The forthcoming

Volume 0 - Final days in Adelaide

First off, thanks for clicking in. If you have you’ve most likely heard me clamouring on about this scheme for quite some time. I’ve probably shared with you several definite start and end points, wildly differing thoughts on whether I should travel through Afghanistan or just burdened you with a list of deep anxieties I have about the trip and then looked off into the distance and said “I’m so excited though”.

Or… you’re coming at this fresh, So I can tell you my plan.

What I’ve been cooking

Like all white boys my age on the internet it seems, I’m quitting it all to go on a bike packing bonanza. In August I’m heading to Japan and beginning a journey for a year, ending in probably Ireland? Texas? Greece? That’s unplanned, I’ll just keep going till my arse can’t take it any more.

My key legs I have planned so far are:

• Sapporo to Osaka. With my dad on eBike.

• Flying to Guangzhou and riding alone to Hanoi, where a friend is joining me on to Hue.

• Then alone again from Hue onto Laos, then through Thailand and Bangkok, and south onto Malaysia, making it to Penang for Christmas.

• Flying (to avoid Myanmar) to Chennai, beginning following the coast south and then back north to Mumbai.

From there things become a bit more loose at this stage, but my goals are to:

• Trek in the Himalayas

• Cross the Pamir Highway

• Cycle as much as possible between India, the Pamirs and Europe without being shot at

• Bush camp across Europe

• Visit Tash in Texas

I will plan how these things fit together as I go. I’ll need to see how money and my risk appetite are faring.

Why am I doing this?

I’ve always found my greatest satisfaction in adventure. While my good fortune is never lost on me, in getting to go to university and working in good, not back breaking, work (it’s also opened this whole avenue to me), I don’t feel a great deal of accomplishment from it. More importantly, it doesn’t really push me towards the person I want to be.

Adventure, experiencing new things pushing my limits have fuelled my joie de vivre like no other (maybe Tash). I find these windows of time do a lot in helping me work out who I am and want to be. In my short life I’ve been fortunate enough to take 3 long trips like this and they’ve shaped me into who I am now:

1. Age 7 - My parents took my sister and me out of school for a term and we drove around Central and Western Australia, we camped, hiked and ate a lot of mountain bread. It instilled me with a love of the outdoors and adventure.

2. Age 15 - I went on exchange to Cape Town for three months. I attended an all boys private school and met a whole range of other exchange students from around the world. It was an odd time at the peak of adolescence but taught me a lot about travelling independently and had a really significant impact on my character moving forward.

3. Age 19 - I took a gap year with my best mate and travelled around Nepal and South East Asia. Self funding and planning this trip brought a lot of lessons and, while cliche for a trip of this sort of travelling through particularly Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos shaped a lot of my views on life and politics. It was a trip I really hoped to follow up on with another break during uni, unfortunately COVID prevented this.

   

That brings me to this past year, my partner Tash had secured the Fulbright Scholarship to study in Houston for 18 months and I was looking out at a junction in life, staring down the barrel of children, mortgages and what have you, this was really the last big opportunity to go all out on a great big journey. It was a no brainer for me in the end.

As for cycling, I’ve been in love with bikes since I was a young boy. I think they’re the bees knees. Faster than walking, less soul crushing then owning and driving a vehicle and you also just feel like a kid again.

Then (3) and Now (26)

Why the substack?

There’s a few reasons:

• I’ve found in the last few years quite like journaling. It helps me a good deal in processing how I’m feeling. I would like to extend this into something I can publish. I think it will help with my prose and being vulnerable

• I want to have a good record of this journey, through a mixture of writing, photos and videos. I enjoy posting stuff on instagram but hate being on the app and meta in general.

• My mum doesn’t have social media and wants to feel involved.

I want to check in here every 1-2 weeks with an update on how I’m going and what I’ve been thinking about. I’ll keep personal reflections too. I would Ideally keep a better record than I did on that road trip when I was seven.

I think I might build posts around some prompts. It’s a bit lazy but I fear I’ll lack direction without rigid structure.

Pre trip reflections

Finally how am I feeling, around 10 days out from setting off? Overwhelmingly excited and overwhelmingly overwhelmed. It feels like there’s so much noise at the moment that will leave a gulf of deafening silence as soon as I fly out. It’s very difficult to say goodbye to so many people I love, not knowing exactly when I’ll come back. I know people fear for my safety and I want them to feel comfortable with what I’m undertaking.

I feel a bit off from where I’d want to be physically. I was happy where I was in April where I did a 500k loop around the Yorke Peninsular. Since then I’ve been nursing a running injury, been off and on sick and have been very busy, and I’m worried I slipped. I think these will subside once I get going.