I got off the Greyhound bus in Missouri and rubbed my eyes. It had been another long ride through the endless plains of Illinois, coming down from Chicago. I sat on my pack outside the St Louis bus station and watched an Amish family exit a mini van. The father of this family had a … More USA Part 7: The Hillbily’s Hills (St Louis MO to Washington DC 30/08/17-16/09/17)
After a month on the road with Lea it was time for a little holiday. Our dad & brother would be visiting our aunt in New England and we wanted to get involved on a little US ‘vacation’. I left my bike in St Louis but we boxed up Lea’s and hopped onto the morning … More USA Part 6: You say Vacation, I say Holiday (Chicago, New England & New York 12/08/17-28/08/17)
I felt sorry for Kansas. Prior to my arrival into the state, I had not heard a single nice thing about the place. Boring, backwards, uninspiring were among the most frequent adjectives people used to describe the state, both the landscape and its people. We’d had a … More USA Part 5: The Great Big Boring Plains (Ordway CO to St Louis MO 27/07-11/08/17)
There was one last famous rock display to squeeze in before leaving Utah. On my day off in Moab I cycled over to Arches National Park to admire the surreal formations with the swarms of other sweaty tourists. As you may already have guessed, there were a lot of Arches to snap that day… I … More USA Part 4: Company in Colorado (Moab UT to Eads Co 10/07/17-26/07/17)
There is no shortage of things to see in Utah and I squeezed in as much as I could crossing the state. The Brian Head wildfire was raging east of Cedar City and so headed further south. The road I wanted to cycle was closed and anything else around there would have been an unpleasant … More USA Part 3: Utah, You Rock! (St. George UT to Moab UT 27/06/17-09/07/17)
It was time for the desert once again. Nevada’s Great Basin would be the fourth desert crossing of my tour and I was ready for some empty miles… I crossed the state border early in the morning but already it was hot. It was hard to believe that just a few days … More USA Part 2: Nevada’s Alien Obsession (Benton CA to St George UT 21/06/17-27/06/17)
You’d have thought that after so long moving between time zones that I’d have got my head around the world’s moving clocks. I got the plane from New Zealand the morning of the 9th, travelled for 24 hours and arrived in America on the morning of the 9th. A lot happened in that ‘non-existent’ day… … More USA Part 1: High on Life in California (San Francisco CA to Benton CA 09/06/17-20/06/17)
My legs had finally had enough. The first week cycling around the mountains had been a nasty re-start for the thighs after my long break but instead of resting them I’d hiked up to the summit of Ben Lomond and cycled over the Crown Range. They felt flimsy leaving Wanaka but I pushed on towards … More New Zealand Part 2: Glacier Country (Wanaka to Wellington 26/06/17-08/06/17)
My big return to the two-wheel life wasn’t quite what I’d expected. Upon arriving in Invercargil my Warmshowers host Amy asked if I fancied a ride at the local velodrome. There was a ‘give-it-a-go’ session on and I was up for stretching my legs having been sat on the bus for 10 hours coming down … More New Zealand Part 1: Beginning Again (Invercargil to Wanaka 11/05/17-25/05/17)
I arrived in Melbourne just in time for the last few hours of 2016. At midnight my plan ended. I’d cycled from London to the far side of Australia in a little under two years and it was time for something new. It was time for a job. I’d known for a while that I … More Australia Part 7: The Working Holiday (01/01/17-10/05/17)
JKB's Bike Ride 