Sleds Without Snow..

The Drinkwater brothers' adventure-challenge series continued this week as we moved to Threadbo in Australia's Snowy Mountains. Threadbo is a ski resort that keeps running in summer with hiking trails, downhill mountain biking, a 'bobsled' run and a nine-hole golf course. But since Australians don't go there until after Boxing Day, Eric and I had the place all to ourselves.

This was great on the golf course because it meant we had lots of time to look carefully for snakes before stepping into the rough. And on the bobsled run -- which was an aluminum track that we rode with a wheeled sled -- we could go as fast as we wanted without colliding with cautious Australians. (The Aussies aren't used to crashing tobaggans, so they tended to be a bit slow in the turns.)

The downside to being at an empty resort was that nightlife was somewhat slow. The place was so eerily quiet in the evenings that we were often completely alone walking through the town square. So we watched TV.

On our last evening in Threadbo, we watched a hockey game between Toronto and Buffalo on Fox Sports. Neither of us normally watch hockey, but we enjoyed looking at the ads on the boards at Air Canada Centre for familiar products like Mr. Sub and Tim Hortons. After the game, the "Trailer Park Boys" movie came on. The all-Canadian soundtrack featured Rush, the Tragically Hip, April Wine and Helix, and it made me homesick.

It's been a long trip and some of you have been asking where I'm going next and when I'm coming home. As it stands, I will be returning to Edmonton at the start of February -- as scheduled. But before then, I intend to make a final stop in Houston, Texas.

Houston is where my trips end. I'll tell you why later.

Guns and Gears..

My brother and I went to a resort on Hamilton Island on Australia's Gold Coast. It turned out there was money from a bequeath that was gathering interest in a New Zealand bank account, and a higher power (Mom) told us to spend it. So we've been using it on great things like scuba diving, go-cart racing and shooting some very large guns. It's like an episode of Top Gear at Club Med.

The shooting range was our first stop. Eric had never shot anything before so he had a shaky start on the .22 pistol. But he quickly found his mark when we moved up to the 9 mm Glock, and he excelled on the .44 magnum aka the "Dirty Harry Gun" or the "Hand Cannon." (I got a bullseye with my first shot on the .44, but the monsterous force of the gun was so jarring that I couldn't stop twitching for any of my remaining attempts.)

Next we went to the go-cart track, and let me just say that the carts were much, much more powerful than the last ones I tried back in 1987 at Splash 'n Putt Park in Traytown, Newfoundland. These supercharged rockets were able to build up enough speed for sideways skids. I did one and hit a rather solid wall. Still, I managed to beat Eric, who crashed into a woman.

These were only minor thrills, though, compared with our dive on the Great Barrier Reef. We saw clown fish. We saw a little fish riding on the back of a great big fish. We saw a shark! Words fail me in trying to describe the experience. Eric put it best when he said that if he drew his last breath and still had $300 in the bank, he'd be very disappointed if he hadn't gone on the dive that day.

We still have a few days of luxury living left, which means there's time for a few more Top Gear challenges. We have an idea for one at the driving range that involves a blindfold and a stopwatch!

How Now?

I've been volunteering at an eco-friendly farm on Tasmania this week. I joined WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) which allows me to stay as a guest at farms throughout Australia in return for a few hours of labour every day. So far, the jobs have involved mowing, weeding, moving an electric fence and collecting manure from the ladies you see in the picture.

The owners of the farm are named Carolyn and Richard. They both serve on various local land stewardship associations as well as with the Green Party. Richard is an avid birder, and he and Carolyn only just returned from Western Australia where they spent several months doing population research. And if that weren't interesting enough, in 1969 they became the first people to traverse Mount Victoria in Papua New Guinea. Alone. No one else has done it since.

Anyway, they're feeding me well here and I'm hoping farm work will offset some of the negative environmental effects that my airplane travel is causing.

An environmentally-conscious friend of mine once despaired that his efforts to help the planet weren't making a difference. I told him that in the few years since I'd become more eco-friendly, I'd convinced someone to ride a bike instead of driving a car, I'd gotten someone else to begin recycling, and I'd gently persuded someone to buy fair-trade coffee.

