Ils ont partir Toulouse pour L'Espange...

Salut tout le monde!!

Alors, Josh, Matt et Johann ont partir Toulouse pour l'espagne.
Apologies, my French is a little rusty... :)
I have heard rumours of the boys attending a bull fight in a small town in Spain and celebrated the fiesta.

They are now in a town, northwest of Spain called Lugo (founded by the Romans in 70 BC if anyone is interested...) and will spend the next few days on the coast.

More updates to follow...

x Jem

Toulouse, South West France

Air Museum

2008 British commercial for Road safety about awareness of cyclists

http://youtu.be/Sr9mVzMXics

Toulouse, France

Alp D'Huez

Cadel, Johann, Matt and Josh :)

Serbia

1000kms achieved so far!

The boys have just crosssed over the border of Serbia and have traveled 1000kms in 2.5 weeks!

Bulgaria/Romania

Hi all

Johann has sent me some photos of the trip. I especially like the photo of Johann with the tortoise :)

At the moment, they are in a place near the border of Romania called Bajla. Tomorrow they will be heading in to Romania, slow and steady though as there has been a strong head wind over the last few days.

 Enjoy!

 x Jem

The first week

City of Burgas Град Бургас
—  City  —
Coat of arms
City of Burgas Location of Burgas
Coordinates: 42°30′N 27°28′E / 42.5°N 27.467°E / 42.5; 27.467
Country	Bulgaria
Province (Oblast)	Burgas
Municipality	Burgas

Hi all,
Just a quick update on the trip. Below is where the boys currently are! They have finished their hilly ride through Turkey and they are now traveling through Bulgaria. One night was spent camping in the bush, another night they splurged and spent $15 to stay in a hotel.



"The Bulgarian Black Sea Riviera (Bulgarian: Черноморие, Chеrnomoriе) covers the entire eastern bound of Bulgaria stretching from the Romanian Black Sea Riviera in the north to European Turkey in the south, along 378 km of coastline. White and golden sandy beaches occupy approximately 130 km of the 378 km long coast. The region is an important center of tourism during the summer season (May-October), drawing millions of foreign and local tourists alike and constituting one of the country's most popular tourist destinations."

Turkish Baths

Watch this space.... The boys have encountered a traditional Turkish bath.... photos hopefully to come. No close ups though! :)

The beginning

Well, the boys arrived at the airport nice and early on the 7th June to find that yes, their bike boxes were overweight. To their delight, the lady was only going to charge them $35 each. When they got to the next counter, some legend pointed out to them that the previous lady had only charged them for one leg, thus making them pay an extra $35. Oh, did I mention that for every kilo over, Johann had to pay $17? Yep, his amount totalled to $157. A great start.

Far from Home

When it’s easy to phone and write home, we are more keenly aware of ourselves as foreign correspondents writing about the country we are in, and about the kind of nationality/nationalities we are representing to that country.  Gallipoli is the birthplace of the nation, it’s often said; but the nation is constantly being born in fragmented digital format a million times a second as each photo and story comes back from overseas.

Our family and friends imagine the place we travel to, and they imagine us.  We are re-imagined. We become this airy, mercurial, imagined creature in the minds of others. It is one of the reasons we go elsewhere.

Because I will be blogging about their bicycle trip, kind of like I am there. Though I won’t be there, and what I write will be based on the others’ facts and figures and photos.   So there will be this little interplay, like there has been sometimes above, between me and the peloton. There will be this little voltage difference.  We will all be airy spirits.  Somehow this will work.

Three words you associate with Europe.

‘Languages, culture, food,’ Jemma says. 

I push for some detail.

‘My mental picture is of him biking along the coast, talking to local people. I can see villages, and him camping on the side of the road, going to the toilet in the bush.’

 She pauses as though to study the mental picture. ‘Don’t look too closely.’

What makes an Aussie Aussie

Like me, Johann was born in South Africa. His family moved to Hong Kong, lived there a few years, and then he arrived in Perth and in my year at high school, when he was about 15.  Since school, he’s gone back to South East Asia a few times on holiday. That part of the world is much more familiar than Europe, which he’s never been to, but from where his Burger-ancestors (Swiss) emigrated long ago.

 ‘I guess that comes back to the question of what an Australian is,’ Johann says when I ask if he thinks of himself as an Australian. He squirms.

