Pasta Punctures & Perseverence!: Diaries of Cycling Adventures

By Howard Ashton

Why cycle fast when you can cycle slowly, (often very slowly, as dictated by terrain, topography and the weather). Intrepid explorer W.H.Tilman saw the merits of such an attitude when he remarked that all travel is dull exactly in proportion to its rapidity.
Howard adopted Tilmans attitude as he adventured, over many years, across the world on two self-propelled wheels, that incredibly efficient machine for personal transport - a bicycle!
Born affected by cerebral palsy, it was through the therapeutic effects of much massage and manipulations of his limbs that, by the age of 3, his legs had enough strength to push pedals, if not allowing him to stand and walk!
And pushing pedals is what he has been doing almost daily for the past 65 years! From trundling down the garden path on a bright red Gresham Flyer trike, his competence and confidence quickly built, as did muscle strength and tone. This simple activity allowed him to overcome the physical limitations which life had imposed upon him.
Since those very early days, countless bicycles have carried him tens of thousands of miles. Very short journeys, just down the road to primary school,were gradually extended over the following decades. Pedal power became Howards passport to personal freedom.
Almost always solo, and camping wild, the range and magnitude of these cycling adventures inexorably expanded, from roaming both Scottish and Irish by-ways, to the high roads (but mostly) back roads of more than sixty countries across the world.
Here he shares a selection of the diaries written along the way, recounting the experiences and interactions which are the, seemingly inevitable, consequence of this slowly and lowly method of travel.
Proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to SCOPE, the UK charity supporting those affected by cerebral palsy and their families.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Apr 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504988094

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© 2016 Howard Ashton. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse   04/12/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5049-8808-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-8809-4 (e)

Back cover image taken by COLIN TEMPLETON Herald and Times group.

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CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

‘THE BIG FOUR BIKE RIDE’

Killarney to Fort William, climbing the four highest mountains in the British Isles.     1993

SIERRA NEVADA ANDALUCIA

Crossing the Veleta, Europe’s Highest Road.     1995

BREEZING THROUGH THE BALTIC STATES:

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. 1997

THE BALKANS

Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Travels on two wheels though a war zone!     1998

SIZZLING SICILY

Cycling the Coastline in a Heatwave. 2001

WHEELING AROUND ICELAND:    2002

CANADIAN CAPERS

Crossing the Rockies, dodging Bears and Forest Fires. 2    003

TRAVELLING THE BLOOD-SOAKED BLACK EARTH OF UKRAINE:    2004

ANTIPODEAN ADVENTURES

Tasmania and New Zealand     2005

SERBIA – MONTENEGRO – CROATIA

Belgrade to Dubrovnik, Danube to the Adriatic.    2005

JORDAN

Don’t shoot……….I’m just brewing some tea!’    2007

MACEDONIA – ALBANIA

Hungry!, like the wolf    2007

CYPRUS

Wheel-hub deep in Troodos Mountain snows     2009

MOROCCO:    2009

SRI LANKA

A Birthday Treat at Six Thousand Feet 2010

This Book is Dedicated to my parents, Margaret and Tom, who developed in me the ability to live an independent life, providing the encouragement to take risks and the other ingredients necessary to explore and adventure.

My gratitude is extended also to all friends and acquaintances, at home and abroad, who have spiced my life with a particularly rich mix of experiences.

Exploration on two self-propelled wheels is my love, forming attachments with the landscape, the people and their culture. If I can be close to mountains and the sea so much the better. So islands are attractive, big and small. Just fill my pockets with some cash, empty my mind of preconceptions, take a load of good humour as well as my camping equipment. Buy a map and a ticket….leave the Guide Books in the shop!!

For that man who travels by his own exertions no day can be dull and no journey without abiding interest.

(H.Tilman. ‘Snow on the Equator’)

To my mind two distinguishing marks of a traveller are that he exerts himself and that he moves slowly

(H.Tilman. ‘China to Chitral’)

image48.jpg

The much used (and abused!) Gresham Flyer; was this how the ‘adventuring’ began?

PROLOGUE

KINGSTON UPON HULL, EAST YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND 1945: the war is over and the city has commenced the mammoth task of dealing with the destruction brought upon this strategic port by innumerable German bombing raids. My father is 35 and now back ashore, home again after his Merchant Navy war service on the Atlantic convoys, and supplying the Allies in their various theatres of war around the Mediterranean. My mother is 33 and has seen little of him these past 6 years, or known much of his whereabouts! And now she is about to give birth to me.

In the days around Christmas the city is wrapped in a dense freezing fog. Maybe I’m feeling too cosy in the warmth of her womb, reluctant to emerge into such dreadful and unwelcoming weather. Or maybe I’m premature, too eager to see what this world is all about! But appear I do, Boxing Day, like a belated Christmas gift for the family. Only in later years do I learn that I had not been expected to survive, even as far as the New Year.

That all is not as it should be with my early development gradually registers with my parents. Photographs show me smiling, enveloped in a little ‘den’ of supporting cushions. My limbs are stiff and awkward. It is around the age of 2 that I’m eventually diagnosed as being affected by cerebral palsy: quadriplegic in extent. The remedy, if that’s what you’d call it, is physiotherapy. Lots of it, years of it in fact, much of that being of the ‘home made’ variety. I’m to be a child of cod liver oil (still love it!) and olive oil, this vigorously massaged into my limbs at every opportunity. A few, much older, cousins assist my mother from time to time with this intensive therapy. There are others like me in and around the city and my parents become founder members of the Hull & East Riding Spastics Society, a self-support group assisted by the National Charity, which has ‘re-branded’ itself as SCOPE.

Exercise is to be the key to improving my situation. Contrary to the rather limited expectations of my development at this time, I shall become the most active and adventurous member of our whole extended family! Parental dedication will be fundamental to that transformation. Massage and manipulations aside, it all kicks off, so to speak, with my first bike – well, that should read trike – a bright red Gresham Flyer – arriving on my third birthday. We will be seldom separated until I ‘graduate’ to two wheels some 6 years later. It takes me both to primary school, and indeed all around the school too, which is but a mere 200m from home. Cycling is to be my normal ‘habitat’ for the rest of my life, so much easier, quicker and ‘exciting’ than my somewhat laboured walking style, as well as being a fantastic aid to improving both muscle strength and tone.

