In each tiny community they’re erecting gigantic maypoles: arrow-staight pine trees, de-barked and blonde, pre-decorated with evergreen wreaths they hope will hang symmetrically once its up, and the blue and white flag of Bavaria at the tip. All the able-bodied men are crowding around, stationed under the pole with traditional lifting technology – a series of pairs of long hook-ended poles, each supported by a double-pair of men, with a gestappo-shouting-moustache drilling the team in bursts of a couple centimeters. It seems to involve a lot of just standing there between “HEAVE!”s, and the women and strollers and disabled boys watch the whole ordeal from a safe distance. By afternoon we start seeing the finished products, anchored securely and standing tall, the pride of the parish.
Grey clouds start crowding out the sun and blue. It’s not raining yet, but you’re never quite sure when it’s going to come, or from which side. A sign for a beer garden spurs us on ahead of the threatening sky. The bar is right on the river path, outwardly welcoming, with pavilion tents and a broad green lawn filled with lots of bike parking. Identically clad cyclist club members fill the long tables, raising mugs of beer and singing drinking songs in German. I order some bratwurst, and kartoffel salad to share with Lily – creamy German style potato salad with mayonnaise – from a couple of husky German women, while Lily orders zwei bier, after confirming its Bavarian origin. Gotta sample the local products! We take a seat on the grass, like outcast hobos who don’t speak the local dialect, unable to connect. We share the salad with mediocrity while smooth-skinned Bavarian children, dressed up by their parents in immaculate clothing the kids can’t even appreciate, pick on each other in the playground. I’m drinking two beers to Lily’s one, and soon the rain starts. We move under a tree (the tent seats were suddenly all taken) and garner a bit of drunken comfort wedged between bike wheels, and dream of our perfect bicycle set-ups.
We have a few more beers under the edge of a tent because the rain has now been joined by hail, and finally we’re drunk enough to “connect” with some locals…. First, a glittery-eyed beer-bellied salt-n-pepper male-pattern-baldness guy in an 80s denim coat, happy to struggle through no common language and leer at my girlfriend; then his odd-match portly buddy joins us, he’s a full generation younger, speaks English, and seems somehow eager, greedy, behind a thick pair of glasses. The droll linguistics are quickly reduced even farther into dull translation, but at least comprehension takes a leap up. I go to the WC for a piss, and they turn on Lily. “He wants you to know he likes darts and bowling and are you married?” He even tries to say he’s Aussie too – Aus-trian, that is – how cute…. I’m back now and some old man with apparently no other friends sits down. He seems okay, at least he likes beer, but he frowns when they tell him I’m a “greenie,” and proceeds to tell me he was in the German army for ten years when he was young… but he’s still to young to have been a Nazi, isn’t he?!? Saying “Ist meine frau” (I think that means “She’s my wife”) isn’t working with the denim guy. Now he’s trying to tell Lily they both have blue eyes – what a commonality! – except Lily’s eyes are crystal blue with a creamy hazel center, not icy grey like his…. Before it gets any worse, we make a break for it during a lapse in the rain and stumble onto our rigs awkwardly, like we’re trying to escape. Which we are.
The rain comes again as we head down the muddy gravel path, and soaks us now. Ten minutes farther we stop, set up a hurried rain tarp in a tiny copse of trees, and chuck our damp sleeping bags into the tent. We manage a slight recovery before a less-than-hot campfire of haphazardly stacked, soaking wet sticks, and make some spaghetti. Now we’re not so drunk anymore, and I start to taste acrid beer in the back of my throat.
By bedtime the rain has stopped but the moisture persists. My hoodie/pillow is too damp to wear or rest my head on, and the spiders and beetles(and of course the slugs) are coalescing under the rain fly of our tent. We’re wet on top of wet and a long way from comfortable, but we’re in a haze enough to sleep and sort out the rest in the morning. A dense fog rolls in from over the ridge and coats the river valley.
But before we can actually fall asleep, the nightmare really begins…. “I don’t feel so good…” “Me either…” It hit me first, a roiling, bloated snakepit of barbed wire twisting in my stomach. I get up and crawl into the mist, dying for release. My finger in the back of my throat does the trick, and thankfully it’s too dark to see the spaghetti come back up, but the smell is enough to keep me vomiting until it’s all empty – or so I think. I lay back down next to Lily, who is trying hard not to throw up. Now my gut is frothing all around, making complaining gurgles, and I don’t even know which direction it’s going, until I feel it reach my ass with urgency.
Out of the tent again – thank GAWD it’s not raining but the mist is as thick as mayonnaise – and I rush blindly in my sandals through the nettles, into the trees to pull down my shorts…. What remained of a healthy shit-log ejects in a rush of beer and diarrhea fluids; I can hear it splattering the underbrush I am squatting over. I stand up, I immediately squat back down again. I’m going through Lily’s toilet paper like mad. Finally finished for the moment, I clean up as best I can in the midnight fog of food poisoning. I lay down again and begin to shiver uncontrollably, a painful wracking fever against the cold ground – my air mattress has a leak again. By now Lily is convinced, and gets up to vomit, and a truly frightening potential settles over our pitiful situation — she’s got a headache now, and this is just the type of thing that can turn into one of her debilitating migraines, the type she has to go to the hospital for…. “Can I take care of her?” I vaguely wonder, as I’m bolting outside for another vomit and another projectile bowel vacation. Thankfully we have clean water, but it’s a chore just to fill up the drinking bottle(I’m coherent enough to realize that it would be disastrous, in more ways than one, if we spilled the water bladder inside the tent). We don’t want to, but we can’t help talking about what caused this, what DID this to us? WHY ME? It had to be that potato salad! Damnit! Boiled, peeled, or what was the travelers’ diet-motto again? Fuck! Are we in real danger? I would’ve called my mother for medical advice on my world phone, and damn the outrageous fees, but the battery was dead. We can’t get hypothermia like this, can we…?
Throughout the night we alternated between acidic vomiting and dry heaving, explosive diarrhea, and feverish shivering, in the dark fog or in the damp tent, unable to pass out, huddled together for warmth, pity, and comfort. Aren’t you supposed to be asleep to have nightmares?

