Maidwell to Ashby-de-la-zouch

Day 3
Distance- 105km (191.7)
Weather- sunshine and thunder storm in evening
Highlights- tunnels, the man who held an umbrella for us in the evening
Lowlights- long day, 5 punctures, arriving late in the rain
Accommodation- Caravan and camping site, Ashby-de-la-zuch

Today saw us following the National Cycle Network predictably northward; with us getting really edgy waiting for the good stuff to really begin. When we say the good stuff, we mean the Pennine Bridle Way. It was quite nice actually with two 500m old rail tunnels to contend with, the light at the end of it was very small indeed.

Today was also Pete's first ever 100 Km day, which he was quite proud of. Not only was it 106Km, but it was pulling a trailer, which we have decided is a huge day. It was great to be out of London, and into the English country side that we see so much of on TV while growing up, rolling hills, amazingly pretty villages on the side of rivers and rail tracks.

The last 10 Km's were an absolute killer, with massive rain clouds looming in the sky. We finally arrived at the campsite at about 9:30pm, started pitching the tent, and the skys above opened. One of the other campers, from the heaven of his van, saw us trying to pitch a tent in the pouring rain, and offered us help.

With Bridgette in the tent shouting "just throw everything in", the kind gentleman holding an umbrella so I didn't get completely soaked, and his wife shouting at him to invite us into their van it was quite a comedy. We shared a hot drink and late dinner in the warmth of their camper van, and in return Pete repaired their little boys flat tire the next morning.

Milton Keynes to Maidwell

Day 2
Distance- 74.4km (85.7)
Weather- little rain
Highlights- national cycle network, staying at a B&B, discovering hump covers
Lowlights- few minor repairs
Accommodation- Maidwell Pub

After our first night of complete un-employment we happily assumed the title of world-travelers. Maybe a little optimistic at this stage, but you know us! We spent our first night in a YHA, which was full of middle-aged people. This was very weird, but not surprising considering that the hostel is sort of in the middle of nowhere, near nothing very exciting!

The morning saw us visit the local cycle shop for some quick purchases by all three of us and then we were off, take-two of the beginning of our trip. Thankfully the weather was a little kinder, only rain today.

This was our first real taste of the National Cycle Network, which we are to follow for much of out trip through the UK. It was flat, well surfaced and fast, following converted rail lines. A few minor mechanical repairs later and everthing went quite well. It was great to feel the wind on our faces as we whipped through the KM's.

It seems that this part of England is a little short on budget accommodation, and we ended up staying in a B&B in Maidwell after much debate. At least they had good food and beer!

London to Milton Keynes

Day 1
Distance- 14.4km (14.4)
Weather- rain, hail, sleet and strong wind
Highlights- starting! in the sunshine
Lowlights- the weather and taking the train
Accommodation- Milton Keynes Youth Hostel

Well after the disastrous start of Sarah having her trailer stolen from the train, we spent an extra two days in London sorting out police reports and replacing lost items. Unable to acquire a new trailer until the following weekend during a rendezvous with Tom, Sarah could only get a few small items that she could carry on her back. This meant that we were destined for B&B and youth hostel accommodation for the first few nights.

We Set off from Emily's house in Hackney and started our long journey home heading for Trafalgar square for the obligatory start of trip photo. Soon after we were treated to our first taste of the harsh English weather, being drenched by a thunder storm with hail as we cycled north towards West Hampstead.

As Sarah was a little under-equipped at this stage, she ended up completely soaked and freezing cold. Call it a cop-out on the first day, but we jumped on a train to Milton Keynes, our first destination, in an effort to keep Sarah from freezing completely. Hopefully this will be the only train short cut for a long time.