But there is much merit in walking too, and for me the therapeutic virtues of it lie in the resistance offered by soft sand and water. My father and an uncle ‘pioneer’ a caravan site at Primrose Valley, Filey, set on a majestic sweep of beach between Flamborough Head and The Brigg on Yorkshire’s east coast, and only some 30 miles away from home. The caravan becomes our second domicile at every opportunity. Invariably we have with us Peter, a cousin of similar age, who we tend to regard as my surrogate brother. This is not cycling, but walking and scrambling terrain. As young teenagers we adventure on the boulder clay cliffs, on the extensive beach and in a ravine thick with jungle-dense vegetation, guided back to base by instinct and empty stomachs. By this time my walking has been improved somewhat by the only medical intervention I shall receive, aged 9, the lengthening of the Achilles tendon of my right foot. My heel drops and I become flat-footed.

Whilst my limbs are becoming stronger and more compliant, manipulations remain an often frustrating challenge; tying shoe laces, fastening ties and buttons and putting on gloves can lead me to tears of exasperation. Often urging me, but in a loving manner, to ‘Just get on with it!’ my mother’s patience is boundless and as the years go by I come to realise that her prime consideration above all others had been to prepare me as best she could for independent living. ‘What are you going to do when I’m not here?’ was an oft heard little mantra, spoken gently but firmly. I had to learn to do these basic tasks without help. ‘You can do it’ was said often, as her affirmation of my ability to find a way. The same little phrase, with a rather different emphasis on the ‘can’ meant Yes, I could go off and adventure with my little gang. I think it’s true to say that I was actually encouraged to take risks. The whole emphasis of my early years of growing up was to be independent and ‘give it a try’. With the mud of play often came the blood too. But in the sessions of cleaning me up never did she let the cuts and the bruises steer her away from this goal, happily preparing me for a ‘return match’ with the often unforgiving environments in which we chose to play!

From my father I appear to have inherited my sense of humour, and especially a desire for adventure. He had boarded his first ship aged 16, thinking it a great way to see the world and get paid for the privilege. A man with a gregarious and affable nature, pragmatic too. He worked on the principal that there was always someone around who could help resolve your problems. The key was to ask. From the following stories you might realise just how often I put this little piece of philosophy to the test in my travels. My earliest adventures with him were around the city, perched on a little seat affixed to his bicycle crossbar, legs dangling to reach the foot-rests. The most exciting ventures, for me, would be to roam around the extensive docks and in particular to spot ships of the Ellerman’s Wilson Line, with whom he had spent his maritime years. He had become shore-based, but with the same company, at the time of my birth.

But now I have digressed somewhat. Meantime my Primary Headmistress is coaching me and three girl pupils for the 11+ Exam. I recall memorising the collective nouns for things like fish, whales, badgers and that there are 2240 lbs in a ton. Armed with such (and nowadays quite possibly irrelevant!) information I pass, but none of my pals do. Life is about to give me my biggest leap from our front door that I’d so far had to face, should I care to take it. The nature of our adventuring would be changing too. The hinterland of home had an enviable array of places in which to play and explore, and all pretty high on the scale of risk-taking. Parks with lakes, deep land drains, open fields and their hedgerows, clay pits with a brick works, railway lines and busy sidings, miles and miles of open-access dockland and, best of all perhaps, the vast foreshore of the huge River Humber with, at low tide, its wide apron of dark, thick, boot-sucking mud.

On the western edge of the city, where suburbia then melted into farmland, was a particularly favourite place. A long worked-out chalk quarry had been gradually engulfed by nature. Colloquially known as Little Switzerland, this was our adventure playground, our mountain bike and BMX course – but these terms had not, as then, been invented. Every kid had a bike, usually single speed and in dire need of better brakes and general TLC. It was in this place that we tested ourselves and our bikes to limits; where we honed our skills of bike control, and scored the word ‘fear’ from our vocabularies! The main railway line into Hull passed by and it was here too that my love for steam and its romanticism began. As time went by my ‘railway mania’ would sorely test my mother’s resolve to let me roam, as we embarked on our train-spotting excursions, first to nearby places like Selby, Doncaster and York. But the day came when we went further afield, early teenagers learning the geography of the UK with ventures into Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, to the ‘Mecca’ that was Crewe, and even days away touring Scotland. Who was more courageous then; me, or my mother for letting me go?

It is late 1956, time of the Hungarian Uprising, when refugee children arrive at our local orphanage and we befriend one in particular, whose name we anglicise, calling him Michael White; he comes home from school with me often to share our meals. On the other, eastern extremity of the city, the Council has been building a Comprehensive school, part of a large municipal housing estate. Needing pupils for its first intake, it draws them in from all parts – and I’m included in that list. And so, for the next 7 years, school days require leaving home around 7.30am, with a belly full of porridge in winter-time, for the 8 miles cross-city, two-bus journey. My level of independence is suddenly notched up substantially. The school is a three-building complex on a 40 acre campus that we discover is some 8 feet below sea level; the grounds seem to be permanently flooded! For the first two years we share the school with plasterers, painters and electricians, with the Assemblies held outside, whatever the weather. Homework is to seriously interfere with evening play, as well as my Scouting activities. The Sciences grab my interest, chemical formulae becoming much easier to remember than the rules of French and German grammar. A Levels are taken in Chemistry, Botany and Zoology. And now having to wonder about job prospects, my Chemistry teacher assures my parents that my somewhat compromised dexterity should not be a problem, but adds that I would probably be more suited to the easier pace of Academia rather than Industry! My separation from ‘school life’ comes with the award of the first Head Masters Prize, for dogged determination! It was, I believe, a book of Organic Chemistry!

Intrigued by how plants ‘work’ I get the opportunity to find out when I’m offered a B.Sc. Degree course in Chemistry and Biochemistry at Leicester University. So now the front door of home will be some 120 miles away; a much bigger challenge to independent living is in the offing. With all my necessary (as well as unnecessary) gear comes a bicycle – of course. For 3 years I run with the morning and evening rush-hour traffic up and down London Road (the A6) between our Halls of Residence in the affluent suburb of Oadby, and the Campus.

