SEA LIFE Porto visit

We just had a fantastic visit to the SEA LIFE centre in Porto, Portugal. We arrived on the seafront in the City and were met by Ana, the Curator of the Aquarium. Ana was lovely and very kindly gave us some time to show Zeina and I around the Aquarium, explain the ideas behind the different displays and how SEA LIFE is promoting conservation. The Aquarium is on a smaller scale than London, but the displays are really well thought out and we enjoyed seeing another SEA LIFE centre getting the conservation message out to the public.

Partnering with the SEA LIFE London Aquarium has been a huge boost for conservation in Fiji. Their sponsorship towards the Moon Reef Marine Protected Area, the first of what we hope will be a series of SEA LIFE sponsored MPAs in Fiji, was a result of an excellent working partnership between SEA LIFE, South Pacific Projects, WDCS International and most importantly, the local community of Dawasamu District. When we return to Fiji we will continue to develop marine conservation initiatives with the support of SEA LIFE London, please keep your eye on the South Pacific Projects website from November this year for updates. Now it's back on the bikes and on the road south to southern Spain before Morocco!

"We have two power bars, 68 miles to cycle, it's raining and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it"

We fought the law and, as the Clash said in their 1979 seminal song, "The law won". To clarify, we tried cycling across a bridge that was part of a highway/motorway/autoroute and as we we got to the halfway point (having had several vehicles toot their horns at us in dissaproval) we heard a Police siren behind us. Being pulled over by a Police car whilst one is cycling at approximately 4mph lacks some of the adrenaline-induced fear displayed in Hollywood movies, instead it makes one feel slightly ridiculous. The two Portuguese Policemen seemed slightly incredulous to find us pootling along the hard shoulder, oblivious to all the lorries zooming past us at 120kmph. One of them said to me: "We have to fine you, both of you" to which I replied with a slight whimper: "But we're doing this for charity....". He then told me he was joking, ah, the Portuguese sense of humour! They then escorted us off the bridge (a real Police escort!) and gave us directions to get back on the minor roads.

Our second road incident that day came when a previously quiet, little road suddenly morphed into a major four-lane highway, in the space of a few hundred metres. Where we had just been cruising along admiring the Atlantic coastal scenery, we found ourselves dodging traffic which was overtaking us at incredible speeds from both sides and it was extremely scary. I couldn't believe how the road had just changed with no warning. It was the first and only time so far on this trip when I thought we may both be in genuine danger of becoming roadkill. As I made the decision to get the heck off the road, a lorry undertook me at high speed, I accidentally knocked into Zeina with my bike as a result and she wobbled in the path of an oncoming truck (sorry Gaby!), it was pretty terrifying. The only way off the road was to physically lift our bikes over a divider onto a disused piece of road, thankfully free of traffic. Believe me, sounds simple right? Well our bikes weight over 40kg when fully loaded and dead-lifting them over a concrete divider with traffic whizzing past our backs proved a bit of a challenge!

We had our first major bit of good luck of the day when we arrived in Porto and were helped into the city centre by a young man called David (Michaelangelo's David actually as he was a bit like Derek Zoolander, as in "really, really, really Good-looking"), David was a friendly and very helpful young local guy on a mountain bike who had seen us looking a bit confused about which way to head and offered to take us into the Downtown area. He proceeded to cycle with us for over a mile,leading us through the busy city streets and taking us all the way to the very centre of Porto. We thanked him profusely for his kindness and we also tried to buy him a beer, but he told us he didn't drink and left us with a smile and took off back to whence he came. A top bloke and a lovely introduction to the city! We then looked aorund for a Pension or some such as we decided to treat ourselves to a room after three straight weeks of camping and putting up our tent to sleep on the floor every night (see video). We are delighted to be in Portugal, the weather has been great, the coastal roads are flat and the people we've met are really friendly and helpful. Added to that, food is ridiculously cheap and tasty and it just feels like a good place to be after the mountains of northern Spain.

