Cycle Touring Adventures Through Europe and Asia: Terri Jockerst - Age is Just a Number

Listen to Terri Jockerst take us on her cycle touring adventures from Norway to Malta and then through Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.  Terri is living proof age need not get in the way of an adventure. She is 67 years old and loves spending her retirement taking solo cycle tours.   Her tours last several months  at a time, she wildcamps where possible and strongly believes that bike touring is the best way to discover a country, it's history and it's culture. In the episode we explore:

• Cycling Norway to Malta - 3 journeys taken over 3 years
• Highlights from cycling through remote and wild landscapes
• Overcoming perceived age barriers - Terri is proof age shouldn't get in the way of a good adventure.
• Cycling through Taiwan, Japan and South Korea
• The incredible kindness of strangers along the way
• Advice for anyone dreaming of their own bikepacking adventure

You can find Terri's books for purchase here

📲 Follow Terri Jockerst:

• Instagram: @footloosefreckle
• YouTube: @footloosefreckle

Check out Ombraz Sunglasses - I'm a fan and I think you will be too!

Check out Zorali for all your outdoor adventure needs!

Chapters

• 7:13 Discovering Cycle Touring in the Netherlands
• 13:07 Planning the Norway to Malta Journey
• 19:13 Cycling Through Scandinavia
• 22:43 Exploring Historical Sites and Milestones
• 32:50 Immersive Bicycle Travel in Japan
• 34:17 Language Learning aned Cultural Observations
• 35:15 Challenges and Reflections on European Journeys
• 40:59 Pandemic Lockdown and Travel Planning
• 44:34 Arrival and Initial Struggles in Taiwan
• 50:53 Connecting with Locals and Cultural Insights
• 58:12 Solo Travel and Interactions
• 1:03:02 Reflections on Cycling Styles and Community
• 1:07:22 Finding Resilience on the Road
• 1:10:12 Cycling in Extreme Weather Conditions
• 1:12:17 Anticipation vs Reality
• 1:13:26 Insights from Japan, Korea and Taiwan
• 1:29:12 A Magic Day Cycling Through Japan

Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

And I sort of thought, oh, okay, if I wanna see Taiwan, maybe now's the time to go, because you know, I remember being in my early twenties and people had been talking about traveling through Afghanistan and what a wonderful place it was. And then woke up one morning. My second year of uni and the Russians had invaded Afghanistan and it was no longer possible to travel in Afghanistan. And sort of thing in the back of my mind is you think something like this is maybe not gonna be possible in the future. Maybe you need to go and do it now. So I sort of went, ah, Taiwan. And while I'm there, I might as well look at Japan and South Korea as well South because they're different, different places.

Speaker 2: 0:41

Welcome to Seek Travel Ride where we share the stories and experiences of people taking amazing adventures by bike, whether it's crossing state borders, mountain ranges, countries, or continents. We want to share that spirit of adventuring on two wheels with our listeners. Hello, listeners. I'm your host Bella Malloy, and my guest today is someone who proves that adventure need not have any age limits, and you don't need to be a super athlete to take on an incredible bike journey. Terry Jock SST is a retired Australian who spends months each year cycle touring her way around different parts of the world. She's traveling solo, camping wherever she can, and choosing route which not only embrace the landscape she rides through, but also lend themselves to showing off a good bit of history and culture along the way. Before the pandemic hit, Terry cycled 7,000 kilometers from Norway to Malta, a crossing of Europe, which she spread across three separate trips over a three year period. It was a form of travel she absolutely fell in love with, so it is no surprise that once Borders in Australia finally reopened, she set off again this time choosing to explore the countries of Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. Terry is a real champion of the notion that all you need is the will conviction and curiosity for travel. In order to be able to take those steps and these kinds of cycle tours. She rides at her own pace and is very much an advocate for the notion that bike adventures are so far removed from having to go fast or cover huge daily distances to Terry. It really is all about the experiences you'll get to encounter and expose yourself to all along the way. In addition to her travels, Terry is also a self-published author. She documents each of her journeys in three books, as well as her YouTube channel. Her latest book is titled Biking to Busan, which she shares the story of her most recent travels through Asia. I'm super excited to be chatting with Terry today to learn about how she came to embracing this form of active travel. And more importantly, helping to shine a light onto why age doesn't necessarily need to be a barrier to adventure. Terry Jockerst a big warm welcome to the show.

