Blog 14 23rd – 26th May Turkmenabat to Gonur Depe Distance: 266km Total Distance: 3940km Day 60, Turkmenabat Turkmenistan’s second largest city, Turkmenabat, was adorned with eye-catching contemporary buildings that are intended to show off the power and wealth of the country; for example, the presidential palace is actually a folly, never used by […]
Cycling
Turkmenistan’s Silk Roads
Blog 13 16th – 21st May Urgench to Turkmenabat Distance: 623km Total Distance: 3674km Day 54: Urgench – Dashoguz 70km In Urgench, we bid Elena farewell and set off for the Turkmenistan border. Anna and I were slightly anxious about what to expect crossing into Turkmenistan – one of the world’s most secretive countries. I […]
A cradle of civilisation and nurturing nature
Blog 12 8th – 15th May Nukus to Urgench Distance: 196km Total Distance: 3051km Nukus was a two day pit stop where we changed filmmakers – Anna Plocinska arrived from Switzerland for a month-long stint and Georgia left for the UK. It was important that they had time to connect and hand over the filmmaking […]
Aral Sea South – Spectacularly sad
Blog 10 28th April – 3rd May Nukus, Karakalpakstan, the UZ border to Moynaq Distance: 313km Total Distance: 2599km The old Soviet-built train chugged slowly across the dry, featureless steppe stopping occasionally at villages and for about 90 minutes at the border for immigration and customs. I barely slept because I was paranoid about my bike […]
Around the Aral Sea west coast (Kazakhstan)
Blog 9 23rd – 27th April Akespe to the border Distance: 305km Total Distance: 2286km Day 31: Akespe to Akbasty – 104km Once out of the sand at Akespe, it was a relief to turn onto the Gas Pipeline Road – the first made gravel road I’ve had since Aralsk. It follows a buried gas […]
A dam collapse and the accidental lake
27-29 March 2025 Total distance: 408km From Tashkent the plan was to drive back to Buka, the town that we stayed in on our first night in Uzbekistan, as I didn’t need to cycle the same road twice and rejoin the line of my journey there. Rather than heading straight for the Kazakhstan border, I […]
Turning the tide (& thank you)
Blog 20 Days: 101-102 Dates: 20th-21st September Denham Total Distance (2021 + 2023) : 8617km Between spending a couple of weeks in Western Australia with family and friends post-expedition and returning to life in Melbourne, it has taken a while to write the final blog – so here it is. I was introduced to Tidal […]
Mount Augustus to Steep Point
Blog 19 Days: 94-100 Dates: 13th – 19th September Distance: 732km Total Distance 2023: 7089km Total Distance (2021 + 2023) : 8617km Tracking map by ZeroSixZero: https://z6z.co/breaking-the-cycle-australia/ My apologies for taking so long to publish the final two blogs – here’s the first one. Having just completed an intense week of cycling to cover the […]
Off the Map
Blog 18 Days: 86-93 Dates: 5th – 12th September Newman to Mount Augustus Distance: 731km Total Distance 2023: 6357km Total Distance (2021 + 2023) : 7885km Originally I had planned two days off in Newman but because we lost three weeks with the vehicle breakdown earlier in the expedition, I’d had to trim the extra […]
Jigalong and the Rabbit Proof Fence (Part II)
Blog 17 Days: 80-84 Dates: 30th August – 3rd September Kumarina to Jigalong Distance: 388km Total Distance 2023: 5626km Total Distance (2021 + 2023) : 7154km Days 80, 81 220km (113km, 107km) From Kumarina Roadhouse it was 220km to Jigalong. I first took the Great Northern Highway heading north for 50km before turning off on […]
