Category: bikepacking

The King’s Highway: On the March

On the run up to the trip, I’d had a busy few days at work, and then, two days beforehand I was struck down with a cold. The weather outside was appalling with gusting 50 mile an hour winds, so I retreated to the kitchen, and boxed up my bike in there. Luckily I’d ended up with an enormous bike box from Decathlon, but was it too big? Its length was 195 cm and the length for an oversized bag was meant to be a maximum of 190 cm…

Arriving at the airport in plenty time, I was relieved to see that at 21.2 kg, my box was comfortably under the 23 kg weight restriction, and that seemed good enough for the check in staff. Getting to the oversized baggage point, however, I was momentarily alarmed when asked to match up my 195 cm bike box alongside a 3D template of a 160 cm one. ‘Oh it’s ok, it’ll still go’ I was assured, ‘you just need to take it over to that room at the far end of the hall as it’s too big to go through our scanners’. Whilst I watched another member of staff opening up the box and carefully searching through all of the contents, it did make me think about all the other bike boxes that I’d brought to this airport that would have been too big to go through their scanners…

The two flights went smoothly enough, the final stretch into Amman circumventing Israel by heading further west over Egypt, and then approaching from the South. Rushing around the airport after landing, at midnight, I procured some Jordanian Dinars and a new SIM card before meeting up with the driver of the van who was hopefully going to squeeze a very large bike box in the back. As the driver didn’t speak English, the manager of the hotel had also come along in a car, to meet me off the plane.

Once back at the hotel he pushed me to pay for the return leg as well – as van drivers were difficult to procure – then proceeded to charge me an eye-watering fee given the prices that should have been involved. In my depleted state, I paid what he asked, but I had been totally ripped off. And, as I lay in bed that night, there was no way I could make the numbers add up to what I’d been charged, even if I paid for the ‘van and car’ combination both ways!

Looking at it pragmatically, if I placed a value – to me – of being able to get my bike to and from the airport in the middle of the night, and storing my bike box for a week while I was away, as well as somewhere to stay at the beginning and end of the trip, maybe the manager had achieved that figure. That’s the way I’ll look at it anyway, as long as the van arrives to take me back to the airport next week…

Jordan 2023: The King’s Highway

Up In The Air

At the culmination of my lap of Iceland in the summer, I was asked ‘what’s next’? I quickly responded that somewhere warmer might be nice, like a winter escape to Jordan… And it might be nice, I’ll find out very soon!

Usually, when I’m planning a cycling trip, it develops gradually into a vague outline and a smattering of half-formed ideas, then I book the flights, and quickly those half-formed ideas become a plan. On this occasion, after several months of agonising over which flights to book, a sudden price drop forced my hand, and only then did I think to check out the news flash about the Gaza strip which had just flashed across my phone screen.

From that moment, an air of uncertainty hung over my planning: firstly when British Airways extended the duration of the flights in and out of Jordan, presumably deeming it prudent to take steps to avoid flying directly over a war zone; and secondly when they cancelled my homewards flight, offering up the possibility to postpone my trip until a time when the region appeared slightly less volatile. On considering my alternatives, I quickly realised that I would almost certainly end up claiming a refund on the flights to Jordan, then immediately replace them with cheap flights to Egypt, a country also bordering Israel and the Palestine Territories, but in which I had done no research at all. So, Jordan it was…

Jordan was somewhere that had appealed for many years, my interest piqued by photos of the red sandstone tombs of Petra glowing in the slowly-setting desert sun.
In recent years, the country had positioned itself as a safe haven for adventure in the middle of a turbulent region, so, when I first learned about the Jordan Trail, a mixed terrain mountain biking and trekking route running 400 miles down the middle of the country, I took notice. In calculating my remaining annual leave for the year, it was clear that I didn’t have enough days left to undertake the full thing, but surely I could find something to entertain myself?

In reading about the Jordan Trail route, there was regular mention of a road, ‘The King’s Highway’, an old communication path down the spine of the country, starting in Damascus, Syria, and finishing up at Aqaba on the Red Sea. Regarded as being one of the oldest roads in the world, it was documented in the bible and dotted with Roman ruins and Crusader Castles along its length.

The 250 mile stretch from the Jordanian capital, Amman, to Aqaba appeared to have some of the most impressive landscape features, bisected by the towering gorge of Wadi Mujib, tiptoeing around the edge of the Dana Biosphere Reserve, before descending to the spectacular desert landscapes of Wadi Rum on its final approach to the sea.

Oh, and in case I forgot to mention, it passes Petra along the way..

UK 2021: Land’s End to John o’ Groats

So, what does your average globetrotting cycle-tourist do during a world pandemic I hear you ask? Unsurprisingly, look for the nearest suitable challenge not necessitating the use of an Aeroplane and get packing is the answer.