Hobos on Bikes

This trip has found us at our most nomadic in our lives. We bike from place to place, with our tent, sleeping bags, pillows, clothes, gas burner, food, toileteries, basically our whole lives, packed onto our bikes. Every night, we sleep in the same place, but in a different place. The tent has become our home and the rituals we keep are the same that you might keep in your house or apartment. I sleep on the left, Howard on the right. My pannier bags on my side, Howard's on his side. My watch hangs from the hook on the ceiling of the tent. The food goes on the right side, outside the door. The shoes and water bottles on the left. Toileteries are on my side, the packing gear on Howard's. Every day we have a routine of setting up and taking down our little home.

The places where we have stayed have varied. From municipal campsites to 'aire naturelle' to 5* campsites with a free night provided by Keycamp. But no matter where we stay we almost always utter these three words when we arrive..."one night please!". This nomadic lifestyle has led to us both developing some interesting characteristics. Let me explain.

Our 'hobo' moments....

- No matter what building, room, area we are in, we invariably walk into a place and immediately start searching for the nearest power point to plug in our stuff. Bars, restaurants, bathrooms, gas stations. It's all about 'Can we charge the netbook here?'

- Yesterday morning, we found ourselves eating spaghetti bolognese out of a plastic bag at 8am. Those were classy leftovers.

- We're still surprised and excited every day when we find a toilet with toilet paper in it (French campsites do not provide TP, but Spanish ones do)

- Howard demonstated his true English hobo-ness the other day when we found ourselves without any bread for the morning. Passing by a creperie in town, he noticed an unattended basket of uneaten baguette, left over from the previous diners. Howard deftly pocketed the bread from the basket and we were thus provided for. I love that my man is such an accomplished hunter-gatherer!

- After 3 weeks on the road, we have found that some of the most comfortable and scenic toilets are off the highway, in the forest.

- After setting the tent up one warm evening, Howard commented: "did we accidentally leave the cheese here?" I responded: "Nope it's outside with the other food". But then we noticed we'd put our cycling shoes inside the tent. It was then that a new rule was adopted 'Shoes go outside the tent...ALWAYS'

We were talking about various home comforts that we miss and some that we don't miss, Howard suggested we buy fold-up chairs to use instead of sitting on the floor every night in camp. My immediate response was: "No, I'm totally cool with sitting on our plastic bags".

I'm writing this from out tent (check it out, wi-fi INSIDE the tent and the night is costing just ten euros!), with a massive thunder and lightning storm going on outside. We're safe, warm and dry in our trusty tent, address - '5341b Golden Gate Ave' if you want to send us a postcard.

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain...

Well we are five days into northern Spain and all I can say is that I now believe in climate change. Despite being the middle of August, traditioanlly the hottest time of the summer where we are right now, the weather has been like England in October, grey, cold and wet. I'm fairly sure that July and August in the south of France and Spain used to be a bit more warm and sunny, or maybe that's me looking back with rose-tinted spectacles! Anyhow, we're not doing this bike ride to get awesome tans and to have our hair bleached blonde from all the sunshine (sorry Zeina, what did you say? we are?!?)

What we've learned since getting to Spain:

1. Spanish people are not only ridiculously cool and good looking, but they can go out for dinner at midnight with their kids, stay up watching fireworks and partying till 5am and then get up again at 7am to go to work. These people are superhuman!
2. Spanish campsites are the noisiest places on earth at night. British kids would all immediately emigrate to Spain if they found out that here, it's completely normal to stay up until 1 or 2am at night having a laugh and playing with all your other mates.
3. Cycling through the mountains is a mixture of extreme adrenaline: "Here comes another ten minute supersteep and fast downhill!" and abject misery: "Here comes another one hour supersteep and agonising climb!"
4. We are getting quite fit, despite shovelling food down our necks like Fantastic Mr. Fox, we are both beginning to feel stronger and more capable of climbing the steep stuff.

