A Cycle Tour Around The World
Covid Lockdown and crossing the Nullabor desert
Western Australia March 2020 So it’s been a while since my last blog when I’d just finished cycling the Munda Biddi trail in Western Australia. As I left off it was mid March and I was just about to head out to cycle across the mighty Nullabor desert. Well as you are probably aware there was a little something going on at the time although it didn’t seen to be effecting Australia all that much. So off I cycled and...
Arrival in Australia and the Munda Biddi Trail – 8 Feb to 15 Mar 2020
Australia 8 Feb 2020 Perth Intl Airport to Camillo 35km My flight arrives in to Perth from Bali to a very quiet airport. I pick up my luggage and the bike box and head outside. It’s still very quiet, even at 1pm in the afternoon. I find a place in some shade where I can put my trike back together. The sky is a vivid blue, its hot and there’s not a cloud in the sky. An hour later the...
An ever lengthening amount of time in Paradise, also known as Bali, Indonesia. 28 Nov 2019 to 8 Feb 2020.
An ever lengthening amount of time in Paradise, also known as Bali, Indonesia. 28 Nov 2019 to 8 Feb 2020 (Wiki extracts in italics) Bali is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. Located east of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nusa Ceningan. The provincial capital, Denpasar, is the most populous city in the Lesser Sunda...
Java, Java, Java (and a smidgen of Singapore!) – 9th to 27th Nov 19
9th to 12th November 2019 Singapore Having arrived from Malaysia on my trike (see the previous blog to catch up) I book into my hostel in the Little India district of Singapore. The smell of curries cooking in the nearby restaurants is alluring. Not so the large gangs of itinerant workers lounging around the public spaces drinking alcohol and eating food! Over the next 3 days as I am waiting for the ferry to Indonesia I get out and about...
Inroads into Malaysia, not all Tarmac is Equal
The Final Days of Thailand Total Page Visits: 10677 - Today Page Visits: 4
Amazing Thailand – 16 Aug to 9 Oct 2019
Thailand 16 August to 09 October 2019 Thailand Total Distance 1992km Accumulative Distance 31,026km Days in Country 54 Days Cycled 23 Well this blog is going to be slightly different from all my other blogs so far. Why’s that you ask? Well after about 1 and a half months in Thailand I went on a waterfall walk and my phone got water damaged, basically it was Phuket (yes that’s a pun on f@@ked!!) . So what’s that got to...
Lao People’s Democratic Republic 6 – 16 August 2019
Intro Laos first emerged in the region as Lan Xang, or the ‘Kingdom of a Million Elephants’, in the 14th century. Despite some bursts of independence, the kingdom generally found itself paying tribute to more powerful neighbours, including the Siamese and Vietnamese. Geography ensured Laos was sucked into the Vietnam War and a lengthy civil war culminated in a communist takeover in 1975. After many years of isolation, Laos began to experiment with economic reforms in the 1990s but political...
Goodbye Vietnam! 14th July to 5th August 2019
Sunday 14th to 16th July 2019 Ha Giang to Sapa (Ta Van) Distance 85 + 96 + 41T Total 28476 km Mud mud mud gloop gloop gloop. Between Ha Giang and Sapa it rained quite a bit. The final climb up to Ta Van was huge and in a lot of places just hard packed gravel and mud. Tough going but I make it in the end. Time for a couple of days off which I spend walking up the...
Hanoi! Hanoi! Hanoi!
Hanoi So I’ve been to Hanoi three times now and it’s about time I did a blog on it. My first visit was as a backpacker from Cambodia to visit for New Year 2018 and as a jump off point for backpacking the rest of Vietnam. Then the second time was in June 2019 as I cycled up from the south to the north and finally on a quick bus trip from Sapa to apply for my Thai Visa. Each...
North Vietnam and the Extreme Ha Giang Loop
Sunday 23rd June 2019 to Thursday 27th June 2019 Hanoi to Ban Gioc Waterfalls Distance 359 km Total 27858 km Monday. I’m leaving Hanoi today and heading to the fabled northern hills of Vietnam. Here there be waterfalls, caves, huge hills, mountain passes and beautiful scenery. A little bit like the rest of Vietnam just more vertical! Nick gets up with me at 3am and let’s me out of Fortress Ha (Nicks wife enjoys her security!) At this time in...
On route to Hanoi. Hoi An, Hue, Phong Nha Caves and Tam Coc. Four top destinations in Vietnam
25th May to 04 June 2019 Hoi An 11 long days in Hoi An. Having researched online about getting a new visa for Vietnam it seems I have to do a border run to Laos. I’ll also need a letter of invitation as I’m asking for a 3 month visa to ensure I have enough time to explore the North. The options are go with the local bus, hire a motorbike or go with a visa run company in comfort....
Welcome to Vietnam… Again!!
Welcome to Vietnam… Again! OK, so I know I was in Vietnam in January this year, had a fab time and met up with old friends and new alike. I also know I haven’t written the blog for that backpacking visit yet, so you’re just going to have to wait, and in the meantime read all about my current visit on my Azub Ti-Fly Trike. As you may have read in the previous blog, (if not why not!?) I’ve just...