"And can you believe that the person who converted me," I said, pointing directly at my depressed friend, "doesn't think he's had any impact?"

Maybe we can't change the world, but we can change our little corner of it.

Things I've learned..

This is how Melbourne recognizes Australia's most famous band. ACDC Lane is near Swanston St. where the rock legends performed on the back of a truck in the video for "Long Way to the Top." There's probably a street named after Olivia Newton John somehwere in the country, too. Australia honours those who bring it fame, I've learned.

Other knowledge I've picked up here is a little more practical, like how to identify poisonous spiders. Whitetails, which seem to be common in my brother's house, don't kill but their bite leaves scar tissue. There are even spiders here that feed on birds. Fortunately, they live in holes in the backyard and don't come inside.

I've also learned Australia is expensive. The Australian dollar is worth roughly the same as the Canadian loonie but restaurant meals cost about double what they do at home. Doughnuts here start at $2.50. The last time I visited Tim Hortons, you could get an apple fritter and a small coffee for less than that.

What other things have I learned in Australia? I've discovered that Rotary Club members sing when they say grace before their dinner meetings (or at least the ones at my brother's club do, which was pretty neat). I've also learned -- and I'm still working on this one -- that the Australian $2 coin is smaller than the $1 one.

But the best thing I've learned about Australia is that everything, aside from sports, seems casual. Aussies have mastered getting work done efficiently while still looking relaxed. The casual attitude has the additional benefit that shorts and sleeveless shirts are accepable almost everywhere here, although I admit this might have something to do with the oven-like heat.

And last but not least I've learned in Australia that -- as ACDC put it -- it's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n roll.

Safe in Aus..

My brother welcomed me at his house in Bathurst, Australia this week. It's peaceful here -- drivers never honk their horns. And for the first time in three months I don't have to lie on immigration forms about what I do for a living. (I'm a journalist, for any of you who don't know.) In the Middle East, I always wrote "bicycle repair" when asked about my occupation.

During the trip from Lebanon to Australia, I worried something would stop me. I woke up in Beirut on the morning of my flight to the sound of a jet fighter tearing accross the sky. I looked out the window to see if it was Israeli, knowing that if it was, I wouldn't be going anywhere that day.

Later at Beirut airport, takeoff was delayed due to a fight in the rear of the cabin which didn't end until an old woman was escorted off. This meant the airline had to hold our connecting flight in Abu Dhabi, and when that plane was late touching down in Sydney, passengers refused to stay seated while the interior was sprayed for foreign insects. Immigation wouldn't let us off until the spraying was finished, and it couldn't start until everyone sat. The standoff lasted nearly half an hour. One indignant passenger even phoned the Sydney Telegraph's newsroom on her mobile and claimed we were all "being held hostage."

So here I am in small-town Australia. I've got a bike to noodle around on and soon my brother and I will board a train to see the country together. There's not much to worry about here except for sunburn.

Oh, and poisonous spiders.

Beirut..

Amid all the Radisson hotels, Ferrari dealerships and Dunkin Donuts springing up in Beirut, there are still bullet and artillery-pocked buildings that were abandoned during past conflicts. There are so many there's even a coffee-table book about them for sale at the Virgin Megastore.

The granddaddy of them all is the former Holiday Inn. It wasn't open long before the civil war began in 1975 and it hasn't been open since. It's still solid, but at almost 30 storeys, I'm guessing it's too big for most investors to risk restoring. At least, not until the political and financial future of Lebanon looks more secure.

Will that day come? I met a restaurant owner in southern Lebanon who confidently told me he believes the next war with Israel will be the last. He said the two sides can never live together, and that his side will "finish Israel."

"Won't another war ruin your business?" I asked. "What about your children?"

"It will be better after," he replied.

The conversation was a downer, but I remain optimistic about peace. There's a lot of building going on here. Others must be optimistic, too.