If it comes back to the question of what an Australian is, the obvious next question is what it means for a first-generation migrant Australian to travel overseas.

‘You are Australian but you’re not from here,’ he says. ‘You travel, but you never feel you quite fit.’

He says:

‘Australia is not a specific place.’

And that’s what I think as well.  Travel is freedom of movement, but what does that mean when a country is so plural that its meaning is substantially different for each person, and perhaps especially for each migrant?  Does a country then become personalised, more of a mythic and interior place, something like in the fiction of Gerald Murnane?  What Australia is our peloton is leaving behind? That’s something for the blog.

Formalities

It’s funny how in interviews pulling out a voice recorder can change the whole dynamic and turn things suddenly formal.  Like it’s been made clear this is on the record.  The funny and interesting thing is how bold the line is that divides our sense of what we can/should say in private and public. 

Isn’t there a similar division, perhaps, though on a broader different scale, between how we behave in Australia and how we behave overseas?   In that case, the line when crossed makes people diplomats. But the kind of diplomat they will be depends on the kind of Australia they wish to represent to the world.

Broadly speaking, there are diplomats for a Contiki/lucky country/you beaut Australia, and there are those who are clearly not into that, thank you very much.  Like dark matter in the universe, the majority is probably anti-Contiki. You just don’t see them much.

Aussie's in Europe

Because we are Australians; we don’t do existentialism.  If anything, we do Contiki.

It’s an often said that Western Europe fits inside Australia x number of times.  For certain Europeans this portrays Australia as a place of light and open space, its deserts and backpacker-hostels offer a kind of freedom from society. 

How does Australia fit into Europe?  The same fact about Europe fitting into Australia emphasises that Europe is a small place full of many cultures.  It is a playground of culture and diversity. 

Something like one of those old primary school maps of the world with a stereotypical local standing in folk-dress in each country, my imagined Europe is littered with the prostrate forms of young Aussies. Here they are dressed in white and the shirtfront has been stained with sangria (Pamplona, Running of the Bulls), and here in imitation lederhosen and under pinewood benches (Munchen, Oktoberfest), and look here . . .

Johann wants nothing to do with Contiki.

‘I want to experience something a bit different to where I’ve grown up, where I’ve been before,’ he says after he has got home, showered, and sat down to do the interview, tape-recorder running.

He says:

‘Australians need to be respectful.  I’ve travelled to a lot of countries and encountered people who are disrespectful, cultures and races. It’s really important just to respect people and their ways of life. Embrace the culture.’

Which are laudable sentiments, Johann, but I can’t help thinking (and I think you would agree, after the interview you complained it was too formal), they sound a bit rehearsed and goody-goody. I mean what about getting drunk in Prague?

Riding for a cause

Youth Focus is a unique independent not for profit organisation that supports vulnerable young people in Western Australia by offering a range of mental health services.  We operate with a team of highly trained and skilled psychologists, social workers and occupational therapists to provide a range of early intervention and prevention services free of charge, aimed at supporting young people and their families to overcome the issues associated with suicide, depression and self harm.

We will be raising money for Youth Focus. If you would like to donate, please visit http://www.everydayhero.com.au/search/heroes?search_type=keywords&terms=euro_trek

Much ado about Europe

Much ado about Europe

In recent months, my friend Johann has been transformed into a kind of airy spirit; a bicycle-centaur.  He is one of those guys you see in lycra, bent over the handlebars, cycling home on the bike path by the Freeway.  He has sold his car, sold his TV, sold other things and meanwhile constructed the bike from parts mail-ordered from the US.  He wants to downscale the things he owns to the bike and whatever fits in two panniers.

‘He seems to be quite interested in riding his bike,’ is how his girlfriend Jemma puts it.  She adds: ‘In all parts of Europe.’

We are waiting for Johann to get home from work. He is a tad late. He is cycling. I haven’t seen him for weeks. 

The (short-term?) endgame of all this cycling is Europe.  From June to October he and two mates will be cycling somewhere to the west of Istanbul, east of the Atlantic, south of the German latitudes and above the Mediterranean.

But otherwise the route they will take is pretty much up in the air. 

After flying to Istanbul, they may bus it down to Gallipoli and start from there. A month out, though, and not even that is for sure; which is the point; they have planned and saved and researched and gone on preparatory long-weekend bike missions about South-West WA to be self-sufficient as they can be.   Whatever happens, happens.