I jumped on the saddle again after a few months in Adelaide to go to Sydney for Christmas. To make it interesting, I passed by Mt. Koscuiszko – Australia’s highest mountain. Here is a video of this little escapade.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
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Morning push-ups, and it was the first time I have listened to it since I arrived. Infecteded Mushrooms. The music had been on for 5 seconds and I started to sob. I was instantly transported back to Borneo. And to Sulawesi. And so many other places. Rocketing through the landscape. And now it is all over. I couldn’t continue the push-ups, so shaking I was with tears.
‘You need to try meditation,’ said friend Tim a week earlier.
I looked at him.
‘Your mind is turning around and around like a mouse on a treadmill. You need to come to rest. You need to stop.’
My mind alternates from thinking about the trip, and how it is over, and how I don’t know what happens now. And then I think about the trip again.
Three days after arriving in Brighton I went to Sydney to visit my German friend Tim who was there with his partner, and to visit my family. Then a few days in Adelaide before a houseboat trip on the Murray River with family and friends. In between the moving my brain attempts to process all this. I haven’t got far with this process yet.
Murray River
Clement and I are planning quite a bit of off road legs heading south from Alice Springs, and so our arrival in Adelaide will be delayed by 2 weeks. We are planning to meet anyone interested in joining us at Wilpena Pound on the 14th of September, and arriving in Adelaide on the 27th of September.
I will keep this page updated, so bookmark it if you are interested in joining us on the final stretch to Adelaide.
Jetty Road, Brighton, Adelaide
Jetty Road, Brighton, Adelaide
Exactly two years after leaving Eindhoven on my bike, I will be standing on Brighton Jetty in the suburbs of Adelaide, Australia. You are welcome to join me there to celebrate the end of this life-changing world cycle trip. Furthermore, you are invited to join me cycling, driving or motorcycling through beautiful areas north of Adelaide in the two weeks before my final arrival in Adelaide. This will be a slow meander through some of the most beautiful parts of Australia at a pace that everyone can keep up with, and enjoy!
More keen travellers are welcome to join me earlier, travelling at a faster pace.
Dates:
August 31, 2016: Start meander to Adelaide at Wilpena Pound.
September 13, 2016: Arrival at Brighton Jetty, Adelaide, Australia.
Accommodation:
On the way, we can stay in local pubs and wineries. I will probably try camping everywhere, or other interesting options – more fun and interesting – and also cheaper.. 🙂
Rough itinerary:
Aug 31, Sep 1: Wilpena Pound.
Sep 2: Wilpena Pound – Hawker (55km)
Sep 3: Hawker – Quorn (66km)
Sep 4: Quorn (Devil’s Peak, Mt. Brown) (My grandma was born here)
Sep 5: Quorn – Melrose (62km)
Sep 6: Melrose (Mt. Remarkable, Alligator Gorge)
Sep 7, Sep 8: Melrose – Clare (131km)
Sep 9: Clare (Clare Valley wineries)
Sep 10: Clare – Tanunda (97km)
Sep 11: Tanunda (Barossa Valley Wineries)
Sep 12: Tanunda – Balhannah (68km) This leg is not flat. Flat alternatives are possible.
Sep 13: Balhannah – Jetty Road, Brighton. (37km) Via Mt. Lofty with view over Adelaide.
Please let me know if you can join. It will be fun!
For those keen on joining me for some desert cycling, here is my planned route through Australia up to the meeting point in Wilpena Pound. The last part involves some bad road cycling (Oodnadatta Track). I will see if I want to do that or not nearer the time.. 🙂
Day 342. 87km. Senakin – Ngabang
Posted: April 12, 2016 in Cycling, Indonesia, UncategorizedTags: Borneo, Cycling, Indonesia, Ngabang, Senakin
‘Is there jungle there?’ he asked pointing to the centre of Australia on the map.
A big space with nothing on the map must be jungle.
‘No.’