The Dance Bus...

This is the second time in the Middle East that I've seen a mode of transport become a dance venue. The latest incident was while I was catching a bus ride from the Roman ampitheatre ruins at Bosra to Damascus with some Syrian university students. (See an earlier post titled "Istanbul" for the story of dancing on a train with Iranians.)

Dancing on the Syrian bus began in the aisle almost immediately and I and a group of fellow travellers were urged to participate. Not only was it a blast, it allowed us to observe some of the rules for interaction between men and women in Syria. For instance, the Syrian men on our bus could dance with female foreigners and Syrian women could dance with me and other male travellers, but Syrian men and women couldn't dance with each other. The reason, it was explained, was that dancing with foreigners was considered innocent fun while dancing between Syrians could potentially lead to something more serious. News of such behavior could get back to the dancers' families and cause problems.

At one point while I was dancing, I landed in an empty seat next to a young Syrian woman who was wearing a hejab. Men and women in Syria who aren't related don't sit next to each other, and the woman was visibly uncomfortable until the aisle cleared of dancers and I could move. A Kiwi in our group who was asked to have his picture taken with some of the Syrian women made the mistake of putting his arm around one of them. She stood rigid, not knowing what to do, and you should have seen the look on her face!

It all sounds frustrating to me, but that's just the way it's done here.

This is my last post from Syria. I'm on my way to Lebanon and will be flying from Beirut to Australia to visit my brother on Nov. 11. I've been promised homemade shepherd's pie upon my arrival Down Under!

Catching a Movie..

Syrian cities have a lot of decrepit movie theaters. Posters of past shows are stapled over the entrances and they're all for T-and-A or B-grade action flicks. My favourite was for one called "Lunar Cop" which had the tagline, "He came down to Earth to clean up the mess!" For the sexy movies, Lonely Planet warns that censors usually remove the scenes depicted in the posters.

I had a couple of hours to kill one afternoon so I asked about the next feature. It was "House Bunny" with Anna Faris starring as an ex-Playboy model who ends up as a sorority house mother. I went in.

The theater was completely dark so I waited for the film to start in order to have enough light to find a seat. But the projection on the screen was so dim I ended up taking the seat closest to the door. Even then, I wasn't sure I wasn't about to sit on someone. (Imagine watching TV through two pairs of sunglasses and you'll get an idea of how dark it was in there.)

I couldn't hear anyone else and thought I was alone until 10 minutes into the show when I saw a lighter flash and the ember of a burning cigarette a few rows ahead. The smoker began to emit a high-pitched giggle at unusual times and banged his seat occasionally. He talked sometimes, too, and I don't think he was on a cellphone. He particularly enjoyed a scene the censors appeared to have missed which briefly showed Anna Faris' bare backside.

The lights came on when thew show was over, and I could see that many of the seats were broken. There were some where only parts of metal bolted to the floor remained. I was thankful I hadn't tried to find a seat further in.

The experience cost less than a dollar, but I don't think I'll be doing it again. Unless, of course, "Lunar Cop" is playing.

Meeting Syrians...

There were 17 people packed into the minibus that took me from Turkey into Syria. Three women from one family were wearing burkas and there was a "discussion" at the border when one of their husbands tried to convince the Syrian guard that the women shouldn't have to remove their veils to reveal their faces. He lost and each of the women, for just a quick flash, lifted the black fabric.

This made me worried that Syria would be ultra-Conservative and that I'd have a hard time getting used to it after relatively-liberal Turkey. Fortunately, there are women here without burkas, chadors or hijabs. Some wear T-shirts and are perfectly comfortable approaching handsome Canadian tourists to offer a welcome to Syria.

Lots of people come up to talk to me here. Even Syrians who don't speak English know how to say "Welcome to Syria." They ask, "What is your country?" and when you respond they say, "Canada very beautiful." A group of teenaged boys added an extra "George Bush finished!" followed with "Obama!"