Speaker: 3:18

Thank you. That was an amazing introduction. I had no idea that I have so much to offer. Really.

Speaker 2: 3:23

You've got loads to offer. No less an awesome Aussie accent, Terry. I often especially love to champion two things, women on the show and a fellow Aussie. I'm winning on all levels today.

Speaker: 3:35

I'd like to change that, actually. Older women on the show and an Aussie as well. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:40

Well, Terry, you're a listener to the show, so you know what I'm about to do because the question I start my show with and I ask it of all my guests, is. Terry Jockerst, do you remember the very first bike you ever rode?

Speaker: 3:54

Um, can I read the first chapter outta one of my books? Because that is actually where I described my first memory of a bike ride. Oh, go for it. Okay, so this book is Cycling to the Sun, the, the book from Norway to Malta. And in the first chapter I rode about my history of cycling, which is basically almost non-existent. But anyway, the book aim for the drums. My brother said I was four years old and perched on top of an old rackety bicycle. He pushed the bike, rolled, he ran next to me faster and faster wind rushing through blonde curls, squealing with delight as we rattled them bounce down the hill. The row of large oil drums lined across the driveway at the bottom were there to stop me landing in the pond on the side. We never made it. My legs short and stubby weren't long enough to reach the pedals. They waved around in the air until one foot caught in the wheel and then the chain bike, child beat and brother all came crashing down in a tangle of limbs, pain and technology. And that was my first memory of a bike ride.

Speaker 2: 4:54

Oh my goodness me. I've had a few guests now who tell me about their first ride involving a crash that sounded so dramatic. Where were you growing up there in Australia? Where was this event?

Speaker: 5:04

Farm in the bush. And that stage, it was much more bush than it was farm. And um, yeah, my brother then had to run for, I think two kilometers through the bush to the neighbors who came with their car and a bag full of tools and extracted my foot from the bike. And drove me off to the doctors and I then got sorted out. I

Speaker 2: 5:25

often have this theory, Terry, that when that children just bounce.

Speaker 3: 5:29

Yes.

Speaker 2: 5:29

Something that could be so traumatic for an adult that could be, that's it. I'm never doing that again. Yes. Children have that and then bounce. Did you bounce, like, did you end up loving riding bikes?

Speaker: 5:40

Bikes all through my childhood Weren't something that you loved. You didn't love them. You didn't hate them, you didn't. They were just a method of transport. We rode our bikes to the school bus stop to get to the bus to go to school. We rode our bikes home from the school bus stop. My brothers rode their bikes to sports training or Saturdays to the sports game and they rode their bikes back and that's all it was. The bike was just a means of transport. There was no riding around the neighborhood having fun with your friends or anything like that. I. All through my secondary years that I just rode to the bus stop and back again in all weathers rain ha will shine. During winter when it was really muddy, I rode with my gumbo with my shoes in a bag on the back and we got to the bus stop and gumbo got put under the bike behind a tree and the shoes went on the feet and I went on the bus. When I came home, we did it all in reverse.

Speaker 2: 6:27

I guess one of my logical questions for you is, and we are gonna talk a little bit about your age and taking on these sort of adventures in retirement, because I think you're a bit of a unicorn on my show when I reflect back because I haven't had the privilege of actually interviewing people in your age group that much. In fact, I think I've got maybe two or three guests that I think could be in there. Yep. But my natural question is. Why bike travel? Like how did you come to this? Especially hearing that, you know, it wasn't a case that you grew up riding bikes and that was, that was sort of a thing and that you, you have this passion for riding bikes and merge with the passion for travel. I, I was, I would think knowing and reading your book, your passions are directly steeped in travel more than riding bikes at all, but how did you discover cycle touring?

