A Cycling Adventure from Australia to N.Ireland: David McCourt pt. 2

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I would also say to any biketourist or people who are
thinking about doing this, likewhether you're in the middle of
a journey or you thinking aboutstarting one or on the cus of
starting one, ask yourself whenit's all said and done, are you
gonna be look, looking back onyour trip and, you know, giving
yourself a big old pat in theback because you cycled every
f an inch and missed out onsome incredible because you're,
you're, you are gonna find outabout places you didn't know

(00:20):
existed along the way, placesthat you should visit but you
didn't plan to, and that you'renot gonna have enough time to
visit if you do the every fand inch version of things.
It's up to you ultimately.
But I would just say like,have a think about what's gonna
bring you the most satisfactionwhen it's all said and done.
Because that's, I think that'sultimately what guided me and
looking back on the trip, Ihave no regrets about making
that compromise occasionally.
'cause it did allow meto see the places that I

(00:41):
otherwise would've skipped.
I think I would've had heavierand harder feelings about that
than what I feel about actuallytaking transport occasionally.
Welcome to Seek Travel Ridewhere we share the stories and
experiences of people takingamazing adventures by bike,
whether it's crossing stateborders, mountain ranges,
countries, or continents.

(01:02):
We want to share thatspirit of adventuring on two
wheels with our listeners.
Hello listeners.
It's Bella Molloy here,hosted Seek Travel Ride, and
today I am super stoked to bewelcoming back a previous guest

(01:23):
of the show, David McCort.
David's no stranger totaking the long way home.
Literally as his adventure sawhim set off from Melbourne,
Australia with one goal inmind and that was to ride
his bike all the way back tohis home Village of Cushion
do in Northern Ireland.
Previously on the podcast, I'vehad the pleasure of speaking
with David about the firsthalf of his journey, covering

(01:47):
off his adventures throughthe middle of Australia,
Southeast Asia, the Himalayas,and into central Asia.
David was such an incrediblestoryteller that we got
about as far as him crossingthrough Turk, Stan, what a
crazy experience that wasbefore having to quickly
speed through the rest of hisroute and wind the episode up.

(02:07):
But he's also magnanimouswith his time, and today he's
offered up the opportunity tofill in those gaps and hear
about the rest of his journey.
We are gonna be learningabout David crossing over into
Iran, making his way throughsome of the most fascinating
historic and at times unexpectedparts of the world, from
experiencing Iranian hospitalityat its finest to cycling

(02:29):
through Kurdistan in Iraq.
The unease he had when hewitnessed Turkish drone
strikes to enjoying someof the most sweetest gravel
riding through Albania.
And then crossing the stunningAlps and deciding to squeeze
in one last mountainousadventure through the Pyrenees.
I can tell David's journeyfrom Asia into Europe sounded

(02:49):
nothing short of incredible.
And finally, after so much timespent on the road, he arrived
back in Ireland only for thejourney to take an emotional,
bittersweet turn just ashe reached the finish line.
Now today we are gonnabe hearing about the
moments that shaped thefinal leg of this journey.
The people, the places that nodoubt left a lasting impact and

(03:10):
what it was like to return homeafter such an epic adventure.
David McCort, big warm,welcome back to the show.
Hello, Vela and hello folks.
Thank you very much forhaving me and I'm very
excited to be having parttwo of our conversation.
I'm super pumped.
David, I've been thinking aboutthis, um, recording all day.
'cause you're such anawesome storyteller.

(03:32):
I feel like I could nearlyrun this episode today by
just pressing record andjust say, start here and
take me all the way there.
You don't even need me to nudgeyou with questions, right?
Yeah.
Although I'm very happy to bedoing this because I've been
home now for what we're March.
So let's say nearly six months.
And it's gonna be very niceto sort of relive a lot of

(03:53):
the stories again, becauseI'm not, I'm not telling
them as frequently as Iwas when I first got back.
So it'll be really great tosort of jog the memory and.
Think of the notable timesand, and just, uh, those
highlights, those reallyspecial experiences I had in
the back half of the trip.
I was reflecting back 'causeI had to listen back to your
episode a couple of days ago,preparing for this one and
laughing so many times at thecircumstances you were caught

(04:15):
up in from, you know, havingto have stale bread and tomato
paste for dinner up in the MiesStan.
Yep.
To the mad scramble forthe last train in Turk Stan
to get over to Iran, whichwas absolutely hilarious.
Mm-hmm.
Listeners, if you haven'tlistened to the first episode
of David, um, check out theshow notes in your podcast
player apps description.
I've linked it there, but David,we've already heard about the

(04:38):
very first bike you ever rode.
So I have a different questionfor you and I want you to
tell me about the very firstday on this bike tour and
I want you to tell me whatyou remember about that day.
That's a great question.
And I very, very distinctlyrecall my first day of
the bike ride 'cause itwas so damn emotional.

(05:00):
In fact, the week leadingup to me leaving on the bike
ride were nothing short ofan emotional rollercoaster.
And I don't remember havingcried as much as I did at that
time, anytime prior, exceptfor when I actually moved
from Ireland to Australia,which is the, the last time
I was such a emotional wreck.
Like there was, and in fact,I was with my parents the

(05:20):
weekend and we were talkingabout how the amount of tears
that were cried as we leftIreland to move to Australia
could have sunk a ship.
And for me, the amount of tearsthat I shed and the lead up to
the department on this bike ridehad the same sort of magnitude,
you know, had the same sortof tectonic weight to it.
And really that told me thatI was doing something huge.
I was creating a hugelife change for myself.

(05:40):
So that day I, uh, I left fromthe native grass circle in
Royal Park just north of the,you know, the Royal Children's
Hospital in Melbourne.
And that was really significantstarting point for me because
I would go to this littleevent called Coffee Outside.
I'm not sure ifyou've heard of that.
I haven't.
What was, what happensat Coffee outside?
I think it's a global thing, orit might be an Australian thing,
but essentially you, you justdon't have some coffee outside.

(06:03):
Uh, and it's kind, it'skind of a ride bike.
So people who go there, I havea shared interest in either
bike tour, bike packing, bikecommuting, and it's really nice.
The one we we do in Melbourne,it's, we have a really diverse
group of people, really diverse,uh, age range from like, you
know, 18, 19 year olds allup to, I think, or the oldest
person I've met there was likein their sixties, people here
at uni, people who have jobs,people here just hanging out and

(06:25):
just come and sit down and havea chat and we'd bring our air
presses and our little stovesand just pick up the coffee.
Oh my God, I need tocome to one of these.
I haven't been able to attendand reach, I need start
the Pyrenees chapter one.
Yeah, definitely.
And that's the idea, like,you know, like, and people
do advertise on Instagramand then just come along
and have a chat and.
It's a friendly bunch ofpeople and you can have
interesting chats aboutbikes or other stuff.
So I, I went to my final coffeeoutside off that morning and a

(06:48):
few friends came along to fireme or to see me off rather.
And I cycled back to my parents'house in Altona because I
had a bit of LA very, very,very last minute packing
and just did load the bike.
And I was really nervoustoo, because I was definitely
d by a thousand paper cutswith my weight decisions.
And you know how the gear thatI packed, and it's the same
for anybody who sets off ona long distance bike ride,

(07:09):
as I'm sure you know fromall your early conversations,
you always take too muchcrap in the beginning and
you start shedding as you go.
So my bike was reallyover laden and.
I just didn't know whereeverything was gonna fit.
And so I, I took off that dayand it was a really drab exit
from Melbourne, like Cyclthrough the yucky suburbs
of like West Melbourne.
So like Altona and I dePoint cook all that stuff.
But I ended my firstday in the yangs.

(07:31):
Oh, what a beautifulpart of the world.
Yeah, it was good to get intolike a bit of entry even though
I was still sort of in thatalmost suburbia like, or like
that sort of just grassy stuffbetween Melbourne and Geelong.
'cause I was gonna head downto, you know, Turkey and the
Great Ocean Road where I wasgonna get into some good stuff.
So that first day was justfull of a lot of apprehension
and just think the mainfeeling I felt after the

(07:51):
tears had left me was relief.
I finally turnedover the pedals.
I talked about thedoorstep mile, I think
in the first episode.
And.
You know, that was it.
That was me taking that firststep and just overcoming that
initial bit of, or creatingthat bi initial bit of inertia
that you need to just get going.
And it felt so good to finallystart putting some distance
between home and, you know,taking off on the journey.

(08:13):
So I was just really happy.
I had begun and I rememberagain the camp, and I
dropped my Power Bank brandspanking big, beefy 25,000
milliamp, power, power bank.
And I dropped it on theground and it stopped working.
I was like, oh man,on the first day, oh, no way.
Uh, sorry, Ithink I bought another one
along the way or something andI had two or and or whatever.
It sort of half worked.

(08:33):
Andbecause you would've researched
that power bank so much beforewe bought it too, you were
like, oh, which one do I need?
Is that one too overkill?
No, that one won't be enough.
Like if you're like me,you would've done that
first of many things toBRE or get damaged along
the way, but that's, that'sall part of the adventure.
So yeah, it was a veryemotional day, but a great one.
And.
A great way to start the trip.
And it was so nice to have allthose people, all my friends

(08:54):
and folk waving me off andwishing me luck on the journey.
There's a photographon my Instagram page.
You go to the very first one.
It's me sort of jumpingwith the bicycle.
I'm sort of like half caughtin the air with the bike?
Yeah.
It's in the very first,uh, photograph of the trip.
Oh.
I'm gonna have to scroll throughand, and have a, another look
at that one now that I've gotmore context around it as well.
I was thinking there, David,you know how you're saying
everyone packs too muchwhen they first set off?

(09:16):
Mm-hmm.
It would've been interestingto see the difference of
what you had left whenyou arrived at cushioned.
All but, and I know thisall sounds so corny, cliche,
metaphoric, I'm not sure theright word, but in some degree
you panties would've beenoverflowing 'cause you had
so many experiences shoved inthere like two years, three
months worth of bike traveland literally true.

(09:36):
Because people give you stuff,they just, you know, and some
stuff you really, you reallywanna keep because like, it's
something cool, you know?
I remember when I wasin, uh, Uzbekistan.
This really niceguy gave me Japan.
Or Japan, I think there'stwo ways to pronounced it.
And it's like one of thesebig cotton jackets or coats.
It's like, it's all theway down to your ankles.
And it was so big and bulky.

(09:57):
It was perfect 'cause it waslike minus 18 degrees, but
like, I can't cycle all theway to Ireland with this thing.
Like, it's, it's, it's huge.
And where we gonna put it?
Did you want thetomay with that?
Like, no, I, I kept it fora couple of days.
I was like, as much as I enjoyedhaving it in that cold weather,
like now I'm gonna post it.
So I'd also bought like,um, one of these really
nice Uzbek dishes.
Like it's got this quitespecific pattern on,

(10:17):
on the, on the ceramic.
And I, I posted that stuffhome to Melbourne because
yeah, my pans would'veliterally been overflowing
all the way to Ireland.
Now I still, I'd stilllike what, a year, almost a
year to go from that point.
So I should know the answerto this, but Did you have
like a little bike mascot?
You know how some peoplehave like a little I did.
What was yours?
I sadly lost it too.
I lost it in Tajikistan.
Farewell friend.

(10:39):
It was actually a little rubberduck, a little rubber duck that
I find on the great northernhighway up in Western Australia.
And it had like wraparound sunsand like a high vis jacket and
a little, a little hard hat.
So it was obviously some sortof tra trady duck from the
mine or something like that.
Something like that, yeah.
Trying out on theside of the road.
And I, and I had him sortof, I had like a bit of
like netting on the frontof my, uh, handlebar bag and

(11:00):
I had him sort of sittingin there and it lasted
all the way to Tajikistan.
It was on the, uh, the Bar TankValley and with my, uh, not a
good friend Martin, a Frenchfellow that I met there and we
rode together for a week or so.
He bounced off at theCorrugations and, and I only
noticed like a day later, Iwas like, oh no, I mascot.
So just think he, he, he wentthrough all that headwind

(11:20):
and it was the corrugationsthat got him in the end.
Then as luck would have it,when I was in MHA in Iran,
I met some very, the firstof very, some very, very
nice people and they gave meanother little rubber duck.
I. And Yeah, Ididn't ask for it.
They just had it and they said,do you want this rubber eye?
I was like, yeah, I'll do it.
It's like a resurrection.
Yeah.
And so I cable tied this one.
I put a cuttle little holeon him so that I could
actually cable tie him andhe, there's no way he was

(11:41):
gonna bounce off the bike.
So he made it all the way.
Oh, I love it.
And listeners, if you are,I know that many of you
that tune into the showare actually mid adventure.
And if you were someone who'sdoing that and you have your own
little mascot, get in touch withme and let me know what it is.
I always love these littlethings 'cause I have done one
and only one ultra race and Ihad a little mascot for that and

(12:02):
it was like a little chicken.
Mm-hmm.
And it was funny becauseby the end of my ultra,
it was like sideways.
It, it, it looked how I feltwas the ultra race that you did.
Uh, it was in, um,the north of France.
It was called theNormandy Cat 900.
So it was 900 kilometersand I did it in 66 hours and
I think it was 13 minutes.
And it, it broke my behind.

(12:23):
Well and truly that's,that's awesome.
Like 900 Ks and 66 hours.
Wow.
Yeah.
And can I just say, there's notmuch of Normandy that's flash.
Mm. All sustained climbing.
It's not like the ine,like, like the Touro.
You're riding up for two hours.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it's all up and down.
One of those things that Istill don't believe I quite
did, and one of those thingsin the back of my head will
forever tick and going, doyou wanna do another one?

(12:46):
Because it's like that.
Yeah.
I think, I think it'sthat type two thing.
There's a sense of pride indoing it, but then there's
also now the understanding ofwhat that actually means to do
and how much it hurts to do.
But then there's that wickedpart of your brain that
goes, I would like to do it.
Mm-hmm.
And I have said it on this showbefore, David, if I did do it, I
think the event that I would do.
Would be the transatlanticway, which is in Ireland there.

(13:09):
So is there a risk for that one?
Do they, do they have a risk?
There is, yeah.
Right.
There is.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
There is.
Definitely do it.
Yeah.
Sign up for headwind andrain and epic coastlines.
Right.
Well,and also the self-flagellation
of like when the route takesevery coastal peninsula.
Mm. And you would knowthat route, right?
Yeah.
But, uh, you say about wind andrain, but I was so lucky I got

(13:29):
five or six days of sunshine.
I couldn't believe it.
It was warm, beautiful sunsetsand like, although then they
had the midges, but like.
It was very, veryuncharacteristic for the
time of year I was there.
So I was super, superlucky, but it's incredible.
Really beautiful.
The only bike packing I everdid in Ireland was over to
the west coast from Dublin.
'cause I lived in Irelandduring lockdown period.
So I was sort ofhemmed in for a while.

(13:50):
But we had Australian weatheron that bike packing trip.
It actually was 33 degrees.
Like when doesIreland get to 33?
Like 23 is a heat wave.
Yeah, I had the biggest 99ice cream of my life.
Maybe it's the upshot of climatechange that Ireland gets good
weather every now and again.
Maybe.
Although I think I saw somewherelast year, the average summer
temperature in Ireland lastyear was like 14.9 degrees.