My somewhat loose circle of friends here are ‘science men’, together with the odd engineer and mathematician. We rather envy the latter for their apparent hours of free time until we realise they spend it in solitude grappling with ‘insoluble’ equations! We have no ‘truck’ with the Arts and Social Science students. Who would want to spend their time debating the relative merits of Keats and Byron when there are colourful and quite often very smelly chemical compounds to synthesise?

Upon graduation and with still no clear idea of a career, I take steps to secure a research position within the Chemistry Department. One of the staff is pursuing interests in the kinetics of biological reactions: we call it Biological Chemistry, to distinguish it from mainstream Biochemistry. My supervisor is memorable for his bushy eyebrows, a rather forgetful manner and jacket pockets stuffed with index cards giving detailed references to ‘useful and relevant’ scientific publications! I am tasked to investigate enzyme mechanisms using what we regard a novel physical technique. But this will involve synthesising appropriate compounds using the very highly corrosive hydrofluoric acid. Oh, joy of joys……but don’t tell my mother!

But there is a ‘catch’, of sorts. When I return to Leicester after the summer recess it is to hear that BC will be moving to Glasgow University the following June; more research money, more status. My mother panics……slightly…….asking, tongue in cheek, why he is not going to somewhere ‘civilised’, like OxBridge or even Boston. Meantime he disappears on lecturing tours across the globe, not to be seen again until our rendezvous in the much older (indeed Listed) Chemistry Department building on the Glasgow campus. I am not alone in this transfer, as three other researchers from his Group make the shift across the Border as well. Not only have we to learn the geography of this new city, there is a ‘foreign language’ to grapple with too!

Here, in Glasgow, I note that students and the city appear to meld together in a fashion I’d not experienced in Leicester. Maybe it is because many live at home still, and head there for their tea at the end of each day’s ‘academic exercises’! I’m given the opportunity to reside in one of the Student Halls, part of a grand Victorian Terrace set on Great Western Road. From here it is but a fairly short hop to the campus and a bicycle, once again, speeds up the journey for me. Life here also brings me a much more diverse group of friends, with some fascinating backgrounds, interests and personalities. My thesis is as much a documentation of what did not work as what did; often the way with researching. After three years of investigative chemistry and a somewhat anxious Viva I’m awarded a Ph.D.

Of all of the Ians (and Iains!) I will encounter north of the Border, one becomes key to opening a door for me on a completely new recreation - mountaineering – though here in Scotland they tend to refer to it as ‘hill walking’, which in some ways demeans the demands of the activity, especially under winter conditions. A small group is making frequent weekend forays into the Southern and Central Highlands and an invitation is extended for me to join in. For what is, at this point, an ill-equipped novice with a less than steady gait, and a right arm of doubtful value in a world of ‘verticalities’, it is a brave gesture. It’s tough, but is to prove extremely rewarding across many facets of life and friendships, which otherwise would have probably never come my way. As with the early cycling experiences, my confidence and competence in often harsh conditions build and I’m ‘hooked’!

The major Scottish mountains are defined as Munros (those in excess of 3000’) and Corbetts (those less than 3000’ but over 2500’). Periodic resurveys have varied the totals, but of the former there are currently 282, the latter 220. As I embark on this new, and particularly challenging, pathway into the ‘Great Outdoors’ I am rather envious of Ian’s current totals, as well as his tales of mountain strongholds in the more remote areas of this truly impressively scenic country in which I have found myself rather much by chance!

But now I roll the clock forward once again, this time by about 15 years. After countless adventures into these mountain wildernesses, the majority of them solo and travelling on foot or with bicycle assistance, I am about to climb my final Munro. The day is horribly wet and dismal. But such is the extent of my integration now into the climbing fraternity that I have with me amongst a sizeable party of friends, Hamish Brown, mountaineer, author and noted gangrel. It is September 22 1984. In the Records kept by the Scottish Mountaineering Club of what they term the Compleat Eleat I am listed as the 347th to have achieved this goal! In subsequent years I complete my ‘summiting’ of the 3000’+ mountains in England, Wales and Eire. March 1999 sees me in Tanzania, part of an enthusiastic group hoping to climb Kilimanjaro. This is a sponsored venture, raising funds for SCOPE. I go well to the hut at 16,000’, but then the affects of altitude kick in, as does the unseasonable amount of snow on the high ground, and combine to defeat my ambition.

I’d now been travelling down the ‘main line’ of scientific investigation for some years, when I come to realise that it is not the vocational destination I am cut out for. Somewhere, sometime on this journey to a Ph.D. I get ‘derailed’, or maybe I should say diverted, to use a couple of railway metaphors! The ‘points’ had been set at A Levels, with me deciding to stick with the sciences rather than study my other great passion, geography. Now she came to seduce me back, reminding me of my fascination for people and places; my father’s genetic input and his travelling experiences must have had a part to play here. The ‘researchers’ life was proving much too esoteric for me. It is at this point that another dollop of serendipity is spooned onto my plate and I manage to ‘jump tracks’, being offered a coveted place on Glasgow University’s 2 year Postgraduate Degree course in Town and Regional Planning. The Professor at this time, Sir Robert Grieve, happens also to be a renowned mountaineer, and my interview is peppered with anecdotes from each of our hill-going experiences! From a world of scientific precision I become immersed in debates and discussions riddled with caveats, conditions, assumptions and prejudice. As a trained scientist I keep asking, ‘but how do you know?’, and ‘can you prove it?’

My third Degree is an M. Phil. and with it I succeed in my desire to remain living and working in Scotland, a country that has proved it can offer much to the fulfilment of my emotional and recreational needs. After some interim teaching back in the Chemistry Department I secure my first professional job, as Planning Research Officer with Cumbernauld New Town, then still in expansion mode. A year later, in the upheaval of Local Government Reform in Scotland, I move into a restructured Planning Office within Glasgow City Council, part of the team directing its revival of fortunes.