Speaker: 7:13

Um, in my early twenties. I had a partner in Dutch, and we went across to Holland and I saw there that people rode bikes a lot and there were bike paths and people rode bikes to go shopping and to go to school and all over the place. And I also realized during that trip that you could actually do a bike tour around Holland. That was just quite an amazing thought, had never occurred to me that you could actually ride a bike for, you know, more than five or six miles. But yeah, people got on their bikes and they bought a panier and they rode around Holland. And so we decided as part of our travels around Europe to do the same sort of thing. So we each bought a bike and we rode for, I think four weeks around the Netherlands. That was my first experience of a bike being anything except a way to get to the bus stop. Really? And the most amazing thing is, 'cause we had new bikes. These bikes had gears and they not only had gears, they had lights and they had breaks. Like my bike at home never had breaks. I never had lights. Never had any, no gears. Gears didn't exist in those days when I was riding. How did you stop? Well,

Speaker 2: 8:12

how did you stop, sorry. Go past the gears like no breaks. Well, did you like live in the flattest part of Australia or how did you

Speaker: 8:19

stop? There was a hill between our house and the bus stop and I walked part of the way down and then I hopped on the bike and it was feet on the ground as in where out in shoes,

Speaker 2: 8:27

there was a baptism of fire. No wonder your feet got caught in the chain when you were little.

Speaker: 8:32

And the funniest part is that all through those school years, my parents received a bicycle allowance from the government in order to, um, maintain the bicycles, which we had. But of course, we and their bikes never saw any of that money that just went into other things, more important things. So yeah,

Speaker 2: 8:47

you've turned out okay though. I've

Speaker: 8:48

turned out okay. Yes.

Speaker 2: 8:49

And you appre you have a greater appreciation for technology like breaks now as a result. I really like breaks. Breaks are my best friends. Have you ever lost your breaks? No. I've interviewed a couple of guests who've lost their breaks on a downhill level. Yes. It's my rational fear, yes.

Speaker: 9:02

Lived

Speaker 2: 9:03

out.

Speaker: 9:03

Yes, absolutely. Look, but to be quite honest, I only go very slowly downhills anyway, and that's partly an age thing. I'm very well aware that if I fall off my bike at speed, that might be the last time I get on a bike. So I go down very slowly and cautiously and I enjoy the scenery. Absolutely. All the way down

Speaker 2: 9:20

to me. Something that's pretty clear actually, Terry, is that you are there to enjoy the scenery and the moment as well. Yes. Like that's your whole point. So, okay. Hang on then. So many years ago you discovered bike travel in the, in the Netherlands. Fast forward to now, like did you do much bike travel between that very first four weeks to the Norway to Malta trip?

Speaker: 9:44

No. Um, I. After we came home from our travels, it was get married, have a family, run the family farm, all of that sort of stuff. Have a career. I was a teacher for many years. What did you teach in English and German and library. Around the library as well. So I'm a teach teacher librarian for all those very staid and literate and conservative teacher librarians out there. You can throw up all of that stateness and go on wild bicycle touring. It's possible

Speaker 2: 10:11

maybe you flick through a few adventure books that has helped to stoke the fire. Right. I did

Speaker: 10:15

read quite a few. I've always wanted to go traveling and traveling was always very high on my, um, bucket list. In fact, my bucket list was almost exclusively traveling all through those years of having children and having a career and all of that. So yeah. Um, did one long bike trip. My youngest daughter was 12, I think. Did a great Victorian bike ride and decided after that that I was not gonna do any of those again

Speaker 2: 10:40

for the benefit of our listeners. And, and this is my understanding of the event, having not participated in it, a whole group of people. And we're talking like hundreds of people potentially. Yeah, thousands actually. It's almost like a moving tent. City of bike riders. Like you ride from one destination to the next, all your stuff gets transported along the way and you camp.

Speaker: 10:58

Yes. I think there's about 2000 people or something. Do it every year.

Speaker 2: 11:02

I remember it came to nearby one of our towns when I lived in Australia, I was living in the snowy mountains near Vines. Yes. In the Snowies and uh, the Great Vic bike ride actually stopped there once. And I remember watching this, uh, this tent city sort of move in.