We reckon we have a few more days to go before we reach the coast again and cross the border into Portugal, meanwhile we will continue to consume chorizo sausage in gargantuan quantities and hit the power bars and will reward ourselves with several Magnum ice creams when we arrive at the sea again.

Hasta la vista, baby x

Whale of a Van!

Yesterday was made rather interesting by the fact that there was absolutely “no room at the inn” when we arrived at our destination of Soustons. This has become a real problem for us lately as we have been arriving in towns and coastal communities for nearly a week now, some of them with over a dozen or more campsites, only to find that they are all full. This usually necessitates a very annoying extra 10 to 20 miles of cycling inland in the evenings to try and find some random spot to put up our tent. But yesterday we were really tired and desperate, so we accepted the suggestion of the Tourism Office to try a small ‘Camping a L’Aire Naturelle’. Over the last few days we have seen several signs for these campsites, but having been told that they are for the exclusive use of the nudist community, we were in no real hurry to try one out (not on these cool evenings anyway).

However on this occasion, tiredness won out after hours and hours of riding in the sun, with a need to eat and get some rest. So we approached the campsite with some trepidation, on first glance it appeared deserted, lots of parked cars and caravans, but no people. We began putting up our tent and then wanted to have showers as soon as we put the tent up before starting on dinner but we didn’t know what the protocol was on a nudist campsite. Do you go to the showers naked holding your towel, then shower and dry yourself, then take your towel off again to walk back naked to your tent? Or do you wear your stuff to the shower, then come bounding back out in your birthday suit? It was all very confusing.

Then we spotted a young woman wearing a dress walking to the shower block, so I waited for her to reappear naked or otherwise before I chanced going to the shower block in the buff myself. Willing the temperature to increase a couple of degrees before my planned nonchalant stroll over to the showers, the girl then reappeared still clothed as I was psyching myself up for what was sure to be a memorably traumatic experience. We quickly realised when some of the other campers returned from the beach, all clothed, that ‘Camping a L’Aire Naturelle’ actually means something along the lines of ‘Camping in someone’s back garden’.

Today was a lovely run south into Labenne for our one free night of Keycamp accommodation on a 5* campsite in a mobile home. It was a little weird not having to put our little tent up and even weirder having electricity available and a shower and toilet right next to the bedroom. We were very grateful for the temporary luxury though and went to the local supermarket to stock up on supplies. After a pleasant dinner of steaks that Zeina cooked, we retired to our living room (with actual seats to sit on for a change!) The memorable event of today was that we went to the beach to watch the surfers and on the way back we spotted a Volkswagen Vanagon, which Zeina insisted on having her photo taken with for the benefit of a family member who is very much into this particular type of vehicle. The owner of the van turned up as we were taking the photos and this was when things got really surreal because as we chatted to him, he revealed that he has his van booked into a local bodyshop next week to have it pimped out with a white leather interior! You could have knocked us both down with a feather at that point.

Today we arrived in Biarritz, we are very close to Spain now, having completed almost one third of the distance of our challenge and we are looking forward to some righteous paella, roll on Espagna!

One Word: Flat

Ok, two words: 'flat' and 'pine trees'. We've been on the flattest part of the journey yet for the last 3 days. The country side is made up of mostly pine trees and sunflower fields. We're on the coast edge of France, but we haven't seen too much of the coast, since our route takes us a couple of miles inland.

- We were having coffee in a small village and met some fellow tourers from Scotland. We chatted a bit and parted ways. 10 hours later, in another small village campsite, we were checking in and saw the two of them, tented up at the same campsite. Very small world.

- We came south from Hourtin, where we spent the night, to the crossroads where we would have to make a decision on whether to go to Cap Ferret or around the basin of Arcachon. We decided to go to Cap Ferret and made our way through the gorgeous pine forest bike route (more on the enchanted bike route below). We arrived in Cap Ferret, a nice, pretty touristy, beach town, ate a late lunch (it was already 4pm and we were ready to settle down for the evening) and headed to the tourist office for accomodation options. Apparently, there were none. I mean, there was no space ANYWHERE. We started calling places further out and after 12 campsites, the only place that had any availability was in Mios, a town about 30 miles away. Sigh, back on the bikes and 3 hours later, we roll up to the campsite, exhausted, but happy to have found a place to sleep.