The only time I've seen Syrians unfriendly is when they drive. I saw one laying on his horn while a traffic cop helped an old man with a cane cross the road. In Iran and Turkey, drivers deftly steer around pedestrians. Here in Syria it's like they're aiming for you!

Life Aquatic...

I and a group of tourists were fleeing pirates on the Aegean coast when this photo was taken. We'd staged a mutiny earlier in the day when the boat's crew refused to use the sails like the tour company promised, and also for the fact they continued to blast techno music on all decks despite our repeated requests to turn it off.

The final straw came when the captain ran us aground on a reef because she was too short to see over the bow and missed the warning buoy. She also never offered to pay for the beers my fellow passengers drank at the bar on shore while we waited for the boat to be freed.

I was selected to lead the mutiny because I had the best hat, but things didn't go well. The pirates caught us, and even though we fought them off, they stole all of our ice. Many of the passengers were Australian and their brains rotted when they drank warm beer. A Slovenian passenger remained sane and urged us to turn ourselves in to the coast guard. We made him walk the plank.

So now we are fugitives on an uninhabited Mediterranean island. The cellphone I'm using to text this post will be destroyed immediately to prevent tracking. We've burned the boat. My methods have become unsound.

The horror. The horror.

Gallipoli

Over here, the Turks' defence of the Gallipoli Penninsula and the Dardanelles against the Allies in the First World War is seen as the first victory in the country's battle for independence, which ran from 1919 to 1923. This has a lot to do with the fact that the lieutenant colonel credited with the Turkish success at Gallipoli, Mustafa Kemal, later led the independence fight and became the first president of modern Turkey.

More than 40,000 soldiers from Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand and India died in the nine-month Gallipoli campaign in 1915 before it was finally abandoned. Also among the Allied dead were 49 soldiers from the British colony of Newfoundland. On the other side, the Turks lost close to 80,000 men.

Mustafa Kemal later became known as Ataturk, which translates as "Father Turk," and there are statues of him in every town, avenues are named after him, and his image hangs in just about every business. In 1934, he said something particularly conciliatory about the Allied war dead and I'll repeat it here...

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives ... you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.

And now, on to some business from my last post. I'm hardly surprised most of you figured I would be too scared to venture onto the catwalk shown in the picture. But you were wrong -- it was the only way to get to another section of the fortress, so I walked the entire length of it!

Culture Crashes...

Would you step onto this rusty-looking catwalk?

I said in my last post that Istanbul feels very European. Istanbul truly is where East crashes into West, and the differences go beyond the call of the muzzins from the mosques.

For instance, the catwalk in the picture is inside the turret of a 15th Century Ottoman fortification. There's a 20-metre drop to the bottom and I got to it by climbing a narrow stone staircase on the outside wall that was open on one side and didn't even have a railing. In Britain, tourist attractions like this that charge admission have barriers and warnings all over the place, as well as security guards to make sure no one jumps over them. But nobody stops you here.


Another difference between East and West is how entrepreneurs here string up balloons and charge people money to burst them with pellet guns. They set them up at parks and along the seawall, and one even strung balloons up the side of the ruins of a Roman aqueduct. Try doing something like that in Brighton and see what the police do.


It all means you have to be a bit more careful here. The Ottoman fortress was actually a whole lot of fun and was wonderfully quiet. I suspect it's because tour companies are afraid of being sued if they bring anyone there. And the culture crash produces some incredible sights. A few days ago I saw a young woman dressed in a full chador making out with her boyfriend outside a Shell staion. Really.


So did I step onto the catwalk? Place your bets and I'll reveal my answer in my next post, which should be from the Cappidocia region of Turkey.

Istanbul!

It took 76 hours for the Trans-Asia Express to go from Tehran to Istanbul, which is only four hours less than the Orient Express took to get here from Paris. Sadly, I lost my camera in the railway station right before the trip, so you'll just have to imagine what it looked like when the Iranian passengers tried to teach me Persian dancing in the dining car.