‘Is there snow?’
‘No. It is hot, and there is nothing.’
I showed some photos of the centre of Australia. No. The centre of Australia is definitely not Borneo.
The heart of the palm
We were shown the jungle out the back of the house. It was fascinating – and so rich with food and fascinating plants – most of which I had never seen before. A kind of jelly fruit – a bit like duku. An orange deformed shape that tasted like apricot. A red sphere that, when cracked open, was a lolly to be sucked but not eaten. Another green sphere which tasted like nothing and was hollow on the inside. All this was in the back yard next to the paddy fields. The family chopped off a heart of the palm for us, and the mother prepared it while we swam in the river flowing past.
Squishy fruit
Unknown fruit
Before leaving the village, we had another movie star photo shoot. Clement walked down the road to the place for the photo like the Pied Piper of Hamlyn.
The pied piper of Hamlyn
Today we took a long-cut through the hills, past lots of little villages. It was beautiful and very rural. What a beautiful, huge tropical island.
The country road
We had a nice evening stop with 3 girls Clement met when he was last here, and are sleeping in a huge, empty house. Really cool.
Day 336. 71km. Dalangan – Borobudur
Posted: March 31, 2016 in Cycling, Indonesia, UncategorizedTags: Borobudur, Cycling, Dalangan, Indonesia, Java
Sitting on the stone surface of the temple, I looked out over the tropical fields with the steep, forested mountains as a backdrop, and tried to imagine how it must have looked over 1000 years ago when the temple was built.
‘Photo, mister.’
I failed.
Borobodur temple
It must have been in dense tropical forest, teething with life. The buzzing of insects, the calls of birds flying overhead, the smothering humid heat. The temple was for communication with the god – a mother earth and giver of sustainance. It must have been peaceful.
Cycling along a road I respond ‘Hello Mister,’ and cycle on. Sitting in a meditative pose on the temple – stationary – a ‘hello Mister’ is followed by a ‘photo, mister’, and then smiling for the camera, flanked by a stranger on either side. Today all that attention got to me. I jumped down from my perch to the level below to escape. Another time, I just said ‘Saya mau sendiri. Foto tidak bisa.’ – ‘I want to be alone. You can’t take a photo of me.’ Thankfully it started to rain, and I could take in the moment in peace.
The longer I cycle alone, the more I realise I like being alone. There is nothing better than pedalling along a quiet road in the mountains, or along the beach – just me and nature. I hope this trip is not making me unsuitable for a ‘normal’ life. I do want to return to one at the end of the trip.
Selfie
My climb between the volcanoes was a bit of a fizzer. I took some photos of them on the way, but, when I reached the top of the pass, they promptly disappeared into cloud. A panoramic view was not to be had.
Sumbing
Sindoro
Thanks Raditya from Warmshowers Indonesia for dropping by in the evening. It was good to catch even though I am not cycling through Yogyakarta!
Day 316. 109km. Sumur Anyir – Arzan Kasmi
Posted: March 5, 2016 in Cycling, Indonesia, UncategorizedTags: Arzan Kasmi, Cycling, Indonesia, Sumatra, Sumur Anyir
Indonesian language lesson – the numbers. Exercise number one: count the number of ‘Hello mister’ in 30 minutes. Answer: 62 ‘Hello mister’ in 30 minutes. Also 34 ‘Hello mister’ in 17 minutes before Clement got a flat tyre. Exercise number two – people counting: I counted 27 people watching Clement fixing the tyre – all in Indonesian!
Some spectators
Today we descended on a bumpy road through the dense forest to the sound of tropical birds hooting and monkeys screaming. It was beautiful and so peaceful.
Rainforest
Rainforest
Our quest of reaching 100km each day to make it to Jakarta in time will be difficult. In the mountains we had constant steep roads. On the eastern plains we had heat. Today we had a torrential downpour for a few hours, which I think is quite normal on the west coast.