Since leaving home my cycling had been essentially that of a commuter. This is about to change too, when I become involved with a cycling ‘pressure’ group in the city, and the like of which are popping up all across the UK at this time. I’m gifted a nearly new Peugeot Mixte by one of the members, the frame being too small for Agnes, my benefactor. With ten gears I can now think of adventuring! The name of the game is cycle camping if you do it the ‘hard way’! Scotland’s Highlands and Islands are an obvious first choice for exploration, assisted by the then recent introduction of free carriage of bikes on trains – trains with vast luggage vans, big enough to sleep in quite comfortably on the overnight service to Inverness! My hill walking and cycling are joined in a ‘marriage pact’. It is at this time too that I hear about a charity which has set itself the task of maintaining simple shelters in wild and lonely places. This is the Mountain Bothies Association (celebrating its 50th Anniversary in 2015). I get seriously involved to the point where I spend 28 years caring for one such bothy not too far from Spean Bridge.

Eire is my first leap abroad, a tour based on linking and climbing its 3000’+ mountains. Then, one summer day, I take a train journey to Brora, with the usual paraphernalia, but also a passport in my pocket. I then cycle north to Scrabster, reaching it just before the ferry leaves for the Faroes, and I’m on board: I find I like this spontaneity. Excursions to the near Continent prelude visits to ever more distant places – Eastern Europe, Tunisia, Turkey, Greece and so on – with nothing more than the necessary gear, a return air ticket and road map of a suitable scale. Of a ‘Plan’ there is usually little more than a sketchy idea of a possibly itinerary. A fair degree of uncertainty gives it the ‘spice’ I need to call it adventure.

A frequent voyage of my father’s Merchant Navy days would take him from the UK up the St. Lawrence River to Montreal. In the summer of 1933 his vessel, the Kyno, ran aground in thick fog at the northern extremity of Newfoundland. Oft he tells me the story of rescue by the fishing community of Cooks Harbour, and his billeting there until temporary repairs allowed them to sail on to complete the voyage. So I decide to venture there myself and bring back photographs to jog his memory. This is perhaps my second significant adventure, in the Autumn of 1983, about a year after the Peugeot had taken me through Lapland to Nordkapp, the most northerly point of Europe.

My mother had perhaps found success in her ambitions to equip me for independent living, but in her wildest dreams had little expectation that it would take me, in a fashion, around the world, essentially solo, on two self-propelled wheels! To her frequent questioning of my father along the lines of ‘Where do you think he is now?’ he could only and honestly reply ‘I’ve no idea’. Abilities to quickly communicate were not available in the early days and I have tended to shun them throughout my travels since!

What follows is a selection taken from my many diaries recording ‘cycling adventures’ over a span of some thirty five years. They are set down here much as originally written, and in chronological order since they occasionally include ‘back references’ to earlier trips. My hope is that you will find them interesting (and possibly, in parts, also amusing and informative) recollections of my days, weeks and (sometimes!) months living rather much a ‘vagabond’ life-style pedalling the back roads of some disparate parts of the world.

Maybe, too, the pleasures I had in both riding the miles and then writing ‘the words’ will be matched by yours in reading them, perhaps offering some inspiration to anyone wishing to emulate my adventuring on two ‘self-propelled’ wheels. Those who now travel ‘technologically equipped’, with GPS, Smartphones and other such gadgetry, may quite possibly decide that my lack of such ‘comforts’ somewhat archaic! But my pleasures come from the people met along the road; whether or not we understand one another can seem almost irrelevant – the encounter is all!

As you read you might also well decide that when I’m out on the road I become focussed solely on finding water and somewhere to camp (or at least sleep!), as well as a certain compulsion to source that most beneficial of foodstuffs…..bananas! By his own account Bill Tilman’s journey across the width of Africa in the 1930’s,east to west on a single speed velocipede bought in Kampala …an ordinary English make costing £6, was almost wholly fuelled by this most nourishing fruit! (‘Snow on the Equator’, 1937).

And finally, a minor apology for the somewhat liberal use of Scots words throughout the text; often so much more descriptive and appropriate than their English equivalents – if such exist!

Howard Ashton

Glasgow 2015

‘THE BIG FOUR BIKE RIDE’

A solo journey from Killarney to Fort William

including the ascent of the four highest mountains

in the British Isles.

CARROUNTOOHILL

SNOWDON

SCAFELL PIKE

BEN NEVIS

June 17 to July 17 1993

Asked to think of a major cycling challenge in Britain most people would probably mention Lands End - John o’Groats. Though I’d never done it, so many had, and I was looking for something which might better capture the imagination of those I hoped would sponsor a fund-raising enterprise on behalf of THE OPERATION ADVENTURE TRUST.

Being mildly affected by cerebral palsy I had used a bike to get about (admittedly three wheels to start with!) long before I could walk at all well. And to this day cycling is still my favourite form of transport, and not simply for short trips. I’m sure my touring bike gives a groan whenever I take it out, wondering where on earth it might now be heading! Just up to Loch Lomond, maybe. But then again it has travelled the tundra of northern Norway, spit grit through semi- deserts in Turkey and had it’s wheels sink into the soft, rich earth of a Bulgarian vineyard.

If I like flat roads by bike, I love steep mountains on foot, so my venture, I thought, should try and combine the two. And so was born THE BIG FOUR BIKE RIDE. The challenge would be to link and climb the four highest mountains in the British Isles, starting in Killarney, finishing in Fort William, some 800 miles of cycling and at least 15,000 feet of rigorous hillwalking.

A start in Ireland would, I thought, have two benefits; a finish close to home and, if my geography books were correct, the help of back winds on my journey north. But then it does say "the prevailing wind over the British Isles is usually from the south-west". This trip was to be unusual in a number of ways, not least of which was that fact that the wind turned against me for much of the second half’!

Here Today……Eire Tomorrow! June 17;

To the airport with bike….and a ladder?

Straight away I need to make it clear that the ladder had no place in this enterprise! It just happened to be already on top of Craig’s car (and destined for a bothy repair project somewhere) when he arrived -early- to get me to the plane. As I told him, we would probably have great difficulty getting it checked as baggage anyway!

The letter writing had finished! Now it was time to push pedals, not pens!

