Olympics Footnote

Yes, we really can't let the Olympics go... Its kind of surreal seeing them on TV after actually having been there. There is also the added bonus of Egypt getting their first gold medal since London 1948. Never mind that we were sitting watching the Greco-Roman Wrestling and ridiculing it with them the day before their man took home the gold. A gold medal is a gold medal.

We have also been able to follow all the furore of the "Lay Down Sally" incident. We just realised we had talked to couple at the Australia-Italy Baseball match who had a daughter who was in the Rowing Eights. Her name definitely wasn't Sally, but the name Lindsey is ringing a bell even though a fruitless search hasn't been able to confirm a Lindsey in the Eights for us.

Whilst packing our bikes into cardboard boxes at the airport, two members of the Swiss Women's cycling team came along to put their high-tech bike boxes through the oversized luggage section. We got chatting to one and asked her how her games had been, was she happy with her results and would she be at Beijing. We told her we had been at the Men's Road Race, the Time Trial and the Track Cycling. We didn't realise until we later saw a photo of the Women's Time Trial winners that we had been chatting to Karin Thuerig who had won Bronze.

Missed a great photo opportunity, but that's another reason to go to Beijing!

Footnote: Banz reckons he recognised her but didn't want to say anything, but I'm not so sure....

Where to spot us at the Olympics, and

we need your suggestions for a banner. We figure that this will probably be our only personal visit to the Olympics (well, until Brisbane 2016, or Stockton 2020), so we're going the whole hog and want to do a tacky banner so you can pick us out of the crowd when you're watching Australia vs India in the Men's Hockey (you were going to watch that anyway weren't you?). So add any suggestions you have (preferably clever and witty - reflects better on us that way) to the tag-board.

Anyway, our events (so far) are -
(All times are Greek times, for England minus 2 hours, for Queensland, add 7 hours and everyone else go to timeanddate.com).

Saturday 14th August
12:45 - 19:10
Men's Cycling Road Race
Men's Cycling Road Race Medal Ceremony

Sunday 15th August
10:30 - 13:30
Men's Baseball Preliminaries - Cuba vs Australia

18:00 - 21:30
Men's Hockey Preliminaries - Korea vs Spain
Men's Hockey Preliminaries - Great Britain vs Egypt

Monday 16th August
17:00 - 23:00
Tennis
Men's Singles First Round
Women's Singles First Round
Men's Doubles First Round
Women's Doubles First Round

Wednesday 18th August
13:00 - 19:00
Women's Cycling Individual Time Trial
Women's Cycling Individual Time Trial Medal Ceremony

Men's Cycling Individual Time Trial
Men's Cycling Individual Time Trial Medal Ceremony

Thursday 19th August
18:30 - 22:00
Men's Hockey Preliminaries - Great Britain vs Spain
Men's Hockey Preliminaries - Australia vs India

Friday 20th August
20:00 - 0:00
Women's Basketball Preliminaries - Australia vs Greece
Women's Basketball Preliminaries - Nigeria vs Brazil

Saturday 21st August
19:30 - 21:00
Swimming
Women's 50m Freestyle Final
Men's 1500m Freestyle Final
Women's 50m Freestyle Medal Ceremony
Women's 4 x 100m Medley Relay Final
Men's 1500m Freestyle Medal Ceremony
Men's 4 x 100m Medley Relay Final
Women's 4 x 100m Medley Relay Medal Ceremony
Men's 4 x 100m Medley Relay Medal Ceremony

Sunday 22nd August
Cycling Track
Women's Sprint 1/8 Finals
Men's Sprint 1/16 Finals
Women's Sprint 1/8 Finals Repechages
Men's Sprint 1/16 Repechages
Women's Individual Pursuit Final 3-4
Women's Individual Pursuit Final 1-2
Women's Individual Pursuit Medal Ceremony
Men's Sprint 1/8 Finals
Men's Team Pursuit First Round
Men's Sprint 1/8 Finals Repechages

No relation to Olympia Dukakis

Well as you can imagine there is talk of nothing else in Greece besides the Olympics. The Banseys have also been caught by this excitement and can only imagine that this will reach fever pitch by the time we reach Athens tomorrow night.

