Sunday 8 November 2009

Pictures from Mohans camera.

We have been kindly sponsored and supported by:


Mayo Wynne Baxter
01273 477071
Mayo Wynne Baxter is one of the leading law firms
in the South East with offices throughout Sussex.


&





Gossypium is a leading brand in Fairtrade-certified organic cotton fashion:
  • All our products are Fairtrade & organic - we're the real thing
  • We only use good quality cotton; organic, pure & strong
  • We are responsible for how our products are made
  • The eco-system & environment are never far from our thoughts
  • We're independent: working together as a family - in business
www.gossypium.co.uk

&



(click image to expand)


&



Located in the south lanes close to the seafront Terre à Terre is one of Brighton's leading
restaurants and continuously retaining the prestigious AA Two Rosettes and Michelin: ” Bib Gourmand” awards.

www.terreaterre.co.uk




IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SPONSOR US, YOU STILL CAN!

We are obviously trying to raise as much money as possible for the Red Cross, and the default sponsorship donation goes 50/50 for the Red Cross and towards the costs of the trip (Visas, Food, Internet Cafes, Maps etc). We are budgeting as much as possible but it is still difficult to keep the costs down because we cannot control the majority of our spending which is not on food or any other variable but on things like VISAS (It costs £95 for Iranian VISA alone) and maps and unexpected repairs such as my front pannier rack which has given way. Any excess sponsorship cost covering money will go to the Red Cross once we have finished the trip if there is any too.
If you would still like to sponsor us you can by:

Emailing me the amount you have sponsored us, your name, and the amount you want to go to the Red Cross and amount you want to put towards covering the costs of the trip, if any.
The bank account I have set up for the sponsorship money is:

Nationwide
Mr Mohan Everett
account no: 72433983
sort code: 07 00 30

You can pay money into that bank account via phone banking, online banking, cash (in bank) or by cheque.
I'm set up with online banking and will be basing my budgets and checking balance/transferring money with it throughout the whole trip, whenever I'm near a computer.

You can also pay via Paypal to:
Moohan13@gmail.com

Thankyou!

Blog update:


A few of the best photos from Italy, Greece til Turkey. Please start at the bottom of this post and go up. They are in order from bottom to top.


(PLEASE CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE THEM AS THEY ARE HIGH RESOLUTION)



The weather improved since we've been here and it was actually sunny, warm with blue skys! Nice Istanbul sea (though a bit polluted).


Fresh fish stall! This sold cheap fish which was caught by fishermen who were all on the big bridge of istanbul about 100m from here!


The DIAMOND of a man we met in Istanbul!!
We were on a search for a new O-ring for our stove (after a tip off that we could get them in Istanbul, from Friedel who commented our last post - thankyou!) This man went around loads of shops in istanbul with us for about half an hour trying to find an O ring that fitted our stoves piston! The last place we tried had the right fitting for our piston-case but not the right size hole to clip onto the piston itself. So the man cut a smaller one to the right size with a scalpal blade. He did this 3 times so we had spares and didnt charge us!



Finn getting his hair cut by a LEGENDARY Turkish barber! He left a tail on the end of his head til right at the end of his hair cut and convinced finn that he would leave it! Haha! He also left that big tuft on the front of his head for most of it... It was so cheap! Cost us about the equivalent of £1.75!!!


Our stove broke after we had bought about 3 days worth of stove cooking food, so we had a feast when we got this baby started! Tea, pasta and rice for everyone.





A fire in the Turkish woods.


Cute laughing little stray kıtten. It scrounged lots of cheese off us.







The hut of gloom. We slept here for 3 nights during a 3 day storm it was GRIM. Bad but funny memories.


A view from a greek mountain we cycled up. (Yes that is a motorway down there).


If that hut had a roof we probably would have slept in it...


A translucent mist covering the beautiful Greek countryside we were cycling over/past.


A roadside snack of pineapple..


haha.


Another hut we slept in...



Close up of our bodget made hut.


The hut from a distance.


One of our home which we slept in, in the Greek mountains. It was a skeleton of a hut. So we fastened our groundsheets, tent waterproofing, and polythene lining sheets on the walls to reduce the wind and potential rain. It was a cold nights sleep because we were pretty high up, but I was fine because of my beautiful Snugpak sleeping bag... Finn was not so lucky even though he slept in all his clothes, my jumper, his sleeping bag and my bivvy bag.


