Having arrived back in Lake Louise after three days of hiking in Yoho NP on a sunday evening, I was due to set out on my five-day cycling trip from Lake Louise to Jasper along the famed Icefields Parkway the following morning. So this was it: judgment day. The reason I had gone through the logistical nightmare of bringing my nondescript hybrid bicycle with me from the highlands of Scotland to the Rocky Mountains of Canada; and, to a lesser extent, the reason I had spent two-and-a-half weeks cycling around the Netherlands before coming to Canada, in preparation for my upcoming expedition. The plan had come together so simply. Having decided months ago that I wanted to see as much as possible of the awe-inspiring scenery between Lake Louise and Jasper, but with no towns from ... read more

After hiking just about every yard of every trail in the vicinity of Lake Louise during my first three days in the Rocky Mountains, it was time to hop on my bicycle and venture down the Bow Valley Parkway (the older, slower, and far more peaceful alternative to the Trans-Canada Highway) to Banff, 55kms away to the south-east. Paralleling the Trans-Canada Highway, but on the opposite side of the valley, the Bow Valley Parkway is the perfect road for cyclists - there is far less traffic, the speed limit is lower, there are numerous viewpoints and interpretive displays along the way, and the resident wildlife is free to roam throughout the area. In fact, for four months every year during the springtime, the eastern half of the road is voluntarily closed to motorists from dusk to ... read more

Well if the title of my last blog wasn't strictly accurate, this one actually is - for after spending two nights on the Waddenzee island of Terschelling and then taking the ferry back to the mainland at Harlingen, I soon found myself tackling the 30km-long stretch of the Afsluitdijk, which cuts straight across the North Sea from Friesland to North Holland... against the wind all of the way, of course! Having been built in response to a catastrophic North Sea flood in 1916 - and completed in 1932 - the Afsluitdijk (meaning 'Closure Dike') is another marvel of Dutch engineering, forming a 30km-long barrier between the Waddenzee (the part of the North Sea that is bounded by the Dutch mainland on one side and the Wadden islands on the other) and what was formerly known as ... read more

It had all seemed so simple when I came up with the idea - having finished my UK working holiday in May but elected to delay the start of my Canadian working holiday until July so that I could remain in Europe for the duration of the European football championships, it had occurred to me that I would have the best part of three weeks to fill in between the end of my week in Tenerife (unfortunately no photos and very little recollection of the events of that week means no travel blog!) and my eventual flight to Vancouver... so what better way to spend that time than by taking my bicycle (which had been left with friends near London for the previous six weeks) on the ferry over to Holland and cycle around the Netherlands ... read more

Feeling like I had done everything I wanted to do in Fethiye - apart from taking a four-day sailing trip back along the coast to Marmaris, which I had already decided I could no longer afford - I returned my scooter on monday morning (28th May) and took a typically slow but scenic bus ride through the Akdaglar mountains to Pamukkale - the site of the world-famous travertines. For those that are unfamiliar with Pamukkale, the travertines are basically a series of terraced pools high up on a hillside that have formed over millenia from the calcium deposits left behind by spring water that gushes out from the top of the hill and then cascades down the slope, smoothing over the travertines as it does so; while simultaneously they are being bleached an almost-perfect white by ... read more