And here I am, packed. Packed off on the 9:08 train from Edinburgh Waverley and with over 12 hours to kill before I arrive in Penzance. My challenge is – of course – Land’s End to John o’ Groats. 1000 miles, from the south-western tip of the British mainland to the north-eastern one.

The route I am intending to follow is the one presented in the Cicerone LeJoG guidebook, and is described as the ‘optimal’ route by none other than the author himself. Optimal because it keeps to quiet roads without adding greatly to the overall mileage.

To this stage, my planning has been minimal. I booked a train – and accommodation for my first night in Penzance – and that’s about it! Hotels in England look expensive, so I’ve brought my tent and hope to camp most nights, but not having planned where I hope to reach each night, I’ll need to seek out my accommodation options as I go. Hopefully this isn’t complicated too much by the English school holidays or lingering Covid restrictions…

US and Canada 2017: Pacific Coast Highway

Vancouver – San Diego:

38 Days

2113.59 miles

55.6 miles per day

As I planned this trip, there were many occasions when I was concerned that I was attempting the impossible; indeed, for much of the route, I’d only hoped to get as far as Los Angeles, and I didn’t actually book my flight back from San Diego until I reached there. Before the Pacific Coast, my longest previous cycle tour had been 400 miles, and by the end of that I had been ready to go home. Physically I had still felt strong, but the mental strain of cycling solo through the Moroccan Atlas, sleeping amongst wild dogs and patronising shops in which sellers tried to sell me unwanted trinkets, had worn me down. I knew that if I was to enjoy the experience of testing myself on a longer route, I would need to travel somewhere that felt more culturally familiar. The fact that the US Pacific Coast Highway regularly featured in the top 3 on lists of the world’s best cycle tours helped to narrow my scope considerably.

Having decided on the US Pacific Coast Highway, I wanted to be sure that it would be possible with my given timeframe before I took any drastic steps – such as booking flights. The process seemed endless as I probed the internet for campsite opening dates to determine whether the trip would be plausible at all. As I worked through the campsites, results seemed to suggest that most of the campsites would be available, in fact, most of them were probably available throughout the year. As I spoke to US-based cyclists on the road, they seemed amused to find that I’d been worried about the accessibility of campsites – they clearly hadn’t arrived at a campsite in France at quarter to 7 in the evening, only to find that the reception was closing and security gates fastened into place. As the journey unfolded, I realised that much of my planning had been unnecessary, I was in the land of the RV and the road trip, on one of the most popular routes in the country. This was a route well served by amenities.

Many of the campsites I stayed in on the route were those recommended in the Bicycling the Pacific Coast route guide, and most of the rest I found in the official American Cycling Association maps of the route. I used them interchangeably at times, and was pleased to discover that – until quite far South in California – most of the campsites were excellent for my requirements, whether I’d seen them recommended or not.

It was much the same with restaurants, I’d spent weeks before I left researching potential food stops in guidebooks and jotting them down in a small notebook. Of course, I barely glanced at the notebook during my trip and, checking back afterwards, I realised that I hadn’t been to any of the places I’d planned out beforehand. When restaurant-hunting a quick glance at Trip Advisor had usually been my first port of call, and the next step was to assess individual restaurants, largely based on whether there was somewhere suitable to leave my bike.

During the 5 and a half week journey, I was on the limit in terms of keeping my bike on the road, punctures were a constant issue, especially when the weather worsened, and there were times during the ride where I was getting by with as few as two gears running smoothly, one for the hills, and one for the flat. I could coast the downhills. I went through brake pads quickly in the wet weather, and not being able to set up gears properly meant I snapped more gear cables than I should. Despite all this, I kept the bike rolling along.

Throughout the trip, the ever-changing spectacle of nature left me awestruck on countless occasions. Vancouver Island, Puget Sound, the Olympic Mountains, Deception Pass, Cannon Beach, Nehalem Bay, Boiler Bay, Cape Perpetua, Oregon Dunes, Pebble Beach, Elk Prairie Redwoods, The Avenue of the Giants, Pacific Grove, Monterey Wine Country, Lake Nacimiento, Point Mugu, La Jolla and Coronado were just a few of the natural wonders I witnessed.

When I think of all that I experienced along the way, I’m reminded of Gilles, the Canadian, who I’d met in the campsite near Santa Cruz, and who was cycling the Pacific Coast for the second time, 25 years after the first. I asked him how he was finding it after so long. ‘Oh, The same!’ was his response. Life had moved on, but the Pacific Coast Highway remained the same, a wonderful adventure waiting to happen.