There had to be easier ways of raising money, but having devised this escapade I had only myself to blame for taking it to the point where I was now standing before a check-in desk at Glasgow Airport for a morning flight to Dublin. But also I really had little desire to swap places with any of those in adjacent queues who looked as though they were destined for little more exciting than yet another business trip - ‘stress’ was written all across their faces! With some substantial physical effort in the offing I’m sure ‘they’ would be wondering, had they known all of this, why I should be managing to share a few jokes with the airport staff as documents were checked and the bike disappeared behind the scenes! Security was tight-and serious-however, and especially so when I had to explain the petrol stove stashed away in my hand luggage. No, I wasn’t carrying any fuel for it!, but I suppose the question had to be asked.

The flight down and across the Irish Sea was long enough only for a breakfast of coffee and fruit cake, so straight away there was a real threat of a calorific deficiency! Later I discovered that Aer Lingus was heading for serious financial troubles, so perhaps we were lucky to get what we did! Grey Glasgow was exchanged for the Emerald Isle bathed in warm sunshine. At the airport I was impressed by the facilities provided for cyclists to reassemble their machines after transit. But signs leading cyclists towards the city centre seemed to disappear at crucial junctions! Directions from motorists expanded into lengthy conversations about the ‘whys and wherefores’ and rather set the tone for Irish travel! Mid-morning found me down on the congested Quays by the Liffey,stop-and-start, on the lookout for the Guinness Brewery, only because across the road from it is Heuston Station (no, not a typing error!), and which is not quite so obvious a landmark.

It was with some relief that I discovered Irish Railways still encouraged cyclists, and with plenty of friendly help soon had the bike loaded onto the 13.20 Cork train, with a change for me at Mallow, for Killarney. As the train travelled west heavy rain moved east, the passage of the train one way, the bad weather the other such that on arrival in Killarney the setting sun painted the sky a pastel canvas of blues and pinks. I weaved a way through a network of quiet, but rain-soaked country lanes to find, about 12 miles out of town, the very camp site by the Gaddagh River I had used on my two previous visits to the MacGillycuddy Reeks.

The Big Four Bike Ride had reached its starting point!

CARROUNTOOHILL: June 18;

River Deep, Mountain High…

Tarmac lane led on to stony track and then, by the ‘Black Burn’, it was straight into the steep pull up the base of Cruach Mor. Above the moraine barrier to Loch Cummeenapeasta it was necessary to pick a slow way through outcrops and massive lumps of fallen rock. The huge summit cairn, seen from below, is in fact a grotto, the Madonna within gazing northwards across the croft lands of Kerry.

The passage along the ridge ahead proved to be a stiff test of nerve and route-finding - narrow, rocky and somewhat intimidating. Difficulties forced a long deviation onto the lough side of the ridge, but steep screes here made it much of an out of the frying pan and into the fire kind of passage. Regaining the ridge beyond the major difficulties on this long eastern approach to Carrauntoohill it became possible to relax and take in the mountain scene.

Beyond Cummeenapeasta comes a long, easy, high-level promenade, the ridge never falling below about 2750’. But then heavy showers began to sweep in from the west and thick banks of mist formed, robbing me of much of the fine views otherwise to be enjoyed in wandering this ridge.

Extensive areas of black, gooey peat gave a slippery descent to the top of the Black Ladder, from which point I began the haul up the last thousand feet to the summit of Carrountoohill. Today it was a lonely spot and I did just wonder if there was anyone else at all out and about anywhere on the Reeks. Wrapped closely in thick mist and my own thoughts I gradually closed on this, the first summit of The Big Trek. My watch said 15.20; my stomach said, ‘what happened to lunch!’, as I made a token circuit of the huge metal cross marking the premier summit of this mountain complex. This was my second ‘pilgrimage’ to this spot.

On an Easter visit some years previously these hills had worn a mantle of deep snow, when this cross was impressively decorated with enormous accretions of ice. A safe passage up the Black Ladder had been rather dubiously assisted by a branch pressed into service as a make-shift ice-axe!

Today, frequent downpours of cold rain had transformed the steep and loose defile of the Black Ladder into a significant burn. But even after a slow and cautious descent, I knew that the route back to camp still held a final challenge. As anticipated, the outflow from Lough Gouragh was running deep with the day’s rain, the stepping stones well submerged. The thigh- deep wade across it at least washed away much of the muck from my boots and breeks! Under rapidly clearing skies and with the hills now bathed in soft evening sunlight, I closed my eleven hour day on the hills with the rigging of drying lines between the trees around my camp! Tomorrow, Saturday, was, without hesitation, ‘written in’ as one for rest and reflection.

Across Ireland: June 20-24

Irish radio was speaking about the ‘Big H’, reporting on a developing area of high pressure and enthusing over the prospect of a spell of fine weather. And so as I made that first turn of the pedals to start the long journey to Fort William it was good news to me too!

Killarney, this Sunday morning, was metaphorically ‘on fire’ with cup-tie fever, the town thronged with Cork supporters for the Munster semi-finals (of what I never did quite discover!). Every piece of private ground and parking area was heavily guarded against the anticipated motorised invasion. Fifteen miles out along the Mallow road I happily abandoned ‘red route’ cycling to pass through Eire along the ‘yellows and whites’, minor roads which range across the countryside as dense as a capillary blood supply.

In a corner of a cow pasture outside of Newmarket the peace of the first evening’s camp was disturbed by uninvited guests for dinner. A herd of about 50 heifers, young and extremely inquisitive, crowded in on my space, a few of them clearly salivating at the prospect of a quick chew of my flysheet! Like a mad thing I chased them all into the next 40 acres, watched at the gate by a bemused local, who offered advice on the finer points of cow-herding. Next morning they had returned, but a long length of disused electric-fence wire had made an effective corral and kept the spectators at bay until I had struck camp and escaped!

My route trundled east-north-east, through Raith Lurch (Charlottesville) and Kilmarnock, where Howard’s Bar’ failed to lure me inside, en route to Tipperary. Distances were reported in a mixture of miles and kilometres, and on occasions sign posts would even have you believe you were going backwards! Being largely stock-rearing country the land was usually tightly enclosed and often well barricaded, the more to stop beasts getting out than prevent gangrel camp-seekers from getting in! Out along the Thurles road a collection of derelict steadings offered a most acceptable doss, a straw covering on wooden pallets making a fine bed.