After what feels like a hopeless purgatory sentence – on hell’s half – the dawn finally arrives, and the sun chases away the mist. Oh, how many nightmares has that glorious life-giver vanquished? I finally regain some hope, enough anyway to think clearly about our situation. We’re dangerously dehydrated, alone without communication, a long way from any medical facility, and on bicycles…. and Lily is taking a while to come around, unable to even leave the tent, vomiting in the vestibule and the clinging smell of bile and gerardia feces. We make the decision to move, to get somewhere, anywhere but here or that wretched beer garden. It takes us longer than ever to break camp, but after a breakfast of oranges, we finally push through the nettles again, back onto the muddy path. We’re tired and sick, we’re miserable and weak, but we continue “bike touring.”
We have to.
We pedal slowly, doggedly, and the cliffs rise up, closing in around the river. We pass a string of tourist shops selling local beer – Yeeeuch! We decide not to stop at an overpriced cafe just for juice. Then we realize that this is where the bike path ends, and our map actually goes onto a tour-boat…. Lily inquires for me at the ticket booth as to alternatives, but the only option besides the tourist ferry is to go back eight kilometers, and then climb these mountain cliffs towering above us. It doesn’t take me long to decide that my motor-vehicle boycott would be crazy – dangerous, even – to maintain right now, even if I wasn’t with someone even more sick than me, on a single-speed bike…. So I pay the thirteen euros for us and we wedge ourselves between the tourists and try to relax. The rumbling motor starts up and off we go, for a beautiful gliding tour of the ancient Danube cliffs. Soon a silky voice on the loudspeaker begins describing all the history and points of interest… in German. At least the boat only moves at bicycle-speed.
Eventually we disembark in Kelheim and struggle over the medeival cobblestones, not really able to appreciate the history, to the the tourist info office. The woman there calls ahead for us to a cheap B&B and tells them some cyclists will be coming – somewhere we can rehydrate and sleep off the poison. We pick up some recovery foods and fluids, fluids, fluids at the the grocery store, then arduously climb a big hill to the address. But no one’s answering the door – didn’t she call ahead? An old man peeks his head around the corner, then runs away into the back yard before we can say anything. Now that’s strange…. Finally, his stout Bavarian wife comes to the door, shaking in fear, wondering, “What do you want? Oh, where are your bikes?” They’re right over there, jeez! Do we really look that bad??
She turns out to be okay, except for a constant nervous laugh, but we can’t really communicate with her. We take showers, make proper hydration tonics, and briefly browse a horrible selection of TV in English, before a nice twelve hours of sleep in a warm bed. The worst was past us now. The nightmare was over, and the next day we hit the bike path again, hopefully having learned a lesson. The tour continues!