(14:12):
So, uh, yeah, about right.
Let's move on from Ireland.
You did eventually get there,but I've gotta wind you back.
I'm gonna wind you back towhere we sort of left off
before I sped you up to Ireland.
Last time you told usabout this crazy train tip.
To get through TurkMinister, which would
drop you off in Iran.
Mm-hmm.
And so I wanna now take youback to that moment, get off

(14:33):
the train in Iran and tellme about the first few days
there, because it's a place,David, I've heard so many other
bike travelers talk about.
It's a place that so many ofus know for many different
reasons in the news.
Mm-hmm.
And everyone's experiences ofit are slightly different, but
no less captivating for me.
And I wanna hear what yourexperience in Iran was like.

(14:54):
I'll also add, it's a placethat my mother really, really
did not want me to go to.
She is she like, I'm sorry,Mrs. McCort.
Yeah.
She's like,David, please don't go to Anna.
I was like, mom, I'm sorry.
This is one of the places.
Uh, hello Mom, if you'relistening, this is one
of the places that'snon-negotiable for me.
Like I, it was, you know, whenI thought about the trip, it
was like India, central Asia,Iran must have, and, and the

(15:16):
kakais, which interestinglyenough, I didn't end up doing.
Because I went to Iraq, butlike, yeah, Iran was very much
at the top of those placesthat I, I needed to visit.
'cause I'd heard suchincredible things.
So I remember getting tothe border crossing from
Turk, Stan and the, thetop of this mountain pass.
So I, I took the train toAshgabat, I think it was
the capital, which is avery weird place to think I

(15:37):
described in the last episode.
And then I got driven upto the border, crossed
through tremendous andborder, no probs, and then
got to the Iranian side.
And there's like an office,but there's no one there.
I'm like, it's middleof the day, it's like
lunchtime, you know?
I'm like, where is everybody?
Like, and I had to waitfor like 20 minutes before
anybody even showed up.
The person did show up,had like, he was just like
a guy in a leather jacket.

(15:58):
He had no badge.
He had no nothing.
And he sort of went behind thecounter and he is like, yes.
And I was like, uh, canI come into Iran please?
And he's like, youknow, passport.
And then another guyshowed up eventually.
He also was wearing no uniform.
He was in a different windowand he started, gave me a very
light interrogation about whyI was coming into the country.
You know, you, what'syour profession?
Why are you here And how'syou not, I'm a tourist,
I'm just cycling, I'mcycling of Australia.

(16:20):
They were re they werevery friendly but just, you
know, it was like, I waslike, are you guys legit?
You don't look very legit.
You just look like some guyshave walked up the street,
are now behind a counter.
So eventually made myway through and I also
didn't have my money sort.
I had lot American dollars.
As you probably heard, youhave to bring your money into
Iran because of the sanctions.
There's no ATM systems there.
The banking system doesn'treally work there, does it?

(16:40):
They have a banking system,but it's for, for Iranians?
Yeah, as foreigners.
So like Visa andMasterCard, all that stuff.
Amex, none of that works.
Although I have heard, but Inever tried this myself 'cause
I had the money I needed.
I heard that some of the fancyhotels, do you have American.
Dollar ATMs, but Inever experienced that.
So I brought, I had to getall my American dollars out
way back in Uzbekistan, andI had to estimate how much
money was I gonna spendin Iran in three months.

(17:02):
I had no idea.
So I, I did a bit of, youknow, I put the feelers
out on the WhatsApp groups,you know, cycling east
and that sort of stuff.
And I got a rough idea ofhow much I was gonna spend.
And plus I was tryingto have money for Iraq.
So I was quite nervousin that regard.
But I also had no ideawhat the exchange rate
was because Turkmenistanhad censored internet and
I couldn't get online.
So then you had this whole,anybody who's been to RAM

(17:22):
will know there's like the,the government exchange
rate and then it's a blackmarket exchange rate.
You should change money onthe black market, right?
Yeah, definitely.
Because the black market,you get a lot more money
by 10 times as much.
Wow.
Compared to the official rateis, if I recall correctly,
so people, uh, correct meif I'm wrong, but like, and
what was crazy too is theinflation that's going on.
So when I entered Iran, itwas something like 490,000

(17:45):
AL or to or, or 49 Toman,which is like another unit
of measure to describe.
Hundreds of thousandsI think it is.
And by the time I left thecountry, so it was like,
let's say 40, 49 toman, bythe time I left the country,
that was to one US dollar.
By the time I leftit was up to like 65.
So what's that like, that's likea almost 25% swing in inflation
in, in just three months.

(18:06):
So that's just howcrazy it is, you know?
So the people in Iranare, are definitely
struggling economically.
So anyway, got into thecountry and I, and some guy
in the taxi was like, do youwanna exchange some cash?
Was like, I don't know,you're just some guy in
a taxi and I have no ideawhat the exchange rate is.
I was like, nah, nah, nah.
I, thankfully I had enough foodto do me for the first night,
so I just sort of applied on anduh, there was no place really.
It was just, there was asmall village, but there

(18:27):
was nothing opening.
'cause there's,was it Ramadan yet?
Might've been cominginto Ramadan, no.
How?
Ramadan hadn't quitestarted, but I was
nervous about that too.
'cause being in anotherIslamic country, I'd spent
Ramadan in Indonesia,Malaysia, the year before.
And then it's reallyhard to get food.
And as a cyclist you'rehungry all the time.
Right?
So it was cold too.
Like I'd been, I'd beenin wintery conditions
basically since.

(18:48):
September and it was nowDecember, late December.
I'd already had a Christmas inUzbekistan, but I was getting
pretty tired of being coldand I was still quite up high.
And that first nightwas pretty chilly.
And I'd heard about wolvesin the mountains and so many
times people that told meabout the wolves be kept,
be careful of the wolves.
And I was like, whatwol are the wolves?
I don't know.
And yeah, I made me quitenervous 'cause I, I dunno

(19:09):
what to do with the wol.
Like, should youthrow rocks at it?
Should you like run?
I, you know, and so youget in your own head
about these things.
And I was in quite a narrowcanyon and there was no,
not many people around,in fact, no people around
where I was camping.
I was just like this rocky sortof canyon with the wee river.
And as you know, just,I remember being quite
nervous about it.
Wolves and bears in that place.
'cause I'd heard they'd existed.

(19:30):
So what are you meantto do with a wolf?
Did you ever find out?
Um, no, but what I did find outwas it almost never happens.
You almost, it's super,super rare to see a wolf
anywhere, basically.
But everyone warns you about it.
Well, the locals love a goodyarn about a wolf.
There's always like, youknow, oh, there's wolves
in the, you know, there'swve in the mountains.
Don't go to the mountains.
Is it sort of like us Aussiestelling a backpacker

(19:52):
about drop bears?
Could well be, I dunnoif it's a nin engine.
'cause I think, I thinkthey do believe it.
You know, I spoke to manyIranians, they're like,
oh, what about the wolves?
And I was like, wait,so there are wolves?
Or they're not wolves.
But I remember speaking to,uh, a biologist on WhatsApp
and other cyclists, and I waslike, so, or, uh, as ologist,
that's like, so what's the data?
Like, are there woes?
I'm like, there are,but they're very rare.
And they're, they're, most ofthe time they're scavengers.

(20:12):
It's very, it's very rarefor somebody to be attacked.
You know?
You'd have to be, I thinkthey said something like.
You'd have to be injured or theycan, they can tell when you're,
you're gonna be an easy target.
You know,it takes me back to, um,
when I was interviewinganother awesome Aussie
bike traveler, Steph DeVry.
Hi Steph.
She's in Canada at the moment.
People agent, but I'mtrying to remember where

(20:32):
she was riding through.
I think it might'veeven been Saudi Arabia
or something like that.
Maybe.
And people were warningher about the wolves there.
And Steph's reaction was like,man, I would kill to see a wolf.
Like I'm not scaredof the wolves.
I thought that issuch a Steph reaction.
But we're also talking about thesame Steph who was like sleeping
and there was like lions outsideher tent and like hippos.

(20:53):
Uh, yeah.
Like she was Yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah.
Another level of,of brave, I reckon
Steph is awesome.
I, I think everyonewho's listening to
this show would agree.
Mm-hmm.
And Steph, if you're tuningin, you know, we already
think you're awesome too.
A hundred percentbig inspiration.
For sure.
So the first few days you, youobviously didn't see wolves.
Did you see bears oranything like that?
No.
No.
Uh, I knew there was a placein Southeast Turkey van.

(21:15):
There's some campsite thatis great to camp in, but
there are bears frequentlycited there because they know
people camp and there's food.
So that's one place whereyou're kind of guaranteed.
But in the end, no, I didn't,I didn't see any, and I still
remained a little bit nervousuntil I finally spoke to that
biologist, but that was afew months later, I reckon.
So, and I was only in thewilderness for the first
day or two before I finallygot into a small town.
And that's when Istarted to experience

(21:37):
the Iranian hospitality.
Like I was trying tofind a place to exchange
money and I didn't know,should I go to a bank?
Should I go to whatever?
And I was trying to getinternet, but I couldn't
get internet 'cause Ihad mo no money yet.
Although they do acceptAmerican dollars.
But I only had ahundred dollars notes.
And so it's like I can't, youknow, I dunno if I'm gonna
get ripped off of a pay here.
So if some guy stopped me,some actually two guys in the
car, like, can we help you?
Well the first thing islike, welcome to my country

(21:59):
and where are you from?
And I was like, I'mfrom Australia but
Ireland and I'm cycling.
And then they were sonice, they're like,
yeah, come with me.
We're our friend.
He's a guy.
And I was like,it's this a scam.
I don't know, like,let's just take it upon.
'cause it heard so muchabout the incredible
kindness and friendlinessand hospitality of Iranians.
I was like, here we go.
Let's see what happens.
And these guys took me to thisguy's, uh, to their friend's.
Exchange place.

(22:20):
And, you know, he looked sododgy, like had the slicked back
hair, like big God, they didn't.
And all the rings,all the gold rings.
It was like, uh, I dunnohow this is gonna go, but
I was offered lots of tea.
And then we had a big old chat.
It was not aboutthe business at all.
I was like, whatare you doing here?
How you going?
Like, Joe, want some food?
What can we do for you?
And finally, you know, they,um, they gave me the raid
and I was like, can you guysgimme internet so I can check?

(22:40):
I just, I know it's notthat I don't trust you, I
just, I just wanna confirm.
And they're like, no,it's fine, it's fine.
And they gave me aperfectly fine rate.
It was no problem at all.
And then they took me to arestaurant and they bought me
lunch, if I recall correctly.
And they showed me this kebaband I was like, okay, now
we're, now, now we're cooking.
So, yeah, and it, so itwas really nice to have
that first bit of kindness.
And it was the first ofbasically what was like

(23:01):
probably a minimum five timesa day sort of deal in Iran.
Like I experienced so muchkindness on the road A across
the world, particularly inper countries and particularly
in Muslim countries.
But I say this to anybody thatI'm telling about the trip when
I got to Iran and hello to allmy Iranian friends out there.
I've got someIranian friends here.
In Australia as well asIranian friends back in Iran.

(23:22):
But Iranians were like headand shoulders above the rest
of the world in terms oftheir, just the frequency of
their hospitality and thenthe level of the hospitality.
It was just, they'rejust insanely kind and
generous and welcoming.
There's so many peoplejust, you know, they
just wanna have a chat.
They wanna take you homeand have lunch or dinner.
They went me for aday, stay for a month.
They won't let youpay for anything.
So I was talking about earlierabout money and I think I acted

(23:45):
in maybe, uh, was it about athousand bucks American maybe?
Maybe 1200 bucks American forthe three months In the end,
I think I spent less than$600 US across three months.
And Iran is very cheap bysay Australian standards.
But it wasn't just thecheapness, it was the
generosity of people.
When you were the guest,they refuse to let you pay.
And anybody who's beento Iran will know about

(24:06):
this social conventioncalled Tarro Narrative.
Tarro.
No, I haven't, I never,I know about Iranian
hospitality, but this,you're enlightening me now.
Speak about what is it?
Tarro?
Uh, and it, I stilldon't understand it.
It's like, it's quite complexand it's this thing about,
you know, it's kinda likeholding the door for somebody
and it's like a complex socialdynamic where, you know,
depending on your status andYeah, and who has to do the

(24:27):
tar off and there's a certainnumber of times you do it
before you say, okay, I will.
Or, you know, and this islike pain or often to cook
or whatever the thing is.
Thankfully, uh, it doesn'treally apply to foreigners
because they know youdon't really understand it.
So I would just, you know,play the dumb foreigner
and I didn't understand.
So j I'd just say, isthis tariff or what
are we doing here?
Is this, is this thedance or is this, is this
you just being generous?

(24:48):
And they've said, no,no, it's so tariff.
But I think about half thetime it probably was tariff,
but you still have to play it.
And so it was very confusing.
But it's just this like, yeah,as I say, this complex social
convention about generosityand, and not blinking first.
Anyway, you know, whetherI was a guest, you would,
they would let you pay.
But also, you know, I wasgoing to say the bakery or the,
the GR grocer or the littlecorner shop that had always had

(25:09):
like a nice express machine.
I'd be getting a littlecoffee and I'd say about
40% of the time they justwouldn't let you pay.
And I'd be like, what?
They're like, you're my guest.
I'm like, no, I'm not.
I just, I've justwalked into your shop.
I've been here forlike two minutes.
Like, no, no, welcometo my country.
And then you see, you walkoff with a, with a bag of
vegetables or a bigger, it'snuts, isn't it?
Mm-hmm.
Obviously it's cultural,but I often wonder, like,

(25:30):
I've heard this about Iran.
In fact, I rememberthe first time I heard
about it, I think it wasanother Aussie Mark Gress.
Hi Mark who similar, very,very similar to yourself there.
David Road through Australia.
Mm-hmm.
Mark did the Gibb River Road andah, cool.
Oh yeah.
And actually listeners, mark isjust about in a month and a half
in May is going to be settingoff to walk across Australia.

(25:53):
Reallyshout out his, his Instagram
handle is budgie esee,so follow him along.
But he told me about Iran andthen Roxy and Tommy, other
guests who traveled east fromEurope to Australia, they
famously said, you cannotcycle fast through Iran.
It doesn't matterwhat you think.
You, you will not gothrough that country fast.
It is impossible because of howgenerous the people are, but

(26:14):
mm-hmm.
Like, it's cultural.
But what do you thinkit is that, that, that
makes it that way?
Like, you musthave pondered this.
Definitely.
I think it's multifaceted.
Uh, I think primarily it's,it's, it's deeply rooted,
rooted in their culture.
It just, and that's,that's going back thousands
of years, like Iran is.
In that sort of regionof one of the birthplaces

(26:34):
of civilization, right?
Like sort of Persia andancient Mesopotamia and
all that sort of stuff.
So I think it's just beenpart of their culture
for so, so very long.
It's also a predominantly Muslimcountry, and that's also a
massive part of Muslim culture.
Yeah.
And like welcoming travelersand stuff like that.
I think that exactly that's partof Muslim culture is a traveler
is like a gift from Ella orGod or something, isn't it?

