Ashburton, The Guardian

Cycling the long way home Tweet?2 By Susan Sandys February 16, 2012 Suffering typhoid and dengue fever, running from a gun-wielding landowner, and surviving a hurricane. These are among the experiences of couple Richard Ferge and Stani Martinkova, who are cycling around the world and pedalled their way into Ashburton this week. Mr Ferge, 40, of France and his wife Stani, 45, of England, left Mr Ferge’s home town of Chatellerault on December 28, 2004. They cycled to the south of France through to Spain, then onto Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Sicily, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and into Russia. Until then all the ground they had covered had been solely on their bicycles, but they took a train from Moscow to Siberia and cycled through to Mongolia and China to Beijing where they took a boat to South Korea and Japan, and back to China. They pedalled on to Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, back to Malaysia, Indonesia, and from Bali boarded a plane for the first time in their trip, going to Perth. Here they cycled across the Nullarbor and the southern coast of Australia, into Victoria, around Tasmania, and through New South Wales into Queensland. They flew from Brisbane to Christchurch two-and-a-half months ago, and have since covered the whole South Island. The pair had already done the Americas when they started seven years ago, and have now covered 110,000 kilometres by bike. On their journey they have camped by the roadside or been hosted in people’s homes, many sourced through warmshowers.org. Their Ashburton host this week was found through the website. The couple said the highlight of their journey to date had been the scenery, learning to live in an ecologically-friendly way, acquiring a growing awareness of climate change, and meeting amazing people. Lowlights had included dealing with traffic and some scary incidents. These had included being chased by a gun-wielding woman in Oregon. The pair had been looking for the residence of a Ben and Betty in the rural area, after having been invited by the couple to stay on their land. They cycled up a hill in darkess and rain to knock on the door of one of the nearby landowners, hoping to get directions. The woman who opened the door pointed a gun and screamed at them to get off her land. They threw their hands in the air in submission, and made a hasty retreat, as she chased them down a gravelly driveway. “It was hard to push our bikes in the gravel. Lucky It was downhill (from there),” Ms Martinkova said. Ben and Betty ended up not being worth the trouble. When the cyclists did finally get to stay there, the Americans turned out to be a fiery couple who were more occupied with their drug habit than anything else. In Central America Mr Ferge and Ms Martinkova were between Panama and Columbia, taking river boats to negotiate water passages, when they ran into Hurricane Mitch. The boat was chased by a large wave, and the rocky journey made them wonder if their bikes would survive. “We were very sick on the boat.” During their more recent travels Mr Ferge came down with dengue fever, and Ms Martinkova with typhoid. “That’s not fun when you are miles away from anywhere.” They have been hit by cars on a few occasions, luckily each time they have been able to stand up and dust themselves off and get back on their bikes. Ms Martinkova was even hit by a lorry in Vietnam. She had pulled off the road to a waterfall in order to fill up her water bottle, when she saw the lorry coming. “I don’t know what he was looking at but he just slammed into the back of me,” she said. She suffered bruising and had to take it a little slower for the next couple of weeks. After New Zealand, the couple are off to Malaysia, Borneo, the Philippines, China, the Himalayas, Central Asia, Africa, and will return to Europe in 2016. While most of their peers have careers, children and homes, they have none of these, having decided some years ago to not have children, and having sold their house in England to fund their trip. Previous to their travels Mr Ferge was a wine sommelier, while Ms Martinkova worked for a charity. “We are going to come back with nothing, we are very determined and will find something, we are not fussed if we end up stacking shelves in a supermarket for a while.” As for life skills and independence, they could offer any future employer plenty of that. “Some of our friends think it’s one big holiday, cycling from the beach to the vineyard, and we are just having fun all day. But it’s incredibly hard work, sorting out visas, we have a lot of determination and stamina, and have learned to be very adaptable,” Ms Martinkova said. Comments 0 #1 Marg Knight 2012-02-17 05:21 Greetings from the other Ashburton, in Melbourne, across the ditch. Richard and Stani also will talk to school groups, inspiring them to tackle anything they set their hearts on. They have an excellent audiovisual display. Quote