Well it's the ninth of December here and we have had over a week of heavy snow, the countryside is beautiful.Well the 'journey south' is slowly turning from concept to reality. I always anticipated that getting to the start would be a huge challenge in itself but I am gradually making headway. So far I have first and foremost told others that this is no longer a dream but a reality in the making. I have set a start date of sometime in April 2011. The exact date is dependant on the weather as my starting point will be in the north of Norway. Most people embarking on a journey of this sort leave from Nordkapp which is commonly known as the most northerly point in mainland Europe but fortunately for me it isn't. Nordkapp which is on an island seems to merely be an arbitrary point which has been selected as a tourist destination attracting tens of thousands of tourists each year and being on an island allows me to select a truer mainland start point. I haven't concluded the start point yet but it's likely to be where the ferry from Tromso drops me which also seems to be the most northerly mainland road point at Mehamn.
Preperations.
Well the prep so far has been mainly research based, looking at other blogs and tales from people who have done something similar, these range from those hardened cyclists who's main aim seem to be to get from A2B in a quick a time as possible to the guy who took a ten year old bike he had bought for sixty pounds and departed in minus 5 degrees of snow and ice, I think I'm more inclined to the cheap and simple example of the latter. One thing that is very important to me is to enjoy the experience and to 'be', I do wonder if the who concept of a blog is in fact the antithesis of this, if it proves to be then I will stop the blog , which I might anyway as I am a bit lazy at heart.
Other parts of the prep have been to check over what I need to take with me and if I learnt anything in the Pyrenees wild camping it was that it is very hard to find the compromise between 'as little weight as possible' and 'Oh! I'll just squeeze that in, it might come in useful'.
Fitness, well I haven't really got a history of any serious cycling. I once cycled with my daughter about 140 miles over three days camping wild along the way, any serious cyclist would laugh at this as it's equivalent to a good day out. As I say it's a slow journey south and getting to the start is the most difficult bit.
Getting to the start includes giving up my home and work, saying goodbye to friends and family and very importantly calling upon the love and support of my girlfriend Ana. Ana is a wonderful and beautiful Portuguese woman of tremendous strength and character whom I adore. As I have mentioned before I have worked and lived in tied accommodation for nearly twenty years and in my fiftieth year and with children left home I had the choice of either being buried here at the Watts cemetery or living my dream and breaking free......
but as I step away from the security of a beautiful home and secure work I will be facing my demons and it is hoped that in so doing I will open a new and wonderful chapter in my life. And so as my 'journey south' begins I may even prove Camus thesis right, that for Sisyphus "The struggle itself...is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