(26:54):
I think I've heard somethingalong the lines of, yeah, like
a, a stranger is an opportunityto be kind to God, but I
could be wrong about that.
So, um, Muslim friends, pleasecorrect my understanding if
it's wrong, but yeah, I thinkthe other side of it, which
is I think less of a, less ofa, a factor, but certainly a
factor is, so Iran is a verygeopolitically isolated country.

(27:15):
You know, obviously the West andthe global North has sanctions
on Iran and, and I certainlydon't agree with the policies
of the government there,but it's the people of Iran
that are suffering the most.
And I, I encounteredthis in a similar sort
of vibe in Pakistan,although a, a different,
in a, in a different way.
But I, I maybe felt that someof the people there, in fact,
a lot of the people therethat I I met were quite eager

(27:36):
to show that their countryis not as high, uh, as it's
portrayed in Western media.
Were not, so when I'm talkingabout Pakistan here, we're
not all terrorists and,you know, and so what do
you hear about Pakistanand the, and Western media?
They're all terror.
You know, it's onlyabout the terrorism.
You don't hear about theincredible hospitality.
You don't hear about the rich.
Rich culture of the country,the cuisine and, and the
incredible landscapes.

(27:56):
You used to hear about AlQA or you hear about SAMA
and all that sort of stuff.
And in a similar way,I think, in Iran.
'cause all we hear aboutis, you know, the axis
of, uh, evil or whatever.
And, and they're trying to getnuclear weapons or they're,
they're gonna attack the west,they're gonna blah, blah, blah.
And I think the peopleof that country are like,
well, hang on a second.
That's not what we are at all.
And we want to, we want to makesure that people, when they do
come to our country, we showthem what we're really like.

(28:18):
It's not a fake thing.
It's not them justputting on a show.
It's like, this is how wereally are and we're gonna
make the effort to showyou this is how we are.
Well, that's sort of beenmy hunch on it as well.
Mm-hmm.
That it does stem from that.
You mentioned Iran was anon-negotiable for you because
you'd heard of this, there'san element where you're
expecting it to a degree, butdid it still blow you away?

(28:40):
Oh, a hundred percent Asyou say, uh, was it Roxy and
who was the other person?
Sorry?
Tommy Roxy and Tommy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You can't go fast.
You, you, they, they, youthink, okay, I'm just gonna
come in for a cup of tea.
Next thing you know, there'slunch and you're sitting there
and you're meeting the wholefamily and they're like, do
you wanna come to my garden?
'cause they often, like inmany of the Iranian cities,
they'll have the apartmentor whatever in the city.
And then they'll have like alittle plot with a, you know,

(29:01):
like a, a beautiful garden.
And I was there in wintertime,so there wasn't much growing.
But in summertime, youknow, they'll have all
this fresh fruit or likedates or whatever the thing
is coming out the garden.
And you know, like, you know,sort of like the Italian
Greeks or the SouthernEuropean culture where
everybody's growing something.
Yeah.
And then you go to the garden,they're like, oh, well my
cousin's having a party tonight.
You wanna come to the party,you know, kinda thing.
So there's always areason to stay longer.

(29:22):
And I absolutely would've.
And I, and I did spend afull three months in a round.
I was lucky enough to get athree month visa and I used
every single day of that.
I went as fast as I could,but at the same time,
like, you know, it waslike cycling through months
in the best possible way.
Yeah.
And I imagine so many differentexperiences and as you said,
friendships made there as well.
Mm-hmm.
I've heard amazing food.
See, this is one area whereIran didn't blow me away.

(29:44):
India.
Oh my gosh.
India.
Yeah, India was definitely peak.
I know maybe it's acontroversial statement,
but it was good.
Don't get, it wasn't bad.
I can see Indian foodwould Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Oh, and I guess youmade your way through
Southeast Asia first too.
Absolutely.
Love all the noodles andall the sort of stuff you
get in Asia, Southeast Asia.
Did the cuisine just fall offa cliff as you made your way
along then it's like, it sortof was, was it like a crescendo

(30:06):
when then it just dipped off or?
No, it was a constant,constant picks and, and chops,
I guess you finished itoff with, with, you know,
perfect Guinness at the end.
Right.
And Hardy roast dinners.
But you know, all throughEurope, you know, like the
pork euros in Greece arelike pizzas and like all
like Italy was amazing.
France.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The Balkans, you know, like no.
And Turkey had incredible food.

(30:27):
So no food was definitely, um,staying really, really, uh, high
up in, in terms of standards.
But in Iran what I heard wasthe best food is served at home.
It's all home,home cooked stuff.
Yeah, you can take good stuffin restaurants, but the best
stuff is when you're at home.
So I did have some nice meals,but I dunno, my experience
was a lot of chicken,chicken and rice dishes.
So I don't think I, Iexperienced the best of Iranian

(30:47):
cuisine, in fact, since I'vecome home, a Persian friend
at a birthday party, and Ishouted to Sahar, they hosted
a, a, like a bigger, a Persianfeast, and I tasted dishes that
I never actually saw in Iran,and they're like, really, like
specialized homecooked noodles.
So there's some restaurantin Melbourne apparently
that does this, likespecializes home cooked stuff.
So, oh my God.
Yum.
I'm much more varied than alot of the stuff I encountered,
certainly in restaurants,so, mm. But speaking of

(31:10):
foods, uh, I, I got to acity called BJ Nord, which
is sort of the northeast Iwas making my way along the
northeast, and I was gonnaeventually hit the Caspin area
before punching into Tehran.
And I stayed with a warm scarhost, shout out to a Min, and I
met so many people called Amin,and so many people called Ali
Reza, or Reza, like, it's justa very, or Moham is a very,
very common names in Iran.
But Amin, uh, had hosted me inhis cousin's garden, so it was

(31:33):
his cousin's birthday, and I metlike 30, 40 people at the party
and we're all having a greattime selfies and food and, you
know, sitting around this nicefire and this beautiful garden
in the middle of wintertime.
We established that there wasgonna be another party that
night at the cousin's apartment.
And I'd been saying to Amin thatI would love to cook a roast
dinner for them because I hadn'thad access to an oven for,
I don't know, months really.

(31:55):
And I saw he had anoven at his house when I
first got the apartment.
And so it was kind on my mind.
And Amin, it was like,well, do you wanna cook
a a roast for my cousin?
I was like, yeah, why not?
Does she have an oven?
And she's like, yeah,you, she's got an oven.
I was like, okay, cool.
And then it just sortof blew out from there.
It's like, well actually there'sgonna be a few more people.
And I was like, how many people?
And I went from like.
10 to 15.
Oh my gosh.
20. How many?
All like, oh whoa.

(32:15):
30 people in the end I think.
Pressure match.
Yeah.
I was like, uh, how big'sthe oven because I don't
know if I can cook for30 people in one oven.
And they're like, don'tworry, don't worry.
We can use the other ovens.
I was like, what other ovens?
I'm like, uh, my sisterlives upstairs and my
brother lives downstairs.
'cause this is alsoquite common in Iran and
Middle Eastern countries.
The families live in apartmentblocks and they're all
sort of beside each other.
And so yeah, we canuse the other ones.

(32:36):
And I was like, okay.
So I think in the end itwas about 30 people and I
cooked like a traditionalsort of Irish roast dinner.
Sohow many potatoes did you need?
Uh, an absolute boatloadof potatoes and you
know, we're peeling themon all sort of stuff.
And I did have a lot ofsous chefs and so yeah,
I cooked this dinner.
I crossed three floors,three apartment floors.
I crossed three ovens and Ihad vegetables, boiler car,

(32:57):
boiling spuds, and like Iwas running up and down the
stairs, checking on them.
It was absolute lum.
And I couldn't have doneit without the people that
helped, because otherwiseI definitely would've burnt
something and this huge pot ofgravy and the food was laid,
but when it didn't come outand everybody had it, 'cause
I don't think they've everhad a meal like that before.
Everybody was so stoked.
And we had some homemadewine and had a lot, we
did some dancing and somelike traditional stuff.
And, uh, yeah, it was areally, really fun occasion.

(33:20):
And yeah, completelyunexpected to find myself
cooking for 30 people insome random city I'd never
heard of and around before.
What a, what a moment.
You know what?
I live for the foodstories on this podcast.
I always find a way tosneak food stories in
David to every episode.
This, this one takes a cake.
Next time you couldcook them a cake.
Yeah, I mean, I thought,okay, the food's already
about an hour later, the mood.

(33:41):
I'll just leave it there.
But I was, I was tempted.
I was tempted.
So, but from there Isort of made my way west,
uh, to the casting area.
And that, that in itselfwas pretty incredible
because you go from being.
I pictured around being quitemountainous Desert Dry and
it was in places and where Ientered from Turk Stan, the
area was exactly like that.
But then within a day, like70 kilometers or something,
I went from that landscape.

(34:02):
I just, I got up one overthis little mountain range.
I can't remember is itthe arb, rose Mountains.
And you're now in likesort of the Caspian Basin.
So this is like a regionthat is just north of the
mountain range that sort offorms a North central or Iran.
I felt like it was in Ireland.
It had went from beingdry basically nothing.
Nothing growing.
Maybe the odd tree to like lushgreen bales just fatal after.

(34:24):
So this is one of theregions which Iran grows
a lot of its foods.
So basically all the land iscultivated so they're grown
oranges and vegetables andall sorts and yeah, I just
couldn't believe how Lusher was,would've been very stark
because even if I think aboutyour leading up to Iran, like
the landscapes in Iran, asideall that Central Asia, like
the high altitude landscapes.

(34:45):
The isolated deserts ofUzbekistan and Central Asia
to get through as well.
Like, I'm not thinkingof lush vegetation.
Same.
So it would've beenvery unexpected.
Chalk and cheese.
Yep.
What about weather-wise then?
Was that a difference too?
Because you'd come throughwinter, did it, when did it
start feeling really warmer?
Well, not for alittle while yet.
'cause I was still in northof Iran and this is, this
is like December, January.

(35:05):
It would've been grim then.
Yeah, it was very grim and itwas pretty chilly at nighttime.
So I'd, I'd had the, theGregorian calendar, new Year's
Eve, like our, our, our oneand, and that was a big,
that was like a non-starter.
They don't celebrate it in Iran.
'cause in Iran, their NewYear's Eve is in March
and it's called Nauru.
And it's, it's a hugecelebration for, for Persians.
But it's, it goes to the,I think it's the Persian
calendar, so that wasn't gonnabe for another few months,

(35:28):
but thankfully I was gonnabe in the country for that.
Is it like on the 1st of March?
Not sure, but it's, yeah,I think, I think it sort of
ties in with like, you know,spring and the end of winter
and had all the promise.
Oh, I wonder if it'son the Equinox maybe.
Yeah, quite possibly.
But incent all that sadly,I, I missed now too because.
I had come down witha horrendous flu.
It wasn't respiratory, but Ijust was beavering hard for

(35:49):
like five days and I was campedwhen I first encountered this.
And I woke up one morning,I was like, I cannot move.
So I just sort of stayedin my tent all day on the
side of the road and I wasfrantically looking for couch
surfing hosts or like a, or awarm shark host that I could
pull up with for a few days.
I look like I'm really sorry,I'm not gonna be a good guest.
I'm really sick.
I just need to lie downand just get through this.
And this really, reallynice, uh, fellow whose

(36:10):
name is Gibson, and I putme up him and his family.
And ironically they were likethe only family in Theran who
didn't celebrate in a rulesin any sort of meaningful way.
Oh.
And, and even so, evenso, I was too sick for it.
Like I couldn't, I couldbarely get outta bed, let
alone, you know, eat the foodand like, you know, do the
dancing and all sort of stuff.
But, um, he very kindly tookme to the hospital and night,
not for the first time whenthe trip got hooked up to a

(36:32):
drip and got like the nicevitamin, you know, the vitamin
cocktails straight into the arm.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Saline up pleaseseal and all the
vitamins and you justfeel so good afterwards.
I did eventually, uh, getbetter enough to then move on
towards the, the Iraqi border.
But yeah, I was supergrateful for that.
But hopping back to the earlierstages of Iran and the Caspian
area, it was really nice tosee a body of water, a big

(36:54):
body of water again for thefirst time in a long time.
So the Caspian, althoughit was definitely quite
underwhelming, like it wasn'tvery pretty, there was a lot
of trash and it was like avery bland, gray, overcast day.
So I crossed the mountains, metsome more incredible people,
had this lovely little sideadventure near Mountain Dam
van, which is this big peak,this big sort of conical peak.
What a volcanic sort oflooking Yeah, yeah.

(37:15):
It's like really, reallybeautiful but no cap peak.
And I ended up sending, uh,a fellow I met, I met him,
his friend ran a tea stall atlike a service station, and
I was sleeping at the moss.
I slept in the moss thatnight, and we just got
chatting and had cups of tea.
He's like, oh, myuncle's coming tomorrow.
Do you wanna come say at, at myuncle's, uh, like holiday house?
He's like.
Sure, where is it?
He is like, he just gimmethe name of the village.
And when I passed through, Igot him on the text line and

(37:36):
this guy arrived with his uncleand we drove up down, it was
sh snow, like, and I wish I hadskis on with me because like it
was like lighter snow, you know?
And we, um, drove upthis village road is
super, super steep.
I was like, reallyglad not to be cycling.
In fact, cycl would've beenimpossible because of the
snow and eventually the carcouldn't even keep going.
So it was like, it's not,it's not too much further,
but we'll have to walkthe last bit because it
was just too much snow.

(37:57):
So we, we took a, you know,the backpacks and stuff.
I, I, um, stole my bicyclein some shopkeepers shop
and we, we trudge throughthe snow and it felt like
it took, it felt like threeK from where the car stops.
And I got to this littlehouse from the top of this
village and he turned onthis oil heater and, you
know, next thing you know,we're drinking tea and eating
this delicious, warm meal.
And, you know, having, havinglash and, and the next morning
we got these incredibleviews of this mountain.

(38:19):
So yeah, it was justone of countless little
side experiences.
Where people welcomeme into their home.
Oh, absolutely.
Me.
I think Is that one of thebiggest gifts that you sort
of don't realize you're aboutto give yourself when you take
a journey like you did David?
Like just all the experiencesall condensed, like you, you
were saying at the start.
It, it's sort of really cool tobe able to sit down to share the
stories and speak about them.

(38:40):
Mm-hmm.
I remember during our firstsession, one of your motivations
to take this journey wasall about actually when you
listened to the stories.
Was it your friend?
Was it, is it Tom Mackey?
Yes.
Tom Mackey, well remembered.
I remembered you, Tom.
Hello.
And, and he had come backfrom a ride, was it around
Australia or something?
And he was sharingstories with you and so.

(39:02):
You know, just that ideathat you are now in that
position to do that.
The reason I say that is Ireached out to someone that
you met on your journey.
'cause I imagine you met afew bike travelers, right?
I did indeed.
Although, actually not asmany as I thought I would.
I thought because I wasgoing against the flow.
I thought I was goingagainst all the Europeans.
You were traveling east,you'd be meeting 'em all
the time, but you weren't.
No, I I, I did meet a few.