Today, we thought we would get in the mood with a day trip to Olympia. We're currently staying in Pyrgos, a pretty, small town on the coast about 100km south of Patras. From here we caught a bus to Olympia. The journey should only take half an hour, but our bus was packed with Greek pensioners who'd made the journey to market and were on their way home laden with goods. This stretched the trip close to the hour mark as they were dropped off at various tin sheds in the middle of nowhere.

We finally reached Olympia and had a quick look in the Museum which housed the antiquities found at the site as well as giving an overview of the history of the ancient games. We then wandered down to the site itself. As you can imagine it was besieged by American, German and French tourist packs all following their leaders like sheep. If there is one reason for independant travel, then surely this is it. Luckily for us the site is large enough for you to wander off in any direction and lose the hordes.

Whilst the ruins haven't been excavated to the extent of say, Pompei, there is plenty to see and the feeling from being in this place of history was definitely worth the journey and wandering around in the Greek midday sun (mad dogs and Englishmen.... and Aussies). You can understand why they have no trouble lighting the Olympic flame from here. In the aforementioned Greek midday sun we had the hilarious site of a German presenter having to film a piece where he had to run the length of the ancient running track before saying a few words to camera. The cameraman obviously had it in for him as he had to do it twice whist we were there. After the second attempt, the presenter did his run and speaking part and then headed straight for the shade of an olive tree (definitely the smartest way to escape the heat).

A good site with more info about Olympia can be found here.

Reasons for Chilling in Kalamata

Says it all really....

Fallen Hurdles

Well our plan to cycle to the Mani Peninsula fell at the first hurdle.

At the top of the big hill on our way out of Kalamata, we came across Diana Rooms. The views are amazing as from our room we look out over the mountains and sea. The room has untold luxuries (for us anyway) of a fridge, tv and air-conditioning all for a very reasonable price. So, within about two minutes of arriving we quickly decided that we'll stay here for a week, chill, read and watch telly (the Greeks have the right idea of subtitling english shows instead of dubbing them that the French and Italians do) and use this as a base to explore Mani.

So far, we haven't moved far from the room in case we miss an episode of Lizzy Maguire or The World's Funniest Commercials, but we plan to.

After our week in the sun, we're heading back north to pay our respects at Olympia (maybe an offering or two to the gods for the Aussie Olympic Team), before making our way on to Athens for the Games themselves. We've managed to book into a Youth Hostel Dorm for our stay, as the prices some of the hoteliers are charging would scare a Saudi prince. We looked up one hotel we stayed at two years ago on a visit to Athens and the islands. We paid 40 Euros then. We looked it up a week ago and its charging 380 Euros a night now. It was barely worth 40.


Book Crossing

Whilst reading an imported copy of The Sunday Times (Banz had to read about an English cricketing victory in as much detail as possible), we read about this site, BookCrossing.com. A simple, but great idea (as all good websites are), where when you've finished reading a book, you "release it" into the world after writing a review on BookCrossing's site. We've been doing a similar thing with putting the Big Trip's URL into books that we've left behind, but on the site you're able to actually leave a note where you've left it and people can "go hunting". For our reading list, go here.

We're off to Sicily and Updates Available Now

We're currently waiting for our ferry to take us from Sardinia to Sicily (cue the whistling of the Godfather theme).

We're not cycling much in Italy as bascially every Italian driver is nuts and thinks they don't need to change their line when overtaking us (cue me seeing a campervan overtake Banz with about 2 inches to spare).

We'll see a bit more of Sicily as well as visit some good friends in Southern Italy before we get a ferry to Greece and continue riding there. Rural Greece is meant to be very quiet (though hilly), so we're looking forward to that.

In the meantime, just so you haven't forgotten our smiling faces (they are except when hill climbing), we've updated and added the following pages to the Galleries -

England

Belgium

France - Nord Pas Du Calais

France - Picardy

France - Champagne

France - Burgundy

France - Rhone Alps

France - Provence

France - Corsica

Italy - Sardinia

as well as updating the following pages -

Overall Statistics

Physiology Changes

Burning Questions

and of course, scroll down for the latest poll.

What I do when Banz rides up mountains....

I've been relatively quiet on the blog front since the start of the Big Trip, which those of you who know me, may well find surprising....

Of course I've been sharing the daily adventure and logistical necessities with Banz. From sending him out each morning in search of croissants, to telling him where I exactly want the tent positioned (usually as far as possible from where he has dumped all his panniers on the ground, whilst I leave mine stealthily attached to my bike and just wheel them to the new location), the struggles and rewards are generally shared between us. That is, except for the masochistic world of hill climbing.