Back at camp, I had some dinner and packed up my dirty laundry in a University Bookstore bag that I left home with – they make nice bags. I decided not to bring my bike pump, because the spring for mounting it in the frame was taped shut, just so the poor old thing would push air, and I didn’t have a nice place to carry it. “It’s only fifteen kilometers,” I told myself. WARNING! WARNING!
The first five kms went by no problem, down some foresty back roads and under a train track tunnel. But then, just about dusk, I came off a curb and felt something squishy. Yep, that’s a flat tire. I had a patch kit and some levers – they’re like an extension of the bike – but they don’t do much good without a pump. Damn! Right then I told myself, “That’s what you get you fool!” But it was still not that far to walk, even in the dark….
Then, the rain began to fall; a nice, even, steady shower. Wonderful. I walked. I came to a village – “Strange, this isn’t on my map…” – and I thought I might be able to borrow someone’s pump (Germans are a cyclist bunch in general) but there was no one on the streets, and when I approached one house to knock on the door, they closed their shutters on me. So I walked, along the audobon toward the airport. The frontage road sidetracked and I took a nice straight forest trail that seemed to correspond to my map…. but somewhere deep in that forest, after about an hour of walking in the darkness and rain, I came to a signpost. I read it by the light of my Beamer headlight, and my heart sank…. Suddenly not so confident I had taken the right route, I finally checked my compass… and realized I was heading NorthEast, not NorthWest.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” My anguished cry echoed through the deserted forest night. What a fiasco! I was already later than I said I would be, already soaked through, including my “waterproof” Dutch army boots, and now I didn’t really even know where I was on my map. But there was no way I was going back, so I continued onward, pretty much just navigating by compass and exploring in the dark rain. And on the ground, walking, exploration is time consuming. Every wrong turn takes half an hour to recognize as a wrong turn, directions are skewed, and fatigue starts to take its toll.
I had a lot of time to think, and to rage against my pitiful situation…. Anger changed to shame which changed to pure helplessness, then to bitter entitlement and blaming Lily for everything, to hating hotels, to swearing to always have a pump on me, then to “it’s adventurous without a pump”, and back again…. I finally settled on a zen philosophy of “everything happens for a reason” and “enjoy the unexpected detour”, mostly just because it took SO LONG to progress anywhere walking that it just wore out all the other less-than-honorable mindsets. It was my own fault, and what was I gonna do? Even my tears would just wash away.
I knew I was near the airport, because the planes were flying low over me for landings. It was surreal, each one lighting up the darkness of the forest, illuminating everything and reflecting weirdly, their wind pushing the canopy each time and shaking a fresh deluge of rain from the trees onto my head. Then suddenly back to the darkness.
Eventually I sort of triangulated my position on the moist Google map, but the network of audobons and cloverleafs was insane – and where were those signposted bike paths I used before?!? I followed various service roads and forest tracks parallel to the motorways, but where the traffic zoomed effortlessly under an overpass, my routes all curved to follow the perpendiculars, never crossing them. After several tedious backtracks of several kilometers each, I was annoyed enough to cut the fence and walk on the audobon. Before it actually came to that, though, I found a dilapidated section of fence, so I didn’t need to cut it. I hefted my rig(laden with the laundry bag) over it, through some brambles and across the high-speed on/off ramp, and found myself in one of those weird nowhere spots of barren gravel and grass between the crisscrossing cloverleafs and confusing additional side routes and access roads. All no speed limit German audobons, no pedestrians allowed. Thankfully it was dark, and no one saw me kneeling to consult my map, protecting it from the rain with my body. I hefted my bike over some more guardrails, dashed across a couple more freeways, scaled a super steep hill and hustled across an overpass bridge, and then I was only halfway through the worst of it. I suddenly had extra sympathy for hitchhikers – isn’t this just the type of place they need to be to catch a ride? How do they do it?
I got a thorn inside my wet boot somehow, and then, right in the middle of all that mad mess of highway, just trying to get North of it all and reach the east-west audobon on my map, I realized my compass was gone! I must’ve dropped it while running across one of those on/off ramps! Oh, damn… could this get any worse?!? Well I had recently consulted it so many times that I still had a vague idea which direction to go, so on I trudged, through the soaking wet grass and over the guardrails some more, now relying on intuition and luck more than anything.
Finally, finally, after about three squishy hours of walking, I climbed a highway bridge and saw in the distance the neon hotel sign, STEIGENBERGER AIRPORT HOTEL, like a bright red church-steeple cross, beckoning compassionately to the lost sheep. It was still not easy to reach, of course, for once I crossed the bridge, I lost sight of the sign again. Eventually though, I came out from a garbage-strewn ditch along a motorway onto an actual sidewalk! Hooray!! After passing a bus station I knew I was close; and what do I see zooming by, but a fully decked-out commuter cyclist, who surely had an emergency tire pump on him…. Bah, it’s a little late now! I watched him with exhausted bitterness as his hard tires carried him and his little blinky rear light out of sight. Bastard.

The hotel was around the corner. Bedraggled and spent, I locked my bike up outside and stumbled in through the lobby, tracking puddles of water. Tired as I was, I was still peripherally amazed that they didn’t stop my dirty homeless ass from entering. Maybe they didn’t notice me – I know I sure wasn’t looking at the reception desk.
I took the shiny, immaculate elevator with mirrors everywhere, up to room 252, where Lily, beautiful, blessed Lily, answered the door in her underwear, saying “I knew if you were still on your way that something must’ve happened…” I was never so happy to arrive somewhere, hotel room or not.

And I will never, ever, EVER go ANYWHERE on a bicycle, ever again, without a freakin’ pump!!!

SCOTLAND
The approach into Cairnryan brought on a familiar giddiness; another new land, full of new experiences, and inherently adventurous. The solid weight of my rig was eager to roll – zoom! – down the ferry ramp into Scotland! It was only nine a.m., since I made the seven o’clock voyage, and it wasn’t even raining on this side of the Irish Sea! I was laughin’!

CYCLING IN A CLOUD
I found my way onto a nice back road, and the elevation started to rise. Some downhills, but mostly ascent, up and up until I was in the blustery heights with the wind turbines. It wasn’t the Highlands, of course, but it sure felt like it. Crossing the Galloway and Border Hills, I climbed till dusk to reach the highest point, right up into the clouds. The sky actually touched the earth there, and the mists gently lay themselves directly upon the pastures, swirling thick; muting sounds and obscuring nearly everything. Every once in a while, cycling in a cloud, I experienced a strange phenomenon: I ran into a massive glob of precipitation, like a hanging shot glass was carefully emptied onto my cheek, my knee, or my head. It’s quite surreal – I had to make sure I wasn’t actually dreaming. I’ve often wondered what causes this(I experienced the same mystery on Faial’s clouded peaks, in the Acores), and I believe they’re progentior raindrops, the freshly condensed, that haven’t been slivered by the wind of falling. Whatever they are, what I learned was this: even if it isn’t raining, Scotland can still soak you.