(39:23):
You obviously went off thebeaten path a little bit.
Mm-hmm.
So just bear with me here.
So I'm gonna read you thismessage and I'll see if
you can guess who it is.
Okay.
David is such a legend.
I'm extremely lucky to haverandomly met him in Turkey.
I was like a puppy listeningto his stories all day.
We sacked off the day anddecided to camp on a, I know
who this, just so I couldlisten to more of his stories.

(39:46):
I cannot wait for thisnext episode with David.
The man is so goodat telling stories.
That's gotta beFergal Rossi, Tazy.
Yes.
Rossi to Ozzy.
Fergal, ISS gonnabe on the show.
So we get to lookforward to that.
Ah, class.
Yeah, you'll have goodfun talking to him.
Will I what?
He's been through thewars in China for sure.
He's now in Vietnam.
Anyway, yeah,this is Al's question for you.

(40:07):
I'm gonna play it for you and,um, you can tell me your answer.
Hey Davis.
Hey Bella.
I hope you can hear meall right as I'm coming to
you from Northern Vietnam.
Uh, David, my man, it's beena while since we met on that
quiet coastal road in Turkey.
Your stories immediatelygrabbed me just as I'm sure
everyone listening rightnow is captivated by hearing
those same experiences.

(40:28):
Uh, when we met, you hadrecently traveled through some
of the most dangerous regionsaccording to Western media.
It was from hearing about yourjourney that inspired me to
take the leap myself and ventureinto some of those same areas.
So my question is this.
In a world that often focuses ondanger and uncertainty, what was
it that gave you the convictionto embrace that risk and go down

(40:51):
those roads yourself and forother bike packers considering
such challenging routes?
What would be your adviceon balancing the lore of
a venture with the realityof potential danger?
Cracking question, right?
Yeah.
Uh, a very wellarticulated question.
Thank you very much,Fergal, and I hope you're
doing well in Vietnam.
I just saw you've donethe high hand yang

(41:11):
Lipper, what's it called?
The, um,no, I, well, that's how I
would pronounce it as well.
And I mean, Fergal Hasshad such an incredible
freaking journey himself.
Absolutely.
And he'd have many stories,so I'm very excited
to hear his episode.
He will, he will.
He is indefinitely in adifferent climate now than
he was in when he was goingthrough China in wintertime.
But back to you, backto gel's question, how

(41:31):
would you answer that?
And, and the reason I broughtit up now is you were ma,
you, when you finished Iran,were making a decision whether
to go through Armenia orIraq and you chose Iraq.
So it's sort of right part ofthe trajectory here, but what
made you choose those parts?
Yes.
I think a few things though.
You, you mentioned Tom beforeand hearing his stories of being
on the road and the kindnessthat he experienced, and granted

(41:54):
that was way back in Australia,so we're not talking about
countries like Iran or Iraq,but you hear such negative
stuff about, but I'd, I'd heardfrom other bike travelers, the
more, the more I got suckedinto the world of bike traveling
and bike tour and, and hearingthe stories and you know, for
example, reading Al Humphreysbooks as well and all the
other stuff that I got amongst,at the very least, there's a
curiosity to go is, oh, canpeople really be that good?
Can the peoplereally be that nice?

(42:15):
But I also think deep downinside me, I have a, I had
a faith that people, mostpeople in the world are good.
Most people are just ordinaryhuman beings with families and
moms and dads or, and they goto school and they have jobs
and they, they have to eat.
And this is actually when peopleask me like, what was one of the
main takeaways from my journey?
This is, this isusually what I say.

(42:37):
There are 1,000,001 waysto be a human being.
We're so diverse.
There's so many ways to expressyour humanity and, you know,
and to, to live in this world.
Whether it's through, youknow, your culture, your
religion, your language,your food, your your dress,
all that sort of stuff.
But then at the same time,we're all at diversity.
We're all fundamentallythe same as well.
We're all just people andwe have hearts and we love

(43:00):
and we laugh and we cryand we sleep and we're,
you know, we're human.
And so I set off on thisjourney with, if not a
hundred percent faith, avery strong inclination that
this is how it was gonna be.
And the people of the worldnot only met my expectations,
but they far exceeded them.
The level of kindness andgenerosity and welcoming the

(43:22):
welcome that I experiencedfrom so many people across
the world just blew me away.
And when I look back on thetrip now, 'cause it's been about
six months since I finished,this is what stands out to me.
Yeah.
I had, I, thenature blew me away.
The food and all thatsort of stuff and, and
the round of adventures.
But really.
I think the thing thatstands out the most is the
interactions with the peopleand just how much goodness
there is in the world.

(43:42):
And I think that's so importantto highlight because, you know,
as we're talking about before weget on the recording, like there
is so much negativity out there,there's so many reasons to think
the world isn't in good shape.
And I'm not tryingto sugarcoat it.
Like there's lots of stuff tobe upset and angry about, but
at the same time, it's just asimportant to give as much time
to the goodness that's out therejust waiting to be discovered

(44:03):
and waiting to be seen and felt.
Especially if you go on ajourney like this, if you ever
have any doubt about the stateof the people of the world and
just how much goodness or notthere is, get on your bike and
cycle halfway across the worldor even the, a continent or
a country and you'll, you'lldiscover it for yourself.
What I'm not saying is I'mnot guaranteeing that you're
not gonna have hardship,that you're not gonna have
a hard, a hard experience.

(44:23):
Like Fergal will tell youin his, I'm sure in his
episode, like he encountereda pretty challenging time,
a massive testament to al's,uh, tenacity, but also.
His heart that he didn't letthat experience change how he
saw the people of the world.
He had, he had, he hadone bad experience amongst
countless good ones.
And so what I'm getting at hereis I think the vast majority

(44:44):
of people are actually goodat heart and they, they will
treat you, especially at anindividual level, treat you
with kindness in decency.
I mean, that's theoverwhelming message I get.
And I think we have aresponsibility too, you know,
because yeah, you might havehad the bad experience, but
as I think is so often thecase, and I think you know this
more than most because you'vetalked to people I've, I've
shared their stories with you.

(45:05):
Yeah.
There might have beenone or two challenging
times and you do hear theoccasional horror story.
Then how many incrediblestories of goodness and
kindness are you ignoringto focus on that one thing?
And so when it comes to talkingabout a country, especially
something like somewhere likeIran or say Iraq or Pakistan
or, or Sudan or whateverplaces, you know, that has
such a bad reputation fordifferent reasons, if you have

(45:25):
experience that doesn't liveup to what you've been told
and the, and the message, andI would say propaganda that
is so often pushed in Westernmedia if your experience.
So what I'm not saying, bythe way, is make stuff up.
Like be true, be honestabout experience.
But it would be irresponsible tofocus on the negative experience
or the, or the out there story.
Just 'cause it's noteworthywhen you actually had, you know,

(45:47):
uh, 99% of your experienceswere full of kindness and
decency and goodness of, frompeople like that just wouldn't
be, it wouldn't be right.
You know?
Yeah.
Um, so before getting backinto thinking mode, 'cause
I know it blended on about,around, but there are a few
things I wanna tell you peopleabout it 'cause it's little
known and it's, I wanna tellyou this Sadams Castle story.
You totally needto tell me that.
So hang on.
Saddam's Castle.
I'm thinking this is in Iraq.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(46:08):
So you decided notto go to Armenia and
you would go to Iraq.
Yeah.
And the reason for that,I met, uh, a few people
along the way who had toldme about Kurdistan, Iraq.
I didn't even knowyou could go to Iraq.
I was, I was like, I assumedit was just too dangerous.
But you know, looking backon the trip, one thing
I would've changed wasalso good to Afghanistan.
I was gonna ask, didyou go to Afghanistan?
No.
It's the onlystand I didn't hit.
And I wish I had because Tammaanother Irish fellow that

(46:31):
I did actually meet on thejourney, we almost crossed paths
actually in Iran, but then alsoway back in Southeast Asia.
But I finally met Tamma when Iwent to his pub in Kerney Carey.
He invited me and he wasa fantastic host, fed
me, watered me as manypounds, had enough again,
us to sink a ship as well.
And we had a, we had awig crack for one night.
'cause at that stage he was ina rush, but finally met Toma.
So shout out to you mate.
And he's actually now,oh, I think he's in

(46:53):
Syria at the moment.
So speaking of placesthat you don't, you
thought you couldn't go.
Because when I was doing myjourney, Tamma has done Gino,
you know, Tamas By the way,have you used seen this?
I think I do.
I'm just trying to thinkof what his, what his
Insta Is he on Instagram?
Mass M It's on, yeah.
Oh, I've been swapping messagesbecause Tamma lives at
the GI Talk area, which iswhere people speak Irish

(47:13):
as their first language.
And he's, he's been in Syria,so that's gonna be fascinating.
'cause I'm not sure how manybikers have actually been
through there since, and I'dbe really interested to see
what he has to say about it.
But like, you know, that'snot over, you know, there's
still a lot of stuff goingon in that country right now.
So I, I had my good time,uh, with my friends,
uh, near Mount Dam.
Van and headed down into Teran.

(47:35):
And you're asking beforeabout, you know, when did
the warm weather start?
Well, by this point, it'dbeen almost like a four
or five month winter.
I'd been pretty cold sinceNorthern Pakistan, and I'd heard
that down in the Persian Gulfand the south, south of Iran.
It was a beautiful time ofyear, like 21, 22 degrees,
crystal clear water.
I was like, I go, I'm going.
I'm making a break for it.
Like I've hadenough this winter.
So.
After having a great time inTehran and, and having a good

(47:56):
poke around there, including,I have to mention, if you find
yourself in Tehran, a mustdo is what was the former us
What is the former US Embassyin Tehran and is now funnily
named the US den of espionage?
Like a museum or something or,yeah, it's essentially
a museum and it's, it'sreally, really interesting.
Deeply need that.
'cause I'm really interestedin the geopolitical stuff
too, to be outside thewest and then receiving,

(48:20):
you know, another take on,on the state of affairs.
And there's a lot of antiwestern propaganda in there,
like anti US propaganda.
But you know what, I don'tthink it's all untrue.
Like there's, there's alot of truth to what you're
seeing there, and I'm not, I'mnot saying that the Iranian
government's got a perfectrecord of fact far from it,
but some of the stuff you seethere, it definitely highlights
at the very least the hypocrisyof the West and the global

(48:40):
North and American imperialismand all the other empires that
have come before it that have,you know, torn across the
world only to just eventuallycrumble, but at the cost
of, uh, suffering and death.
Still need peopleacross the world still.
But it's deeply fascinating togo there and you can sort of see
you people might have seen thatmovie Argo, which talks about
the hostages that we're taking.
That's based on a true story.
So you, you get to seethe American Embassy some

(49:02):
places, as it was, 'causethey were, they caught
people like trying to shred.
Paper that was, you know,collecting information,
spying on Iran.
Um, so that was really cool.
But anyway, so I decidedto take a, uh, a bus to the
south because I didn't haveenough time to cycle all the
way to the south and thenall the way back north again.
So I took a, an overnight busand actually posted my train,
my bicycle by, by train, becauseit was gonna be a lot easier

(49:24):
logistically than trying to,you know, take the weeds off
the bike to put it on the bus.
And I found myself down in acity in the south called Band
Bass, and I'd heard aboutthese series of islands.
I didn't even knowIran had islands.
It was news to me whenyou gave me a little
remit of where you went.
And I was like, islands in Iran.
I was like, oh gosh, my mapof the world keeps growing.
Yeah.
And uh, you know, these placeswere in any other country,

(49:44):
certainly in any westerncountry, they'd be world famous.
But because it's in Iranand because of the, the
geopolitical isolation,you don't hear about them.
So I went to an island calledTMOs, and, uh, oh, I'm going,
I cannot say this other Clike, uh, Persian friends.
I'm sorry.
It's so, it's so hard to say.
But it's spelt G-E-S-H-M.
I say Kechum, but it's,it's like ga it's like,

(50:07):
is this, is this is thisStein that I just can't do.
It's like me and the Frenchare, we will never get on.
Yeah.
It's, it's hard.
But still any Persian friendsever, you wanna, you know,
post in the, the comments,whatever about how to
extra pronounce this word.
But that island kechumis basically one, one
massive giant canyon.
The whole thing is just thisgeological wonder with this
incredible rock formations,or most is like, mind blowing.

(50:30):
So like these rocks that arelike silver, uh, deep, rich,
red, black yellows, and thenyou have these beautiful, rich
green trees and crystal clearwater, and it's very like
Arab influenced down there.
So Iran is actuallyvery, very diverse.
You know, you've got, Ithink, 19 million people there
and, uh, many, many ethnicminorities, so the majority of
course are, are the Persians.

(50:50):
But you've got the, so the Kurs,you've got the Turkmen, you've
got the Arabs, uh, many, manydifferent types of people there.
And so down the south that'smuch more Arab influenced.
The food changes.
It's, uh, visually quitedifferent too, as well as
the weather been perfect.
So I basically did a bitof island hopping for a
while before coming backonto the mainland and then
made my way back up throughsort of southwestern Iran.
And there's so many storiesI can tell you, but I

(51:11):
won't, 'cause we needto move on to Kurdistan.
But yeah, hit some ofthe big cities like
Yaz, Shiraz, s Fahan.
And one thing I'llsay about Iran is the
architecture is mind blowing.
Like when you're, when you'regoing through ancient Silk
Road, you know, up in the, theStan, uh, Turk, Stan Uzbekistan,
all these places, the stuffyou see there is really old.
And you can see, you can sortof see the Arab in or so the

(51:32):
Muslim influence and the Arabempires have sort of conquered,
like they conquered thoseareas over the millennia.
But then when you getto Iran, this stuff is
still largely in use.
It's really interesting to seehow the architecture and the
culture is sort of spread outand you sort of get back to
the core of it when you getto Iran and you can see, you
know, just these incrediblemonuments across the country.
'cause it's, you know.

(51:52):
As I said before, likepretty much one of those
birthplaces of civilization.
So there's so many things thathave come out of this area.
The last thing I'll sayabout Iran in addition to the
incredible culture is I thoughtit was really interesting 'cause
there is this geopoliticalisolation, and Iran as, as I
said, is this country that'sbeen around for thousands of
years in one form or another.
They have not, they're onlyrich in oil and natural

(52:14):
resources, but they've got somuch skill and craftsmanship
that are still in the country.
So unlike so many westerncountries where, because of
capitalism and the race tothe bottom for for profit,
where everything gets shippedoff to, to low cost regions,
and it's all about, youknow, profit, minimizing
costs and just making money.
And I'm not saying thatthe capitalism doesn't

(52:34):
exist in Iran, but thathasn't happened because of
the isolation of the West.
There is no subway, thereis no McDonald's, there's
no h and m, there's no Zara.
You, when you go toIranian cities and towns,
there's no fast food jointsthat you'll recognize.
You might see the logos, whichactually love about this.
You'll see McDonald's,you'll see subway logos,
but it's all ripoffs.
They're all, there's nocopyright law in LA in Iran.
There's no chains of placesthat you'd see in the west.