As our mate Spence asked, "What does Vic do while you're off doing your Julie Andrews impression??".

Obviously this impression is totally at odds with Banz's, who hopes to run into Tyler Hamilton in a bar one day and be able to say, "That Mt Ventoux eh?"

For his two big mountain rides that have been described here, I've been more than content to either indulge myself in the girly pastimes of either shopping (Mt Ventoux Day) or improving my tan (Corsica nightmare ride day). By the way, the tan on my legs is fantastic and obviously gets better each day I ride.

Don't get me wrong, the satisfaction of reaching the top of a hard climb and surveying all below you and knowing you got here under your own steam (as well as lugging four excess novels knicked from the book exchange at the last campsite) is a fantastic feeling. The downhill section which lasts for approximately one fifth of the length of the uphill is also brilliant as well as seeing the speeds which your computer would have no hope of registering under normal circumstances.

It's just that well, climbing for the sake of climbing seems a bit silly to me.

I don't want to start sounding like a girly girl who doesn't understand the offside rule and so thinks football is stupid, but the whole thing of climbing these hills just strikes me as pointless. Nobody could've been prouder of Banz than I was after his successful Mt Ventoux ride, and, in a weird sort of way I was prouder of him after his unsuccessful day in the mountains in Corsica, and I'm more than happy at shout at him, "GET ON THE PEDALS!!!" as he heads off, its just not for me.

I'll ride up hills - but only if they're in my way.....

Happy Birthday Connor! and Updates

We don't usually do special personalised messages here at Big Trip (we'll send you one if you pay us enough though....), but we wanted to send our nephew and godson, Connor a very Happy 9th Birthday message for today. Miss you lots and hope you had a great day.

For everyone else who isn't Connor you can go and check out the updated Big Trip Stats.

Snapshots from Singapore




We've dug out some snapshots from a photoshoot that we attended in Singapore. Enjoy!

The Queen Sees Us Off

Who would've thought that the Queen (well Queen Liz II) was a fan of the Big Trip?

In that expose in the UK Sunday papers a couple of months ago there was no Big Trip mug or lunchbox amongst the acres of tuppleware that supposedly inhabit Buck House.

My republican leanings are also well known, so you can imagine my surprise when as Banz and I ate our lunch in a patch of sun in Harrow town centre on Wednesday and watched some workers putting together a platform, we were informed that the Queen was visiting on Thursday.

I never thought that she would be a fan, but yet here she was appearing in the town centre that we've come to know and shop in over the last few years (love is a very strong word), as well as driving past the end of Nibthwaite Road (Banz did mention that the loft room that caused us all this grief for a year would've made a fantastic sniper's nest) so she could pay her respects and wave us on our way before we caught the train up to Darlo to visit with HiG.

Thanks Liz - we didn't know you cared.

For the full story - CLICK HERE!

Its finally happened...

Who would've thought that the flat would go through? At times, we certainly didn't, but it has happened. Last Wednesday, 18th February, after over a year of trying, Banz and I became homeless.

So, what now?

Well, after a strange feeling of relief and numbness, yet not quite happiness, we handed our notice in at work, booked our flights for Australia and came to the conclusion that The Big Trip is actually going to happen.... and boy, are we unfit!

You see a year ago, we were primed, fit, had been cycling to work each day, had completed the Coast to Coast and were eating well. The depression that set in after the loft room fiasco of 2003 meant that much chocolate, chips and lager were consumed in a fruitless effort to make us feel better. That and not really feeling like riding our bikes didn't help. But the eight months between then and now have given us something that I think is more important - a determination and resolve that we discovered when the chips were down. We're doing this trip. Come hell or high water (we don't want either to be honest - especially whilst camping). We're definitely doing this trip.

Our timeline is now -

27/02 - Finish Work
29/02 - Be in Cardiff to watch the mighty Boro lift the Carling Cup
03/03 - Fly from London to Bangkok
10/03 - Fly from Bangkok to Brisbane
12/03 - Fly to Mackay from Brisbane
18/03 - Get the overnight train from Mackay to Brisbane
26/03 - Fly from Brisbane to Singapore
30/03 - Fly from Singapore to London

We haven't decided yet, but we should be heading up to Teesside soon after we return to London and then setting off a week or so after that. Keep checking back here for finalised details.