Speaker: 11:16

Yeah, it's an amazing experience. Absolutely amazing experience. But not for you? No, not for me. Not really. I mean, I did it twice. Uh, don't need to do it again. That's okay. Been there, done that, tick that and go off and do something else now. Yeah. And then there was no more bike riding until, uh, when, 2013, when I was 55. I think by that stage. When I turned 55, by that stage, I'd been a single parent for 10 years, three teenagers, 10 years of being a single parent. My mother was becoming, um, less and less independent and. Yeah, I was very, very busy. Didn't have time to scratch myself. So from the ages of 45 to 55 for those 10 years, and when I got to sort of 55, 56, I realized retirement was coming up soon. My kids were growing to an age where they didn't really need me anymore. My mother, I went into a, a senior citizen's home and the time came where I could start to think about me and what I wanted to do. So I thought, right, I need to, I really wanna do an adventure. I wanna do something big, and I want it to be something that nobody else can impact on. Nobody can join in, nobody else can take away from me. Nobody else can go, ma, we need you for this or that something else. So I thought I'd walk a Camino in Spain, get right away from it all. So. I went to Seville with a friend and a friend of hers. So there were three of us. We went to Seville, we walked a thousand kilometers to San Diego, and that was in 2014. And I was 56 years old at that time. And that's only young compared to lots of other people who've walked the cam. That's not such a big deal. But at the end of it, I sort of thought, well, what now? Done this amazing adventure. I've loved absolutely every minute of it. Even the blisters, I loved, even the blisters, they were fantastic. And I thought, well, what now? Where do I go from here? You know, go back to work for another six months. And then what? And I thought, ah, I might go for a bike ride. And at that stage, I had no idea that bike riding was a thing. That bike touring was a thing. Apart from, you know, people that go for a a week's tour around Holland. I had no idea that, that you can ride for 60 or 70 kilometers a day and that you can ride from Norway to Malta or anything. Nothing. Nothing. I'd never come across anything like that. You have to think sort of YouTube in those days wasn't really a thing or certainly wasn't in my life. And yeah, I just thought, right, I, I wanna ride a bike. I'll do a big bike too. I've always wanted to go to Malta. I'll start in Denmark, I thought, and then I looked at the map and I thought, ah, Denmark, it's too early. Let's start in Norway. And luckily at home, I'd had, um, my mother had some old postcards from her father. So my grandparents had lived in the north of Norway for a few years round about the time that my mother was born. Nineteen twenty, nineteen twenty one.

Speaker 2: 13:59

What a time to be in Norway. Yeah,

Speaker: 14:01

right up in the north in Vic. So my mother was born in Vic and there were postcards near amongst all of her old souvenirs and things of Laan islands, black and white postcards from 1920, and also black and white postcards of the North Cape. And I thought, righty o, there it is. There's a message from the gods. From postcard land, wherever I'm gonna ride my bike, a bike, didn't even have a bike at that time. I'm gonna ride a bike from the north of Cape of Norway down to Malta. And I sort of talked about it a little bit with a few people and before I knew it, some friends of mine had sort of found me somewhere on a rail trail going for a walk. And we sort of met each other and they said, we've heard you're going on a bike ride in Europe. And I said, yeah, I, I am. I haven't got a bike yet, but you know, this is what I'm planning to do next year. And they said, can we come along too? I said, yeah, sure, whatever. So yeah, they didn't have bikes. They had bikes but not touring bikes at that stage. So, and I had started to look, I had gone to a few bike shops and said, you know, I wanna do a long bike tour. What sort of bike do you need? And the first bike shop said, well, we don't know. And the second bike shop said, well just go and look on YouTube. And I tried to look on YouTube and got absolutely nowhere. But then this friend said, um, he would take over doing that research and I said, that's fine. Whatever you buy, I'm gonna just buy the same. So he did a bit bit of research and um. Said we need to buy VIIs, which is an Australian brand of bike, still Ventis. And so all three of us went down to Melbourne one day, went to a bike shop, came back with three VIIs, complete with Panas and all the other stuff. Which

Speaker 2: 15:30

model did you get? I've interviewed a couple of guests who've had VIIs, Jess Thomas. Hi Jess. And also Hells Helen Dainty? Yes. She rides a Gib, I'm pretty sure.'cause her bike's called Gibo. Oh right.

Speaker: 15:44

That's a good australianism. It is, it is. I can't remember what brand, what, um, version mine was. Anyway, I gave it away during the pandemic and I took it to a, um, an organization that repairs bikes and donates them to refugees in Bendigo. So hopefully it's got a second l

Speaker 2: 16:00

the bike lives on with a new owner hoping to take it. Yes. And you've upgraded, you've got another bike now.

Speaker: 16:06

Yeah, I want it to go pinon and I want it to go something with a bit lighter frame and. And something is orange. I've got an orange bike now.

Speaker 2: 16:12

Stands out. I love it. But I wanna wind back a little bit. Why Malta? Why Norway to Malta? What made you choose Malta?