(52:57):
You know, like every Europeancity looks the same in Iran.
It's completely different.
And so what I felt fromthe Iranian people was
this yearning to join.
I. The rest of the worldbecause they're sick and
tired of the isolation.
I'm the sure as hell sickand tired of being persecuted
by their government.
But at the same time, likemy feeling is completely
understand that, but like,don't give up your rich
heritage or your rich cultureat the cost to join the West.

(53:18):
So if things do changethere, eventually still hold
on to all the incrediblethings about your country.
Don't be in a rush to justsort of homogenize what
the rest of the world like,Hey, you know what I mean?
So like hold onto that reallygood stuff when hopefully things
do change one day and you'reable to, you know, come and go
freely and and live as you wish.
But I just, I absolutelyadored that country.
When people ask me what'smy favorite country?
It was Iran.

(53:38):
It.
It absolutely was.
It just for so manydifferent reasons.
So, uh, a massive thank youto all the wonderful people
and I, countless peoplethat, you know, she'll be
kindness and generosity there.
Can I ask a cheeky question?
Having been there, andobviously, you know, I hear
you share the stories and Iknow you've been home with
your mom and dad and I'm sureyou've shared stories there.

(53:59):
What's your mum's thought onIran now having, like, you
know, you mentioned she wassort of against you going there.
How does she feel about it now?
That's a good question.
And I think in general,I think her main feeling
is she's just glad I'm,I'm home and I'm alive.
Glad you survived.
Okay.
Because I was there, I wasthere after the Hamas attack

(54:19):
in Israel and then there waslike, there was a volley of,
uh, rockets being fired and.
So I was a little bit nervousabout that because although for
when you're actually in Iran, itwas kind of business as usual.
People would just, you know, Ithink they've been like in these
sort of states of anguish forso long that it is normality.
But people weren't, youknow, scared per se.
But I was a little bit concernedthat things might escalate
and if it did blow into allout war, that could be a

(54:41):
big issue for me in terms ofgetting outta the country.
So my mo as, as far as mymother, her thoughts on things,
I think she's just relieved.
But I think she did come awaywith a, a bigger appreciation
for the kindness of peopleacross the world in spite
of what you see on the newsactually.
Where was it because youdid witness like drone
strikes for, um, TurkeySTR was, where was that?

(55:02):
Yeah, in Iraq.
It's not something youwanted to have on your
bucket list to tick off.
Is it?
Not at all.
Like, uh, a lot of peopleask me are, am I some
sort of adrenaline junkie?
And the answer is no.
I am a bit of a masochist.
Like I'm no, I'm no stranger tolike doing endurance stuff and
like, you know, being in a bitof sad, uh, a bit of suffering,
I'm a big believer like.
Suffering, not torture.
Suffering brings,builds character.

(55:23):
You know, you know this ideaof diamonds being formed under
pressure, like you gotta gothrough a bit of struggle in
order to get to the reward.
The good example I think of inin the bike tour context is like
I here back in Melbourne, I canjust go buy a can of Coke, I'll
drink a can of Coke and it mightbe sweet or delicious, whatever.
And that's that.
And it's a very cheap drill.
If you're in the middle of thedesert, say Central Australia
and you've been riding all dayand it's hot as hell and you've

(55:45):
been drinking hot water becauseeverything you have is hot.
The last shop you've been towas like 300 kilometers ago.
And the next one you'regonna see is gonna be in
another 300 kilometers.
And then some caravan orsome gray nomads stops
at the side of the roadand says, how you going?
And they're like, yeah,it's, I'm not too bad.
And they're like, doyou want some water?
Uh yes please.
And then not only do theygive you water, but they
open their rescue and giveyou an ice cold can of Coke.

(56:07):
I don't think I've evertasted a can of Coke as
good as that in my life.
You have a much biggerappreciation when you've
worked hard for something.
Or you've had to gothrough a bit of suffering.
So that's my attitude.
So I, I'm not, I didn't shutoff on this bike journey to get
myself into Harry situationsand try and get out of them.
I wanted to dosomething that was hard.
And Al Humphrey talks about thisstuff a lot as well, about, you
know, if it was easy, everybodywould be doing it and it maybe

(56:30):
wouldn't be as worthwhile.
And the fact that you haveto, has to be a bit of
hardship to get throughit is what makes it more
worthwhile pursuing, I think.
You know, earlier you werementioning how you ended up
taking a bus because you knewyou wouldn't have enough time
to cycle down and cycle back.
Mm-hmm.
Was there a point in yourjourney where making that
decision would've been areally hard decision to make?
Like, I wanna know, did you setoff with this view of, I need to

(56:52):
cycle every single kilometer or.
Was that never a thing?
It's something that's come uprecently with previous guests.
I think Tristan Ridleywas the first one to
tell me all about it.
Yep.
The EFI principle, everyeffing inch, uh, is ah, is
apparently what that standsfor and it's um, that you
should write everything.
And I remember, you know,you mentioned our, I know

(57:13):
that he sort of had thata little bit as well.
So what about yourself?
I also started off with thatgrandiose idea of, of how to,
to keep the trip and, uh, I heldonto it for quite a long time.
And then I think a lot of thishappens to a lot of people
too who start off with thesame sort of feeling that
just somewhere along thelines you go, what do I do?
Like it's all so arbitrary.
You just like,there are no rules.

(57:34):
It's your adventure.
Like, you know why?
Why self-flagellatethe whole way?
Like, I know I just talkedabout suffering and all that
sort of stuff and I good itis for you, but at the same
time, like enjoy yourself.
Don't just suffer forthe sake of suffering.
Like if there's an opportunityto have a good time.
And for me, really what clenchedit in terms of sometimes
taking transport, I stilltried to, in general keep
it to an absolute minimum.

(57:54):
I wasn't like, I'm justgonna bust all away because
I still wanted, the otherway in which I was able to
reconcile it with myself is.
You know, when I lookedat the route that I took,
it was so convoluted.
I did not take themost direct way,
a proper squiggly line.
I think I cycled likeprobably 13,000 kilometers
more than I needed to.
Maybe, maybe more than that.
I'm not sure if I just,you know, plugged it into

(58:15):
Google Maps and said, youknow, check the land route
to Ireland from Australia.
Like, I, I, I did way more.
So I was like, all right,I'm not gonna be too harsh
on myself in that regard.
But more importantly,there's just times when you
can't do it all and you'regonna have to compromise.
And so the first placethat I really made a big
compromise was in India.
I had a deadline to get toChina because, uh, my visa,
which I'd gotten into Kadu, wasgonna expire by a certain date.

(58:37):
And I only had, I think,let's say three or four
weeks to get from Delhiall the way to the Chinese
border in North Pakistan.
And I wanted to see Kashmir,I wanted to see Laak,
him Pradesh, this region.
But I didn't have enoughtime to do it all.
So I did take a bus.
From Delhi to Manali,I think it was.
And I up taking another busbecause I was running outta
time again from Laak to Sengar,I think in, in Kash beer.

(59:02):
And you know what, those twoweeks that I spent in that
region of India were by farthe best times of India.
'cause I wasn't in theplane, the Ganji planes
in the Fri I of Summer,getting completely toasted.
Every single day.
I was up at like High Himalaya.
I was seeing these incrediblelandscapes and I'm still
doing some really hardhigh al cycling, get up
to 5,000 meters and justexperiencing this completely

(59:23):
different side of India.
And if I had been like thisreal, you know, hard case about
every inch I. Then I wouldn'thave been able to do that.
I would have to just, youknow, spend five days cycling
from India to the Pakistaniborder and then moving on.
You know what I mean?
It's, it's opportunity.
Cost is really what it is.
Yeah.
Everyone does their adventuredifferently and uniquely,
and that's the great thingbecause there's no carbon
copy way of, and rightor wrong way of doing it.

(59:45):
But I must admit, like hearingthese sort of stories, the
idea of packing in thatflexibility, being open to
changing your route and shapingit so that it, it becomes a
route which energizes you,whether that's through doing
the hard stuff or not, butmm-hmm.
I totally take those seedsof wisdom on board for
my own trips for sure.
I would also say Tony bikedtourist or people who are

(01:00:06):
thinking about doing this like.
Whether you're in the middleof a journey or you thinking
about starting one or on the cusof starting one, ask yourself,
when it's all said and done,are you gonna be look looking
back on your trip and, youknow, giving yourself a big
old pat in the back becauseyou cycled every f an inch and
missed out on some incrediblebecause you're, you're, you
are gonna find out by placesyou didn't know existed along
the way, places that you shouldvisit but you didn't plan to.

(01:00:28):
And then you're not gonnahave enough time to visit
if you do the every f andinch version of things.
It's up to you ultimately.
But I would just say like,have a think about what's gonna
bring you the most satisfactionwhen it's all said and done.
Because that's, I think that'sultimately what guided me and
looking back on the trip, Ihave no regrets about making
that compromise occasionally.
'cause it did allow meto see the places that I
otherwise would've skipped.
I think I would've had heavierand harder feelings about that

(01:00:49):
than what I feel about actuallytaking transport occasionally.
Hmm.
So I wanna take you toIraq then and Sitan Palace
because you've mentioned it.
And then we went on abeautiful David story on
three Roundabouts away.
So tell me about what, howdid you end up there and
what's it actually like?
Because yeah, you know, we, weobviously know what, what he

(01:01:10):
was like, horrible, horribledictator, but what was it
like being in his palace?
Yeah, and I'll just sayquickly, uh, thanks everybody.
He's still on, he'sstill with us, I'm sure
going on the wild ride.
We livefor this David, don't worry
anybody he knows me in anycapacity knows, uh, you just
have to strap in sometimesand watch my brain leapfrogs
from one thing to the next.
Oh, I love it.
You, you sort of likea bike packing version

(01:01:31):
of Billy Connolly.
Like the story starts and wego all off course and come
back and it all makes sense.
Maybe less intelligiblethan Billy Conley at times.
Oh, no, I love it.
But anyway, keep going.
Still, I was in Iraq becauseI'd heard such good things
and I had, I had made thatdecision to go there instead
of Armenia, as you said.
And I did hope at that timethat I was maybe gonna do both,
but in the end I couldn't.
I just ran outta time.
I spent I think just about twoand a half, three weeks there.

(01:01:53):
And I, the rea, one of theother big reasons I did apart
from hearing all the goodthings was like, when's the
next time I'm gonna get achance to cycle into Iraq?
Like, and let's just seewhat it's like, like the, the
part I'm going to, and thissort of brings me back to the
second part of the Fargo'squestion, which I realized I
didn't answer, was like, I.
How do you balance the riskversus reward aspect of things?
And I felt like at that pointin time, I'd heard enough good

(01:02:15):
things about the safety of thatpart of Iraq, like Kurdistan,
Iraq and the interactions,the people that it was like,
uh, it was a measured risk.
It wasn't a war zone.
I'd heard that parts of, uh,federal Iraq, which is the
rest of the country down in thesouthwest, in the desert areas,
that's still a bit unruly.
But even like likes ofBagdad and some of the other
major cities, they're by andlarge, quite safe these days.
And obviously situationsare dynamic and

(01:02:36):
polluted and whatnot.
But what I'd heard aboutKurdistan told me that
it was gonna be safe.
And once again, my per mother'sheart was broke when she
heard that I wasn't leavingIran for the relative safety
of the Cacas and that I washeading in next door to Iraq.
So how many candles did yourbeautiful mother light
for you along the way?
Seriously, a lot, right?
Uh, mother Patricia.
Uh, that's a good question.

(01:02:57):
I don't know.
'cause I don't thinkI've asked you how many
candles you lit for me.
So, or how manyprayers were said.
I have a beautiful NorthernIrish mother-in-law who
certainly lights candles for me.
So, so, um, I was headingalong, uh, this road.
It's sort of in NorthKurdistan, so Kurdistan's
in the northeast of Iraq.
And you're right, Saddam Husainwas a bad dude and committed
some, uh, atrocious crimesagainst humanity, particularly

(01:03:18):
against the Kurdish people.
And the Kurds are anincredibly stoic, kind,
welcoming, friendly, andreally, uh, proud people.
They're really proud of theculture and they've been
getting shafted by one empireor great power or another.
For decades, if not hundreds ofyears, whether it be the likes
of the Brits, the Americans, theTurks, Iraqis, uh, the Iranians.

(01:03:39):
Like there, there are peoplethat have been shafted many,
many times in different ways.
And, and in spite of allthat, they're still full
of goodness and kindness.
So, but I had heard thatalong the northeast border
with Turkey, that thereare okay, no drone strikes.
You might see some, Ithink I heard this from
other bike packers thatI met along the way.
And I was like, yeah, okay, butI'm probably not gonna see that.
Right.
And there was just one day Iwas just like, along this road,

(01:03:59):
I was like, um, sort of in abig valley and there was like
a mountain probably as the crowflies, the ridge line would've
been like a k and a half, 2Kfrom where I was in the road.
So it was kind a bit higherthan me and, you know, kind
of diagonal away from me.
And I just heard this.
I was like, whoa, what was that?
'cause I'd been listeninga bit of music and I took
their headphones out and,you know, daring around
looking for where that was.
And I just saw thisplume of smoke rising

(01:04:21):
from the ridge line.
I was like, whoa.
And then I noticed that left ofme, there was some people, like
local people taking photographsand I, I, so I stopped and
I, I ran up to the hill wherethey're taking photographs and
saying like, what's going on?
They're like, yeah, it'sTurkish drone strikes.
And I was like, what?
Like, what's going on?
And, and so the PKK, whichis a Kurdish paramilitary
and political organizationthat was basically fighting

(01:04:41):
through methods of terrorismfor Kurdish rights in Turkey.
And there's been some movingand gro moving and checkin in
that regard in recent days.
I think actually if youcheck out the news, I
think some later has.
Something.
But anyway, um, so the Turkishgovernment is actively combating
this organization in themountains that formed the border
between Kurdistan and Turkey.
And yeah, I witnessedthis Fri drone strike.
I thought, okay, maybe thingsaren't as quite, quite as field

(01:05:04):
as I thought they were, butultimately it was very safe.
There are some things, David,that your mother needs not know.
I can't remember.
I told her that.
So she might be hearing thisfor the first time actually.
So, sorry, mom, continuing on.
Um, it wasn't the first timethat I felt a bit worthy for
my life in Iraq actually.
And not because of thepeople, but uh, it was
actually a lightning storm.
I came into the city called a.
Which is up on like this sortof natural rock permission

(01:05:25):
and this thunderstorm, whichwas originally kilometers
away in the distance, all ofa sudden was on top of me.
And I felt like itwas in the storm.
Like I've never seen likebeing strike as close to
me and as loudly, it waslike explosions going off.
And anyway, I took shelterin a mosque and it was
actually the night before aid.
And, and I was welcomed in.
I was, it was verygood in the end.
So, but I wanna get toSaddam's Palace 'cause

(01:05:46):
it is pretty interesting.
So the has hospitality ofKurdistan wasn't as frequently
offered as Iran, but when you,when it was offered, like,
it was just as incredible.
So it wasn't like in Iranwhere every day people would
say, come to my home andstay with me, kinda thing.
But once you wear the guest,it was just incredible.
So nice, so friendly.
So, and they wanted to show youeverything they wanted to show
you and their culture and theirfood and, and show you around.

