Andy
Its been six weeks now and I’m settling in to the lifestyle. Each
day is is a mind expanding experience. The creature comforts such as
shower, comfortable bed, etc that I was once used to are now an
occassional luxury. Each day is limited only by our own decisions in
each moment, leading us off down a new path of chance meetings and
opportunities.
When I last blogged we were still in Belgium. We travelled through
France to Switzerland and stayed with our WWF contact in Geneva where
we took the opportunity to rest for a couple of days. The arrival to
Geneva was suitably dramatic with a knee poppingly steep ascent of the
Jura Ridgeway and a bitterly cold heart-in-mouth nighttime descent,
with view over moonlight alps, towards an illuminated buzzing Geneva.
We cycled up to Morzine and Les Gets and took the bikes through
their paces on the world class mountain biking. Normally touring-bike,
panniers and chairlifts don’t exist in the same sentence, but not for
Ride Earth. Foolish it may have been, fun it most definitely was. The
performance of the Magura
Odur forks and especially the Louise Brakes are astounding and make the
bikes incredibly versatile. We stayed with some of Tom’s friends from
his Ski Guiding days and then headed down to Montreux the other side of
the lake where we drifted through a crowded quayside, taking photos,
chatting to people and absorbing the atmosphere of the Montreux Jazz
Festival. We slept in a park and got rained on.
The next morning after little sleep we were sitting having breakfast and by chance met Verena Lepre,
an eight year round the world cyclist. She took us in, we absorbed her
emotional and fascinating stories and were captivated by their awe
inspiring photographs from the trip.
From there we travelled accross Switzerland, living cheaply and
managing to spend only twenty pounds each for the entired country. We
interviewed a some people about Climate Change when the opportunity
arose including the ex Editor in Chief of the Neue Zürich Zeiten
Newspaper. Near Interlaken we interviewed a truck driver who told us
about strange weather conditions in the area causing floods and
landslides and particularly a freak storm of golf ball sized hail
stones that had smashed car windows and ruined crops. Googling
hailstorms brings up some good pictures.
Near the Swiss-Austrian border, yesterday morning, Tom woke up to a
warning sign by way of an excruciatingly painful right knee. On
consultation of the doctor, and an X-Ray, he was advised to rest for
three days. Our next destination is Vienna along the Danube. I feel I
am learning to take the experiences as they come. I am excited about
the now near prospect of heading into Eastern Europe. Keep your eye on
our progress, please watch the podcast, and if you feel so inclined, be
generous and donate to the Wilderness Foundation by clicking the link on the top right of the homepage.
