The Last 5 Days of the Cycle I spent 3 days cycling from Visoko to Split and then a couple of days in Split getting ready to fly home. I continued to cycle up and down over hills and mountains but enjoyed it a lot more knowing that I was only days away from my last uphill. I also continued to see pyramid-shaped hills and generally really nice scenery like lakes and hills with wild horses parading around. My tent poles broke again, for the third time but luckily I managed to fix it, one final time, again with duct tape and sticks and it was only for my last night. Split was full of tourists, many out partying and drinking loads but that didn't spoil the experience of walking around the centre, which is ... read more

Montenegro - 3 Days I entered Montenegro full of beans having avoided the 30km climb to reach the border with a ride on a tractor on the Kosovan side of the border, I arrived thinking I was ahead of time but that was soon to change. I had been in the country for a couple of hours and was eating some mackerel sandwiches when the heavens opened, I waited and waited as it was torrential rain and ended up having a couple of beers to pass the time. After about 4 hours the rain calmed down so I jumped at the chance to continue on but it soon intensified again and I was completely soaked by the time I arrived in Berane. I looked at getting a hotel but the cheapest I could find was ... read more

Macedonia - 1 Week Macedonia is a small but very mountainous country with pleasant people and nice scenery. Macedonia is famous for Alexander the Great and poppies apparently but I saw no poppies and Alex has some statues and an airport named after him....wicked (as Ali G would say). Personally I would say that Macedonia is like a massive farm and should be famous for vegetables or farming, farming and tractors as there were tractors everywhere. There were churches and mosques with more mosques closer to the border with Albania, it was nice to see two religions co-existing. Orhid was a nice touristy destination located on a scenic lake and I decided to get a hotel room partly due to my desire to shower, have a beer and also because I couldn't resist a room ... read more

Turkey - 6 Weeks Turkey has become one of my favourite countries due to its exetremely friendly people, its diversity and its unique geological areas. Turkeys history is fascinating and layered (with civilisations such as the Romans, Greeks, Lycians, Thracians, Hittites, and many more having strutt their stuff here) and there are Islamic and Christian influences from more recent times. There is some amazing countryside from the Turquoise coast to Cappadocia and there are unique sites like the chimaera, flames comıng from the earth to Pamukkale, terraces of carbonate minerals left by the water flowing from a mineral rich spring - quite frankly for someone who likes variety Turkey cannot fail to impress (and no I didn't get a job working for the tourist board). The short versıon of my trip is that I spent ... read more

Portugal - 6 weeks This trip started in Lisbon and finished in Mallorca, entailing a flight to Lisbon, cycling 950 miles, taking 2 trains, 2 ferries, and driving about a 1000 km across Spain. We flew in to Lisbon, We being me, the misses, 2 bikes and about 50 kilos of stuff. Portugal was a fantstic country, far better than I had expected – with some beautiful countryside, extremely friendly and pleasant people, and an interesting history (from Megalithic sites to Roman ruins, to countless hilltop castles). It was the first cycle trip for Steph, who struggled for the first 2 – 3 weeks but then blossomed into a budding tour-cyclist. If you'd like the more detailed version of the trip skip the rest of this paragraph, for those of you who want the short version ... read more