The dancing began right after we got off our Iranian train in Turkey and boarded a six-hour ferry accross Lake Van, which later connected us with a Turkish train. It was past midnight and the boat hadn't even begun to move when the party started. Many women removed their hijabs and someone found beer at a store near the dock. Finally -- in Turkey -- I got to see Iranians being themselves!

There was dancing every night for the rest of the trip. There was usually a fight every night, too. At one point an elderly man had a heart attack, and we also hit a car. I was even interviewed by a reporter who wroks for an Iranian women's magazine.

It was too late to check into a hostel when we finally got to Istanbul so I jumped into a van with some Iranians. I followed them to their hotel, and when I stepped out the door in the morning I had no idea where I was.

Istanbul is a remarkably European city. On the ferries between the European and the Asian sides they even serve tea on the decks. The food is fantastic so I may stay here a bit.

Khoda Hafez, Iran!

I've been spending a lot of time in Iranian cities which suffer eye-watering automobile pollution, so I was desperately seeking fresh air. The most popular car here resembles the 1960s Vauxhall Viva, burns leaded gas and lacks a catalytic converter. Tehran on many days is like living in an exhaust pipe.

I took a trip to the Caspian coast but that was disappointing. I was beginning to despair until I arrived in a mountainside village called Masuleh, which is so steep that cars can't get into it. Restaurants, hotels and homes are supplied by wheelbarrows and when the taxis at the bottom of the hill leave for the day, the only sound left is the murmur of conversations in the open-air tea houses. It was magical.

Unfortunately, the conversations I have with Iranians who speak English always end up being about how desperately they want to leave Iran. The government only allows most citizens to travel to countries that meet its moral guidelines. Ironically, one of these countries is Dubai, where a man told me he goes annually to meet with prostitutes. Another guy told me he was so desperate to see another country that he took a bus to Iraq. Women here rarely speak to me, so I don't know much about what they think, although a teenaged girl who was with her family in Masuleh told me she dreamed of one day visiting Orange County, California, which she's seen on satellite TV.

I admit it's only one segment of Iranian society, but when everyone you meet seems so eager to get out of Iran, is tends to rub off on you. So by the time you're reading this I'll be riding the Trans-Asia Express, a three-day train from Tehran to Istanbul, Turkey. Khoda Hafez, Iran, which is Farsi for "goodbye." I wish I could bring some of you along.

Crash!

There was an accident but I'm okay. A car hit me from behind and I flew rear-first through the air before sliding 20 metres on my back to a dusty stop.

I have a lot of bruises, a limp and some minor road rash. It shook me so badly that I was only a mouse-click away from booking a flight back to Canada. I was more than a little paranoid at the time. I only spent 45 minutes in hospital, but had to endure six hours in five different police stations before I could convince a judge -- via interpreter over the telephone -- that I didn't want to press charges or sue the driver. At one point the judge pulled a copy of the United Nations Declaration of Rights from his bookshelf. This made me gulp, but he simply wanted to give it to me. He even signed it!

As for the driver, well he was an alright guy, too. He was a dentist with a very nice family. I stayed with some of his relatives that night and he paid for my taxi back to Tehran.

The bike is toast and I've given away the camping gear that survived the crash. I've bought a small, cheap backpack and will complete the rest of my trip on trains and buses. No more biking for me in this part of the world. The drivers here are just too crazy. Even the sidewalks are dangerous because motorcycles use them.

My bike -- though loved -- was just a piece of metal. I'm really lucky to be alive.

Messages..

At its peak, the ancient city of Persepolis was the centre of an empire that stretched from India, through Europe as far as the Danube, and into Ethiopia. But it fell into a slow decline after losing to the Greeks at Marathon, and Persepolis was eventually sacked by Alexander the Great.

During its rise, each new king built a new palace for himself next to his predecessor's. But there is a mystery monument/palace in the middle of the complex that somehow never got finished even as the the city continued to grow. My guide said no one is sure why.

I have a theory. Just outside Persepolis are the remains of a tent city the Shah built in the 1970s for a lavish ceremony celebrating the 2500th anniversary of the Persian empire. Foreign dignitaries were put up in the luxury tents, some of which apparently had marble bathrooms. But few Iranians were invited and the whole expense turned into a domestic P.R. headache for the Shah.

