Our Last Mountain Pass! Because we had biked so hard and rested so little, my legs almost stopped working entirely a few days before we reached the capital. The last mountain pass was especially difficult. A hailstorm pelted us with ice bullets and a fierce wind tried its hardest to push us back down the […]
Nighttime Checkpoint Crossings, Landslides, Wild Dog Terror, and Freakshow Valley and Weirdo Dwarfs – June to July 2006
Nighttime checkpoint crossings, falling rocks, landslides, and packs of wild dogs… Foreigners are not legally allowed to travel independently in Tibet without a guide (and then only on certain roads, after paying a hefty fee for a permit, plus a jeep rental fee, plus a fee for the driver and another one for the ethnic […]
Introduction to Tibet – June 2006
Introduction to Tibet: We had been looking forward to biking in Tibet for several years, and we were excited when we finally crossed the border! Tibet lost its independence to China in a swift takeover in 1950, of course, when the Tibetans were “liberated” by their aggressors, who also drove Tibet’s spiritual and political leader, […]
Back to Tahiti
Back to Tahiti: We said our final good-byes to Franck and Loretta and Alexandre and then headed to town to catch the ferry back to Tahiti. Now, a lot of Polynesia may be paradisiacal, but my experiences on the ferries were anything but. First of all, no one seemed to know when the ferries operated. […]
Maupiti
Maupiti: Maupiti was another island that we were told we absolutely couldn’t miss. It was a small island – only 6 mi. around – not far from Bora Bora. As our ferry approached Maupiti, I had the same thought going through my head that I’d had when we first approached Bora: “I can’t believe how […]
Bora Bora
Bora Bora: Bora Bora is one of the more famous islands of Polynesia, one of the few that is frequented by Americans and others with money to spend. We were told we couldn’t miss it, and so we took another overnight ferry to that island. Although it was less than 50 mi. from Huahine, it […]
Huahine
Huahine: Inter-isle travel in Polynesia is either by ferry or by airplane. We traveled by ferry, as it was much cheaper and easier with the bikes. Our large red ferry pulled into the port of Huahine after a 9-hour trip, unloading cargo and merchandise and then our bikes. A couple of men had come into […]
Tahiti, capital of Polynesia
Tahiti, capital of French Polynesia: It was to French Polynesia in the South Pacific that we headed after leaving New Zealand. French Polynesia is an overseas territory of France that is comprised of 118 islands spanning a territory the size of the landmass of Europe. It is 12 time zones and 18,000 kms. from the […]
The Great Ocean Road – January 2007
The Great Ocean Road We had lost a lot of time waiting for me to get better, and so we decided to take a bus 170 km. from Mt. Gambier in South Australia to Port Fairy in the state of Victoria, so that we would have time to bike the famous Great Ocean Road. I […]
The Great Open Spaces of South Australia – December 2006
The Great Open Spaces of South Australia We had five weeks total to spend in Australia, and I was unfortunately sick for half of that time. After making it through the Adelaide Hills and beautiful Victor Harbor with its clear turquoise water and Little Penguins, we found ourselves on the Fleurieu Peninsula, where two of […]