Germany certainly doesn’t do food by halves. The portions here at the Westfaelischer Hof in Luegde (2 x 70km days, and moral of the story is don’t expect to camp if arriving after six…) are gigantic, and delicious. Huntsman’s Schnitzel for Jutta and mine overbaked with cheese and mushrooms. Subtle they ain’t, but talk about … Read more …
Saturday May 6, Coronation Day back home, finds us in Lippstadt in the German Sauerland just short of Bielefeld, having visited (for the second time on our tandem) the Moehne dam of Dambusters memory in 1943. For Germany, even though at least 1500 people died, mostly forced labourers from then Nazi-occupied territories to the East … Read more …
For this post, rather than writing a whole load of text, let the images tell the story. I ‘ll try to position in them in the right order, so for our tandem journey Tuesday May 2-Wednesday May 3, follow the pictures and the captions, and we’ll hope to raise a smile. Read more …
Ah well, Vermeer went so well that a price had to be paid. Today, Day 1 of Week 2 of Daisy’s 12-week odyssey around Germany and Northern Europe, saw us repairing two further rear punctures and having to hammer the arms of our Bob trailer straight after our heavy rear panniers knocked one side off … Read more …
With thanks again to Tiffany and Greg for hosting us in Amsterdam, their massive and special gift as Friends of the Rijksmuseum was to be able to take us both, one at a time, to see perhaps the best art exhibition I for one have ever experienced. I may not know much about art etc … Read more …
As Ralph McTell (and I, in my late 60s/early 70s folk-singing Uni days) used to put it, finally the moment has come and here we stand, as Jutta and I (fresh from our winter break in Grenada, revisiting where we honeymooned in 1997) are very shortly off on our VERY-long-planned cycling sabbatical around Europe. Daughter … Read more …
Quite how we’re going to get all of this (and more, out of frame, though not the bed) into four panniers, one barrel bag and one handlebar bag is perhaps a question for Iniduoh – Houdini in reverse (terrible joke).But yesterday in two weeks, Feb 3, Jutta (hoping by then for recovery from a nasty … Read more …
So, with a month and a day to go till we fly off to Auckland, the Rory Peck Trust’s page is now live, encouraging their supporters to chip in and sponsor our madcap 2000-mile tandem adventure to and through New Zealand. With warm thanks to so many of you all, Jutta and I are already nearly … Read more …
Nearly 40 years after receiving our first tandem for our wedding in March 1977, we’re taking our heavyweight long-distance tourer Daisy2 to NZ/Aotearoa to cycle from Cape Reinga at the top of North Island to Bluff at the bottom of South Island. We’re raising funds for the wonderful Rory Peck Trust, uniquely dedicated as it says … Read more …
Well, after five glorious cycling and canoeing weeks, the last two with Kat and Mela, it’s time to leave New Zealand, with a last blast of images (fuller set here on Google+ as usual), and some concluding thoughts about what has to have been the best cycling tour ever (though could of course have been … Read more …