CAMPING IN THE COLD
Camping up there wasn’t too bad; plenty of thick moss and dry wood, and wooded areas that were frequently enough flat and with decent access. I suppose I should say it wouldn’t be too bad, in summer… because it was freezing. Bone-chilling, sub-zero fridge-toes cold. Cycling is no problem – the most comfortable time of the day; if I stay moving, I stay warm(mostly). Cooking, reading, and writing are tolerable, within the globe of warmth from a campfire. But it’s bedtime out there that I dread. Even with all my layers, even with a bottle of boiling-hot(at least for half the night) water between my feet, even with my crinkly emergency foil blanket wrapped around me inside the sleeping bag, even with my long johns, my hat, my gloves… it’s hard to rest peacefully. And if I have to answer the call of nature in the dead of night, after the fire has died out and the moon has abandoned the sky, and step outside into the frigid winter breeze…. There’s an ominous, malicious weight out there in the darkness that seems to whisper, “Freeze to death… freeze to death…” as if it’s hungry, and it can’t eat you unless it turns you into an icicle first.

THE BILSTON PROTEST SITE
Outside of Edinburgh, just off the A701, there’s a group of activists camped in the valley, protesting the projected “A701 Re-Alignment,” which would redirect the already nice and straight road through the wooded Bilston valley. They’re successfully squatting in the way of progress, down there six years now, constructing as many domiciles up in the boughs of the trees as they can(a treehouse valley!), trash-picking all their food from local dumpsters, and living the simple, electricity-free life of the woods. Basically they’re trying to make it so expensive for the government to evict them that the road work becomes fiscally inviable. But the UK actually has a national eviction team, complete with brutal security guards and specialist climbers, so they’ve got their work cut out for them if they want to save the trees.
I wound my way down the muddy slopes and found the communal outdoor kitchen-campfire and introduced myself. I was expecting hard-to-understand Scottish accents, but the only guy there at first only spoke Spanish, so I was introduced and showed around the place without English – no problema! I chopped some wood, had some tea, and helped bring the latest scavenged food supplies down the muddy banks to the pantry-shack. There was another Spaniard with no pants on, a British girl that ignorantly compared me to Colin Powell when she learned I was from the States, a kid that had moved down to the site as soon as he was legally allowed, on his 16th birthday(his girlfriend climbed trees better than he did), a couple of rough-around-the-edges old Scots with a blind-n-deaf doggie, who was falling in the river and forgetting his tail in the fire, and a bunch of other crusty, low-tech Scottish hippie punks.
That night they put me in “the teepee,” which was disappointing to hear(I really wanted to sleep in a tree) until I realized the teepee was actually in a tree like all the other dwellings, on a platform and erected around the trunk. I love treehouses!

EDINBURGH
In the morning I had a delicious dumpster-dived breakfast of tea and dark rum, bread with organic Scottish cheese, and organic yogurt. I hefted my rig out of the muddy valley and out to the road, and I was on my way into Edinburgh.
I got a funny feeling, coming into the city. A feeling of familiarity. Funny enough, it was a parking lot that reminded me of home; it looked like the East Towne Target. Soon I was thinking, “I could see myself living in that flat,” or “I could be a student here; it’s just like the University of Wisconsin.”
Then I crested a hill, and saw a mountain, and the familiarity fled, replaced by medeival architecture and exotic earth-shapes that we just don’t have back home. The original Důn Čideann, in all its gothic majesty. A dark tower spikes into the colorless sky – the Scott monument, dwarfing the glittering ferris wheel below. Calton Hill, and the towering cliffs of Arthur’s Seat in Holyrood Park, frame a bit of the bay: the Firth of Forth, leading to the North Sea. And across the center, Edinburgh Castle commands the skyline from a summit all its own.
I was stunned; with every turn I was brought deeper into a travelers’ high by the style of Edinburgh. I explored the city on my bike with a giddy grin and an enthusiastic greeting for every passerby. The place was all decked out for Christmas, happy thick Scottish accents in holiday-mode.
I met Shannon, my host in Edinburgh, who’s also from Wisconsin, and we shared the experience of celebrating the season in Scotland, both of us far from the comforts of home and family. We were invited to a traditional Scottish Christmas dinner, and though it was cooked by a New Zealander, there were locals there later(they had ordered Chinese take-away). Before dinner, on each placemat was a cardboard tube called a cracker, that pops when you and your neighbor pull it apart like a wishbone. Inside for the winner, there’s a paper crown(a very common sight out in the city that day), a useless bauble of some kind, and a terrible joke. The meal was a proper spread, and delicious all around… except for the haggis. That famous grain-and-pork thing they eat in Scotland – and this one was apparently from a very reputable butcher. It’s similair to blood pudding – an acquired taste – except bigger and more bloated. Yuck; but at least I tried it!

ON TO THE CONTINENT
Soon it was time to push on, to catch the Amsterdam ferry from Newcastle for New Year’s Eve. Normally I wouldn’t bother myself with an itinerary; I prefer to reserve the ability to go slow if I want to, to explore out of my way, to go where the wind blows me, and to stop for a while if the omens are good. But I already had a ticket on the King of Scandinavia, courtesy of the Royal Yachting Association of Northern Ireland. Those wonderful folks in Belfast couldn’t help me with a sailing passage to Scotland(right before Christmas isn’t exactly sailing season), so instead they sponsored me for the ferry rides. Thanks Lisa!
My first morning out, I visited the Roslyn Glen country park and Roslyn Chapel; the chapel was toursity and expensive, and no photos allowed, but the park along the river, running through the frozen valley, was gorgeous.
I passed a lot of folks riding horses on the back roads; I always love to see alternative transportation. A woman at a random house in a tiny village graciously refilled my water bottles – a credit to her country. I took short breaks out in the cold, eager to be working up some body heat on the bike, and actually hoping for uphills, to keep up my core temperature. I crossed the border into England at the top of another nice warm-making mountain, then descended into Northumberland, into the winter air with windchilled hands, frozen tears, and icy eyeballs.

