, Central America, the Carribbean and South America. before deciding whether to end his journey with a flight to England or to fly to West Africa and -cycle north-west Africa and southern Europe to return to his homeland. PS. He also has to finish a bicycular circuit of Ireland someday.

>>go to maps...