David Whiddon

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Learning to ride in Spain

Lytchett Manor Striders, Poole – Dave’s running club.

Kayaking from Cornwall back to Dorset, summer 2007

Cycling around Wareham Forest – using the trailer for the first time.

The trailer was later sold before we left.

 

I was fortunate enough to have been brought up in a small-whitewashed village in Andalusia, in the south of Spain in the 1970’s.  From an early age I was always a keen cyclist and I have very fond memories of learning to ride my bike, cycling down the street with old Spanish ladies sitting on their doorsteps knitting and chatting away. In those days the narrow streets had very few cars on them and old men with their donkeys coming back from the fields were a common sight.  It was a very safe environment to grow up in, where children could play on the street without parents worrying about their whereabouts and all the doors on the street were always open till late in the night, everybody knew everybody and people were always friendly and would always stop for a chat. 

 

Once I learnt to ride my bike I would spend hours on it, cycling around the village with my friends and slowly venturing further

afield to visit friends in other villages and exploring the beautiful surrounding areas nearby.  As I grew older I started to wonder what it would be like to go on a cycling trip, often I would look at my Dad’s big map of Spain, the names of all the different cities, towns and villages fascinated me and I had visions of cycling and exploring the hidden corners of this large and varied country.

 

At the age of eighteen I returned to UK to join the Royal Marines, with whom I served for six years. During this time I carried on pursuing my love of cycling by taking part in numerous Mountain Bike races.

 

Leaving the Royal Marines in 1997 I went to work on a Raleigh International Expedition down in Chile. I also had the opportunity to travel extensively around Patagonia and immediately fell in love with this remote area of South America.

 

During 1998 and 1999 I worked in California as an outdoor instructor taking teenagers on backpacking trips to the beautiful wilderness areas of Northern California.

 

I then returned to the UK and worked in London doing security work at various renowned five-star hotels. Working in London was not really my idea of living and therefore decided to get a job with Explore (www.explore.co.uk) a leading adventure travel company and was lucky enough to lead trips for them in Spain, Peru and Cuba. In Peru I met my girlfriend Kelly who was also working as a tour leader for Explore.

 

The idea of cycling around Spain was always at the back of my mind, but due to different circumstances I had never really thought that I would ever carry this out. However, in May 2003 Kelly and I, at last, decided to fly to Bilbao in the north of Spain. From there we planned to cycle into the Pyrenees and work our way along the “Camino de Santiago” and then south along the coast of Galicia and along the Portuguese coast to Malaga. What started, as a simple childhood dream had become a reality.

 

After our trip around Spain and Portugal we both had become addicted to cycling and we both joked about going off to cycle the world. After returning to the UK I began working for the RNLI as a First Aid and Sea survival trainer. Slowly the dream of carrying on cycling faded away. However, it was always at the back of our minds and after having bad days at work we would often refer back to it. Five years later we have now decided it is time to carry on following our dream, as we have reached a point in our lives which we have decided it’s now or never.

 


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