My guide told me the Islamist government burned the tents after the revolution but it left the metal supports standing. There's a metal fence surrounding them that probably cost as much to put up as tearing the the tent supports down would. It's as if this government left them there so people wouldn't forget the failures of the previous one. I'm guessing that's what the unfinished monument at Persepolis was meant for, too.

The good news is that I got my visa extension while I was in southern Iran and I'll begin riding towards Turkey on Friday. I confess I'd been fretting a lot about the start of bicycling here. But I met two cycle travellers here yesterday who've come from the other way, so I'm feeling more confident.

Another pool, Rob?!!

Yes, I know, there's already a picture of a pool in an earlier post, and this one doesn't even have water in it. But this was the SHAH'S pool!

My first full day in Iran was spent riding about 50 kilometres from Imam Khomeni International Airport to my hotel in Tehran. Traffic in the city is harrowing, I got lost, and ended up frantically following a very generous man on a motorcycle who took it upon himself to guide me to my destination.

But on the second day I toured the palaces and summer homes of the country's deposed royalty. I saw bedrooms and dining halls with walls decorated with thousands and thousands of tiny mirrors. I was led by a guide through the Shah's former office, which if you can believe, had a fully-functioning dentist's office though one door for the royal family's private use. I even got to peek through the doorway of the Shah's bathroom. (The toilet wasn't visible so I cannot say if it was actually golden, as some reports during the revolution suggested.)

Today I will take an all-night bus to Shiraz in southern Iran, which is the jumping-off point for the ancient Persian ruins at Persepolis. I was only granted a ten-day visa so I hope to get that extended there. If not, as Han Solo would say, this is going to be a really short trip.

Son of Thunder..

T.E. Lawrence owned seven Brough Superior motorcycles but this is the one he died on. It's at the Imperial War Museum in London and of all the exhibits there -- which include a German V-2 rocket -- it's the one I spent the most time staring at.

On the tragic morning in 1935, Lawrence of Arabia was riding at an outrageous speed near Bovington in southern England when he came upon two young cyclists. He swerved, clipped one of the bikes, was thrown over the handlebars and cracked his skull. He died several days later.

I rode through the area myself last month and the tale of Lawrence's demise reminded me to (a) slow down a bit on tight downhill turns, and (b) watch out for the kind of nutjob who'd own seven 1000 cc motorcycles and race them on one-lane country roads!

I don't really want to knock Lawrence too much. In 1909 he did an 1,100-mile walking tour of Palestine and Syria, so I imagine he'd think my plans to cycle the Middle East were pretty cool.

And if like me you're wondering what happened to the cyclist Lawrence clipped, there's no further mention of him at the War Museum. But a brochure I picked up close to the crash site last month noted both riders testified at the inquest the following week, so he couldn't have injured too badly.

Back on Track..

It's been a month of ups and downs, but finally Mom is out of hospital and I'm about to hit the road again. On Wednesday, August 12, I fly to London where I've been informed the Iranian embassy has a visa waiting for me. Thanks to everyone for your kind wishes during this trying ordeal.


Being here in Newfoundland resulted in a strange coincidence last week. I answered the door and found the chairman of the board of adventure travel, Bernie Howgate, standing on the steps. To explain, Bernie writes books about his adventures kayaking around Newfoundland or pedalling accross Canada on a rickshaw, and then sells the books door-to-door. The last time I saw him was almost 15 years ago when he and a CBC crew showed up at my house and I agreed to let them shoot video of Bernie making his sales pitch to me. Back then I told him I'd always dreamed of taking a bicycle trip. This time I was able to tell him about all the trips I've taken.


So, will Rob's bike survive the vicious baggage handlers at Pearson? Will British customs officials at Heathrow force him to eat Marmite? How much clothing will Rob be wearing in the next picture on this blog? Keep checking to find out.