Speaker: 16:20

It's just somewhere that I've always thought I'd like to go there. No idea why? It was just, dunno. It's a good place to heading in the area that I grew up, there are many, um, Italian, Greek and Maltese migrants and I thought, ah, Malta sounds interesting. I might go there. Yeah, food's great. And what I didn't know until I got there is they have this amazing prehistory. They have these temples that, yeah, they're just amazing temples or they think they're temples, which are the stones of which are bigger than anything at stone hinge. These very historic people and nobody knows how or why they did this. Transported massive stones from around the islands, what, 20 tons. Some of them are massive stones and put them in the circles. And then put some other stones on top like as a tel type thing and nobody knows how or why or anything.

Speaker 2: 17:10

Is it sort of oriented with the poles and stuff as well and like sunrise, sunset and sea? Like is there some sort of pagan type, you know how with stone head you were talking about Yeah. Is very much

Speaker: 17:18

that same sort of thing. It's certain times of the year the sunlight comes through this gap here and shines on that gap there type thing, but, but they really don't know. And there are new numbers of these. There's three or four on Malter itself and there's at least one on Gozo, the next island as well. And I love anything to do with prehistory and my first year at uni I did archeology and so anything that's historical like that, I'm just ready to go there. Go there and have a look.

Speaker 2: 17:43

This is the perfect form of travel for you to just happenstance on these sort of things. Yes. Well actually I used the word happenstance. Are you someone who happenstances, I don't know, these happenstances world anyway, are you someone that just likes to plan and leave things to chance in the way of, I don't know what I'm gonna see along the way, but I can't wait to see that? Or are you someone who goes, I wanna see this and this is the way I'm gonna get there.

Speaker: 18:08

Yeah. The second one is more than me. When I'm planning to go into a country, like with Japan, I drew an outline map of Japan, all the four mine islands plus Okinawa. During the pandemic, I made the most amazing Excel spreadsheet, which has on it all of the UNESCO world heritage sites, the lonely planets, 1000 things you need to see before you die, and a couple of those sorts of things. I put them all on a fantastic Excel spreadsheet. So I go to the Japan section and I have a read through what all the things are in in Japan that might be worthwhile looking at, and I note down all the ones that I'm interested in and I plot them on the map. And then I draw a line vaguely of how to join up all of these things within that country. And that's how I plot my roots. It's got nothing to do with UO roots or other planned bicycling route. It's all about how do I get from this archeological site to that city or to that battlefield, to whatever else it is that I want to see in that country. And then I happen to come across, you know, all sorts of other things on the way, but it's more about the main things that I wanna see in each country.

Speaker 2: 19:10

So if I take you back then to that first tour

Speaker: 19:13

Yep.

Speaker 2: 19:13

Norway to Malta Lofton, where you know, you see the postcard from your.

Speaker: 19:19

Would it have been your grandparents? My grandfather, yes. Grandparents. Yep.

Speaker 2: 19:23

The obvious reasons to start there.

Speaker: 19:25

Yes. Laden Islands was more a training thing.'cause after that we took a ferry up to the North Cape and that's where the rides started. As in the north. Capes are, mul are.

Speaker 2: 19:33

Okay. So North Cape would've been a milestone then?

Speaker: 19:35

Yes.

Speaker 2: 19:35

What other milestones? Just like randomly, like the first ones that come into your mind.'cause there would've been so many on a journey that big.

Speaker: 19:42

Yeah. Um, at that stage I hadn't really tweaked so much how to plan the route that I did make sure that I went past a place in Finland. I can't remember the name of it. Ah, it's an area where they've got thousands of stones have been piled up by prehistoric peoples in various shapes and combinations and permutations. And there's an area called the church floor where they've got, I don't know, 10 meters by 10 meters, all of these stones carried from miles away and, and put together there on, on this flat base. And nobody knows why. It's right down in the south near Roma d. It's a UNESCO site, spelled SA double M, a double LAH.

Speaker 2: 20:24

So hang on. How do you think we pronounce

Speaker: 20:26

Samah de meki? I'll

Speaker 2: 20:28

leave

Speaker: 20:28

that to you.

Speaker 2: 20:30

I'd have a few listeners from Finland. You can C you can, you can send me a voice message on Instagram and tell me how we should pronounce that.

Speaker: 20:37

And it's about 15 kilometers east of Oma. Now, the other interesting thing that I didn't know beforehand is a lot of the places in this area of Finland actually have two names. They have a Finnish name and a Swedish name. Yeah. The main language down there is Swedish and. Because Finnish is the national language. A lot of places have two names.

