Travels With My Bike

The travels of Jules Verne's fictitious adventurer, Phileas Fogg, caused a stir of breathless excitement amongst travel obsessed readers in Paris, London and New York in 1872. They kept pace with the adventure via weekly instalments in popular journals of the time. To complete a journey 'Around the World in Eighty Days' was deemed a possibility and one wonders how many intrepid travellers set out on their own quest inspired by this imaginary character. It is true that a character from literature can change lives and so the desire to seek out their places of abode and routes of travel has always motivated readers of fiction.

With a lifetime of fictional friends in mind, I too am off on an eighty day adventure. Like Phileas Fogg, my travels will begin and end in London, a city which perhaps has featured more than any other in the literary landscape of the centuries.

Unlike P. Fogg Esq., rather than dashing at breakneck speed around the world, my expedition will be a more leisurely meander covering the length and breadth of Britain. From the Scottish Highlands to the Yorkshire Dales, Peaks, Lakes, Broads and Wealds, Welsh farms and Cornish Villages. Castles and battlefields, gardens and galleries. A whole world in a small island.

My companions on this journey will be a folding bicycle, and a small hire car which, although I tried hard to do without, will be necessary to avoid spending many hours languishing in railway stations. A train journey from London to Inverness takes around nine hours but to make a trip of 20 kilometres can take five hours when not on a direct route. Hence I take to the road and once more the romantic visions of the past give way to the modern convenience.

However, my intentions are honourable and my desire to spare the planet a premature demise as a result of my travels, will encourage me to take to bike, train and bus wherever possible. The powers that be in the great British transport system have embraced the idea of patrons completing a journey by cycle and, to say welcome may be exaggerating a little, but certainly allow a folding bicycle on most services. To get your bike on a plane is not quite so easy. More on that subject to follow.

There are a number of things other than the route that set me apart from Phileas Fogg, not the least of which is the size of my fortune and my converse gender. Mr Fogg set off with a carpetbag containing twenty thousand pounds, a fortune indeed in 1872. Twenty thousand dollars, conveniently stored on a Travel Card - thus eliminating the need for a carpetbag - will have to do for me. No match for P.F. you'll agree.

Regarding my gender, it is unlikely, although not unheard of, that a member of the fairer sex could have undertaken such a trip unescorted in the nineteenth century without risking a lot more than her reputation. Hovering as I am on the wrong side of sixty, I think my reputation is quite safe.

Readers may be making that 'humph' noise at this point and declaring it not possible to confine one's spending to so trivial an amount over such a long period of time. On the other hand they may think me a spendthrift having no care for budgeting at all. As a newcomer to this international travelling lark I have no experience on which to call. Only time will reveal which of these camps has the final word.

If you are curious as to the outcome of this odyssey then join me here. We are guaranteed a lot of blunders, wonders and lively adventures as the weeks unfold.