After 7 months of cycling through South America I reached Panama ready for a new experience. Having never sailed before I went in search of a boat sailing north that my bike and I could hitch a ride on. After more than a month of setbacks I was finally off, only to reach Colombia (back in South America!!) when a serious storm damaged the boat I was on. Here I was forced to make the biggest decision of my trip so far – whether to continue on the boat with no assurances of its progress north or to take a flight to the USA where my family were flying out to visit me. Ultimately I decided to fly, with the cheapest flight being to Colorado and the Rocky Mountains. I roughly followed the Great Divide trail, using it as a template for further off road adventures deeper into the mountains along unused tracks, paths and forest cuttings. The routes I found were fantastic and people were warm and generous – however I realised that my adventure was a self imposed and self managed one; although I took the hardest routes I could find and stuck rigidly to my $3 daily budget, ultimately I knew if things went wrong that I could always take to the paved roads and spend a little more on food to increase my wilting energy levels. My ‘adventure’ seemed all too fake to me.
With this in mind I’ve decided to take on my biggest challenge so far, and what I really see as a true ‘adventure’ – to cycle from Vancouver to northern Alaska from January 2016….its gonna be cold!