In the meantime, you may have noticed that the site is looking different. The time lost through no longer having a Playstation, Cable TV and for a time, standard TV have not been wasted. Look around and see what we mean and make sure you give us some feedback on what you think. Highlights include the Cycling Nickname Generator and The Poll. You can also show your support for The Big Trip and get along to the Gift Shop.

Snow Days!

After weeks of being told that it was going to snow here in London, it finally dumped it down in about 30 minutes last night.

Thankfully we were just about to go into Tesco just around the corner from our house and with everyone fleeing, we were able to have pretty much the entire supermarket to ourselves (yet it still strangely took 20 minutes to get served for a Lottery Ticket - some things never change).

Traffic was already queueing up on the roads and we were thankful for the short walk home. A quick snowball fight for the benefit of our neighbour's video camera (try as we might we couldn't get her 18 month old son involved) and we were safely ensconced in the house with the central heating blasting out.

Last year, London received about two inches on the 30th January - so it seems to be becoming an annual event. Maybe it could be a tourist attraction a la changing of the guards? You read it here first.

Glory Supporting Boro Fans

As mentioned last Tuesday we went off to Highbury last night to see the underdogs Arsenal take on the league leaders Boro (for reality's sake please reverse the two adjectives describing the teams) for a place in the Coca-Carling Cup Final. We went with heavy hearts after the battering the lads received a couple of weeks ago at the hands of Arsenal.

We had just got through the gates as kick-off happened and took our places (nobody was seated) in the packed Boro end. What ensued was a fantastic game. The Boro end continually outsung Arsenal (do their fans not sing at all?) and our players responded magnificently. Although there was a lot of Arsenal pressure early on, they never looked like really finishing off their overly-tricky play and after several good chances (especially Juninho's shot bouncing off the post), we rightfully went ahead with a Juninho goal. They again applied pressure but were unable to break through our defence and we were unlucky when a couple of shots went wide. The game finished 1-0 to the good guys for once.

Our long journey home was improved by seeing lots of glum Arsenal supporters on the train who were occasionally broken by ecstatic looking Boro fans grinning back at us.

Fingers crossed Arsenal will stick to their youth mixed with crap older players policy and we'll stick a couple of goals past them at the Riverside and make the final at Cardiff. Bring on Bolton or Villa.

Note for international users - Boro never beat Arsenal. Ever. Well except for once in 2001, but apart from that never. Boro have never won an important cup in their history (going back over 100 years) and this could be our best chance yet. COME ON BORO!

The Future is bright, the Future is Boro

Last Saturday the mighty Boro played some team you may have heard of called Arsenal. Plucky Arsenal came through and beat us 4-1. Fortunately despite our attempts to get tickets to the game, all away tickets were sold out. Unfortunately, we're playing them three more times before the month is out (twice in the Carling Cup semi-final and once in the FA Cup). We'll be subjecting ourselves to next Tuesday's (20th January) game at Highbury.

The one bright spot that we were able to take out of last Saturday was the MSS Supporters South Ball. This is an annual event which we've attended over the last three years. This year one of the highlights for me was meeting two of the young players that the Boro have coming through, Andrew Davies (left) and Stewart Downing (right).

I probably won't be getting a start for the Boro for another couple of years, but with the way our strikers are playing, I might get a go up front this season.

A Picture Really is Worth a Thousand Words

The sign outside our house when we got home last night.... Says everything really.

New Poll - Available Now!



Get Voting!

Poll Closing Soon

The answer to the burning question of which is the fastest colour for a bike is about to be answered. Get your vote in before the countdown below hits zero. Click Here.

Everything in its right place

It is six months and one day since I last walked into the office that I had previously worked in for the past three and a half years. You would think that it would be completely different, but apart from some banter about the Rugby World Cup (and everyone being happier than they usually are due to the England win), it was exactly the same and I don't feel like I'd been away at all.

If only our bank balance felt the same......

We're kind of approaching D-day with the flat and fingers crossed we'll have some positive news soon....

Just found a great blog that gives you an alternative view of current affairs with an Aussie perspective. Check out Tim Blair's blog.

After being inspired by DBC Pierre's drawing of his life showing him taking a turd for a walk, Banz has got all artistic and done a representation of our life at the moment....