Life is an Adventure
Life is an Adventure
Life through COVID was a change – it presented me with opportunities and challenges. I’ve tried a new format of of showing my life throughout these times: Story Maps: https://storymap.knightlab.com/. See my test Story Map below:
Those who know me might know that I’m a bit of a sucker for adventure and done just a little bit of cycle touring (wayyy back in 2018 – https://thetravellingbeancounter.wordpress.com). I had dreamed up this baby a little while after getting back from Japan – the idea of cycling from (new) hometown to (original) hometown. With a good mate’s wedding the weekend following, the stars finally aligned and I set off on the 2nd of December.
| Sport | Date | Title | Time | Distance | Elevation |
| Ride | Fri, 02/12/2022 | Day 1: Sydney to Warners Bay | 5:57:24 | 147.40 km | 1,381 m |
| Ride | Sat, 03/12/2022 | Day 2: Newcastle to Scone | 6:49:35 | 168.59 km | 1,579 m |
| Ride | Sun, 04/12/2022 | Day 3 – Scone to Tamworth | 6:08:54 | 142.22 km | 1,107 m |
First international travel for ~3years. April 2019 we were in the north island of New Zealand.
We decided to book our trip the day after the most difficult race of my life (to date: 10/04/2022); The Tamworth Trail Blazer 60K with ~3,800m elevation gain. After pushing 165 heart beats per minute for 531 minutes pushing out ~5,700 calories and taking home both the course record, first place and days worth of pain to follow, maybe it was 2 parts stupid, 1 part strategic…
It was a great day and I was too high on adrenaline to feel it but I was chafing and cramping so much that the next few days on planes I thought would be a good time to recover. The worst part was the chafing… definitely going to fix that for my next ultras in May and July – it actually formed a scab on the flight over the Singapore.
This was actually the time when domestic airports were absolutely insanely understaffed and security lines went outside the terminals – mayhem. Luckily the international terminal wasn’t so bad (LINK). After flying strictly domestically the last 3 years you forget some of the procedures going international: taking out liquids (100ml max), passport photo not looking like you, 3hr check-in rules, etc. But you also forget the glamour of the lounges, luxury shops, duty free (~50% shops open).
Actually not that bad… and we were flying economy on Scoot. Worst part was the screaming babies but sitting down for hours on end, watching F1’s and Kimetsu no Yaiba S2, really not that bad. It probably helped that I was still exhausted from the run that I could actually sleep every few hours.
Total rest time: 24.5h
Tamworth to Sydney: 1hr
Sydney to Singapore: 7.5hrs
Singapore to Athens: 11hrs
Planning Map
Highlights from each area:
Athens
Meteora
Kefalonia
Rome
Naples
Santorini
I have always had an interest in Japan from a young age, I assume it’s from watching all the Dragon Ball, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokemon, etc when I was young. This is my 3rd visit to Japan and I wanted to improve my Japanese mostly, especially the speaking component as it’s the hardest to practice when you study alone. Although I do believe taking actual Japanese classes is a better way to improve… I also enjoy hiking, so with all the mountains in Japan this was easy pick.
But I chose to cycle as I would be able to meet many people and experience many things that you would usually miss if you were to take public transport or a car. Many people I could talk and interact with. I also would gain a massive sense of accomplishment by completing something so seemingly impossible.
When I was asked ‘would I do it again?’ as soon as I arrived back home, I was ready to put the bike down for a while and have a rest. It’s been over 3 years at time of writing and I’d definitely be keen to do another bike trip. I had started planning a Taiwan bike trip, which would only be a few weeks and hope to try it in 2022.
I would also like to try something in Europe, maybe in Spain and also cycling from Sydney to my home town Tamworth over a week.