It’s hard to believe that more five months have passed since Adi and Fabian started their cycling journey. I have managed to see them twice already during their trip, both times in the UK, and had the opportunity to catch up a bit with them and learn about their stories. However, everything is better when shared and here’s this post and interview to keep you updated on their progress.
Just to place our readers in time (and space) how many kilometres have you cycled until now and how many countries have you crossed so far?
We already cycled more than 9’400km and crossed 11 countries on our way. The distance we covered is a bit more than 30% of our total distance until Cape Town.
Besides green hills and grey skies, what are your impressions of the UK & Ireland? And what were your highlights of this leg of your trip?
The UK and Ireland have much more to offer than hills and bad weather. During our time in this part of the world, we saw forests, stunning coasts, amazing cliffs and steep mountains surrounded by lots of lakes.
Our highlights were the Cliffs of Moher, Lake District National Park, Edinburgh as a city, the Highlands and the coast of Southern Ireland.
Did you find many differences between each region of the UK (England, Wales Scotland, Northern Ireland)?
Yes, especially between England and Wales. Wales was extremely hilly and we had to climb some crazy steep roads. England was more densely populated and had fewer forests than Wales or Scotland. In Scotland, there were less villages and roads, but some roads were busy because of the tourists going north to Loch Ness. The landscapes are more sparse and hilly as well compared to the other regions.
In Northern Ireland, we were not sure if we already crossed the border or not. Since there is no real border and the landscapes look similar.
Cycling is now a huge part of your life. How is your daily routine?
Wake up, eating breakfast, pack all our equipment including the tent, cycling (sightseeing), cycling, cycling, eating lunch, shopping for dinner and breakfast, pitch tent, unpack all our equipment, eat dinner, write diary and sort out pictures/videos, eat dessert, read books, eat another dessert, brush teeth, sleep.
Nowadays technology is a great part of traveling. What are the apps you can’t live without? How do you entertain yourselves at night when camping?
Instagram, Facebook, maps.me, untappd, couchsurfing, whatsapp, Warmshowers, park4night, strava, audible. In the evening we sometimes watch movies we have on our external hard disk, read books on our eReader, listen to audiobooks, chat with friends and family or just talk.
Compared to when you left Switzerland, do you feel any physical changes in your body? Have you changed your diet in order to balance your body’s high demand for calories?
Fabian lost some weight since the start because he didn’t do much sport before we left. We both have more muscles on our legs for sure. Our diet contains more carbs and we add some salts and minerals to our water while cycling. We eat many sweets as well, because we can (that’s the dreaaaaam!!!). We definitely should do more stretching, since we feel very stiff sometimes. More or less regularly, we try to do push ups to train our upper body muscles as well.
These first months have been full of visits and company of friends and family. Has it been good or you can’t wait to be on your own, wild and free?
We have mixed feelings about this topic. On one side, it is nice to see friends and family, on the other side we enjoy being alone in the nature and completely free or any meeting point or time.
Up to now, what was (or were) the times you were impressed the most with the kindness of people?
We were quite surprises about the kindness and openness of German and French people. Many people approached us while buying food and asked what we do and where do we intend to go.
How are you finding the behaviour of drivers regarding cyclists? Do you usually feel safe? Any message you want to leave here to the drivers of the world?
So far, the drivers had a considerate behaviour towards us and left enough space between themselves and our bicycles. We generally felt safe all the way. Of course, there are times where the road is narrow and we feel a bit tense. The most dangerous situations are when drivers cut us off after overtaking us and try to park their car immediately after.
To wrap this up, when are you planning to reach Africa and how are you going to have internet there so we can keep in touch? 😉
We should reach Africa in the end of November. We plan to buy local SIM-cards to update the blog regularly and of course to stay in touch with you. We are in touch with other cyclists who are currently in West Africa and exchange information concerning different topics.
Hope you enjoyed this new interview and for the next one, these guys will be in Africa already <3 . Follow them in: cape2cape.org and @cycling_cape2cape
