Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

I am really excited about the prospect of cycling across the Continent of Europe, and also about the opportunity it offers me to raise funds for a tremendously worthy cause. Its a huge challenge obviously, which I am looking forward to taking on.

I intend to begin the journey in the last week of August taking the ferry from Newcastle to Amsterdam in the Netherlands.  From there I will cyle to Rotterdam, and pick up the Bike Trail along the River Rhine.  I plan to follow this route all the way through Holland and Germany to The Rhine Falls at Shaffhausen near the Swiss Border, a distance of 820 miles.

From there I  leave the Rhine and climb over to the town of Donaueschingen in the Black Forest, which is the recognised source of the River Danube, and I then follow the Danube through 9 countries and 4 capital cities to where it runs into the Black Sea in Romania some 1250 miles later!

The journey, all going to plan (!) should take about 5 weeks, and will carry me through some of the most scenic and historically rich areas of Europe.  It promises to be a real adventure....

I intend to produce a blog to allow me to share my adventure with family, friends and supporters, and details will be provided in due course on this page.

On my return, I plan to create a presentation which I will be delighted to share with interested groups, in return for a small donation to the Hospice.  As an experienced speaker I already offer talks to a wide range of people each winter, and I hope that many of these groups will be keen to take up my offer of this new illustrated talk.

At the moment I am involved in what seems like a hundred different tasks which are necessary to prepare for my trip - deciding on which bike to use and which wheels and tyres being just one mundane but important decision to be made.

I don't doubt that there will be one or two difficult moments in store along the way, but the knowledge that people have been generous in their donations to The Hospice will certainly help me to push on through.

 

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