The Travel Diaries

Mud Glorious Mud

By John Holt On 08/08/2014

I was woken around 11pm with rain hitting my face, thunder and lightning in the distance so I grabbed the tarp and covered myself up to keep dry. This proved to be difficult, as I was on a slight incline and I must have slid down when I was asleep so the bottom of the bivi bag was sticking out in the rain, also the tarp was touching my face and gathering pools of water on the outside so I was kept awake by the constant need to lift the tarp up to get rid of the build up of water.

What goes up gets to free wheel down.

By John Holt On 08/08/2014

Once again I took a wrong turn and ended up in Chatham with its steep hills and sat under an advertising hoarding in the shade, Rainham flew by, then disaster struck as my pannier got jammed in the spokes as I was going across a set of lights, stopping my back wheel, but not before tearing the back of the pannier.

5:30am Alarm

By John Holt On 08/08/2014

I woke at 02:00 to the sound of heavy rain, I had set my alarm for 05:30 as I wanted to get close to Canterbury so I could have a look round tomorrow before it got busy, but as it was pouring down I reset the alarm for 08:30 only to wake at 05:00 so decided to just get up.

Bikes and Trains.

By John Holt On 07/08/2014

Quite surprisingly the journey to London was pleasant, I chatted to someone on his way to a job interview at guide dogs for the blind who had backpacked through Africa and I listened in on other people’s conversations to pass the time. I had the only bike on the train that day but it seems not many people take their bikes on such a long train journey, which was all the better for me.

Press Release

By John Holt On 05/08/2014

John will travel from Blackpool to London, from London he will re-trace the route taken in 1984 by Anne Mustoe. This route will take him through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy, Greece and Turkey then due to recent visa restrictions in Iran he will have to take a 2500km detour through Georgia, Azerbaijan across the Caspian sea to Turkmenistan Uzbekistan Kyrgyzstan and into China where he will head to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.

10 Days to #Adventure50

By John Holt On 26/07/2014

All of a sudden this is getting very real, I have spent the last few days having appointments with consultants, doctors and nurses to check that my back will be okay on my journey and to book my vaccinations and discuss things like malaria tablets etc.