Shower
Our strategy from now on is to cycle when it’s dry, only stopping for water and thrusting some food down our throats with great haste. We will cycle until the torrential downpour actually starts (not just when the sky turns black – we may still be able to cycle another 15 minutes) and stop at the next restaurant (which is invariably within 500 metres). Our days will consist of an early start with a two hour torrential downpour break sometime in the afternoon. The elements will dictate our day – the ultimate in going with the flow.
We stopped at a school today to camp, and were invited in by the headmaster to eat and stay at his house. Again, such lovely people!
Day 291. 118km. Ban Chongplee – Koh Lanta
Posted: January 13, 2016 in Cycling, Thailand, UncategorizedTags: Ban Chongplee, Cycling, Koh Lanta, Thailand
Another sprint, Metallica blaring in my ears, and then all I could hear was the call to prayer. The local mosque was calling out to its followers. Slowly the religious landscape has been changing as I travel south. I am approaching the second large muslim region of the planet – Malaysia and Indonesia – my home for the next months.
Ao Nang beach
I have seen more women with hijabs, many fluttering in the wind as they pass me on their motorbikes. I have seen more halal restaurants, and I have seen more mosques. The variation in the world seen slowly from the eyes of a cyclist.
I left my warmshower host, Andrey, early and did a little detour to Ao Nang beach. It seems there littering is allowed for 21 hours each day.
Littering allowed
The rest of the morning was spent in Krabi replacing my broken bike computer. I couldn’t find one with an altimeter, but, I guess I’ve already done most of the mountains.. ☺ Getting to Koh Lanta – my planned destination – became another race as I only left Krabi at 13.00. Head down, music on, on the freeway, I couldn’t enter the zone today. The headwind saw to that.
Tomorrow I’m off on a snorkelling trip to Koh Rok where I will spend the night in my tent on the beach by my little self. An evening snorkel in the clear blue waters as I watch the sunset is rather appealing to me at this moment. No blog entry tomorrow.
Embedded maps on wordpress.com
Posted: March 10, 2014 in UncategorizedTags: EveryTrail, gpx, plugin, wordpress, wordpress.com
In this post I examine different options I have found in posting cycle routes on a free wordpress.com blog.
For my upcoming cycle adventure I want to track my trip, and post the route on my blog. I use a wordpress.com free blog. As many have noted in various forums, most iframe and flash elements are blocked due to security concerns on wordpress.com, which means it is quite difficult to post a freshly tracked route on your blog – especially when the post is created from the WordPress smartphone app.
In the past I have tracked my route with the EveryTrail smartphone app, and embedded the track on the wordpress.com blog using a flash workaround. This map often takes a long time to load, and is not visible at all when viewed from a smart phone. Much preferable would be an iframe element like on the TwistingSpokes blog. (Martin and Susanne from TwistingSpokes say they use a wordpress.org blog with a google maps gpx viewer plugin. WordPress.com does not allow plugins.) This loads quickly, and is also viewable on a smart phone.
It is possible to use iframe directly with google maps on wordpress.com, and so, if you can import your tracked trip into google maps, you can then post it on the blog. This can be done in several steps (which cannot be done on a smart phone).
- Save the recorded gpx file. (Using EveryTrail, the download gpx file option is in the bottom right of the screen.)
- Convert the gpx file into a kml file with GPS Visualizer. Save the converted kml file.
- Open google maps in the classical interface. Go to My Places and click on Create with Classic MyMaps.
- Click on import and then load the kml file just created.
- Click on the link button and then copy the iframe text. Post this in the wordpress.com post.
Below is the EveryTrail flash version of the map, and the iframe version described in this post.
For my blog, I intend to use the iframe version when I have more time and access to wifi.
In the summer of 2013 I am cycling from my home in the Netherlands to the North Cape in Norway. In doing this, I am collecting money for UNICEF to help children less fortunate than us.
Please sponsor me, and support the children!
arctic-cycler.com 