Foulksraith Castle is a sixteenth century keep built in Norman style. It is also one of An Oighe’s network of Irish hostels. As it was still early afternoon when I came by it, to stop would be to forgo another 3-4 hours progress in the direction of Dublin. But then curiosity and the prospect of a hot shower won me over. Wandering through the outbuildings and then up the spiral stair of the keep I found the place as quiet as a ship abandoned and for a couple of hours no-one appeared. Then I met Sasha, who was taking a break on her own cycle run, from the Netherlands to the Irish west coast, in search of a croft and a change of life style. Walking together the mile or so to the ‘local’ shop - one of those ‘emporiums’ offering a wonderful mixture of consumer necessities - I talked about the colours of the countryside only to find that, for Sasha, the Emerald Isle was forty shades of blue - she was affected by colour blindness!

In Kilkenny, a few miles to the south, it was Festival Week and the hostel was in fact much busier than first impressions had indicated. In such circumstances it often pays to be up early to get breakfast and I had almost packed up before the kitchen was taken over by a ‘mob’ of German students. Then came the panic! Leaking gas on a connection to one of the stoves caught fire! One quick-thinker amongst them grabbed a powder-filled extinguisher but in his enthusiasm for heroic action left the kitchen, and most of the occupants, looking like a scene from a ‘Mother’s Pride, flour-sifters’, advert! I quickly escaped from the clean-up operations, loaded up the bike and turned left for Dublin; Sasha went west, towards Co. Mayo, in search of her dream.

Ahead the road rose and fell across a landscape looking like a crumpled green tablecloth, passing through quiet villages in a quick succession of ‘border crossings’, out of Kilkenny, through Co. Laois and into Kildare. In Athy, as I had elsewhere, I searched out the Garda station to get a stamp in my log book as ‘proof of passage’. Sneaking slowly up onto the western slopes of the Wicklow Mountains, the appearance of streams of fresh water again prompted thoughts of a camp rather than press on to reach the Baltiboys Hostel by the Poulaphouca Reservoir. It had been another splendid day and perfect for a night under ‘canvas’. Then I spotted it; another dilapidated steadying at the back of a yard, just off the road. The main building was simply a single storey of inter-connected rooms, with a loft space above. As good as many another doss used over my years of travel, but with one special feature. Could it be possible? At the sink, full of straw, bottles and old tins, yes indeed, there was actually water on tap!

Next morning, at 06.30, it was misty and dew-laden as I began the run of 35 miles into Dublin, sights set on the first of the two daylight sailings to Holyhead, at 10.00 from Dublin Port. Somewhere near Rathcoole I ‘popped’ out of a country lane and into the rush-hour melee on the dual carriageway of the N7 into the city. Like a piece of flotsam in a stream, suddenly picked up by the ‘mother’ river, it was a headlong rush down to the sea! - the silver sea of Dublin Bay, spread out below and glinting in the morning sunlight. The game of ‘beat the clock’ was under way and I was hoping to win! Gravity replaced water for the frenetic downhill slalom, weaving a quick-witted route through the traffic. Then came the error! Following road signs instead of my limited and intuitive knowledge of Dublin set me on a devious route for dockland. So, despite a sprint finish worthy of any stage of the Tour de France, the ‘heavy’ hand of Security stopped me just yards from the ferry, no ticket, no boarding! It was 10.00, the ramp rose, the mooring lines released and she was away. After 220 miles I’d missed the boat by the same number of seconds! - the time needed to buy that essential ticket. And so it was ‘Goodbye, B+I, Hello Stena Sealink’; at 11.30 we cast off from Dun Laoghaire bound for Holyhead.

Flat, burnished and sparkling under the midday sun, it was only the absence of islands which suggested that this was not actually the Aegean Sea. Taking a late lunch may reduce menu choice but often ensures good value as the plate is piled high with whatever is left. It worked for me! A heavy plate prompted a beeline for the nearest table, which is how I met Margaret North. A retired school teacher from Chester, she was returning from a visit to relatives in Dublin. Breakfast had been long ago and in the process of ‘demolishing’ my large plateful of spaghetti carbonari I spoke about the Ride and plans for a couple of days off in Chester. It was in the course of this conversation that she discovered she had worked with one of the only three people I knew in that city. For the privilege of making this tenuous connection she added £5 to my collecting tin. Earlier the purser of the Stena Cambria, on telling him of my Adventure, had presented me with three extra large T-shirts -no doubt to make sure they fitted after my generous lunch-time helping!

Enter the Land of the Dragon: June 24-29

The decision to cross Anglesey on the B5109 via Llangefni and so avoid the busy A5 was probably ill-founded, and along this slow and very hilly road I was constantly reminded of my carbonari lunch! Jet trainers out of RAF Valley provided a bit of compensatory entertainment with their low level circuits around the island. Ahead, the mountains of Snowdonia etched a crisp, dark silhouette against the cloudless afternoon sky. According to my diary I reached Telford’s magnificent Menai Bridge just after 18.00, describing my condition as ‘frazzled’. A couple of local cyclists described the location of a camp site on the way to Caernarfon, but further enquiries failed to reveal it. Last night’s doss on the fringe of the Wicklows now seemed a long way off - in another country even!

Caernarfon supplied a much needed fish supper (in Welsh) and also a splendid camp site, where the owners returned my fee and more besides when they learnt of my reasons for being on the road. It was also Day 7 without rain, the Big H was holding its own. After minor repairs to the bike’s dérailleur, and taking on ‘stores’, a leisurely ride up the A4085 and away from the coast, eventually landed me in the Forestry Commission camp site at Beddgelert. Again this was familiar territory, and placed me ready for an assault on Snowdon.

Phone calls from Caernarfon to Chester had set up plans for a rendezvous with Alan at the Snowdon Ranger Hostel next day - but I did not add ‘come rain or shine’! By late afternoon a heavy drizzle had set in which was to persist for the next 20 hours; it encouraged a day of rest without a second asking. Alan will not bother to come on a day like this, I reassured myself, not knowing that this dismal inclemency was focussed on Snowdonia alone, that in Chester and on the coast the sun shone unrelenting. But as I lay cocooned in my sleeping bag, motionless as a chrysalis, tuned-in and ‘spaced-out’ by a dose of FM pop, Alan was out there, searching, calling, and getting thoroughly soaked!