Cycling Out of Cambodia
Tuesday 7th May 2019 Siem Reap to Stoung Distance 98km Total 25324km A few days ago I went into Siem Reap town center to a travel agents. I was enquiring about extending my visa for 1 more month. However, with the amount of public holidays this month and the fact your passport has to be sent to the capital, Phnom Phen, it wouldn’t have been returned to me until about the same day the extension was going to run out!...
Cambodia December 2018
Cambodia. 2nd Dec to 27 Dec 2018 Sunday 2nd December to Siam Reap, Cambodia My flight out of Phuket is at 6am so like the good traveller I am I arrive 3 hours before. Having checked my bag in I’m told security doesn’t open for another 1 hour 30 minutes! So much for arriving early! I arrive in Siam Reap at 735am and after a very quiet trundle through the sleepy airport and having purchased my US $30...
Sweden – Travelling over, time for workaway
Sunday 1st March Our new workaway location… Today we’re off to Floby, Sweden to our next workaway host. So,for the last 15 days we’ve been ‘on holiday’ seeing Norway and during this time we’ve spent 7 nights with ‘couchsurfers’ but it’s still been expensive: (Prices for 2) 6 day cruise £1100 Excursions £600 Hotels £340 Train tickets £220 Plus food, bus and tram fares, and beer. So, an expensive deviation from our plan and only possible because we still...
Norway – Oslo, famous for being the capital of Norway!
Wednesday 25th February It’s raining quite heavily in Flam as we catch the Flam valley railway back to Myrdal. But as gain height in the valley this changes to heavy snow fall ruining our view some what! At Myrdal we change to the Oslo train and once again the view is mostly obscured by snow. At Finse (altitude 1222metres) we pass the highest point and can see the blue ice of Hardangerjokul glacier glittering in the southwest (well...
Norway – Part Deux
Thursday 19th February Quiet day today so for variety Daz shaves off the goatee and then sulks for ages because bizarrely I find his hairless face hysterically funny! ( Note to self: Don’t laugh at B/F’s face! – at least not out loud). The last time he was clean shaven was December 5th, so I’m just so used to the goatee. At 10am we cross the Arctic Circle and have a ship’s ceremony that involves a spoonful of fish oil....
Norway – Norwegian cruise – Kirkenes to Bergen
Monday 16th February Today we get on our cruise liner MS Nordlys. By the time we board I’ve managed to spend my entire terminal grant plus some. So that only managed to burn a hole for 2 days before I spent it! On board – lovely! 222 passengers – some do the entire cruise south to north and back whilst others do the northern leg and disembark at Kirkenes and others the southern leg embarking from Kirkenes like us and...
Finland – Last Days of & The Great Escape
Monday 9th February 9am pick up for Seb and Stefi (SS) and 11am for me and Daz. Daz needs to drive the bus and pick up clients because Erkki and Boss Satu are off to Ivalo to buy more stuff for the cabin because from Tuesday we’re going to be using it. Whilst the SS mob are busy putting the dog teams together, we go to pick up the two clients from hotel Inari, they are from Taiwan. Inari...
Finland – Seb & Steffi, a new partnership
Thursday 5th February 2015 A day off. Seb and Stef go off to the farm and we stay home, do our washing, post our blog and catch up on the internet. That’s it! However, we end up in PaPaNas at 4pm. Our lame excuse – internet. But of course we have to have a pint and then discover cookery programmes on the TV – Top Chef America and Master chef USA interspersed with Frasier and some shit about American...
Finland – How to set up a dog team!
Feb 5th 2015 HOW TO SETUP YOUR DOG TEAM So it’s a long old process for getting the dogs ready for the sledding… here’s how it goes: Collect equipment – leashes, harnesses, snow anchors, sled cleaning kit, and reindeer skins. Take equipment to kennel area. Find out which teams are running and which dog you need to fetch. Take leash and approach your dog of choice who by this stage is very excited and will jump all over you and...
Finland – Reindeer Roundup
Wednesday 4th February 2015 Bizarre day today. Started with a vague plan to go up north in horse Satu’s car and see the reindeer round-up. However Horse Satu, who was driving 8 clients to the roundup, spoke to Boss Satu and she said it was a working day for everyone and Seb and Stef were going to the farm and me and Daz would be given chores by Erkki at 10am. So Horse Satu left the apartment and then...
Finland – New Cabin
Monday 2nd February. Early start today because there are 2 clients for the long tour at 0920. And because Daz has been waking up every hour worrying about oversleeping we get to the farm even earlier than expected! Chores done and dog team ready BUT no clients. So we go out sledding. Just me, Daz, Lukas and ‘Team Kazakhstan’. First I drive whilst Lukas drives the skidoo with Daz on the back. Then Daz and I swap and finally Daz...
Finland – February is here!!
February is here, well January 31st then February 31st January. OMG – Double surprise today. Firstly it’s the first time in over 22 years I woke as a “Civvi”, my disgust was so great I had to shower for over an hour. But fortunately soon realised nothing had changed when we made a timed schedule for our day off, with ETAs and ETDs and NMB timings and started with bed blocks!!! See – nothing’s changed. Secondly it’s our consecutive day...