And on the topic of pictures, how do you like this sketch Jesse Cunningham drew of me during my going away party in April? I may be biased but I think I make a pretty good cartoon!

Pause..

My mother ended up in the ICU with severe pneumonia so I'm back in Newfoundland for a while. Her good friends have been taking care of things until I could get here and I'm very, very thankful for all they've done. Mom's prognosis appears good at the moment and I should know more soon.
The journey will hopefully continue at a later date.

And They're Off!

I hit the end of the south coast of Britain at Land's End this past week and have begun heading north. Riding from Land's End to John O' Groats at the northern tip of Scotland is a popular bicycle touring route here, so there were a number of other cyclists there when I arrived. Everybody gets a quick photo taken before heading off to nearby campgrounds -- or into Penzance for the night -- and then resuming their journey northward the next day. It's a little like the start of the Dakar rally.

I don't see the other riders much on the road, however. Unlike the U.S. Pacific Coast trail where all cyclists took Highway 101 and we'd spot each other every day, there's so many different route choices here. I myself have chosen to wander inland to Bath to visit a friend from university and see Stonehenge, but other riders have their own agendas.

The guys in the picture were credit-card cyclists, which is the term for riders who stay in hotels rather than camp. They left before me, but I ended up passing two of them on the road 10 minutes later when they stopped to look for the third guy. He'd fallen behind and taken a different road, and they had to find him because he was the only one who knew where their hotel reservation was!

For the Swimmers..

You can't ride all the time. Sometimes even cycling is too fast and I don't get to fully enjoy the towns I pass through. Rest days get taken up with shopping, laundry and Internet, so every now and then I check into a hostel and chill for a few nights.

Since I like to swim, I hung out on a recent stop in Plymouth at the Tinside Lido. The lido is a giant circular pool that was built on the seafront in the 1930s and is fed with seawater. A maze of steps lead down the cliff to the pool as well as to other little tide-fed pools, sunbathing decks, diving boards, and rocky beaches.

The whole place was refurbished in 2001 but still has a delightfully run-down quality about it. The concrete steps are worn from wave damage and the way its built makes it so you can't quite see where each set of steps lead. I went down the stairs thinking I was the only one there, but found people reading books or even enjoying a coffee at cafes tucked in behind the rocks.

Plymouth suffered heavy bombing during the Second World War, and a plaque says that on one evening 3,000 people bought tickets to swim in the lido pool after hot day of cleaning up rubble.

Signs..

This is the second-funniest sign I've seen in Britain so far. The MOST hilarious sign was in London but I couldn't snap a picture of it because I was in the middle of traffic. It was outside the entrance of a cricket stadium and read, "No alcohol or musical instruments permitted."

There are plenty of regular signs in Britain and most of them begin with the word "Private." They say "Private Road," "Private Driveway" or "Private Lake." Luckily there are also lots of other signs pointing the direction for the National Cycle Network which I've been following all along the south coast of Britain. The little blue signs point the way for a course that takes me off heavily-used motorways and onto country lanes, peaceful dirt tracks, or beach promanades. The signs are small and sometimes difficult to spot, but they're there and it's an effort I commend.

There aren't many street signs in Britain, however. I have to guess my way through most urban intersections. It's like the British fear a future invasion and don't want to help the enemy find his way around!

I'm still heading west along the south coast of Britain -- at this point I'm in Devon.

Not a Postman!

This is a picture of a postman standing between my bike, on the left, and his official Royal Mail bicycle on the right. Children over here often confuse me with a postman and you can sort of see why.
It's been a hard week, but then the first few days of a big trip usually are for me. Many of you have heard the story of my trip from Calgary to Los Angeles where I lost my wallet and contracted an inconvenient intestinal problem in the first three days. Eventually it comes together, and I just know I have to tough it out.
Within 24 hours of leaving London on Sunday I suffered three flats, and realized that the old tires I was using were TOO old for the task. I stopped to buy new ones in a community called Whitstable and ended up camping on the beach overnight.
There was a thunderstorm just as I finished cooking my dinner and I took shelter under an awning with a man who told me that during the coronation in 1953, there were huge bonfires all the way up the beach. There was also a flood when the sea wall was breached in 1951. The man told me a beach cabin from the town was found as far away as Holland. (I may have actually gotten the stories confused here -- the cabin may be connected with the coronation celebrations.)
Anyway, I've passed through Dover and Hastings and am continuing my way for a while along the south coast. The cycle routes often run on top of the sea walls so it's very pleasant!