Speaker 2: 20:55

Was that an issue with navigation or not really?

Speaker: 20:58

No, not

Speaker 2: 20:58

really.

Speaker: 20:59

Not really. It was just interesting. Yeah. And from then on I wanted to really cross the Island Islands, which are the islands from Finland going across to just north of Stockholm in Sweden and Sweden. There wasn't anything in particular I wanted to do, but I made sure that I cycled along the Gida Canal. And I just read this morning that the Gida Canal, right Bicyling path has been, um, listed somewhere as the cycling path for 2025. In Europe. Yeah. Anyway,

Speaker 2: 21:27

so why, why did you definitely wanna cycle that route? Had you seen it or read about it? Like what, what made that route there special?

Speaker: 21:34

Um, it went across, or it linked up quite a few lakes. That part of Sweden's got a lot of lakes and I sort of thought, yeah, cycle to a lake and then take a ferry across and then cycle a bit more and take another ferry. What I didn't know is towards the end of the summer of force, the season is over and none of the ferries are running anymore, so you have to cycle the whole distance.

Speaker 2: 21:53

That reminds me of like first moving to France and not realizing that, you know, no, Sunday trade is legitimately a thing in many places. Yes. And that also some places aren't open or a Monday or even worse like campgrounds, like the, and I don't think this is a French and this is a European thing. Yes. In Australia, our campsites are open all year round. Seven days a week. Yep. You know, 52 weeks a year. But over there there's like a season and it's random. It could be like the end of April until. Some till the end of August, some till the end of September. Some of them may be in October.

Speaker: 22:24

Yes.

Speaker 2: 22:24

And that's a real shock when you first learn about that too.

Speaker: 22:27

Yes. I always laughingly say that you can dive starvation in Germany on a Sunday because everything's shut, but of course some of the bakeries are open. So you wouldn't actually dive starvation, but

Speaker 2: 22:38

you generally only make that mistake once. Yes. So what about milestones on mainland Europe then?

Speaker: 24:25

Once again, that first trip from Norway down to malt, it wasn't so much about milestones. That's sort of an idea that I came across a little bit later, um, or actually worked out during that trip. I think so for, for that trip. It was mainly about going from north to south, north most point to somewhere in the south. So Malta,

Speaker 2: 24:45

you, you split the trip into three separate journeys? Yes. And took them over three year periods. Was it one year after the other sort of thing? Yeah,

Speaker: 24:52

2017 in summer I cycled from the north of Norway to somewhere close to Copenhagen. So we started the trip in mid-June just before Midsummer. And by the end of September I'm very, very slow and I stopped to look at everything and there were a lot of things to look at in Scandinavia. So it took me till the end of September to get to near Co from Hargan, or actually October, I think sometime in October. And that's that stage. It was just started to rain and it rained so much in Denmark. It was just torrential downpour day after day after day for at least 10 days. Were you camping? I was staying in in huts, in campgrounds because there wasn't tenting because I'm too old to do that in the rain. Can't be bothered. So I stay in the huts. Well, hang

Speaker 2: 25:35

on, hang on though. In huts when it was raining, but if it wasn't raining, were you camping?

Speaker: 25:39

Yes, but not raining. I camping and if it's raining, I'm going to a hut. Or if it's too windy. I

Speaker 2: 25:43

like your strategy there. I think there's lots of us who listen to the show, who do what Terry does. Good on you. Yes.

Speaker: 25:50

Yep.

Speaker 2: 25:51

And not just a pretty face,

Speaker: 25:52

Terry. And one thing I discovered in Denmark was when it's really windy. You're riding up a hill, you're sheltered from the wind or from a headwind, at least when you're riding up a hill. But when you're riding down the hill, the other side and that headwind is really strong, you can actually almost heal yourself going back up the hill backwards.'cause the wind is so strong. Yeah. So Denmark, the weather was quite a challenge and I had to go home anyway to sort out stuff. I had to sell my house and do other stuff, so I thought that's it. Go home.

Speaker 2: 26:20

What about those, those friends you met in Australia who joined you because they joined you for part of this trip? Which part of the journey did they join you for?