Hampstead to Hackney

We departed West Hampstead in a flurry at 11 am on the 27thMay, making an epic journey across London to Hackney. Perhaps not as far as we expected but in view of the circumstances it was far enough. Sarah had arrived the day before to Kings cross station to join us for the first 5 weeks. Only to find all her gear stolen from the train. This was devastating news.
We spent most of Saturday chasing railway staff, then Sunday chasing the police and Monday shopping. Kind of nice since yesterday, Monday, the max temp was 12 and it rained on and off all day.
Today is already blue skies and we are off to Milton-Keynes and up to the lakes district. Unfortunately we miss Wales but we need to rendezvous with some gear from Sarah hubby Tom. But if anyone is up for some riding a few hours from London this weekend, drop us an email!

Off and Racing!

As you will probably guess we are writing this post slightly in advance, but considering that most of you are in Australia and are 11 hours ahead of us, it is sort of the correct day. There will also be no photos yet as you need to pretend that this is all happening in the future, and we have just finished our first day of cycling.

Bridgette arrived back in London after a week in Vancouver for exams and study on Friday morning, which considering how long it took her to get over the jet-jag last time may or may not have been such a good idea.

We had a great farewell party on Friday night at the Crown & Sceptre, with many friends that we have met in the UK arriving and having a farewell drink. After the FA cup weekend, I was very cautious not to make to big a night of it as my last hang-over was a killer!

Saturday saw my new engaged brother (congratulations Dave & Adele) come around and stake his claim in our belongings, which saw him take my city bike, some plates and a few other random items. Emily came around a bit later on and collected the remaining items, which we helped her take back to her place on one last journey to Hackney! We also took our stuff that has to be sent to either Hobart or Barcelona later in the year around, as she has kindly offered to baby sit a few bags until I start my Masters and Bridgette’s parents arrive in London o take the other stuff back to Tassie.

Also recently returned to the UK, Sarah arrived in the after noon, and then things started to get exciting. The beginning of our journey was only 18 hours away, and everything was falling into place.

A quiet diner is in store for Saturday night with a small group (Adrian, Pri, Dave, Adele, Emily and Sarah) for one last hurrah before we get a goods night sleep and pray that the met office forecast is wrong, and we don’t get 7 degrees and rain on the first day of our trip. I guess if London is London, it probably will, at least the weather can only get better from here on!

On leaving London I’ve had a few days since finishing work on Wednesday to have a think about our time here. There have definitely been some ups and downs while living here, but you sort of expect that living in a big, big city. When you think about it London is 4 times bigger, and a whole lot dirtier, than my previous largest city which was Melbourne, so I was always in for a bit of a shock.

At the end of the day, we had a fairly good time here and it’s a shame that now we have done the 6 month induction into a new city; meeting great people, learning to navigate the city, finding the best food stores, where the best coffee comes from and which art house cinemas have £5 nights and when they are, we are now leaving.

The one thing that frustrated us about London, more than anything else, wasn’t the fact that it’s expensive, dirty, busy, has a great public transport system that is always stupidly hot and never running properly or the fact that as a city it has so much to offer that you often find yourself struggling to decided what to do, or how to find it. No, the one thing that frustrated us was the lack of ability to be able to do what we love doing, on a regular basis …… enjoying the great outdoors, in any way shape or form. It takes so long to get out of London, that by the time you get to where you want it is almost time to turn around and come back.

Don’t worry though, today saw the first wet 80 Kms of the trip of our lift time that will ensure our appreciation for the things we love will only become stronger. There are going to be punctures, sunrises, sun sets, tears, heart breaking mountains, plenty of smooth black road, as much dirt road as we can find, a bit of study, some work in Australia, more Kms than I ever though I would ride, and that’s all before we get to Turkey. After that it is a bit more unknown, but that is another post in another year!

Thanks again to all the people that have supported us so far, it means the world to us that our friends and family believe in what we do. Who knows, we may even reach our fundraising target for Oxfam Australia, which would be the icing on the cake.

See you on the road
Pete + Bridgette

architecture, birmingham, barcelona

It's been a while since I last posted anything about architecture, come to think about it, I don't think I have actually done a complete post dedicated to buildings, hopefully this may be the first.

