Friday 7th November 2008

Belfast 6:30am, grey sky, cold, rain, roads covered in diesel – I should have turned south last night. With the Northern Ireland haulage industry having such a hard time why don’t they use the fuel instead of pouring it over the roads? Convinced I was going to fall off in the last minutes of my trip, I tiptoed home.

Summary

What had I done?
7,281 kilometres (or 4,551 miles)
7 countries (Northern Ireland, Ireland, Wales, England, France, Morocco, Spain)
6 ferry crossings
48 days
1 fall
1 bout of ill health

Was it worth it?
Did I achieve what I set out to do?
In a traditional sense, no I didn’t. My plan went wrong on the morning of day two so I scrapped my plan. From then on each morning I just went where the road unfolded before me.
On a more personal level, I achieved everything I set out to do. Essentially I went on this trip because I read a book thirty years ago. I was in awe of a fairly ordinary person going off alone on his motorbike and, every day, dealing with riding unannounced into some different, remote place. The world has changed since Ted Simon’s trip and it is no longer possible to replicate it. In any case I don’t have the language skills, the bravery or the remarkable insight into people that Ted possessed. At various times in this trip, however, I did recognise situations and feelings that Ted had described.
Many people go through life either pretending that they don’t have dreams or being too afraid of failure to try living their dreams.
I feel very privileged to have lived, if not a chapter, at least a few pages from ‘Jupiter’s Travels’.