SNOWDON: June 27.

Our footprints on the Welsh peak’s summit were made about 24 hours apart, him dripping and cursing, me dripping (with sweat!) and squinting heavily in the brilliant sunlight! An early start from the south, along the flank of Yr Aran and then atop the crest of Bwlch Main had me up at the trig.point well before the first train from Llanberis. Whilst they awaited the first of the day’s ‘tourist assault’ I passed my collecting tin around the café staff - smiles and a few jokes made money! Dave Kirkham, a complete stranger I accosted for a log book entry wrote I have waited 42 years to see this (the view, not me!); what a waste of time. I should have been up every Sunday instead of going to church. The heartfelt cry of a staunch Methodist?. What better place, I thought, to marvel at Creation, and give thanks for a fit body. The state of mind was another matter altogether, knowing it was still only ‘two down, and around 450 miles to go’! The sun continued to fry brain cells on the way down, and for the next 6 days on the road.

Escaping from Snowdon took effort. Like a satellite trying to pull away from earth I was held closely to this mountain mass for the long haul up the Nant gwynant, climbing slowly and steadily past its two beautiful lakes until reaching the ‘break-point’ at the Pen-y-Gwryd Hotel. Then it was up through the gears for the 12 mile descent out of the mountains at a cracking pace, through Capel Curig and Betwys-y-Coed and into the Conwy Valley. The B5106 offered a quiet west side alternative to the busy A470, making north to the magnificent Conwy Castle and the coast again. From hereon the rule for navigation was simple; just keep the sea on the left hand side!

With cyclists barred from the A55 Expressway, the route east had to lie along the old road through Colwyn, and rising high above the coast. Pints of cold milk and ice cream Mars Bars were bought to celebrate the ‘topping out’ of some long slow climbs on this ‘roaster’ of an afternoon. Then down through Abergele, back to the coast and ‘caravan-land’, with Scouse accents outnumbering the Welsh. In Towyn (of the infamous floods) a pitch at Henly’s Farm cost £6. But this was refunded when word got back to the owner’s wife that I was on a charity run, though she asked for proof before unclenching her fist! Earlier, at another site, I’d been refused entry as it was a ‘families only’ facility. I’m not sure what kind of a nuisance a ‘fatigued’ cyclist was thought likely to perpetrate. Long before sunset I was deep in slumber anyway!

A fresh south-easterly was to ‘dog’ me all the way down the shore of the Dee Estuary and on into Chester. It was still early as I passed through Rhyl and Prestatyn, high spots of the ‘Merseyside Costa’,(and very much del sol these past few days). With the shutters still down and the neon dead they looked as drab as a siren bereft of make-up and sequins! The ‘leisure and pleasure’ end of the North Wales coast gradually slipped away behind me as I moved on up the estuary and into an industrial landscape of red brick and slate, as well as a certain amount of dereliction. And with this change of scene came my first puncture, outside the dock gates at Mostyn. Just east of Queensferry the A50 seems to divide ‘working class’ from the paddock-encircled villas of Chester’s suburbia. On the north-east side of the city, in a little slice of this prosperity, known as Mickle Trafford, Alan (of where the hell were you when I was up on Snowdon) and his family offered me the chance to unwind for a couple of days. As always, the bike thought it was great to call a halt. It got oiled…..I got spoiled!

Into ‘Enemy Territory’: July 1-3.

A Yorkshireman enters Lancashire!

Flat lands, grey skies, a chill head wind and the acrid fumes from the Stanlow Refinery marked the start of the next leg of the journey, a ninety degree turn for the north, out from the suburbs of Chester. An exploration of Ellesmere Port failed to reveal a quiet route up the Wirral so it had to be up it’s ‘spine’ on the A4l. Quick thinking on a one-way system as fast as any Grand Prix circuit avoided an unplanned disappearance into the Mersey Tunnel, relieved to make a safe escape to the Birkenhead waterfront and the Woodhead ferry terminal. The short crossing to the Liverpool shore was extended into a ‘mini-cruise’ upriver to see the ghosts of shipbuilding, ‘serenaded’ by the song made famous in the 60’s by Gerry and the Pacemakers; tourism, it seems, thrives on nostalgia! An attempt to get my log book signed at the Liver Building failed because the appropriate people were away for lunch. Resisting the temptation to join the queue at the ground floor restaurant (and not being dressed in my business suit!) I ‘hit the streets’ in search of food. The A5093 docks road led north into Bootle. Dilapidated transport cafés and pubs formed ‘bookends’ to street-blocks of dereliction on the one hand, the high sterns of freighters rearing up on the other. Scrap metal seemed to be the main cargo, much of it seemingly still on the streets, leaving me anxious for my tyres and expecting a blow-out any minute!

Business-like Bootle rubs shoulders with leafy Crosby and Formby, but Southport lifts it’s nose to all of its neighbours to the south. I’d entered the town along the ‘back door’ shore route out of Ainsdale, a road more or less cut through the sand dunes. A light aircraft operated pleasure trips off a beach runway and the town kept the fun fair and neon at arms length from the central area. The manager of the Safeway store was close to offering me a shirt and tie for my quick visit to buy fish fingers for my tea!

Back winds and a flat road sped me along the A565 and A59 to Preston, a kiss-and-run affair with the city, just to find a crossing point of the Ribble, immediately to face west again, into the wind and the setting sun. In Warton a sign for a caravan site enticed me off the road but on entering nearly went headlong into a large ditch being dug up the driveway! Lot of work yet before I can open, explained the owner, before offering me the use of his back lawn. Just cut it today, and there’s an outside loo, if that’s OK by you, and no charge. Just make yourself at home Obviously this man had more than an inkling of what I could happily accept as ‘temporary accommodation’. Very soon I had those fish fingers frying!

