Leaving Adelaide was one of those tough days. Not only were we leaving behind new friends who had looked after us so well and treated us with such overwhelming kindness and generosity, but we had a really steep hill to climb. The cycle path up Mt Lofty is well known in Adelaide cycling circles for … Continue reading
Aside from a couple of incredibly hot days in SE Asia, crossing the Nullarbor had been the biggest single challenge we had had since exiting China at the end of May. The eight-and-a-half day push had really taken it out of us, and as such we decided to prolong our stay in Ceduna. The decision … Continue reading
I bet there aren’t many couples that wake up on their 5th wedding anniversary in a donga (portacabin), sparsely furnished with a single bed and a plastic crate. We were immensely grateful for even this smallest of luxuries when we opened the door and let the early morning sunlight stream in. It was one of … Continue reading
I don’t think it would be a stretch to suggest that one of the lowest points of the journey across Asia was the time we spent cleaning our bikes in Singapore. The heat was almost unbearable, and we had been told by every Australian that we had ever met that, “Australia is the hardest country … Continue reading
From George Town we headed back to the mainland and continued our way down the west coast towards the capital city. On our way we passed through a series of uninspiring towns connected by horribly busy roads. When we occasionally managed to find a back road we would gratefully escape the madness to find lush … Continue reading
Leaving our truly wonderful bungalow nestled amongst the verdant tropical rainforest of the Khao Sok National Park was incredibly difficult; it was one of those places where we wish we could have had more time. The room was a perfect temperature (very important to cyclists in the tropics), it was immaculately clean, there was no … Continue reading
The Cambodian/Thai border was up there with one of the busiest we have crossed on this journey. Fortunately we did not have a repeat performance with any corrupt officials as we exited Cambodia, although they did insist on recording all our fingerprints on an electronic machine. The only place I think I’ve had this before … Continue reading
After crossing through the most corrupt border of the journey to date it was with some scepticism that we pushed on down the long, desolate, dirt road and into Cambodia. We were immensely pleased that we had not paid the disgusting man on the Laos side of the border (given we were prepared to camp … Continue reading
We had become accustomed to cycling with our heads down, avoiding eye contact with adults due to the number of times our smiles were met with blank stares in Laos. When we hit Thailand everything changed. Each time we glanced around us there were friendly faces full of smiles. It couldn’t help but lift our … Continue reading
Arriving in Laos meant finally arriving in Southeast Asia. For months we had dreamed of the day we would cross the Chinese frontier and enter the promised lands of Laos. When our bikes broke in Kazakhstan, when we were battling the ferocious head winds and immense cold in the Uzbek desert, and when we were … Continue reading