Australia: The continent where we met, where we felt as real settlers, but got an irresistible urge of discovering the world on bike.
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Let us go home by bicycle to see the most of it, was the idea of the first trip. We were in Australia at that time on a sort of working holiday both of us went separately and we met each other in Sydney, Australia. When we decided to return to Holland and while discussing how, we, being Dutchmen and used to cycling to school and work, also pondered on this way of transportation and decided to try it. Because of shipping and geographical reasons - Australia being an island - our Dutch bicycles were sent to Singapore. The start was in December 1968, the arrival in the Netherlands october 1969, after 10 months of cycling covering 20.000 km (12.000 miles) on our bicycles.
Back home we married and went both to work. In our appartment we were often looking at the worldmap. As we liked this first trip so much, soon new plans arose. When enough money was saved - bicycle trips are not so expensive - we started off again in 1972 to cycle and see the other continents and returned home in September 1974, finishing over 48.000 km (approx 30.000 miles) of cycling.
The itinerary was Europe (East and West), Minor Asia to Egypt and down through Eastern Africa to Cape Town from where we flew to Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. Back on the bikes, south to Argentina, north through the Andes to Central America, Mexico, United States and Canada, ending this continent in Nova Scotia flying over the Atlantic to Old Scotland and from there on bikes back home.
(Of course this is a very concise story in comparison of all what we have experienced during our travels, a more comprehensive narrative is in Dutch with different foto's which have an English explanation when pointing at them) |
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