(01:06:07):
So I end up in this village,uh, I think it was called Spin.
Shout to my friend Sar, whoI met, and he was, he was
a really, really cool guy.
I was at a little shop andhe, he was buying cigarettes
or something and he is like,what are you doing here?
And it, he, he hadthis Jordy accent
that would've beena bit of a spin out.
Oh yeah.
So like a new castle accent.
A North North England accent.

(01:06:27):
Because he had actually fledthere as a refugee many,
many years before and hadlived in the UK for about
10 years and had sincereturned to Iraq now that
things were in better shape.
And so we had some greatchats and his English
was really, really good.
And, and he said to me, if youfind yourself going through
my village, gimme a call andwe'll start something night.
And I did find myselfin the village.
Another thunderstormhad rolled through.
And so once again, I was, Iwas I myself being the guest.

(01:06:48):
And I met the chief, the Moar,he was like the village chief.
This guy who again,super, super generous and.
We had all these sort of feasts,had this huge kaba piece.
We had these delicioushomemade, uh, Dolma, which
is like the dati, youknow, the M vine leaves.
I had the, I grew up on that,the Greek version of Delmar.
These, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The chiefs, not one, but twowives had been rolled, had been

(01:07:08):
making these Delmar all day,like it was like quite bizarre.
And all day.
And the previous days I've beensort of doing this cycle around
this other big ridge line on theopposite side of this valley.
And I could see the structurethat I was like, and I had
sort of like a bit of a tar.
I was like, I wonderwhat that thing is like.
And I tried to look onthe map and tried to
look on the internet.
I couldn't quite workout what was going on.
And so when I got to thisvillage, it was now like
at a different angle to it.
And I asked the village chieflike, what is that thing

(01:07:30):
up there in the distance?
And he is like, oh,that's Sudan's Palace.
And I was like, what?
He's like, do you wanna go?
And I was like,yes, I want to go.
So he said, okay, welltomorrow, we'll, we'll drive up.
So he took me to this like Veight Land Cruiser, absolutely
churning through the gas.
We're driving up this likewindy road, and on the side of
the road there's like dangerlandmine signs everywhere.
And at one point,David, just again,
there's some things yourmother need not know.

(01:07:54):
Well, the chief said itwas good, so I felt, I felt
that was in good hands.
At one point he just slamson the brakes and then
this gun, this rifle justappears outta nowhere and I'm
thinking, what's going on?
He's got the gun out thewindow and like, and then
SAR in the backseat like,what's going on man?
He is like, oh, he,he's, he's hunting.
I was like, what?
And so they have thesethings called, I think
they're called coi.
They're like a type ofpheasant, and it wasn't
actually a rifle, it was anair, it was an air rifle, but

(01:08:16):
it looked like a frigging,you know, assault rifle.
To be fair, we don't see a lotof guns in Australia, so
no, but to that point intime, I'd seen a lot of guns.
In fact, I'd seen quite a lotof guys, and very surprisingly,
find myself on more than oneoccasion arguing with a guy
with a massive gun, his handtelling them why I should be
allowed to do whatever I want.
And you kind of forget itwith the fact that he has
a huge gun in his hands.
But anyway, so the, the chiefwas like, looking for this

(01:08:38):
bird and he, he didn't getit in the end, so he put the
gun down and, and later theglove box fell open, and then
a pistol fell into my lap.
And he was like,yeah, check this out.
I was like, oh no, I don'twanna touch a gun Now.
I'm, I'm scared of guns.
You know, guns are scary.
So anyway, we continued upthe road and we, we finally
got to the gate of the palaceand there's like five soldiers
and fatigue standing therewith their own guns as well.
And there's like a barrier.
And the chief and these soldiersare speaking in Kurdish and

(01:08:58):
Sadar sort of translating fromme, telling me what's going on.
They're like, the chief'ssaying, let me in.
And they're saying,no, you can't come in.
And he's like, well, I'mthe chief, let me in.
And he is like, no, no,no, you're not the chief.
And so then the chief makesa phone call, you know,
a couple minutes later,and then the guy's like,
oh, you're the chief.
And so the bar gets liftedand now we're, now we're
welcomed in with open arms.
Uh, Iraq is very tribal.
Every person is borninto like a tribe or

(01:09:20):
like, almost like a clan.
And it's a very strong, it'salmost stronger than blood ties
to say you're part of a tribe.
And, and the chiefs are.
Locally elected, Ibelieve in there.
So this, this Moar was thechief of the spend tribe.
And once they realized who heactually was, he was allowed in.
So then we're walking intothis building that apparently
at one stage was absolutely,you know, extravagant and

(01:09:40):
lavish and all this sort stuff.
But like, it's clearly beenbombed many, many times,
like exposed, reinforcingsteel and concrete and like
water drip from the ceiling.
And these soldiers noware up here keeping watch.
So in Iraq, in Kurdistan, youhave the pitch Murga, which are
the Kurdish freedom fighters.
They, uh, basically havecheckpoints on the way
into and the way out ofevery village or time.

(01:10:00):
Now again, I wanna stress itwas extremely, completely safe.
Apart from theTurkish doing strike.
I felt extremelysafe at all times.
There was like, Inever had any trouble.
There was a time when itwas a bit more unstable, but
these days it's, it's very,very stable and I think it's
getting increasingly stable.
And I say these days, so maybethe last time was when Isis
broke out back in what, 2014?
Mm. Because it was actuallythe courage people who were
largely responsible forpushing back isis, who actually

(01:10:22):
fought back against ISIS when,when they explode our ribs.
Syria and northwest Iraq, Ithink it was, this palace had
been converted into a militaryoutpost after Saddam had fallen.
And so now it was, was used sothis place that he used to fly
in by helicopter and then I knowwine and dine his other asshole
friends or other dictators,I dunno who, who else he had

(01:10:43):
in this place was now likeoccupied by these soldiers to
keep watch over the local area.
And I just, the wholeexperience was just so surreal.
I was like, this is nuts.
I'm in the same place withthis, you know, monster of a
human being used to, you know,probably as say one and down as
guests and now it's, I'm herewith these guys, these soldiers
here, like making me cups oftea was for warn ourselves.
But this little gas fire thing,you know, one of those really

(01:11:05):
surreal moments of the trip.
Very much so.
Do you have photosof this place?
Absolutely.
I'll send 'em to you.
I'll send 'em to youafter the, the episode.
I could not freaking imaginewhat that would've been like.
Like you, you'd sort of wakeup going, is this real life?
Did I witness that?
Did that electricalstorm transport you
into another world?
Possibly and, and these arethe experiences you get to have

(01:11:25):
when you do a journey like this.
You just find yourselfin the most unusual and
unexpected of situations.
And I'm not saying this becauseI'm like, Saddam Hussein is
like, you know, a famous guy.
I dunno, how good is it?
But it's just like so bizarreto find yourself in a place
like that when you've heard somuch about a thing or a person
in the lead up to that pain.
You know?
Did you find David, once youmoved through those countries,

(01:11:47):
definitely Once you got toTurkey and, and kept moving
further west towards Europe, didyou find that the experiences
you were having were changingbecause there wasn't that
undertone there and so thenthe things that were, you know,
different types of impactfulexperiences were more to do
than, I guess with people orwith landscapes as opposed
to prehistory sort of stuff?
Not prehistory, butyou know what I mean?

(01:12:09):
Yeah, it's a good question.
Um, the sort of feeling ofthe adventure definitely
changed as I got further west.
So Southeast Turkey was stillquite different and quite.
Started Middle Eastern.
Like I had a, we had a, Imet up with some other bike
tourists, Helina and Mike.
Uh, I shout to those guys.
Hello.
Helena and Mike Collina.
Sorry.
Oh, hi Collina.
We end up staying withthe Syrian family.

(01:12:30):
Syrian Turkish family, uh,Kurdish Syrians who had like
fled the civil War and theywere like now living in a
weed town on the border.
And they welcomed us inand just, you know, fed
us feast after feast.
And had, I remember their littledaughter, I can't remember
her name now, but she hadone of those, she actually,
she had Steph, uh, not Steph.
She had Emily, Emily Energy,you know who we were talking
about, Emily earlier on?
Yeah, em Holbert.
We were talking about Emily.

(01:12:51):
We were talkingabout you offline.
You're legend.
Yeah.
Shout out to yourincredible energy listeners.
Remember that name?
Yeah, I heard there might be,can I say anything about that?
No.
Yeah, there's gonna bean episode with Emily and
she's freaking awesome.
Yeah, so I had really niceexperiences and then, you
know, it was interesting 'causeTurkey was like, now Turkey is
an interesting country 'causeliterally Istanbul straddles.

(01:13:12):
Europe and Asia.
Yeah.
It's sort of got a footin both camps, right?
Yeah.
And I felt, I felt when I gotto some of the Turkey cities,
it felt more Europe than ithad been since, say, some of
the major cities in CentralAsia, so you know, like Beach
Cake or Al Mati or Taj Kent,where they felt like Eastern
European or Russian cities.
And now when you get to Turkey,like you have these big, big
Atar apartment blocks and you'renot sitting on the floor as

(01:13:33):
much, you're actually sittingon, on couches and furniture and
you know, it definitely, it feltdifferent and the further west
it got, the more that happened.
And then the big sort ofculture shock really happened
when I finally said goodbyeto Asia and I took a ferry
across from, uh, Borum inTurkey as it's pronounced,
I believe, to a Greek islandof cos 20 minute boat ride.

(01:13:55):
Yeah.
Not far.
You know, you go from like asort of westernized version
of Turkey to all of a suddenyou're in a British holiday
maker land, like just.
Like hotels, condos, peoplejust there to like white eyes.
Brits just there to gettheir like kink sunburn.
I feel embarrassed by it.
Yeah.
It's, it's very cringe.

(01:14:15):
It's, it's a real hard onein a way because there's
also an element where they'reembracing the tourism, they're
embracing the opportunitiescoming their way because
of that and because of thatfrom an economical surge.
But then there's also, Idon't know, I just, yeah.
Anyway, as you were,but totally.
I, I like, yeah.
I have mixed feelingsabout it too.
And I think we might eventouched on this in the last
episode about how tourism andhow it invariably changes the

(01:14:37):
dynamic of a place and whenmasses of people from another
country cool, especially richWesterners or comparatively
rich westerners, go there.
And then, you know, to try andI'm, look, I'm not gonna pretend
like I haven't done that too.
Like, like one of the benefitsof traveling as Westerner is
like places are more affordable.
I don't agree with it, butI'm not gonna say I haven't
taken advantage of it.
Yeah, like when, if youget to a place in the early

(01:14:58):
stages or when Actually no.
So like, Bangladesh is areally good example of that.
When I went there, most of thepeople I met, in fact probably
all, almost all the people I methad never even seen a Westerner
and real life before, let alonehad a conversation with one.
So you're having like a reallysort of unique experience.
Whereas if you go to, I dunno,some tropical island in Thailand
50 years ago, you could haveexperiences like that, but these

(01:15:19):
days it just doesn't happen now.
Yeah, yeah.
And so, and it's avery different type of
experience and maybe in,in some ways not as good.
Mm. So yeah, then I findmyself in cost in Greece and
I was like, now in basicallyit felt like Little Britain
with all the British Englishtourists on holiday and people
getting drunk and stuff.
And, but what I will say isI had pork for the first time
in many, many, many months,and I had some pork euros and

(01:15:42):
holy smokes, they were good.
I could still taste and nowjust salty fatty porky goodness.
And I didn't realize howmuch I, I'd missed it
until I finally had it.
And the euros were sometimesokay, but sometimes just
absolutely incredible in Greece.
And when they, when you've gota good one, they're cheap too.
Like they're reallycheap, delicious needle.
And I, I was seeing Lidle againand Aldi for the first time and
I was getting stuck into the,the one euro juice curtains

(01:16:04):
of wine and getting in allthe cheeses and olives and.
The food just kept going.
That that definitely compensatedfor the change in like
the feeling of the place.
It was still, I was stillin Greece, the country had
never visited before and oneI was quite excited to get
stuck into because once Ihad finished island hopping
my way to the mainland andI stayed with my good friend
Kos in Greece, thank you verymuch for hosting me again.

(01:16:25):
So that was a long time friendfrom way back in Slovenia.
Down the days like 12, 13 yearsago, uh, I started making my
way up through like centralGreece and that was a complete
surprise and a completedelight because it was way
less touristy than the islands.
Way less traveled, they'remuch more authentic.
So you're just going throughthese tiny villages with little
tavernas and you're gettingall this like homecooked
meals and it's very quiet.

(01:16:47):
And people just, localpeople just sitting having
coffees and just, youknow, like, you know what
something Europeans are like.
They're, they know,they know how to live.
They're not stressed aboutmaking money and, you know,
and, and buying more thisand that and the other.
They're just, they'rethere to enjoy life.
I think there's a, a lotto be learned from Southern
Europeans about this stuff.
I reckon the center of Greeceis pretty mountainous.
And if I think of the rest ofyour route, you know how before

(01:17:08):
you said you, you embraced, Iguess you, you know, inverted
brackets suffering, but youembraced the struggle of
the physicality of the ride.
Mm-hmm.
You definitely area mountain lover.
Yes.
Your route throughEurope was perpetually
mountains it would appear.
Yeah.
Center of Greece upthrough the mountains and
then through the Balkans.
You would've had somenice mountains there.

(01:17:28):
Then Slovenia and Italy, you'rein the Alps and then you choose
to go through the py is like,you're choosing the mountainous
roots as well, aren't you?
Definitely, and I did thatintentionally because I'd always
wanted to have like punch ofgood roots through Europe.
The be would be a highlight.
But jumping back to Greece,like I got to metra, I'm sure
your previous guests havetalked about Metra Greece.
Yeah, absolutely.
Mind blowing place.

(01:17:48):
And it was there.
I met another bikepacker, Karen.
So hello Karen, who is a Swedishspeaking thin, who was on a
bike packing journey of her own.
And she had just startedit in Greece herself.
And it was a reallygood time to meet her.
'cause I, I definitely wasfeeling a little bit tired,
a little bit fatigued.
And maybe it was the heat.
'cause it was very, veryhot in southern Greece.
And, uh, Karin wasall about the gravel.

(01:18:09):
She was all, she was, shehad just begun her journey.
She was full of beans andshe's a really strong cyclist.
And so she was super, superkeen to get onto this gravel.
I wonder, she's now,uh, she's in Norway.
She's, she's been having agreat time in, uh, skiing
all, all winter since, soher, her route was gonna
be from Greece to Portugal.
I think she was finished inPorto or something like that.
Okay.