Last week I received some very exciting news indeed. As some of you may know, I had applied for a postgraduate course in Barcelona at the IaaC. Well, after 7 months of waiting, course modification, course upgrades, emails and patience, I received an email saying that I had been successful in my application for the Masters of Advanced Architecture programme for 2007/08. To say the least, I was pretty chuffed. So I have just bought a laptop (macbook pro, convert) and have paid my deposit on the fees, and starting on October 1st I will be a full time student again, in Spain. Don't ask how this effects our cycle trip, we haven't fully worked that out yet (we still aim to finish it, but with a break over the northern winter, too cold to cycle anyway). we will keep you posted. Anyone got any good contacts in Barcelona, or want to come and visit?

Recently I have visited a couple of buildings that I have been meaning to get to for a while. We visited to the Laban Centre, by Herzog de Meurom. Pretty amazing building actually, great facade, but the day that we were there didn't do it justice. More interestingly was the internal space, with a ramped lobby space, bumpy handrail, concrete spiral stair and a diagonal skylight. As usual HdeM have masterfully organised simple elements to create a stunning space.

We also paid a visit to Birmingham, primarily to meet some long lost relatives that I have here, Horace & Mary, Dad's uncle and aunt, and their family. I must say that for a pair of 80+ year olds they did especially well to host us for a few hours. It was really nice to meet some family and see where my roots lie.

While there we paid a visit to the Selfridges store, by Future Systems. Bridgette described this as a blob of plasticine with hundreds of thumb tacks pressed into it, I think she was right. Like much of their work, this building looks like it has just landed from another planet, and sits completely out of context with its surroundings, including a great church. In it's defence, it is purely commercial architecture created to do one things, draw attention to itself, which it does admirably. Internally it is just like any other massive shopping mall (think Eastlands on steroids), with the end result being completely superficial and skin-deep.

I mentioned the family, so this wasn't purely about architecture, but I think it will be the closest thing to it for a while.

Pete.

The Gambia 3- The Beach and Community Medical Education

After an exhausting week, the all of 3 days! we headed down the coast for some R&R in a tree house bungalow. We all squeezed into the land rover with people suffering a little.

Fire wood was collected on the way which allow for a stop in a local bike shop.





Our destination was Bilbao beach resort which unfortunately had a bush fire several weeks prior. Mmmm no tree houses. We passed the time drinking Dreew Brew, playing connect four and enjoying the deserted beach. Then that night there was a bonfire, lots of drumming and not much sleeping.

In the morning we headed off to a community center for Health Education. They are involved in verbal communication through theatre, puppets and dance in person, via the radio and on national TV. We got a Royal welcome from the Village women who we ready and waiting to perform. The village soon accumulated around us for the performance. This was made of song, dance and acting about issues of HIV, teenage pregnancy and STI's. It was quite an amazing experience to see men and women of all ages sitting and watching these tabou topics being discussed in the open. both Renee and Rachael tried to steal a couple of Gambian babies to no avail! Many friends were made.

Mini Cycle Tour: South East England

May Long weekend
We had a great time, 4 days, 270km, the white chalk cliffs, beautiful Southern Downs, nuclear power plants, a visit Auntie Pam, head winds, rain, more rain and a spectacular crash!

Hassock to Eastborne
Emily found out she had work and I was free so we headed off on the Friday and Pete joined later. We had a funny time getting the bikes on to the train in London, dragging them up and down stair cases, Emily getting stuck in the door with the trailer and throwing all the stuff the train before it left again! We started a small town called Hassocks in the South Downs. It was a beautiful area with picturesque rolling hills and very cute brown cows.

The route took us on a windy path down to the coast Birling Gap and Beachy head. There we got our first glimpse o f the amazing chalk cliffs of southern England which were absolutely beautiful. There was a steady climb up Beachy head and then a rewarding down hill into Eastborne. We found a friendly camping spot on the out skirts or town tired we set out to find food which turned into an epic! They were developing the foreshore into an eye-sore of seaside apartments and marina and we got lost in a construction site, ending up at Argos and cooking about 8.30.