After three final days exploring Britain, and three more beautiful but dangerously cold campsites, I arrived in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, and with time to spare.

NEWCASTLE
I ignored the glitzy city center shopping district, being reluctant to leave my bike alone at all, even to secure my accomodations in the Netherlands. I started meandering my way toward the international terminal, thinking I might find a library or something. In a seedy dockside district, with boarded-up buildings and a crazy shopping-cart lady, I found a pub instead, called The County, and decided to pull over and sample a pint of the local brown ale.
It was three in the afternoon, but I was delighted to find the place busy with local fellas getting drunk; the perfect venue to pass some time. The accents were somewhere between Scottish and English, and just as hard to understand as any new dialect. It’s always an adventure when you’re not quite sure what all those laughing mouths are saying. And besides, I don’t mind asking “What did you just say, sorry?” As much as it pains me to admit, I am, after all, a tourist… a poor, grubby, lunatic tourist, that goes into places that never see anyone from outside the borough.
They compelled me to bring my rig right inside the pub, for security, and then the beer was flowing. I finished one huge bottle with a thirsty gusto – Newcastle from Newcastle really does taste better, somehow. The next one I drank on a discount – all my remaining British coins. And before I was half-finished with the second, and definitely feeling the first, Tony behind the bar, in his Chicago t-shirt, hands me a third. I stayed an hour or so, amidst raucous laughter and rough verbal abuse; it’s the type of place where everybody sees everybody every day. I polished off the third bottle and had to be on my way before dark. Tony gave me a token for the road, a lapel pin, and I left my new friends with hearty thanks.

FINDING THE FERRY
That objective(“sampling” Newcastle beer) now complete, it still remained to make it to the ferry terminal eight miles away. (I decided to figure out Amsterdam when I got to Amsterdam, and concentrate on finding the Royal Quays.) A bit woozy now, and with the sun dropping below the skyline, I made my way East along the docks at Willington Quay. I connected with a very convenient bike path, which took me nice n’ easy most of the way into North Shields.
Then, through some inaccurate directions and a decidedly relaxed frame of mind, I was led to cross over to the South side of the river. The signs on the bike path were clear enough, and eventually they deposited me, pleasantly away from traffic, at the lift down to the tunnel. The deserted path ran around the pedestrian escalators, and abruptly ended in a dirty back corner, where a grafittied, slightly dilapidated brick shack surrounds the bicycle elevator. Next to the crooked, dented silver door, a dubious red light blinked “Lift Operational.” With a glance over my shoulder, I pressed the button.
The lift took ages to arrive, and groaned disconcertingly as it drew up to street level. Inside, it was just big enough for my loaded bike, with faded signage and old electronics in the panel. It descended with only a few startling shudders, and after an extended ride, opened into one of the creepiest tunnels I’ve ever had the excitement to traverse…. The floor was grey concrete, stained and cracked; the walls were of dirty tiles in sickly aqua-blue; and the cieling was whitewashed and lined with a track of eerily flickering fluorescent lights. It was completely empty, and there was a morbid sense of desolation down there; I could just feel how devoid of life it was. Except there were still noises – I swear I heard a puppy cry out in pain, from the darkness at the far end of the tunnel; and the rickety escalators rattled at intervals like the taut chains of a frustrated ghost. It was impossible to forget the river Tyne above, the crushing weight of its tons of water rushing to the sea, just a few yards over my head. I hustled through to the lift on the other side with a tickle of fear in my spine and an exhilerated grin on my face. Thankfully there were no British muggers or drug addicts hanging around the shady lift shack on the other side, but I soon realized I should actually not have crossed the river at all. Ah, so much for decision-making when you’re drunk!

After sobering up a bit, and some slightly more accurate directions, eventually I made the ferry terminal. I was directed into line with the cars, but when I pulled up in queue to wait, a customs official came out to greet me(by name!) and skipped me to the front. “I know you must be freezing.” There were no questions about why I don’t have a UK stamp in my passport; only questions about cycle-touring in the winter; how many miles do I cycle every day, where have I been, where am I going. He was cool and let me past with a “Good luck!”
And I was onboard. A worker on the semi-truck deck tossed me a strap to tie my bike to the bulkhead. I gathered a few items for the voyage, and secured the rig. Upstairs I had a little cabin to myself, and after depositing my things, I went to the observation deck to say another goodbye.

After six months of Great Britain and Ireland, I was finally taking the next step – venturing, by bicycle, not just into foreign countries, but also, now, into countries where English is not the primary language. Until Australia, then – goodbye, mother tongue.
After fifteen months of this bike tour, after a quarter of the world behind me, after many challenges, each bigger than the last; after seeing deeper inside myself than I ever had before, I could still feel my determination holding strong, my resolute passion just starting to heat up. I’m going places on this bike!
And, after a fifteen hour, overnight journey, it would be New Year’s Eve, and I’d finally be in on the Continent. The Netherlands, land of my anscestors, land of tulips and windmills; and O Amsterdam! The fabled city of bohemian freedoms and lusty vices. City of canals and bikes; city of my dreams.

TO BE CONTINUED….

