So if you’ve been reading the blogs so far you will have possibly heard we have been having a tough time of it. For the month of November Heulwen and I travel from Singapore, through Malaysia and into Thailand and up to Phuket to a workaway at a dog sanctuary . Unfortunately I’ve not got any photos and blog for this period as we were going through a massive upheaval and long story short we have decided to go our…
Friday 12th October / 13th October Muara, Brunei We complete another sailing leg and arrive in Muara. We anchor in the bay and Philip heads off to complete the Marina paperwork and immigration. Two hours later he’s back and he’s failed the Immigration test because they need to see us all personally. Whilst Phil’s away it’s been a mammoth task to organise movement of the crew from the trimaran to the yacht club. It’s about 300m away and it’s really…
Friday 28th September Cebu, Philippines So here we are in the Philippines sans trikes and the plan, if it comes to fruition, is to take a 6 month break from cycling . There are a number of factors that led to this cunning plan but ultimately our desire to cycle through China was the driver. But for that we need a Chinese visa. We had researched getting the visa from Seoul but even if successful that would have meant cycling…
Friday 31st August Busan port to Songdo Beach Daily Total 62.39 km Trip Total 24220.6 km We arrive in South Korea at 6pm. We get through Immigration and then are wondering where our trikes will be when a shipping agent comes over and asks us if we are the trike owners. (We’re probably the only European foreigners on the boat!) he takes us into a back room and then over several baggage conveyor belts and down a long metal staircase….
Friday 10th August Mimasaka to Kori Daily Total 58.22 km Trip Total 23376.92 km And we’re back on the trikes, cycling again. It’s been a fab workaway but time to move on. It’s an uneventful ride as we retrace our previous tracks back towards the coast. However we do make one slight detour. Remember the nice man who picked us up outside Okayama one night, took pity on us and drove us all the way back to Mimasaka? Well we…
Saturday 28th July Last night, returning from Okinawa, when our coach pulled in at Minasaka we’d been unable to reach Kuzumi and get a lift home but within 5 minutes we’d managed to hitch a lift. Over the next 4 days we do various chores including weeding, masking and sealing walls the walls in the house and other various chores. We catch the tail end of another typhoon with some high winds and torrential rains. To Crip’s surprise I quite…
Tuesday 10th July Sumo day!!!! This morning we’re up at 4.45am to buy our tickets at the Aichi Prefecture Gymnasium, situated in the castle grounds. The ticket booth opens at 7.45am and there are only about 100 tickets sold each day of the tournament. There were tickets available online on 24th May for this tournament that runs from 8th to 26th July but firstly they’re more expensive and secondly we weren’t really sure where we’d be and whether getting to…
Tuesday 26th June Kori to Kamikayama Distance: 52.30 km Total Distance: 23301.35 km A pretty uneventful day cycling wise but we do arrive at our workaway. There’s Crip (well Crispin), he’s been here in Japan for 30 years but originally he’s from Alton in Hampshire. He’s married to a Japanese lady, Kazumi, and they have a 6 year old daughter, Emma. They have a small holding and originally we were to live there, in a shed, offgrid, whilst they live…
Tuesday 12th June Toyohashi to Ise Distance: 55.31 km Total Distance: 22731.04 km Yesterday, despite the typhoon forecast, it was a lovely sunny, windless day but we stayed at Aaron’s just to catch up on the blog and do some work on the trikes; fitting a second mirror, a new flag pole for me and changing the oil on the Rohloff hubs. Daz cooked with Aaron last night and we discovered gazpacho and how delicious it is. Then Aaron…
Saturday 2nd June Takamatsu to Hiroshima After breakfast in Mr Donut by the railway station we board the train for Hiroshima, via Okayama again. Since Sapporo, Daz and I have been hankering for some more cheese pies, which are absolutely delicious. When we come out of Hiroshima station we see a queue around the block… it’s only a cheese pie queue. Daz joins the queue, and we go and get coffees and wait and wait some more. It’s a…