Ever since a rather spontaneous but much enjoyed cycling trip covering the length of New Zealand a few years ago, Pete has had a bit of a hankering to do a longer trip, quite possibly all the way round the world. Since meeting his wife (me) this didn’t look like it was going to happen, because quite frankly I thought that sounded like a rather ridiculous plan, especially considering that we have a nice house and good jobs in London. However, after several inductions into cycle touring, including numerous Scottish islands and a great trip to Vietnam, I was eventually sold on the idea and we agreed a compromise – we would cycle halfway round the world to Australia!
We have set up this blog as a way to keep in touch with people, and to allow people to track our progress easily. We hope it will also help our fundraising effort (see the fundraising page for more info on who we are raising money for by doing this trip). So please visit the site regularly and pass it onto to anybody who may be interested!
Christine and Pete
A post-trip note: we arrived back to the UK on 22nd Feb 2011. After a frustrating couple of months of job-hunting Christine has been lucky enough to go back to her old job in London, while Pete is getting close to getting a good position either in London or in Edinburgh. Already the trip seems like a long time ago!
Christine and Pete's Big Cycling Trip 
hi dear friend i hope to be ok and have good time.how are u and where are u ?we met each other in Esfahan _Iran.eshaq karimi from Afghanistan
By: Eshaq karimi on May 6, 2013
at 5:25 am
Hi, my name is roly, saw u in Isfahan under “Khajo” bridge. it was a nice trip, do u have a facebook page?
By: Roly on December 11, 2012
at 5:45 pm
Hi Christine & Pete
Thank you very much for the wonderful display of images from your trip. I wonder if it will be possible to contact you in private by email regarding one of your photos. I would truly appreciate it.
Best regards
By: Lora on November 6, 2012
at 10:43 pm
hello Christine and Pete,
we are the french cyclists met in Hanoi and Xam Neuea.
and we are currently in Siem Reap.
the night where we were together in indian restaurant, we did not know how we will go to Phonsavan the day after, because we were tired and the profile of this itinerary looked very hard.
at the morning we made the decision to use the bus and when we took over you on the road, we were not very proud… shame on us !
then, we went to Paksan during 3 days, by a not so bad road, because in progress to be better.
from Paksan we used again the bus, because the road 13 is very boring (80000 Kips each).
even by bus it is boring and we think the night bus with sleeper is better.
from Pakse we went to Champasak for the full moon festival at Phou Wat, by a good road, in progress too, on the right side of the Mekong.
the day after we stopped in Don Det, a special island in the 4000 Islands on the Mekong… “peace and love” atmosphere… nice watwerfalls.
then we went through the Cambodia border, up to Stung Treng, boring road again.
be careful, do not turn right as a panel will tell you just before Stung Treng, stay on the main road to use the new bridge…
we cross over Mekong to Thalla Barivat, in order to go to Siem Reap, by Sam Ang, Xhan, Mluprey, Tbeng Meanchey, Koh Ker, etc…
the road is not a black road, but in progress to become it, therefore good, but the sides of the road have been badly deforested and not really shady…
be careful at Sam Ang, when the road turn frankly on the right in north direction, you have to go straight away on a small road, in west direction.
Mlu Prey is written big on the map but it is very small and poor… Chep is a better village to sleep or to eat.
at Koh Ker for us the best guest house is at the bottom of the 3 antennas, at the top of the village, do not use the first one at the main crossing, and not too this one at the T junction for the temple.
the visit of the temple is good, 10 $ each, and there are approx. 7 km after the ticket booth to reach the main temple.
after, the road does not go to Ta Siem, but directly to Svay Leu, the map is not right.
the temple of Boeng Mealea is really a ruin fields… not very interesting if you go to Angkor Wat.
we hope these informations will help you, and we wish for you a very good trip to Sydney !!
one more time thank you for your help with your map.
Denise and Gerard
By: Gerard on November 30, 2010
at 12:07 am
hello my dear how arw you ?i hope that you didint forget me,i hope the best for you.buybuy.
By: sahar on November 12, 2010
at 12:44 pm
Hi Christine & Pete.
It was so good to meet you in Samarqand a couple of weeks ago (I am now back home). I hope things are going well for you. We’ve looked at your website and would like to contribute to your charity. Could you let us know how we can do this, please?
Very best wishes, Colin Campbell (and Jan)
By: Colin Campbell on August 24, 2010
at 9:32 pm
Colin
Many thanks for your donation. It was great to meet you in Samarqand and glad to hear that you got home safely. Our wheel finally arrived (thanks to the kind staff at Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative, but no thanks to DPD, a courier company that seems to think that Uzbekistan is a city in Pakistan!) so we are back on the road again and we are about to reach one of the highlights of the trip – the Pamir Highway…. the challenge continues!
Pete and Christine
By: londontosydneybybike on August 25, 2010
at 5:38 am
helloooooooo,my dears,i raly miss you,where are you?can you take visa for china?
By: sahar on August 20, 2010
at 3:56 pm
hello for my honeys,how are you my flowers?,i missed you very much,are you in iran yet?last week i saw 2 turist they were from german and they knew you,the man name was sebastian,they were in hury i spoke with them just 30 min,every day sina said me why dean and pete dont come to play with me every body kiss you from heire,buybuy
By: sahar on July 30, 2010
at 5:02 pm
hello again for my greate friends,thankyou very much for your email,i hope best trip for you,i realy love you,kisssssssssss.say hello to my greate friend dean too.i wish best time for you.
By: sahar on July 16, 2010
at 8:42 pm
hello for my dears,ihope best time for you and your greate friend dean good luck.buybuy
By: sahar on July 15, 2010
at 6:29 pm
Hello I met you with Ian in our class,in Miyaneh, Iran. I really glad to met you both. I wish you to have a good trip. enjoy your time.