This picture has more to it than you can see-
We were caught in some light rain which started to develop as we set up our tent. This worried us but it wasnt heavy enough to penetrate our easily water permable tent. However, in the morning after a good sleep the rain started to get very strong and the clouds were very dark. We quickly packed it away and cycled off set to the nearest bit of half decent shelter to eat breakfast in and wait to see if the rain would reduce.
We found a big sheltered terrace type thing which was part of the restaurant we were sitting outside. The place was being refurbished and as it was a sunday the builders were not there.
We sat under it eating a nice breakfast of choc spread on a mashed up loaf of bread (it had been stuffed in one of our panniers for a couple of days) and had multiple cups of tea. And cocoa.
The rain carried on and on... and it was far too heavy to cycle in. As the evening came and still no sign of the rain reducing, we decided we would stay there. We spent the evening deciding on what we would do the next morning if the rain was still the same as we didnt want to stay there and also the builders would probably continue their job on the restaurant. We decided that we would cycle and so we made sure all our stuff was double waterproofed - we wrapped our clothes in our groundsheets in our panniers etc.
We then slept in our usual sleeping gear but without the tent, and got up at 5.am. Ate a breakfast of just plain rice and mentally prepped ourselves for the big cycle. It was absolutely grim weather! Torrential rain with lots of fog. We decided we would just wear our shorts and a t shirt because we could power as fast as we could to keep ourselves warm and it would mean we would keep most our clothes warm. We also had a mountain to cycle up so thought that it would be ok seeing as we'd be powering uphill.
We made two wally mistakes.
The first was that we didnt waterproof our shoes! and the second was that we actually went ahead with this not thinking that mountains are not all uphill - there is a downhill on the other side. So we powered it up the mountain and got SOAKED. We then came flying down the other side absolutely FREEZİNG! We had to stop every 300m or so to do star jumps because we felt dangerously cold. It is the coldest I reckon I've ever been! Not good! We then saw a sign saying the next town was 10km away ...nooo!
We both agreed we didnt think our bodies would take us that far in their current condition let alone mentally. So we eventually found a house with a garage which didnt have door which we rolled into and got out all our wet clothes. Dried ourselves with our towels and got into our dry warm clothes and sleeping bags desperately trying to warm up.
The fact we were both starving did not help and we had no food and had used the last of our petrol in the stove cooking our rice which we ate for breakfast!
We made a lot of BIG mistakes in quite a few areas! But we learnt from it.... the hard way.
This photo is Finn pouring the water out his shoe when we were in the Garage after we had warmed up and the rain had cleared!!! And we went (cycling in flip flops and socks because our shoes were soaked) and found a petrol station soon after which sold biscuits which took us to the next town.


Our temporary home with the lovely view.


The night after the storm we found this and the sky was cloudy so we slept here to avoid the same thing happening before we had been fully recovered. It turns out it did not rain at all but the hut was a lovely nights sleep and meant no fiddling with assembling tents and less packing!
A tramps paradise!


After the worst nights sleep of the trip to date.
-After a strong storm which lasted all night and soaked the whole tent. It was like a little crap cold swimming pool all night. Both of our sleeping bags were soaked through and we struggled to stay warm. It was like sleeping in a big wet sponge. We both felt very crap the next day, but at least it was sunny, or we would have been baaad! This pic shows us drying all our kit the next morning!


My beautiful bike on the Greek beach.


Finn having a very blue swim.


Finn with Nic and Jon.


Having a swim and snorkle (taken by the brits we met)
On a little secluded beach ın Igoumenitsa where we camped with the English cyclists Jon and Nic.


Treating the upper body a bit!


Chin ups on the ferry from Italy to Greece!


Nice view as we came down the other side and went through an olive tree forest.


The hills coming closer


Mountains in the distance!


Sunrise (from where we woke up) After a night without the tent.


Cloud of mosquitos


Nice view as we walked over a bridge in İtaly


Finn using the very low cashpoint.



Kilo of pasta! :)



Swim



Italian beach in the morning.



Our veggie dinner in Italy. We got it from a roadside stall.

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