(01:18:29):
And so I think her trip wasmaybe three or four months.
And in that three orfour months, I think
she, she covered.
Half the total elevationI covered in three and a
half years in the road.
Oh really?
Cramming it in.
Just how hard shehit the mountains.
So like super impressive.
What a legend you are.
If you're listening tothis, get in touch with me
because I love championingthe stories of awesome women

(01:18:51):
and you clearly are awesome.
Yeah, she was amazing and herenergy about getting stuck into
the gravel 'cause I'd sort of,I even though I'd shed a lot of
weight at this point in time,a bike was still pretty heavy.
Whereas Karin's bike wasextremely light and she had
made lots of really scrupulousdecisions about not she had,
she was, yeah, I think herbike weighed like 25 kilograms
and I was still lugging, Iwas still lugging like 40

(01:19:12):
even though I'd shed heapsof stuff, I was a little bit
afraid of the rough, steep roadsand her stoke got me on it.
So we had a really goodroute called the, oh,
can't remember the Greekbike fucking route now.
But I, we also hit the rockyroads, which was in Albania and
that was pretty rough going,but lots and lots of fun.
Albania is a countrygets punched down.
By everybody in Europe,so, so in Europe it seems

(01:19:34):
that shit rules downhill.
So, you know, I dunno, theNorwegians punch down on
the Denmarks, the on theDanes, the Germans punch
down on the Italians.
The Italians punch down onSlovenians and all the way
goes until you get to Albania.
And then the Greeks, theGreeks from the bottom and
the south of the Albanianspunch up on Albania.
And the thing is, it was sucha beautiful country with such
beautiful people and I had thatreally, really nice time there.

(01:19:55):
People superfruit, it'sgot a bad rep for crime
and all that sort of stuff.
But I didn'texperience any of that.
I just experienced reallyincredible Balkan hospitality
and also incredible nature.
And it's also a Balkancountry that is like
what Bosnia used to be.
Bosnia used to be thislesser travel place.
You could go there andhave these sort of, you
know, talk about those.
Early stage travelexperiences when a, when a

(01:20:16):
country's just opening up.
Albania is very much like thatin the sense that it's not very
well traveled and it's reallygood reason to go there and,
and have those experiences,highly recommend it, and
this incredible nature there.
Uh, and there's alsoan incredible host in
Scooter, a town or cityin the north, Mega's mega
warm shore, Shar host.
I think it's Chuck and Sue,these Americans that, uh, have
hosted I think like probably500 people or something

(01:20:38):
like that, or warm shaws.
Wow.
They've got this wallwhere every guest,
they'll, they'll paint andwe've got a photo or something.
No, they paint.
They get you to paint your handand then you put a hand print
on the wall and sign your name.
It's really nice.
That's really cool.
Yeah.
Very unique too.
Yeah, exactly.
So really great hosts.
They have wines just sittingthere d for you to eat
and they're super generousand they've got so many
stories and I think they're.

(01:20:59):
Oh, they might be intheir eighties and
they're still touring.
Oh, they, and they tour on,uh, battery assisted with
coming bicycles for six months.
How awesome.
Yeah, so really inspirational.
So if I'm still touringat Edie, I'll be pretty
frigging happy with myself.
I love learning aboutthese sort of places.
Yeah.
Actually there's aplace in Lub Liana.
Oh, really?
Which is really famous withbike travelers as well.

(01:21:21):
I didn't need to do thatin Slovenia because I had
actually lived in Slovenia wayback in uni for three months.
Oh, there you go.
So you had your friends there?
Yeah, Iwas well connected in Slovenia.
I had a very nice time.
Uh, it started tonight andMarco Mitchell, Theran twins.
Who, uh, I had a great time.
It was, it was a, we, it waslike a mini and David as well.
We had a mini reunion andwe'd done a Croatia for a few
days and just chilled out.

(01:21:42):
It was a, Slovenia wasa very, very nice time.
When you went to Croatia,is that when you, you
got involved in like aBosnian Croatian wedding?
Uh, that was in Bosnia actually.
I was, I was on the, I wasclose to the Croatian border.
Yeah.
Like I had a few too many beersthat day and woke up with an
absolute stoker of a hangover.
I was so ly hungover.
I was.
One of those momentswhere you just question

(01:22:02):
your life decisions.
I'd had great fun at thiswedding, but man, not, not
enough water and like 40degrees of weather and, uh,
heat and, and the spritzers,which is like a, like a, you
know, like a wine with soda,water and then beers as well.
So an incredible feast andlots of fun and dancing.
But yeah, I was, I was in a, Iwas in bad shape the next day.
Thankfully my friend Stipe,who had, had ragged me into

(01:22:23):
the wedding, uh, he waslike this 21-year-old and
like they had the hangover,didn't even touch him.
He, he, he sprung outta bedlike nothing had happened.
And I was like, deaf become a,and he had a plan to go to a
friend's barbecue down in thislittle hot thing on this crystal
clear ice cold river where itwas so cold, the bears were
in the river, just chilling.
And I dug my head in thatriver and I was like, I'd

(01:22:44):
been reborn the hangover cure.
Baptized on a lifetime.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
So it was exactly what I needed.
Your mother'scandles have worked exactly.
Once you got well into the Alps.
Mm-hmm.
'cause your original routewasn't going to catch the
ferry over to island from,you know, the Pyrenees.
You were going to travel, Iimagine the world trodden path

(01:23:07):
through up to the northernFrance and, and make your
crossing from over there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Why did you change your mind?
Because it's not like you hadn'thad the experience of mountains.
Like why did you havethe pool to continue in
that direction instead?
The truth is, I justcouldn't get enough.
I just c like, I'd already,um, decided to, you know,

(01:23:27):
we were talking about thedo tech transport, or not
the every f and k on step.
I'd already said, you knowwhat, I'm gonna take a train
from, uh, where was it?
I think it was like Grenobleor something like that.
To, to lose I,if you were in the
mountains, for sure.
It would've been gr, Ican't pronounce it the
Frenchy way, but yeah.
Okay.
Wait till you speakto my neighbors.

(01:23:47):
Anyway,so I was in the, uh, what is
it, the maritime Alps that, thatsection of the Alps other side.
Yeah.
Maritime.
How beautiful are they?
Ah, like above nice and yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, mega.
I was on the, uh, Torino.
Nice rally route.
Gosh, I have that withmy bucket list thing.
Do it.
I need to get over my fearof downhill dirt roads.

(01:24:09):
And I, I realize thatsounds silly, but Yeah.
That, and that's mychallenge to do it.
I, I love the ideaof that whole route.
I don't think it's silly though,to be like, you know, yeah.
Loose.
I'm, I, again, like I said, I'mnot an adrenaline junkie and
I'm a pretty crappy descender,and when you're on a loaded
bike, you can definitelytrick your brakes very easily.
So I would recommend gettinghydraulic, like double, but now

(01:24:29):
double twisting or something.
Like, there's a version ofshaman bricks where you get
like, there's, what, what's theword I'm talking about here?
But basically they're,they're much more powerful
basically than samemechanical disc brakes.
And you and, and see alot more stopping par when
you're heavily loaded.
They sure do.
When I crossed the Pyrenees,I went through two sets of
brake pads on that very system.
Oh, believe it.
There, there was a lot ofup and down in that trip.
Let's face it, therewere a lot of mountains,

(01:24:51):
I am sure.
'cause the neesare pretty punchy.
But like EE everymountain passed.
I hit in the maritime Alps.
I was like, isthis the last one?
And I, I remember there wasa day where I, I was, I had
planned to meet friends in theDoong region and I remember
thinking, okay, today's theday I'm gonna cycle to a
train station and that's it.
Done.
And I'm checking the train.
I was like, and I, I literally,I think I started cycling.
I had done like 30 or 40 Ks awayfrom the Alps and I just looked

(01:25:12):
over my shoulder and I couldsee it peek in the distance.
And I was like, I'm not done.
I'm not done yet.
So I, I, I turnedaround on that day.
I ended up hitting, uh, gliberat the call, the Galiber.
Which side did youdo the galiber from?
From, um, lottery or fromI. So John Morian, is it,
or from, um, the Telegraph,uh, what do you call that?

(01:25:33):
There's a big, there's a Brion.
Is that a, is that theYeah, from Brion.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Did you do the coldas wild as well?
Uh, yes.
I'd done that previouslyon the, because that on the
Torino Nice rail.
Oh yeah.
I still have to do that one.
But the Gallier, I haveamazing memories of, it
was one of my very firstbig, big climbs in the Alps

(01:25:54):
and the views, the glaciers,the snow cup pinks.
But I had, I hadno legs that day.
David and I had, uh, youknow, when you just feel
your body is hollow, and Idon't have like the excuse of
like, being hung over from aCroatian wedding in Bosnia.
Um, it was just, so, I justhad, I obviously, I think, yeah,
we were staying in Grenoble.
I didn't have enoughto eat and we cycled up

(01:26:15):
via the colder lottery.
Mm-hmm.
So we were, we were fromthe side, um, from the Borg
dress on side, so mm-hmm.
Which, which is where Up is.
I got to the lottery andit's only eight and a half
kilometers to the summitof G Libya from there.
Right.
But you've sort of had thisclimb all the way up to that,
right?
It's like, it's like 30K or something, isn't it?
It's like a 30 K climb.
Yeah, but it's not,it's not super taxing.

(01:26:36):
'cause A, it's the Alps, and sothe climbs aren't super punchy.
If I compare it to the pys,it's a bit different, right?
Mm-hmm.
But B, it's sort of like it.
It's sort of gradual andthen it's not, and then
it's gradual and it's not.
And there's horrible tunnels.
I hate the tunnels Anyway, theonly reason I made it to the
top of the Galibier is becausethere was this amazing food
vendor that makes these amazingpastry cakes, and I don't even

(01:26:58):
know the name of them, but theywere the cake pastries of life.
I had one, my husband had one.
We were like eight anda half Ks at the top.
Yeah, we got this and we did.
And it was an amazing climb.
My gosh, the lastkilometer and a half, gosh,
that's vertigo inducing.
It's just, it justdrops off the edge,
the switchback and like lookingback down the road, you've
come, like, if you get thereon a nice day, like it's, it

(01:27:18):
really is heaven earth, it's amega because you sort of, you,
you're climbing out through,'cause the lowest slopes at the
lot rate's like a meadow isn't.
Mm-hmm.
Green meadow.
And then you sort ofcome through and then,
you know, it's so high.
There's still some permasnow in places and then it's
all rocky all of a sudden.
Mm-hmm.
And then you pass where the carsgo through the tunnel and then
that last kilometer and a half.
Oh yeah.
No, it's a leg breaker.

(01:27:39):
And actually, I'm sorryI've hijacked your story,
but No, please, please.
But listen, this is justa little bit of Bella's
story on the PO as well.
Do you know what?
My prize for getting tothe summit of the Libre.
An Italian dude, old dude,dude is the wrong word.
The dude, an old Italian guy,probably in his sixties, just
wearing what we would callbgy smugglers or dick stickers

(01:28:00):
in Australia, just standingat the top, just bronzed.
Just, and was like, oh, Idid not see, to see that.
Anyway, get aton, huh?
Yeah.
Or did he have one or what?
Uh, who knows?
My eyes.
My eyes still haven't recoveredanyway, so you did the clivia?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and I came down The waythat you went up, so I went
down to Berg to Was, andI, I, I was g Noble garble.

(01:28:23):
I can't, I can't Pronou,I can pronounce this.
Yeah.
I don't do the Rs.
Right.
So I'm not sayingit right either.
Oh, the tunnel's on theway down on that descent.
Yeah, it's fun.
It's, it's a megadescent all the way.
It's basicallydescent all the way.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, it is.
And I was racingagainst time 'cause I'd
got a train to clutch.
Yeah.
I was, I was overambitious about how
long it was gonna take.
And I'd enjoyed myself a bittoo much at the top of Olivier.

(01:28:45):
So, and then I, I, so I waslike basically sprinting to
Chernobyl and I got into townand then I found out that the
frigging train was sold out.
I was like, oh no, becausenow, so I was in trouble
because I had arranged to meetfriends, shout out to Pete
and Pri who they lived up in,which is just south of Paris.
They were the original reasonthat I was actually gonna head

(01:29:05):
through Northwest France becausehe's one of my best friends
all the way from east of myvillage in Northern Ireland.
They live in France now, andthat was the main reason I
was gonna head north, becauseotherwise the geography in
the south, the mountains andthe Pyrenees, I was like,
yeah, I'm gonna go there.
But they were gonnabe in Doone or during,
which is a beautiful place too.
Fy if you did, didyou get to the Dodo?
Yeah.
Obviously very differentto the Alps, but very, very

(01:29:26):
beautiful, like very quaint.
It's very sort of fairy castle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And a nice river.
Yeah, beautiful river.
You can canoe.
Actually it's, it'son my bucket list.
Yeah.
You can do this thing whereyou can like hire a canoe
and do like a multi-day floatpaddle down the river thing.
Yeah.
I saw people doing thatwhen I was there actually.
As I was sipping mywine from the balcony

(01:29:48):
and just watching life.
Watch the World Go by.
Yeah.
You're no longer eatingtomato paste with
stale bread up in the,oh, no, those are
good times too though.
That was, that wasdefinitely a highlight.
Listeners, you need tolisten to episode one.
All of this is to say though,that the fact that I can
meet my friends down there,instead of going all the
way north, all of a suddenopened up a whole new finish
off the European continent.
Mainland continent.
To me it meant that I couldactually head through the

(01:30:09):
Pyrenees for a bit and theneventually take a ferry from
Bilbao and Bass Country andSpain directly to Ireland.
So that saved me time too.
'cause I was rushing.
'cause I, at that time, I hada job to go back to and I, I
thought, you know, I, I can'textend for a fourth time or
whatever it was gonna be.
Ultimately I didgive me a redundant.
So it meant I had all thetime I wanted all of a sudden.
And that was actuallya massive blessing.

(01:30:30):
'cause I had, I had the timethen to enjoy Ireland as I
wanted to enjoy the finish linewith the best of the Irish
weather by the sounds of it too.
I know, I know.
But with the ies, unfortunatelyI was getting to that time of
year, as you well know, having,uh, because you live there.
It was starting to turn, andI'd lost the, the good weather
from like the more northerlyAlps and the more sort of,
uh, Mediterranean Alps.

(01:30:51):
And now it was, autumn wasstarting to come in and so
I think I had a maybe onegood day or one and a half
good days to hit the tural.
A That was the only climb I wasable to hit before, like just
it and rain and like really coldweather meant that I couldn't
really get the climbs anymore.
We did not have a greatyear for weather last year.
Yeah.
So I can believe that.
And the, the thing that I'vereally learned though, living
in a small village in a valleywhere there's many valleys

(01:31:14):
around us is one valley tothe next is different as well.
And also like with the toayand classic case in point,
like this happened whenI crossed the Pyrenees.
We left home and it waslow cloud everywhere.
And then you get to apoint where you break
through the cloud.
Mm-hmm.
And tomay, it's a blue sky dayup there, but then you descend
into the cloud again as well.
How did you find the, to melee?
It was hard going.

