ANNUAL NEWSLETTER 2000

AROUND THE WORLD

Barry and Margaret Williamson

The annual newsletter for 2000 describes a cycle ride in Greece, Cyprus, Israel and Palestine, Greek Islands and the first part of a cycle rise round the world: cycling in Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.

Another year ends, summer approaches, the longest day is nearly here and we pedal south to escape the increasing heat of the sun as it traverses the northern sky. This is New Zealand where we are nearly half way through our one-year 12000-mile cycle ride round the world. The year began sensibly enough with our almost annual motorhome journey to Greece for the winter. At Christmas we were on the banks of the Loire above Orléans to experience the Tempête du Siècle which uprooted millions of French trees, including a few on our deserted campsite. The Patron returned from his Fête de Noël to remove the fir tree that had blocked our attempts to check out.

The new millennium found us in splendid isolation on snow in the French Alps: the passes to Italy were closed for the winter; the Mont Blanc tunnel had not recovered from its fire and the route to the Fréjus tunnel was deep in drifts. Finally escaping to the sunshine of northern Italy, Epiphany gave us a traffic-free road into Ancona and a peaceful night on the deck of the Greek ferry to Patras. Throughout Greece the waves had been calmed by the blessings of bishops, as young men dived to retrieve gold crosses from the arms of Poseidon.

Winter passed slowly on the shores of the Ionion Sea, with Zakinthos floating on the horizon. Craftsmen from the nearby towns of Gastouni and Amaliada helped us to refurbish the motorhome - seating was rearranged, cushions made, tables cut to size, stools crafted to order, shelves installed, 28 feet of carpet laid (an offcut from somebody's stairs), extra lights wired in - many things, and all in vain as we shall see. The motorbike had suffered a seizure during its year in Margaret's mum's garage and much boring work was needed to fit a new piston into an enlarged cylinder.

By March we had a motorhome and a motorbike ready for the road, so we wondered how we might respond to the challenges of long-distance cycling! After a training session in the mountains above Sparta, we flew from Athens to Larnaka in Cyprus to ride in the east of that beautiful but overcrowded and divided island. We cycled to Nicosia but had to walk through the single checkpoint that allows only one day in the Turkish-occupied third of the island. Riding on to Limassol through the 6000 ft Troodos Mountains, and feeling good about being on the road balanced only on 2 slim wheels, we took the overnight ferry to Haifa.

Our 350-mile circuit of Israel included Nazareth, Tiberias, 40 miles round the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan Valley, Jericho, the Dead Sea, up 3000 ft to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Tel Aviv and back to Haifa. History, religion, heat, colour, conflict and kindness spun their way beneath our wheels. Memories include the walled city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the hub of the world; buying water in the heat of the Jordan Valley at 8 shekels = £1.25 a bottle; and the token stones playfully tossed our way by Palestinian children too young to know the significance of their act.

Returning to Limassol, we explored western Cyprus then took the overnight ferry for the Aegean to circumcycle the Dodecanese islands of Rhodes, Kos, Samos and Hios, the silhouette of Turkey always on the eastern horizon.

Ambitions fuelled by 1500 happy miles in the saddle we sailed overnight to Athens' port of Piraeus, rode back to the motorhome on its lonely Ionion beach and began preparations for a round-the-world cycle ride. Travelbag in Alton arranged the flights with 5 stopovers, we left the motorbike in Greece and drove back to the UK. The bicycles were overhauled and new wheels built and re-tyred by Paul Hewitt in Leyland; the motorhome was retired to a farm near Stonehenge.

On 13 June we flew to Singapore for a few days' cycling, acclimatisation and jetlag recovery, Barry remembering National Service nights guarding Hastings bombers at RAF Changi, now the international airport. Sadly, over these many long years, Barry and Singapore had both changed beyond recognition.

Landing in Perth in Western Australia, we rode west initially to meet the Indian Ocean at the nearby port of Fremantle, before turning east for the 3000-mile ride across the continent to Brisbane and the Pacific Ocean. At the goldmining town of Norseman (population 1000), 480 miles out from Perth through wheat and bushland, we began the 800-mile crossing of the Nullarbor Plain on the Eyre Highway to Ceduna in South Australia (population 1000). 800 miles with nothing but 9 roadhouses - no crossroads, no telegraph poles, no farms, no houses, no Aborigines: just bush, red earth, kangaroos, emus and 3 dead camels. We stayed at roadhouses when possible and camped in the bush when not: alone in mid-winter under the wheel of the great southern sky.

At the Nullarbor roadhouse, bush-pilot Nigel flew us in his single-engine plane, Barry in the co-pilot's seat, to watch dolphins and Southern Right whales breeding in the shelter of the Great Australian Bight.

The first crossroads came at Port Augusta after 1580 miles: left for Alice Springs and Darwin, right for Adelaide and Sydney, straight on for Brisbane! Entering New South Wales, we rode east on the Barrier Highway through Broken Hill and Cobar to Tamworth, where we turned north on the New England Highway, climbing up to 4600 feet along the spine of the Great Dividing Range. Crossing into Queensland, we turned east again at Toowoomba to reach the Pacific at Brisbane's Manly Beach, bringing to fruition 55 days of excellent cycling.

With time left on our 3-month visa, we cycled another 500 miles north along the Queensland coast to the rum and sugar town of Bundaberg, the air crackling with heat and dryness. The smoke of bush fires hung in the air as we returned to Brisbane on 13 September to fly into the green coolness of Auckland to ride a 1900-mile circuit of New Zealand's North Island. From Cape Reinga in the semi-tropical far north to Wellington in the windy south, we followed the east coast: the Bay of Islands, Coromandel Peninsula, Bay of Plenty, detouring inland to Rotorua (home of geysers, boiling mud and individual spa pools), Poverty Bay and Hawkes Bay. It was especially interesting to ride through rural Maori tribal areas, a people still clinging to their language and traditional meeting places. 700 steps up at the East Cape lighthouse we almost touched the International Dateline - on a clear day you can see yesterday!

A 3-hour ferry ride took us from Wellington, across the Cook Strait to Picton at the top of South Island - from volcanoes to Southern Alps, from an island of 2 million people to an even larger island of only 1 million. Together, the 2 islands exceed the area of all the British Isles, room enough for 50 million sheep.

We write this letter below the Fox Glacier, 400 miles from Picton, after crossing the island and following the east coast on the narrow ledge between alp and sea. The glacier rises on the slopes of 12,4000 ft Mount Cook, the highest point in the alpine range that we will have to cross again to reach the southern tip of the island at Invercargill, then on to Dunedin for a Scottish New Year!

Many more challenging miles remain before we return to Auckland for a flight to Fiji. From there we fly to Los Angeles for a 3600-mile cycle ride to the Florida Keys and a plane from Miami to London . . . but that will be another story and another newsletter.