Eastborne to Dymchurch
The next day Pete traveled down to Eastborne by train and we headed off along the coast to Hythe. Once again off through the rolling hills and then down to the coast at Camber where the scenery got interesting. First there was amazing area of caravan park cities situated along massive pebble beach.

Then suddenly a barbed wire fence appeared with fenced off a Military shooting range. And finally three large cooling towers appeared on the horizon, the Dungeness Nuclear power stations. All though one might think these three things would kill tourism, there was a caravan park situated in amongst the power towers, B&B’s that backed onto the Power station and the world’s smallest train chuffed past?! The nearest town of Lydd looked like it had seen better times but there was an amazing little pub on the water which was packed.

We then headed down the coast and at Littlestone on the sea we left the road onto a beautiful bike track by the sea side. The tide was out exposing some lovely jetty ruins. Tired and hungry, we decided to call it a day in Dymchurch. There we discovered an intriguing camp site which was fully equipped with their own, gaming lounge, bar, disco and pool. May be not completely our cup of tea but it was only for one night. We set up our minaret amongst the tent mansions complete with their wide screen TV’s, BBQ’s and deck chairs. We laughed when a passer by said 'look at her tent, its bloody small, I'd suffocate in that' needless to say she thought it was for one not three! Some might have done the sums, the minaret is a two man, not three, so Bridgette got the vestibule, thankfully the weather was fine!

Dymnchurch to Canterbury
The next day we headed down the coast to Canterbury through Dover. Initially, this too hugged the coast then it winded it way through farm land and headed back to the Coast at Folkstone. Then there was a steady climb to Capel le-ferne which was high on a plateau giving amazing view of the sea and coast.

We were then treated to a lovely section of bike path down into Dover along the cliff edge. We stopped briefly at Dover Castle, bauked at the prices and set off to the white cliffs reserve where bikes get in for free. We stopped for lunch at Deal on the seaside with a big band playing an Sunday afternoon concert. Very atmospheric. Then the path headed north to Sandwich which is a lovely old town with tiny cobbled streets with such names as ‘No name street’. After Sandwich we headed inland on the home stretch to Canterbury which dodged and weaved through the country side. Emily and I got a fit of giggles when we realized the national cycle network covered almost twice the distance than as the bird flies. It was lovely to be able to stay with Auntie Pam, warm house, home cooked food and a soft bed.

Canterbury to Favesham
On the Monday we decided to explore Canterbury including the Cathedral and central town. We then set off to the coast along the Crab and Winkle way which connects Canterbury to Whistable. This was a lovely ride, mostly off road through forest. At Whistable we headed west to Favesham into a slight head wind. On the out skirts of town a large black cloud started to form on the horizon and approach quickly. Then it started to spit and soon after the skies opened. We sped along thinking warm drinks, food and a change of clothes were not far away. Unfortunately I took one corner too fast, broke to avoid a car and slid across the road rode. Ouch, both bike and rider were ok but my left leg was quite sore. At the station, the ticket lady had a little laugh at our predicament and gave us a large garbage bag for all the wet cloths. We were soon on the train eating chocolate bickies on our way back to London.

All in all, a great weekend. although we have a few things left to sort out before we head off permanently.

Bridgette.

The Gambia 2- Medical Facilities Banjul/Fajara

Our first introduction to the Gambian health care system was at the infamous Medical Research Unit (MRC). We heard much about this facility during our course, with much of the British research in west Africa coming from their facilities. In addition to research they provided limited health care to the local Gambian and toubabs. The service consists of a triage system, an outpatient facility and small impatient hospital. They take the first 250 presenting patients and provide service and medications for free. If you are a patient in a trial you and your family receive 24/7 access (mmmmm). We had the opportunity to see the triage system being performed by skilled nurses, 200 patients in a few hours between 3 nurses!