On Thanksgiving(just another Thursday in Ireland), after a big traditional Irish fried breakfast(cooked by Keane the leprechaun!), we departed for Dublin. We had a (relative) feast that night, camped in a bog, huddled together under my rain tarp. Dawn surprised me by having a huge sheepskin along – very cozy! Over the next few days we pedalled across the island, trying to stay warm and trying not to get lost. She was a champion; it was like she’d been bike touring for years. She even convinced me to stay in a couple abandoned buildings to escape the frost – something else I’ve never done before. And I had my camping stove again – hot tea on demand! A crucial bit of kit for winter camping.

We arrived at some friends of hers outside Dublin and stayed for a few days, relaxing and helping set up Indian-made yurts on a beautiful organic farm estate. One night we took the row boat(which was apparently sinking) out to the island in the middle of the lake on the property, on an ice-breaking trip. The sound of the ice cracking all the way across the lake, then rebounding against the shore and cracking back, was unreal. It reminded me of lightning. We had hot tea from my steel bottle and the last of my Crown Royal whiskey atop the 200yro tower built on the island, taking in the brilliant starry sky, the stunning pink haze of Dublin’s city lights, the splashing swans, and the sparrows nestling in the reeds.

Next we pedalled a bit farther and stayed at her parents’ place for a couple nights. During a conversation about traditional food, I told her dad I didn’t care so much for blood pudding(a sort of sausage patty made from pig’s blood). The morning we left, though, what does he serve for breakfast? Eggs and blood pudding, with an extra portion for me. Hah! Of course I ate what was given to me – it’s all calories, right? But the next day there was a nation-wide recall on all pork products; some chance of carcinogen contamination or something. Thanks a lot Jerry!

From there we finally made it all the way into Dublin’s fair city, “the Big Shmoke,” via Pheonix Park, Europe’s largest urban park(whole herds of reindeer live there), for the weekend and Dawn’s birthday. It was nice; she used to live there so she knows her way around and has plenty of friends in town. For a couple of days we hung out and saw the sights, walking and cycling around town, visiting Trinity College, Grafton Street, the Spire on O’Connel Street, Molly Malone, Templebar, the Quays along the River Liffey, and tons of other spots. We had a grand ol’ birthday party and polished off a liter of Jameson between the three of us. I did some Spanish homework for her old flatmate Grianne who was swamped with exams, had an interview for the national Irish Times, met up with a Madisonian that saw the article(http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1208/1228571631919.html), and got my broken Leatherman replaced immediately(and for no charge) with a new Swiss Victorinox multi-tool.

Saying goodbye to Dawn was not easy, but the time had come to part ways. She was one of the few women I’ve met that was tough enough for bike touring, and I’m sure we’ll meet again some day, but I had to move on. It’s one of the hard parts of this traveller’s life I’ve set myself up for – so many goodbyes; always goodbye.

I left on a crisp(and thankfully dry) Wednesday morning, headed North.

* * *

That was a dark time, but every cloud has a silver lining. The Luck o’ the Irish is with me, I think – except for that whole high-speed crash thing. There are worse places to get stuck than Ireland, after all. I could be floating in a life raft in the Atlantic Ocean.
Since my release from the hospital I’ve kept my head above water – barely. I had envisioned, and indeed I was prepared for, digging in rubbish bins for food, and stealing dry places to rest my foot wherever I could – I even considered committing myself to the local jailhouse for three square meals a day.
My faith is as strong as ever: things will work out, somehow. My determination is grim, but unyielding. And things have been working out, through a bit of providence with which I’m not quite comfortable: charity. My pride is, admittedly, quite a mouthful, and I probably would’ve spent these past couple of weeks sleeping under a fly-over, if it hadn’t been for that touching charity of my fellow human beings. Sensitive, respectful, charity. I am realizing now more than ever before, that although I am riding my bicycle around the world by myself, solo, I can’t do it alone. I do need help, as much as it stings my pride to admit.
But I won’t give up. No, no… not for a mere compound fracture, not even for a frame that’s broken in two places and a wheel that looks like a taco. I can’t really imagine what it would take to stop me; all I know is that I haven’t encountered it yet.

Thanks to everyone that’s sent me messages or sheltered me during this painful delay in the tour. I’m not out of the dark yet(four weeks of recovery to go), and I really appreciate everyone’s good will. I’m leaving Co. Tipperary for Galway this weekend, I think, so please let me know if you can put me up for a day, a week, a month… or if you can offer any support at all.

Thank you.
Humbly,
Charles Brigham

PS. The Address Window in Amsterdam will be open for a while longer now…

A crash!! Oh s**t, a huge crash! My mind is stunned at first, but as the dust settles and my bike creaks to a twisted position of rest, I slowly start assessing the damage. My helmet is still on, no head pain… my back isn’t talking to me, good… some obvious scrapes and cuts, but my arms and legs feel okay… wait a minute, what’s that? I notice something wrong with the shape of my right foot. On closer inspection, I realize with a slight shudder that I’m looking at my glistening white bone, and that dark red stuff in the middle is the marrow. …biopsy; is that really my bone?!? anatomy class: compound fracture. I always thought a compound fracture would hurt more, but there was no pain. Shock. Warning. Shock. Blankets. I poke in disbelief at the bone protruding through the skin, disturbing the blood slowly starting to seep out around the edges. That IS my bone!! I should take a photograph, antibodies, this will take septic weeks to heal, hospital… wait a minute, what’s THAT? Glancing at my bike laying in a heap, I notice something wrong with the front wheel, like the handlebars have been turned 180 degrees… except the bars are still straight ahead…. Then I see the fractured steel of the top-tube, and just below that, the crumpled metal that used to be the down-tube. This is when I really start to panic. F*CK! F***CK!!!