Finland – Nearly A Month Done
Monday 26th January. A day off today, and the temperature is a very mild -3 degrees with some snow and a little wind. We wake late, a luxury and decide what to do with our off day… But first there is no food! The larder is empty so Daz has to go cap in hand to Ola at the Villa Lanca to see what he can scrounge. Fortunately, Ola has the petty cash and gives him some cash so he...
Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight… red sky in the morning, shepherd’s barn on fire!!
January 25, 2015 Fire, Fire, Fire Thursday 22nd January Today our farm cabin burnt down. Everything in that block of buildings razed to the ground: our cabin, the equipment room, the wood shed and the tool cupboard gone! It’s our day off today and we’ve decided to walk to the Sami Wilderness Church – it’s the destination of one of our horse sled tours. When we leave we’ve heard from Erkki that he can’t pick up Maria for day farming...
Finland – Settling in and Enjoying Life
January 22, 2015 Sat 17 to Wed 21 Jan. Saturday 17th January. The last couple of days have been really warm. Yesterday was only -3 and today is -5. Apparently it’s a big day today, we’re sled training and for this Daz has to sacrifice his day off. Erkki is supposed to pick us up at 0950hrs but he’s late. This is unusual, it turns out a lorry driver took out a power cable at the hotel Inari and he...
Finland – A Few Days More
January 17, 2015 Sunday 11th January After our day off the temperature remains extremely low. -35. It’s too cold for clients and too cold for the dogs to run the sleds. The dogs shouldn’t run if it’s colder than -30, it’s bad for their lungs and for the pads of their feet. So after the usual chores Lukas suggests we put the 7 older puppies into the kindergarten, a seperate cage that isn’t being used at present. These pups...
Finland – A day off… Nearly!!
January 11, 2015 Friday 10th – Temp minus 8. We are expecting after our day off to spend 2 nights at the farm, so we pack our overnight kit (toothbrushes, kindles and pack of cards!) and get a lift with “horse” Satu. We arrive about 930am to a busy scene in the pre dawn gloom as the others are already setting up the dogs for 8 clients who have booked a long run, this lasts 1 and 1/2 hours...
Finland – Our first few days in Inari – High in the Arctic Circle
10 January 2015 The start of my adventures, way back in 2015 Arrival in Lapland After touching down on the snowy runway at Ivalo with only a bit of turbulence to grab the sphincter we soon had our baggage and onto the prebooked taxi bus to Inari. The bus took an hour to get to Inari with the bus driver averaging 70km\hr. Bit scary on these icy roads. After being dropped off at hotel Inari we walk over to...
My name is Darren Broadhurst
It all started in 2015. After a year of planning and a last minute change of plans I set out on a round the world cycle trip with Heulwen (Hels, my girlfriend) who I had persuaded to come on this epic journey. We initially backpacked through Scandinavia and Iceland using www.workaway.info for 8 months. Some of the highlights were husky sledding in the Finnish Arctic Circle, looking after horses on a farm in Sweden, Norwegian coastal cruise and an incredible 2 months in Iceland with whales, geysers and stunning waterfalls.
Then the cycling began, first on a tandem recumbent around Spain, Portugal and France. More workaways and incredible adventures ensued.
But after only 6500km we realised the tandem would be a nightmare to cycle around the world, so we sold it in France and flew to the Azub recumbent factory in the Czech Republic.
We were soon owners of two recumbent trikes.
And the adventures continued as we cycled down through Europe towards Turkey and Central Asia. In our sights was the Pamir Highway, a cycling mecca and an amazing place to camp and cycle through.
After the ‘Stans (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan?) we hit up Nepal…
and India
Then we flew to the amazingness that is Japan where we spent 5 months doing the country proud including climbing Mt Fuji and finally on to South Korea and its 550km four rivers cycleway.
During all this time we still used Workaway.info in many countries and met some amazing people and learnt new skills.
This took us up to September 2018 and after 3 years cycling we decided to park the trikes and take a winter break. We flew to the Philippines and joined a sailing trimaran on route to Borneo, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Unfortunately as we crossed the South China Sea to Singapore we lost our mast in a storm and after putting in at some tiny Indonesian tropical islands we decided to jump ship. Fortunately we were able to catch a ferry to the Indonesian mainland then another to Singapore where we continued our travels as backpackers again through Malaysia and into Thailand.
Its here, after 4 amazing years with Hels, on so many thrilling adventures that we decided to continue onwards in separate directions. Hels was the driving force behind the majority of our experiences and if you want to catch up with her on her solo travels you can read all about them at
If you’d like to look back at our joint travels then you can do so here
And so now I’m travelling on too. You’ll be able to catch up with my adventures and follow my route all from this website. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
Click the 3 lines at the top of this page to head over to the blog or map page to see where I am now. Also don’t forget to check out my Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube links below.
Enjoy!!
Darren
Total Page Visits: 10677 - Today Page Visits: 4