Rob Reveals All!

This may have made your local newscast...

More than a thousand cyclists took part in the 2009 World Naked Bicycle Ride though London to protest global oil dependency, and I was one of them. I just couldn't resist the opportunity to ride naked though Picadilly Circus while throngs of tourists snapped my picture. I'm betting there were more photos taken of naked cyclists in London on Saturday than of Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square combined. So if you want to see a more revealing picture of me, I'm sure someone has posted them on the Internet somewhere.


I'm leaving London on Sunday after spending almost two weeks here. I've been doing a lot of cycling, and while it was thrilling at first to weave in between double-decker buses and taxis like all the other bicycle commuters here do, it's beginning to wear me down and I'm yearning to get out of city.

Maybe I'll head for Dover, or maybe for Cornwall. I haven't made up my mind yet.

London

The week began with sadness from Newfoundland. Longtime friend Brianna McCarthy suffered a sudden stroke and died. She'd celebrated her 34th birthday only a few days before, and stopped by my house to share some ice-cream cake with my mother and me. The fact she's gone seems hard to believe when I'm so far away.

I've spent a number of days in London applying for visas needed for the Middle Eastern portion of my trip, but I've used the time in between to visit museums, take tours and see other sights. Since I'm cheap, I usually pick attractions that cost the least. This means I've ruled out seeing a stage production of Oliver! starring Rowan Atkinson. (Not kidding -- it really exists. Look it up if you doubt me.)

Maybe you can identify the piece of sinister machinery I'm posed with in the picture. If you can, you may have guessed that I took a studio tour of BBC Television. I saw where Doctor Who, Blackadder, The Two Ronnies and Fawlty Towers were all filmed. The studios are filled with sets for new, as-yet-unknown shows, but it was a thrill all the same.

One final note -- on Carnaby Street, there's a Wrangler jeans outlet. Hear that, Medicine Hat? You're high fashion!

Flying day..

I had hoped to fly from St. John's directly to London, but Air Canada discontinued that flight a few years ago. Instead, I have to fly west all the way to Toronto and then board a British Airways plane and go east across the Atlantic.

It's not the backtracking I mind. What I really regret is that I missed the chance to take off from Newfoundland and head out over the ocean with the lights of St. John's fading behind me, like Alcock and Brown did when they made the first non-stop Transatlantic flight in 1919. Oh well, another day I guess.

Today my mother will drop me at the airport and I will officially begin my trip. I'd really like to acknowledge her bravery in all of this. She doesn't have a say in whether I go on these sorts of trips, but I know she worries whenever I do.

Finally, I'd like to note that St. John's cyclists held a Critical Mass last Friday. Some of you recall I wrote a fictional account of a St. John's mass that appears in the "Under the Helmet" section of http://www.edmontonbikes.ca/, but this ride really happened! Eight cyclists showed up, and despite a warning from a Royal Newfoundland Constabulary officer, the ride continued. (Apparently, the cop was the former basketball coach of one of the riders and agreed to let them keep going.)

One week to go..

This is a picture of Darling taken back in February while she was locked outside my apartment building in Edmonton. Darling was bought for $60 in Calgary in 1997 and is the bike I used for my first tour from Calgary to Los Angeles in 1998. Since then she's been my winter commuter, pickup truck, and even been ridden in a cyclocross race.

With so much history, I could hardly leave her home for what will be my most ambitious bicycle trip to date. Over the last two months her rust has been sanded and painted, she has new wheels and racks, and for the first time in her life she has fenders. Just wait until you see her!

There's only a week to go until I leave St. John's and fly to London.