We visit 3 government health facilities including the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH). This was an interesting visit where we split into two groups and saw the pediatric and adult wards. The place seem crowded even though it was the quiet/dry season. The doctors were predominately Cuban with a few Brits and other nationalities. The presentations in the kids ward mainly consisted of anemia, pneumonia and malnutrition with a few more exotic cases such as Burkett’s lymphoma. The services were limited and management seemed to be a process of elimination with treatment rather investigations at times. But despite this it was amazing what you can do with very little.

Campala was an experience. We were pepped up about this since leaving the UK. The facilities used use to be an old prison and in the 20 years it been used I am not sure if things have changed. The patients are there on a voluntary or involuntary basis and are provided with food, water and medications. But the are bars on windows, a certain smell on the air and the place was desperate. If we can’t fund psychic iatric services adequately in the west I guess you can imagine the budget in the Gambia.

TB Sanatoriuam was situated out the outskirts of town next to the prison and a burning waste dump?! It is used for non-responders mainly for compliance reasons. They are given the choice of going to this facilities or the one next door, all chose the sanitarium!. We were first shown the old facilities and the new ones which was a marked improvement. They had first line treatment and second line treatment available and access to sensitivity testing.

We also visited the headquarters of the Center for Initive Against Malaira (CIAM). These wer nice airconditioned, powerpoint equiped with coffee and biscuits for morning tea (thanks to Bill and Milinda!). They fosucs on the disemination of health messages through radio, plays and TV. But now the funding has ceased they are deperately seeking support to continue their good work.

The Gambia 1 The Tourist Coast

You might already know that I recently spent 2 weeks in The Gambia. This was part of the Tropical Medicine Diploma I was doing in London over the winter. I was there with 8 other doctors to explore and experience The Gambia and their health care system. We had a great time with some definite highlights but also a few low points.

Highlights: traditional psychiatric healers, traditional bone healers, community health workers, visiting Farafenni hospital, visiting Sol and Momadous’ family, the pot hole road, the Christian health center, the Gambian fishing villages, the women and children.

Low points: poverty, sex tourism, being a tourist, the pot hole road, Banjul market, actually most markets.

The Gambia experience started at Gatwick at 6am on Good Friday, with all the other holiday makers flying off for Easter. Our check-in line was a funny mix of white Brits in Hawaiian T-shirts and smartly dressed African nationals. I think the airport was best described as a shopping mall with planes (or a shrine to consumerism), rather than duty free shopping area. The highlights of the flight were definitely the Sahara desert, which took hours to cross, and the Senegalese coast which was one long, long, long beach. We arrived at Banjul airport which resembles Hobart’s 'international' terminal with the added bonus of oppressive heat and the rhythm of drums in the background.

The Gambia is a fantastic holiday destination if you live in Europe, its cheap, the sun always shines, people are friendly and it’s Africa! Many people go on a package holiday deal for seven days and stay in the coastal resorts. At out hotel, we were lucky to see several vintages of tourists come and go. The main activities seemed to be sun baking in as little as possible, reading books and drinking beer. You could probably stay air conditioned and beered up from the airport to the hotel and back again with out setting foot in the ‘real’ Gambia. Not to be too critical, I too drank beer, enjoyed the pool and sun baked (with cozy on!) Despite the predominate religion being Muslim.

Our trip got off to a slow start because we arrived before Easter which is a public holiday. We spent the Easter weekend enjoying the hotel, situated on the beach and exploring the local tourist sites. It was good time to wind down from the exam flurry. We visited the local forest reserve which is virtually the only forest left due to deforestation. We saw many cheeky monkeys, birds and lots of very, very dry rain forest.

A highlight was a visit to the mangrove area around the Gambia river were we stopped at the Lametine lodge, a picturesque tree house built for westerners on the river edge.

There was also the memorable visit to Banjul market which was a definite Gambian experience. In the evening there was often entertainment in and around the hotel, a highlight being the Jola Jugglers.