(01:31:34):
I was definitely tired.
Like I, I couldn't believehow many of the, the coal
and passes had hit inthe maritime ELs 'cause I
just couldn't get enough.
Mm. But I, I think the fatiguewas starting to set in for sure.
So I was getting a littlebit drained, but I was just
keen to squeeze every lastdrop outta this final stretch
of the European continent.
But, uh, the weather waswhat, what clenched it for me.
So I, I bailed down toLurz, went, I had a look

(01:31:57):
at like, you know, Catholictourism on steroids.
Got a couple of bottlesof holy water from my mom.
I come home, I waslike, mom, I'm lds.
She's like, oh, quick, getme, give me some holy water.
So I got a couple of bottles.
Totally.
Well, can I tell you alittle factoid here please.
So please.
My village is just a fewkilometers from Lords and in
our village we lay claim tothe fact that the holy water
goes down through our valleybefore it gets to Lords.

(01:32:19):
So we are blessed.
Ah, you're, you're closerto the stores.
Yeah, allegedly.
Allegedly.
So that's what myneighbors tell me.
It's an interesting placeLords, but I've gotta say
it's like Disneyland.
It's like Disneylandfor Catholics,
Catholic, Disneyland.
I, and I have to say likethe sanctuary and the grot
itself, like there is a beautyof, you know, there is a

(01:32:39):
difference there, but as soonas you go into the center of
Lords itself, it's just tap.
Ah, yeah, yeah.
But the scenery and thesetting of the actual town.
Oh yeah.
I mean, I live not far fromit, and I'm pretty proud
of my mountain views now.
Yeah.
You live in an incredible partof the world and I'm, I'm quite
jealous, and I do one day hopeto get down there and visit

(01:32:59):
you because I, as I say, I justget the tiniest of toes and
the nee and I need to see more.
I mean, I, I've lived therenow for a few years and
there's so much more thatI just really wanna see.
I crossed them west to eastin 2023, and I have it in my
mind across them east to west.
Mm-hmm.
Because it, it's such adistinct difference from
one way to the other.

(01:33:20):
And the scenery is totallydifferent from the direction
that you're facing as well.
It doesn't matter if you stayeven on the same road, you have
a totally different experience.
And also you just havea different experience.
Full stop.
And I think the ch thechallenge with, with the nee
is that there's not like oneroad that goes across them.
You have to sort of goup and down, up and down.
Right?
Like I, I was trying to find aroute that would like, sort of,
it loads a passes, but it's,I actually, there is actually

(01:33:40):
a route, so there's like theraid nee route and there's like,
oh yeah.
Different versions of that.
So the Raid Pyrenees waslike formed and it was like
a road cycle touring routefrom the, I think it's the
Beyond Cycling Club, which isone of the regions in France.
And it's like thisofficial route.
And if you're a road cyclist,the official raid route,

(01:34:01):
I can't remember how manycoals it covers, and it's
just over 700 kilometersand I think you have like a
hundred hours to complete it.
But then there's the raid neetouring route, which includes
a hell of a lot more climbs.
And I mean, you can officiallyget your passport stamped
if you wanna do that.
I didn't do that, but it'sa lot more like we did
24 climbs on that route.
Whereas I think the officialrate, I think it might
be 17, maybe a bit less,but there is also another

(01:34:26):
route called the V 81.
Another route, whichtakes you through the
Pyrenees, but without doingall the high mountains.
And it takes you through thePyrenees via the foothills.
Mm-hmm.
And so if you wanna sort of dipin and dip out and do a few of
the climbs, but then maybe stayin the flatter parts, you can
hook in onto the V 81 as well.
So, yeah.
I should have, I shouldhave tapped you for
some, some information.

(01:34:47):
Everyone feel freeto tap me for info.
Always happy tospread the stoke.
You've given me a few bucketlist items to add there.
Like, so when I do return tothe nees, like I'm definitely
gonna hit some of that stuff.
Well, my house isn't onthe route, but it's close.
I'm sure we canmake a wee detour.
I'm sure it wouldn'tbe that far.
We had to have an overnightstop at our place halfway
through because I neededto change my brake pads and

(01:35:07):
my, and my bottom bracket.
Mm. But anyway, butwhoa, what a trip.
And I know that we covered offthe final few, well I guess
you had a little, did youhave three weeks in Ireland?
Yeah, it was good.
Three weeks to a month.
I, I, I can't recall exactlyhow much I did a lot of
soul searching 'cause I'dalready had a flight booked.
Months prior, and I got a reallygood deal on my flight with

(01:35:30):
Air India, something like this.
And then I had this deadlineof the, the job, and then
I got made redundant.
So I didn't have thisdeadline anymore.
It was like, do Ichange the flight?
Because I, I am really rushingthe last section of this
trip and I've, I've spenttwo and a half years getting
to this point, even thoughit's gonna cost a bit of
money, surely it makes sense.
And I'd already promisedpeople I was gonna be home
at already, like arrangedwelcome back parties and

(01:35:51):
all this sort of stuff.
And I, it just, it justdidn't sit right with me.
So I did change myflight at great cost.
It cost me more than doublethe original price of
the flight to change it.
But you know what, no regrets.
Money comes and goes, I gotto finish Ireland in style.
I got a, i, I had thatincredible weather.
I got to have a good pokearound the west coast.
I didn't cover the entirety ofthe wide Atlantic way, so I've

(01:36:11):
got unfinished business down in.
Because it starts inKinsale, isn't it?
In Cork?
Yeah.
I mean, you know theTransatlantic way if you,
if you're thinking ofdipping into the ultra scene
there, David, maybe, maybethat's one for you as well.
Mm. And you've got a matewho's got a pub there.
Yeah.
So if you're, oh, what's thename is The Village again?
It's somewhere.
It's, it's on, inthe Dingle Peninsula.
He's not in Dingle.
He is a bit furtherout than Dingle.

(01:36:31):
What a place Valley Far.
That's the name of it.
That's where Tomasis occasionally.
'cause he spends about half theyear cycling around the world.
So you might get him, maybe givehim a shout before you arrive.
I'll have to get the dateswhen I interview him as well.
So yeah, I absolutely adoredright up the West coast.
'cause you know, it's funnythat I live on the other side
of the world line in Australiawhere people also travel
from across the globe to seethe incredible nature and

(01:36:53):
scenery and all that stuff.
And as it turns out, I hadsome pretty spectacular stuff.
Now I'm very blessed aswell 'cause I, I, I, where
I grew up, Christian DOLhas incredible scenery.
Around it.
The Antrim coastthere is amazing.
Yeah, yeah.
And you've been there,you've seen it yourself.
But the west coast ofIreland like that is
up there with the best.
I'm not saying this 'causeI'm biased, although there
probably is a little bit of biasthere, but like the scenery I

(01:37:14):
encountered in Ireland blew meaway in a different type of way.
So some of the sceneryI saw in the rest of the
world, but in my mind.
It was up there with the best,the incredible cliff lines
and like even the mountainsthat I didn't know existed
on the west coast of Ireland.
And then of course the pubculture again in having a
pin of Guinness and, andchant of locals and just
experiencing that good, uh,friendliness and stuff.

(01:37:34):
Yeah, yeah, totally.
I recently interviewed anotheror Northern Irish person, CER
potty, high searcher goes, uh,goes under the handle of going
potty on Instagram and she hadspent time away from Ireland
like 10 years away from Irelandwith university and stuff.
And again, wanted torediscover her own country.
She did this thing, Ithink it was like the 32
counties and there's likea 32 county challenge.

(01:37:57):
This could be up youralley actually if you look
for another bucket list.
And it's a ride through all 32counties, which involved then
hiking to the top of the highestpoint in each of them as well.
Okay.
And the reason I mentionit is very similar to
yourself there, David.
Something that CER said, whichreally stuck with me during
our session was, you are nevera tourist in your own country.
Ireland was just amazingand beautiful and she didn't

(01:38:20):
realize how stunning it was.
And if someone said to,and she's done a lot of
traveling all over the worldto beautiful places, but
if someone said, you're notallowed to leave another
country in your life, she'dbe like, I'm okay with that.
Island's pretty cool.
I'm happy to stay an island.
It's amazing.
And, and that's sort of whatI hear from you as well.
I have to though, I wouldstruggle with the weather.
Like I'm pretty happyto have the sunshine of

(01:38:40):
Australia these days.
It'll be, it's actually20, 20 years this year.
I've been in Australiawith my family.
So I, I did joke earlier thatclimate change might make
things in that part of theworld a bit more amenable.
But like, I'm pretty, I'mpretty happy to be living
in Australia these days.
I, although I stillabsolutely love Ireland, I
will always be home to me.
In some sense, but,uh, Australia is not
home as well, so, mm.
David, as I look to wrapthe show up, I've already

(01:39:01):
asked you my questions.
You've already got your song.
I already know.
I think you're takingthe corrugations and
not the headwind.
Yes.
And I know that the bestthing about bike adventures
is the spaces in between.
I need to think of somethingelse to ask you, and I guess
I'm gonna ask you somethingpretty reflective, biggest
lesson you learned from thisadventure that you would take
forward going into another one?

(01:39:22):
Hmm.
Gosh, that's a hard question.
Sorry.
No, that's a great, that'sa really great question.
And the, the thing thatjust jumped to mind
there was trust the road.
'cause there was definitelytimes on this journey when
I felt a bit stuck or like,I didn't, I was, I felt
paralysed by where to go next.
'cause I, I, I wanted to seeit all and I wanted to, you
know, and I, and I just some,or sometimes you were in like a

(01:39:44):
really yucky city and you justwanted to get outta there and,
and get back into the, the goodnature, whatever the thing was.
And outside of what Isaid earlier, by the way,
about the people of theworld who being good.
That was definitely thebiggest learning, but trusting
the road, trusting that thejourney is going to unfold.
And that's why the way I thoughtabout this adventure, even
though I had the overarchinggoal of getting to Ireland,
and that was always a thing,it was the journey and

(01:40:06):
you know, do what I talkedabout, the spaces in between.
In the last podcast, itdid just sort of unfold in
this really beautiful way.
And experience after experiencewould open up to you as you
just, even though you'repeddling, you're also kind
of going with the flow.
You're going with this sortof this, and when you're in
the flow you really know it.
'cause then things are justhappening all around you
all the time and you'rehaving this really, really

(01:40:26):
rich experience of life.
So yeah, trust thatonce you've started this
adventure, once you've, youknow, taken that doorstep,
mile out your front door.
You're going to have a very,very special time and something
that will stay with youfor the rest of your life.
I love it.
I might have to use thatquestion again for other guests.
I, I think I'm gonna get someamazing answers on that as well.

(01:40:46):
Mm-hmm.
By the way, I loved youroriginal answer about spaces in
between, like, it's somethingI've reflected on myself about
why I love bike travel too.
David McCort.
What an absolute trip it's been.
We've, we've spenthours talking yet again.
How cool.
And I really feel like I'veonly just like opened the
window, just a tiny crackto get a microcosm of your

(01:41:07):
adventures because thereare so many stories and
you're a great storyteller.
And I think one of the bestgifts you've given yourself is
the ability to be able to sharethese stories, whether it's in
a, a sneaky Irish pub, over acheeky Guinness or somewhere
in Australia or over, you know,a coffee, what was it called?
Um, coffee outside.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like your coffee outsidesessions must be like, it

(01:41:29):
must be mega, but it's reallycool and I hope that you
are able to reflect back onit and remind yourself of
this when life happens toenergize yourself as well.
Because something that's prettyclear on the first session
and this session as well, is.
This was so energizing foryou and exhausting in an
equal measure by the sounds ofit, but just also uplifting.

(01:41:51):
There's this sense oftraveling with curiosity,
with purpose to exploretaking the squiggly line.
That's a lesson.
Listeners, if you're planningon these adventures yourself,
definitely take it fromyour, from David too, and you
can't pay for the experiencesyou've given yourself on this
trip and the lessons thatyou've learned, which you're,
you know, you are payingforward to others as well.

(01:42:12):
I know that peoplelisten to you.
And get inspired fortheir own adventures.
And I'm stoked to seewhere they take you.
And of course you're more thanwelcome anytime in the Pyrenees
All is, which you say, DavidMcCort, thank you so, so much.
But once again, sharingmore stories and experiences
here on the podcastfor Seek travel ride.
Absolutely.
And I, I really do feelenergized after having

(01:42:34):
this conversation.
I said before, I'm six monthsat home and it is sort of fad
a little bit like, and so justretelling these stories is like,
you know, just brought me backinto those incredible moments.
And that's just some of thecountless ones that I had.
So thank you very, verymuch Bella, for having me
on for the second part.
It was an absolute pleasureto reli and I look forward to
getting to the NEES one dayand having more conversations

(01:42:55):
about my adventures and yours.
And if I could, lastly, Iwanna just say a big thanks to.
All the people that,uh, supported me on
this journey, both fromhome and along the way.
So I'm talking about my, mymom and dad and my brothers
and sister and their partnersand that, and they're my
little nieces and nephews.
They all cheer me on from home,but also my friends, uh, to
Tom, obviously for plantingthat initial seed to my other

(01:43:16):
venture buddy Andy, who I doa lot of ventures as well.
He is, he was always, you know,checking in on how I'm going
and, and, and giving this,uh, the adventurous support.
Uh, but then, um, you know, justas importantly, every single
person, the, the countless namesand faces of people that just
welcomed me into their homesalong the way and showed me
and, and reaffirmed what I had adeep faith was the case anyway,

(01:43:37):
that, you know, people aregood and you just gotta get out
there and connect with peopleand find that common humanity.
And I hope that together by,by sharing these experiences
that I've had with people,especially in these countries
that have these bad reputationsand whatnot that I can imagine
and show people and all theother incredible people you
interview on this podcast andhaving these stories and these
conversations that, yeah, peoplein the world are good and we
just gotta find that humanityin each other and we can make

(01:43:59):
the world a better place.
Definitely and trust the road.
Trust the road.
Well, listeners, there you go.
I knew straight away when I'dorganized with David to have
podcast session number two thatwe would be in for an awesome
ride with numerous stories told.
And I am sure like me, you didnot feel disappointed at all.
It feels such an incrediblegift to hear David's stories

(01:44:22):
and the energy with whichhe tells them, and also the
details that he remembers, butprobably more importantly, that
the messages that he sharesright at the end there saying
that one of the most importantthings was trust the road, trust
the decisions you're making.
I think when you're on sucha big tour and you have all
these doubts, sometimes thatthe idea that you can trust

(01:44:43):
yourself sometimes can feela bit of a foreign concept.
But I hope that when you listento these shows, and I know many
of you do, to take inspirationfrom my guests, that these
are the insights and learningsthat you take from them.
That you take their experiencefrom their pania bags and you
put it in your saddle bags, andthen trust the road and enjoy an
amazing, incredible experience.

(01:45:05):
And listeners, I have putlinks to all of David's
social channels in the shownotes as well, so that you
can be sure to follow himand see where his future
adventures take him as well.
Now, if you have been enjoyingtuning into the show here on
Seek Travel Ride and you wouldlike to support the show, you
can do so by buying me a coffee.
It's just a little virtualbrew goes a long way to showing

(01:45:27):
your appreciation for theepisodes, which I'm putting
together for you here as well.
You can buy me a coffeeonline at buy me a
coffee.com/seek travel ride.
Buy me a bro.
But more importantly, whenyou do, leave me a message
and let me know what's thebike adventure you want to
be taking or what's the onethat you've just finished.
Until the next episode,I'm Bella Malloy.

(01:45:49):
Thanks for listening.

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