Sean

Aug 5 to Aug 28 Flying into Oslo to visit Stine, my dearest friend Ive met travelling, 16 months ago. I spent nearly three weeks with her rock climbing and hanging out in Krabi, Thailand. Over the past year she kept me entertained with funny stories into her daily life via email. My first day there we road our bikes to her local lake for a swim in a beautiful pine surrounded lake with diving board and sunning rocks, and even better, a huge underwater rock you can stand on in the middle of the lake. Having swam there since she was a kid you would figure she could find it right? On my first two visits her and I swam in a grid pattern while the people on shore had a chuckle in our hopeless ... read more

July 4 to July 21 Stumbling off the ferry from Wales at six am blind with sleep and hunger I fill up on seawater and Irish Brown bread. Tap water so bad and then some of the best bread I've eaten in my life. The ingredients say that half of the bread is made with buttermilk! In my 18 days in Ireland I think its safe to say I ate 18 loaves of this bread, made in heaven I think. My first stop was Jeripoint Abby and the city of Kilkenny for some history. The Abby was manned by two different orders and left very unique limestone carvings of Saints and other religious scenes with tell tale signs for the modern viewer. For instance, if a snake has a knot in its tail, you know that ... read more

June 17 to June 26 The biggest damn pork knee you ever saw, two pieces of capsicum and a silver of carrot, all the food groups you need. Three days I chased one and missed out, bitter disappointment as I had to settle with every other part from a pig. On the advice of Sarah, a girl I traveled with in Israel, I rode from Salzberg to Cesky Krumlov, a perfect Medieval village in the south of the Czech republic that was holding its annual - medieval festival. Aussie Kathryn and I literally got the last two beds in town, like the world cup, my luck continues in cities. While in the mountains, I get strange and scary animals charging me or my tent in dark scary forests. I never what to know what kind of ... read more

June 3 to June 9 Riding into Bavaria, with lots and lots of rain gave me a quick dose of BMWs in featured commercials, f**** fast, not crazy just fast. Except for a guy in a Fiat that gave me a thumbs up as he passed, followed by a look of his two huge eyeballs that rotated a full 360 degrees at me, that's plain scary. After five minutes riding the entire length of Liechtenstein, shamelessly to add a country to the list, even though all it took was crossing a river, I hit a long stretch in Austria to the tip of Lake Constance. On the lake shore I watched an Asian kid with the legs like like lightning, legs that Keven Bacon would be proud of. A row of a hundred paper cups spread ... read more

Leaving Rome for the hills of Tuscany was exciting, some places you tend to hold high expectations for and just know it wont disappoint. You cant complain about the climbing either, lest some tour group of silver haired sixty somethings pedal past you with their massive tour van bringing up the rear. I must have been the only cyclist carrying his own gear. That will be me in a few years so I cant complain. Leaving Rome I followed Via Cassia for the first 50ks, built during Roman Rule along with Via Aurelia and Appia these 2000 year old roads run as far as Barcelona and Brindisi, my entry point into Rome. Access to medieval Sienna was a bit strange, park your car/bike walk towards very high and imposing city walls, jump into a modern automated ... read more