Enjoying yer ‘oliday son? Turning around I greeted two elderly couples obviously very interested in me and my well laden bike. It was tempting to reply that this was no holiday,rather I was out on the road to make money. Well to raise money, then! And yes, if truth were told I was enjoying myself. After telling them what I was up to, a rummage in pockets and purses produced a handful of coins for my collecting tin. A solo trip it might have been, but that never meant being alone. Meeting people is always a rewarding part of cycle-touring, be it home or abroad. And the location of this particular exchange? Blackpool’s Golden Mile, a place I’d heard was a second home for Glaswegians, but never before visited. And somewhere along it I was sure to find postcards for those who like to receive messages from strange and distant places! Cold grey waves washed the sea wall, leaving nothing of the beach for the donkeys - or the sunbathers! The top half of the famous tower was lost in a sea mist. It was definitely all there the previous day, when I’d first set eyes on this famous structure from across the Ribble Estuary. But by late morning the sun decided to show itself, burning off the mist and thin cloud and now glinting off the wetlands of the Wyre Peninsula. But east, across the M6, the Forest of Bowland Fells continued to wear a dark overcoat. Progress towards Lancaster could be measured by the gradually increasing size of the magnificently domed Ashton Memorial (yes, they’ve built it already!), set on a ridge just south of the city. About 15 miles further north I decided to call it a day, pitching camp in a cosy corner of a stubble field close to Bentham. The West Coast Railway line was just too far away to train spot!

CUMBRIAN ‘COASTING’: July 3-7

Thick drizzle overnight had left the countryside super-saturated and shrouded in mist. The A590 route into Lakeland too quickly turned into a roller-coaster of a road; low points, high points - and sigh points! A tiresome morning, some long uphill slogs into the mist matched by nervy white-knuckle descents, wondering if braking on wet (steel) wheel rims would slow me at the right moments. Strawberries and sunshine, in their different ways, boosted morale on the afternoon run out from Broughton in Furness. Below Black Coombe an old sheep fank offered a camping spot well sheltered from the vicious west wind. With fresh clean water off the hillside it was good to be doing a bit of ‘wild’ camping once again.

Mist was down to road level, and on the steep hill over Broad Oak threat became a promise as I free-wheeled into Ravensglass in a downpour. The owner of the tiny grocery store looked glum yet the ‘mark-up’ on his prices should have left him grinning. Perhaps he was upset by the water running off my hat and sleeves all over his confectionery display! Refuelled, I cycled through puddles and leafy lanes to the shores of Wastwater, with little to be seen of the famous screes rising up from it’s southern shore. At the National Trust camp site wet clothes were strung out to dry in the improving weather. By evening the wind had veered northerly and clear skies let the setting sun cast bold shadows across the fells. Above the camp site, the crags of Mickledore seemed but an arms length away.

SCAFELL PIKE: July 5.

The so-called ‘permitted’ route went up beside the Lingmell Gill. Not trusting myself to cross it dry-shod I removed socks and replaced boots for the quick cold splash across. An old chap (and the only person ahead as I started out), and who I’d passed lower down, made a carefully judged transit and opened up a brief conversation with something like I’ve been to China, you know Well, I didn’t know, but congratulated him on his adventurous travels. His reply was No, I suffer from angina! The roar of wind and water were quickly blamed for my misunderstanding and said I was sure he’d make it to the top. Would I?

The ascent steepened up a veritable stone stairway, monument to a lot of back-breaking work by squads of conservation volunteers, no doubt. The Mickledore route was then deserted in favour of a much more straightforward approach. Around 10.30 Carl, Dawn and myself coincidently reached the summit from opposite directions, sneaking behind the trig. point trying to get what shelter we could from the bitter north wind. The hills all around were dark under a high but heavy layer of cloud. Carl and Dawn had been just behind me until our routes diverged and they had opted for the challenge of the Mickledore screes. We gave the summit only a few minutes of our time and then set a descent course out over Ill Gill before anyone else had made the top. Of the dribble of walkers on the upward trail many a brave soul was clad only in T-shirt, shorts and large expanses of goose bumps! Aye, it can be gey cold, even in July!

Lunching at the Mountain Rescue Box at Sty Head I heard someone on the track above call to me. Haven’t we seen you before. Apparently they meant not today, but back at the FC camp site in Beddgelert, where I’d been asking folk if they could spare some petrol for my stove. And they’d also seen me some days previously, out on the road somewhere near Coniston. Small Worlds! Back at camp I met up with Carl and Dawn again, but lost the bet I had with myself that they had that special mix of forenames just right for ‘personalising’ their car windscreen sun strip!

Eddie and I met over a pint outside the Wastdale Hotel. A fading sun washed the fells in pastel shades but the chill north wind rather spoilt the al fresco drinking. He had a doleful look, with eyes constantly on the move as though expecting something important to happen at any moment. At my feet a handful of sparrows made supper from fragments of crisps shaken out of the packet. Eddie watched them jealously, salivating. Always on the look-out for food, said Jill, but a gentle creature really. Eddie was a large biscuit-brown Boxer and I eyed him up as a suitable pack animal for the assault on Ben Nevis!

Jill and Marco had just arrived for a week of walking but the cold wind was now making them wish they had packed a lot more thermal clothing. They ran a health club and gym in Southport and Marco had helped a number of young lads affected by Downs Syndrome to develop weight-lifting skills. My own challenge, and the work of the Trust, kept us talking till darkness fell. Eddie, unfortunately, would not be available as Sherpa for the carry up Ben Nevis!

Thanks to the generosity of the camp site Warden and a group of teachers with a large party nearby, the Bike Ride takings had been given a substantial boost. And so, like a travelling bank, I made my run out from the clinging mists of the Cumbrian Mountains and down again to the coast, turned my back on Sellafield and its own special brand of cooling tower mist and aimed for St. Bees. A narrow lane set ditch-like between sandy fields of potatoes finally reared up behind St. Bees Head, starting point for Wainwright’s famous Coast-to-Coast walk. It was no surprise, then, to see copies of his guide book with faded dust wrappers in a number of shop windows. I walked much of the long hill out of town, looking down on the single track railway. It had the ‘feel’ of a model layout from up here, track side buildings and all.

Bump, bump,bump BANG! near the top of another long climb out of Whitehaven left me in no doubt that the back tyre had blown. It was never a case of if, but when, this would happen. I like to get the last yard out of them! With spare tube and tyre fitted and rolling again it was on into Workington in search of a chip shop. With haggis on the menu-board I decided