11th and 12th October Earls Court Cycle Show
Dave and I joined up with our sponsors, Explore! on their stand at Earls Court on the 11th and 12th October. Explore's new 2009/2010 Cycling and Worldwide brochures have just come out. To order them now click here.
Not only did we receive a cheque for our two charities from Explore, but they gave us the opportunity to promote our adventure and filmed us for a "vodcast" which will to view it click here: Vodcast by Alastair McKenzie, Earls Court Cycle Show.
Both Dave and I really enjoyed the two days as we met some absolutely fantastic and inspiring people, both visiting the show and on other stands. It was a great chance for us to chat with other cycle tourers and listen to their advice, some of whom have been touring on and off for the past 40 years. We have been given some invaluable advice about our adventure, from packing (we have too much!) to experiences with trailers.
Dave's mind has been put at rest regarding how he has built up his bike on a budget, as this has been worrying him for the past few months as to the durability of it.
We also had the opportunity to chat with other people thinking about planning their own adventures, some of whom we hope to meet up with along the way. Others, we hope we have inspired to go and follow their own dreams and adventures, whether it be to go cycling with other like minded people on adventures such as those that Explore! offer, or to take that leap of faith and go off on their own adventure or challenge, cycling, kayaking, running etc.
All in all the two days made us even more determined that we should go out there and live life to the full and follow our dreams.
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Receiving a cheque from Explore for �1,000 towards our charities. |
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15th October 2008
As part of our adventure we wanted to give back a little something in the process, so I have been into schools to give talks and assemblies to children and staff to hopefully motivate and inspire them to set themselves a challenge that they would like to overcome, this year or in the future.
Today I have just comeback from Dorchester Middle School where I presented to a very interested class of children and I was really impressed with all their questions and was touched by all their beautiful thank you cards they sent me.
22nd October 2008
Only one more week until we begin our adventure. We have now sorted out all our worldly belongings and packed away a few essential items for our return. The rest we have given to charity or sold, the only thing left to go now is the car. Being fairly minimalist people we were quite stunned how much (junk?) we had managed to collect over the past five years and found the whole process of de-cluttering very freeing and therapeutic, even down to ridding myself of my make-up and hairdryer!
We have now out of our flat, the crying as I handed over the keys took me completely by surprise and didn't abate until sometime later, I didn't realize how emotionally attached I had become to it and our neighbors.
Much crying has been had saying goodbye to people. We held our leaving do at the RNLI and were touched by how many people had turned up to bid us fair well, we didn't realize we knew so many people!
Apart from mutterings about how hard Dave's travel quiz was (The infamous inhospitable land between Panama and Colombia is called the Darian Gap) everyone looked like they had a good time and enjoyed the food - Dave and I certainly did. Thanks to Angela for selling the raffle tickets, we managed to raise £270 to split between our two charities. We are hoping that we have managed to inspire a few people to come out and join us en-route.
Tomorrow Meridian ITV are coming down to film us, so I will post when it will be aired, also keep an eye out for us in the next Poole News, Real Travel Magazine and Dorset Echo.
26th October 2008
WOW, only three more days to go until we fly. We really enjoyed getting out into WarehamForest and filming for Meridian. We should be on the Meridian ITV news on Monday or Tuesday about 6pm, if you are not in the local area you should be able to watch it on our Media Page.
We are currently saying all our goodbyes to immediate family and the computer is going into storage. Kelly is already having internet withdrawals! We are hoping to use internet cafes along the way to update our blog and photos so please keep checking back to see how we are doing.