By: Navid on July 13, 2010
at 7:44 pm
Hi…I just read this post in Farsi about you guys in vahid’s blog…Hope you’re doing great and was just curious about your trip through Iran.Best of luck…stay safe and take care…
By: delaram on July 9, 2010
at 1:11 am
Hi Christene and Pete, We are staying in the same hostel in Veliko Tarnovo that you were at 2 weeks ago. The owner of the hostel has given us the link to your blog and we’re following much the same route as you. We just wanted to say hi, love the blog, and we’ll be following your progress for tips as to what’s ahead of us. Who knows, if we speed up a little we may even bump into each other at some point! You can read our blog at cambridgetochristchurch.wordpress.com.
Best of luck with your trip.
Mike and Alex
By: Michael on June 14, 2010
at 8:19 pm
Christine and Pete visited us at about 1 p.m. at our primary school in YAĞINÖZÜ village VEZİRKÖPRÜ, SAMSUN, TURKEY.
We were appreciated to see them now they should be in city center of SAMSUN, TURKEY.
By the way, my name is Ali. I am an English teacher in Yağıözü primary school.
I want to share cultures between countries.
By: Ali AKDERE on June 11, 2010
at 4:33 pm
Fantastic and Carb-tastic! It is so great to read of your progress, how fit you are and how much you are enjoying it. It is good you have the fortitude and good cheer for the camping, finding directions, compiling a phrasebook and biking under all kinds of conditions. Manolo & I were in Istanbul at the same time, changing planes on 24 and 29 May going to Cappadocia in central Turkey. Wishing you continued good luck!
By: Isabel on June 9, 2010
at 11:02 pm
This is great i love what your doing, im in Miss Rachel powells form class and shes told me all about it.Goodluck mwith our traveling and have a great time together!
By: Aqeela on May 17, 2010
at 6:43 pm
Aqeela
Thank you very much for your message of support. We hope that you enjoy reading about the places that we visit and will someday have the chance to have an adventure like this yourself!
By: londontosydneybybike on May 17, 2010
at 6:53 pm
Hello Pete and Christine, lovely to meet you at Szentendre, wasn’t sure if I was going to get my recumbent trike back or not!?
Trust Pete’s saddle is now worn a little more sympathetically! Hope Budapest was kind to you, we love it here.
Will be following you in spirit and ethernet all the way. Regards Neil Moore
By: Neil Moore on April 29, 2010
at 12:30 pm
Best of luck guys, I’m sure it’ll be the experience of a lifetime. Looking forward to reading about your adventures.
By: Natasha von Geldern on April 1, 2010
at 7:02 pm
Have just discovered about you two from a CTC newsletter. I am very envious but look forward to hearing about your adventure from the comfort of my armchair! All the best and good luck – Jen
By: Jen on April 1, 2010
at 10:52 am
Best of luck Pete on your amazing adventure.
Eddie
By: Eddie on March 29, 2010
at 1:00 pm
I wish you well with your journey,my husband and i did a RTW tour 1999-2002,best thing we ever did, changed our lives for the better, there are so many good people out there,we had very good treatment in Iran,even had the hospitality of sleeping in the prayer room of a militry outpost.
look forward to reading your blog
By: Christine Speight on March 28, 2010
at 9:45 pm
Hi Christine and Pete. Not sure if you’ll remember me and Rob. We were your camping neighbours at Noongallas in Penzance last summer. You kindly shared your fire and hot chocolate and marshmallows with us! Anyway we remembered your round the world cycle trip and wondered if you had a website.
Glad to hear you’re off soon. Good luck, have a fantastic trip, we’ll follow your progress from the comfort of our front room
Rob & Chris x
By: Christine Pritchard on March 27, 2010
at 1:27 pm
Hi Christine and Rob yes we do remember you from Noongallas, good to hear from you, and well done on remembering our plans and finding our website! We are off tomorrow morning which is both scary and exciting! Happy camping if you do any this summer!
Christine and Pete
By: londontosydneybybike on March 27, 2010
at 6:14 pm
Christine & Pete ~ I only know Christine through other DR colleagues, but I’m so impressed to read about your upcoming adventure! Medecins sans Frontiers is also one of my favorite charities, so I’ll kick in a bit of $ too. Wishing you wonderful experiences & adventures along your path…and some interesting people too! Very Best of Luck to you both! p.s. My sister, Robin, is a big cyclist in St.Louis…I’ll share your blog w/ her too. HAVE FUN!!!! Jane
By: Jane K (DR Waltham) on March 26, 2010
at 3:02 pm
Just added this to our fave’s, look forward to seeing the updates.
By: Sam n Rog on February 9, 2010
at 9:00 pm
awesome you are actually going to do this!! Well when you get to oz if you make it down to Canberra you are really welcome to stay and wash your sweaty biking gear! – if Im still here by then (guess you might be a while!) hx
By: Hazel on February 1, 2010
at 1:39 am
Great site…look forward to following your progress!! x
By: Sarah Helliwell on January 31, 2010
at 7:21 pm
Wow – good luck! There’s a hot meal waiting for you in Singapore if you pop by en route!
xx
By: Charlie & Gray on January 31, 2010
at 11:50 am
Wow…good luck! There’s a hot meal waiting for you in Singapore if you pop in en route!
xx
By: Charlie & Gray on January 31, 2010
at 11:50 am
Best of luck Peter; enjoy the experience.
By: Billy MacIntyre on January 18, 2010
at 5:43 pm
Saw the link on ADVFN. You will love the trip.
I did London – Kathmandu in 1988. Best thing I ever did in my life. Even though I did it alone!
By: steve on January 7, 2010
at 3:18 pm