“F*CK! F***CK!!! MAJOR DISASTER!! MAJOR DISASTER! F*CK!” I’m sort of stamping around, raving insanely at the top of my lungs to what’s left of the hilltop view, going between feverishly inspecting my bicycle for further damages and trying to pull my hair out with bloody fists, when an old man comes jogging up, shouting to be heard above my string of expletives. I feel quite justified in saying, “I don’t think so,” when asked if I am okay, but nevertheless I start to calm down a little. “I was out for a stroll, and I heard you yellin’. There’s usually nobody out this way.” After deciding I wasn’t in a proper state of mind to administer first aid to myself, I fish out my emergency world-phone from the depths of my bags, and pray the battery is still charged as I hold down the “on” button. After a tense couple of moments it turns on and locates the strongest signal in the area. First I dial the non-emergency number, and calmly explain to the operator that I’ve crashed and I can see the bone coming out of my foot. “If you can see the bone coming out of your foot, that is an emergency, and you need to dial 999.” Major disaster, confirmed. On the emergency line, the woman asks the inevitable “What’s your location?” I stall, with the phone on my shoulder, digging in my pocket for my map. “Uuhh… I was heading North on, uh, I don’t know which road, and I just passed Garyglass… you know Garyglass?” I ask, hoping. She has no idea. I try a couple other things written nearby, but I had nearly reached the end of that map, and the next one is still in my bags. I’m starting to panic a little again, worrying that the battery won’t last long enough to explain where exactly in the middle of nowhere I’ve crashed myself. Just as I am about to dig for my other maps, the lucky sumaritan asks, “Is the operator a Tipp man? Is he local?” and I pass the phone off to him. After a few minutes of giving directions, he hands the phone back and she tells me it’ll be thirty minutes before an ambulance can get there.

Cookies. I finally sit down, uncomfortably, on the side of the road, feeling calm but still worried that my foot doesn’t hurt more. The rest of my more minor injuries have all started to throb, but that wicked foot wound isn’t even bleeding. We make small talk and I answer questions about my bike tour, but with old answers, denying for the moment that some of them might be different now. “How long will you be here in Ireland? Where are you going next?” Both questions I don’t want to think about right this second. A car comes over the hill and parks in the narrow road; another local man heading home. “I usually don’t come this way, you’re lucky to have met anyone out here,” he informs me. I don’t feel particularly lucky, but I thank them for stopping to help me. Soon, in an apparent freak occurence, a second car comes around the bend and parks. The driver listens to the story about the crazy guy on the bike, then starts shootin’ the breeze, so-n-so married so-n-so’s cousin, an O’Malley lad, no the other O’Malley…. It’s the most Irish accent I’ve heard yet since arriving in Ireland. At one point he turns to me and says, “Six nights out of the week you won’t see a single car drive down this road. It’s a regular traffic jam here tonight!” After another little while, his father-in-law shows up in a big white van, and offers to store my broken bike and gear somewhere dry. As I read what he wrote for his phone number and address, I recognize it from my map – Ballyhane, just over the hill. Now I’m feeling a bit more lucky, and even more thankful. I absent-mindedly grab a few items from my gear, not really thinking that I should be packing for a two week vacation to the hospital, and off go my possessions in a motor vehicle. Nearly everything I own, my turtle’s house. My life. I am left with my camera, my raincoat, my camelbak pack with documents and journal stuff, my sheepskin, the shirt, shorts, and sandals I was wearing when I crashed, and a half-eaten double-row of boston creme chocolate cookies. By the time the ambulance arrives, we’ve finished off the cookies, and I say goodbye with many thanks to the roadside lads. I am checked out professionally and courteously, then lifted into the ambulance. It’s been over a month since I was even inside a car, and suddenly I’m laying in the back of a very special bus, like I’m being chauffeured. One of the paramedics is there to keep me company the whole bouncy ride, helping to keep my mind off the sterile surfaces and emergency medical storage around me, and distracting me from big questions like What is going to happen to me? He’s well trained in distracting fast-talk, I soon learn. “You ever hear that Irish people tell a lot of stories? Well, it’s true, we all have loads of stories. I remember responding to a call up here to the village of Kilcommon, now, the people up here don’t usually call us; they’d rather die than call the paramedics, but there was a funeral, and the boys had been fightin’….” I’m still laughing at his anecdotes as they pull me down to wheel me into the Accident & Emergency in the Nenagh hospital, fourty minutes later.

My first ambulance ride ever, and I only had to make it to Ireland to get it!