- Three days ago, we had a very nice French man tag along with us for about 4 miles on his bike after seeing our tshirts and panniers. He chatted to Howard while seemingly unfazed by the passing traffic, trying to overtake him in the middle of the road.

- I get a warm feeling when passing cars honk and wave. We've had lots of 'Bon courage' and 'Safe travels'. We've also had lots of people tell us we're crazy. Either sentiment is acceptable.

- We had our first restaurant dinner since Paris last night and because we got to the campsite so late, it was a rush job to get to the place before it closed. We were still in our full biking uniform and the waitress started asking us questions about our ride. There was a family sitting opposite us and when they heard what we were doing, they started clapping. We really prefer that sentiment.

- Finally, we're getting sunburnt.

- The Enchanted Bike Forest of Cap Ferret. On this 23km bike path, there were some ups and downs (nothing like hills, but let's call them undulations). When the path went visibly downhill, we found ourselves struggling to move forward. But when the path went uphill, we could stop pedaling and be propelled forward. It was like a moving walkway on a bike in a forest of pines.

We're making very good speed and we hope to be in Spain this time next week. Hope the riots in the UK aren't bothering any of you.

Rain, Rain Go Away ... And Stay Away

After 3 long days of rain, we finally find ourselves on the coast. The trip from Paris started out with rain and because we were making good time and all of our stuff is waterproof, we decided to make the rainy days the long biking days. Sigh, we knew that we would hit some wet weather, but to be affronted with it for 3 days was a bit rough. Lunches have been bread, cheese, tomatoes and sausage. Yesterday, Howard made us a cheese omlette in a bus shelter, and we were saluted with 'Bon appetit' by two ladies waiting for the bus. My towel hasn't been properly dry in days, although our tent is like a warm little sauna. Chasing the sun, desperate to get to the coast, we've been averaging 10 hours of riding a day and the saddle sores are flaring up.

So we busted 3 long days of riding and found ourselves 30km from the sea last night. When we pulled the tent flap open this morning to find sun, we thanked the weather gods and made our way to the beach town of Royan. It's full of beach clothing shops and creperies and tourists. I suppose this is where people come in the summer time. We're a bit worried that we haven't made camping reservations, but we'll play it by ear. Turns out, the only way to make reservations is to send a paper letter to the campsite. Oh well.

We decided to name our bikes after two travelers: Gulliver and Roland. We've christened them by breaking a bottle of cider on the frames and branding them with bright green stickers.

Yesterday morning a friendly Englishman took pity on us and offered to get us some croissants from the bakery while we packed up our wet stuff.

Hopefully we'll be smooth (and dry) sailing from now on.

Our new logo

I recently met a very lovely chap by the name of Nadim who, after a quick bit of scribbling on a napkin, went home and came up with this amazing new logo for our fundraiser. Nadim is Zeina's cousin and is one of the very welcoming and friendly folks we met in Paris. We've been looked after so well by Maria (sorry about the 'incident' dans la cuisine!), Khalil & Charlotte for showing us some of the best spots in St. Germain for dinner, (don't worry folks as we're back on the tins of ravioli and bread for dinner every night from tomorrow) and Jenny for showing us the place where Jim Morrison used to be buried, before his family moved the body back to the US. Sorry Jenny, but that is an indisputable fact!

If anyone reading is planning a trip to Paris, make sure to take advantage of the wonderful 'Velibe' service in the City. Beige-coloured little bicycles a bit like the Boris bikes in London, but way cooler of course as they are French. In addition, you get to cycle them around Paris, which if I'm not mistaken is about 68,000,000,000 times cooler and more beautiful than London.

More news from the saddle coming soon and we are both still waiting for the next video challenge to come through....