My first day in County Wexford, I met a trio of brothers decked out for bike touring, headed for the ferry back to Wales. Of course we discussed the weather, and neither of us were able to give a positive forecast… more rain on both sides of the Irish Sea. But they carried on, and so did I. I pedalled to Wexford City, and was searching the narrow streets for the public library. I was getting another “I don’t know” from a man on the street when a woman approached me and asked, “Are you looking for the library?” Her name was Saskia, and as she walked me to the library, she invited me to camp on the farm she lived on not far away. She gave me directions, pointed out the library, and disappeared. After a couple hours in the city, writing at the bench on the quayside and wandering around checking out some churches and graveyards, I headed out to Castlebridge and the road to her farm. As I arrive, Saskia is leaving, driving to Dublin to pick up a Dutch relative from the airport. “Just go in and ask for my sister.” With a bit of trepidation, I approached the barn where preparations for a huge party were under way. Saskia’s mother and father greeted me, and were very welcoming. But they weren’t sure where to let me camp: “Anywhere he pitches up, he’ll be washed away by the rain. Let’s put him in the castle…” Castle!? Sure enough, there was a 500 yro castle tower under renovation on the expansive dairy farm estate. I set up my tent on the second floor, up a steep, narrow, rough-hewn staircase, past windows and tiny views of the damp Irish countryside. My first night in Ireland, and I was already sleeping beneath the eerie rafters of a castle that’s older than the USA.

The next day Saskia told me about her parents’ wedding anniversary, and invited me to either A) get drunk and have fun or B) work behind the bar during the party. People continued to arrive from Holland all day, and after the lamb was on the spit, all their Irish friends showed up. Soon people were dancing and making merry, eating and drinking. I poured many a glass of booze, wines and mixers, and pint after pint after pint – Heineken. My fellow barman and I had to deal with drunken Dutch teenagers behind the bar, thinking they were helping out by filling pints of foam and pouring disgusting mistakes into innapropriate glasses for old ladies. After the third or fourth broken glass, as the queue for beer was growing, a drunken Irishman(holding his alcohol like a pro) told me to “Get him offa that tap! You pour ‘em!” I learned how much head on their beer they like in Holland versus how much an Irishman expects. It was a great success, loads of fun, and a bit of cash in my pocket as well.

During the party, the woman who owns the land, “The Duchess,” approached me behind the bar and asked me to call over to her mansion for a visit tomorrow. “I’d be happy to,” I told her. The next day, after a wet walk to a gorgeous waterfall, I went over and had our visit. I felt a bit out of place in the luxury surroundings, and she didn’t offer me tea or anything, so after I wrote in her guestbook I went back to the farmhouse.

It wasn’t easy to leave my new friends, and pedal away into the rain again, but I gritted my teeth and said goodbye. Off then, through Co. Kilkenny and into Co. Tipperary. I had asked around, wondering which direction to go, and the common answer was Galway. “Dublin is Dublin,” most people said, “but Galway is totally class.” The most bohemian city in Ireland? The youngest average age in Europe? Sounds right up my alley. I had a few wet days and nights out on the nameless rural tracks, meandering my way on back roads, camping in treacherous bog, muddy pasture or squishy pine forest. My plan was to hook around Loch Derg and head North through Co. Clare to Galway, but somewhere on the back roads of Tipp, my plans changed.

For a week or so I cycled into the intermittent downpours, through forests, across moors, and over mountains. Through quaint villages and rural estates, refilling waterbottles at the local pub and sneaking apples from the roadside orchards.

Besides the rain, the most dominant feature would have to be sheep. Wales has a lot of sheep. Lots of jokes involving sheep and shagging sheep. Sheep are everywhere. Sheep, sheep, sheep. There are sheep festivals and sheep-shearing competitions, shepherds on horses or ATVs herding sheep, border collies(aka Welsh collies) herding sheep, sheep wool lying in the road or caught on barbed wire, and tons and tons of sheep, spray-painted to mark the herd, wandering in expansive pastures. I’ve had to wait for sheep to cross the road, I’ve inadvertently chased escaped sheep, and I’ve even seen a sheep giving birth right on the shoulder. After being surrounded by wool, I must say, it is amazing stuff. For cycling in the rain, go with wool socks every time. I was also lucky enough to recieve a pillow-sized swatch of fluffy soft sheepskin, as further comfort in the rainy weather – it’s already a cherished piece of adventuring equipment.

Wales is a land of pagan witches and druids of ancient tradition. I still say the portly, nervous guy at the pub, the one with the crystal pendant, tie-dyed shirt, and spectacles, playing the dijeridoo, was a new-age wizard of some kind, or maybe an incognito faery ambassador. Some places you stand, you can’t help but notice the power in the land; the venerable wisdom of mother Earth permeating the air in every breath. Sure, the famous Welsh castles are old, and the ruined castles older still, but it’s the land that’s seen it all, the rivers and rocks and the ley-lines of yore. Even in the rain, especially in the rain, there’s some old magic out there in the hills of Wales.

There’s a big revival effort going on for Welsh history and culture. Every year there’s a big festival to celebrate all things traditionally Welsh called the Eisteddfod. Guys in day-glo vests in the street can be heard conversing casually in the olde tongue. Every traffic sign is written in both English and Welsh, and some signs are only in Welsh. It really sounds like an ancient tongue; watching someone speak it tends to bring the images of druids back to my mind. “Araf” means Slow – I saw that one a lot, painted on the road near dangerous curves – “I’m tryin’.” Watching snippets of the all-Welsh TV station was interesting, but I was only in the country for a short visit – not enough time to learn the language.

“We’re Welsh nationalists up here! We shoot the English when they come over – first line of defense!” –muddy boots farmer, owner of cyclophobic cattle herd

“Now was that really worth it?” –frowning elderly woman at stunning mountain-peak vista, after watching me finally reach the top

“Are you carrying anything you shouldn’t be carrying? I’m sure you have a knife to cut your bread, but…” –customs official, waking me up for the two a.m. ferry to Ireland