Speaker: 26:28

Um, just the training partner in La Foton and the first, I think two weeks in Norway. And then they wanted to travel to Switzerland, but they wanted to go as quickly as possible. They only had a certain certain period of time, whereas I stopped at every Rone stone. And there's a lot of Rone stones in Scandinavia. They're the stones put up by the Vikings for various reasons, and they have inscriptions on them and there are Iron age burial mounds to stop at. And there are beautiful old churches to stop and look at and there're lovely trees to sit and have a picnic under. And there's a lot of reasons to stop when you're siphoning through Scandinavia.

Speaker 2: 27:01

Well, I also think like this way of travel, and you've sort of hinted on it and listeners, everybody, certainly I've learned since interviewing a lot of people, Terry, everyone has a different style and no one style is right and no one is wrong. And you just do what fills you with energy, right? Yeah. Personally, my, the thing I love about this form of travel is. It has that flexibility built into it? Well, at least the way that I do it in that, yes, there might be places I definitely want to get to, but also if the weather's bad, I can change my plans or yes, if I come somewhere that I didn't know existed and find something that's amazing, I can stop and actually take the time to see it. Whereas I, if I'm in a car or a bus or on a train, I, I don't see everything in in the

Speaker: 27:45

middle. Yes. And my theory is that I'm only gonna be in this particular place now once, because I'm now 67. My years of cycling are, they're a bit limited as to how many years ahead of me I have. I really can't afford to think, yeah, I'll come back here another day and see this. If I don't see it now, I'll miss it.

Speaker 2: 28:02

So take the time to do it properly.

Speaker: 28:04

Take the time to do it properly. So when I think of the second year, I went back and started in, I think in May or maybe April, can't remember exactly, went to Copenhagen and started from there. And when you talk about stopping to look at things like first day out of Copen Hoven, I only rode for, I think. 30 kilometers and the next day, another 30 or so, and I got to a place that had these lovely white cliffs, an island with these lovely light. So of course I did a, did a bit of a detour to see these lovely light white cliffs. And on the way back there were these churches, these lovely old village churches built in medieval times when the peasants were not literate. They couldn't read the Bible, they had to have the Bible shown to them in pictures on the church. So you go inside the church and there were these lovely naive pictures painted straight onto the plaster. I dunno what the arch, um, the artistic term for those is, but

Speaker 2: 28:56

like a fresco?

Speaker: 28:57

Yeah. Type like a fresco. But these are lots of small individual pictures, not a large picture. So multiple small individual ones within various settings and whatever, and just glorious. And so I looked up online and I found a few more of those churches and made sure that in the following days I went past a few more of those. And then of course there are the burial mounds from the, from the Vikings, and I found one where you could actually crawl all the way into it to the burial chamber right at the end and sit there for a few minutes until oxygen's running out, and then crawling back out again. And,

Speaker 2: 29:30

oh, I don't know how I'd feel about that, Terry. It sort of gives me the creeps a bit. When I interviewed awesome Northern Irish, adventurous otti, we were talking about Irish legends and fairy and folklore, and she was telling me about a stone there that, yeah, legend's, right? If you walk through the stone three times, it'll close in on you. We both laughed at ourselves at the amount of superstition and bitch had the burial mound there. That gives off similar vibes to me.

Speaker: 29:57

Yes. Except it's not gonna collapse. I mean, it's been there for over a thousand years, so Yeah. But there's all these things that you can see on the way.

Speaker 2: 30:04

Yeah. So hang on. Where did the second trip, so Copenhagen, to where? Where was your end point? Copenhagen to and Kona in Italy. Wow. And then third trip, did that start in Italy and then end up in Malta. So

Speaker: 30:14

the second first one was over summer. The second trip was over summer, and the third trip was over spring the following year because summer's too hot.

Speaker 2: 30:22

I need to ask you this. As an Aussie, you may feel this as deeply as I do, but there are parts in Australia where we really see the vibrance of spring. But to me it wasn't until I lived in Europe that I realized spring is such a big deal. Yes.'cause our envi, you know, our nature is mainly evergreen in Australia. We don't have, we don't have this feel of winter where there is no tree that's got no leaves. Like I really remember it starkly when I first lived in the northern hemisphere. That winter can be bleak, not just 'cause the daylight hours are are short and because you know, the temperatures are really, really cold. But also because there is no color in the landscape,

Speaker: 31:01

there's no green, it's all brown, black, white.

Speaker 2: 31:03

Yeah. It's all brown and the grass is all frosted dead and it's damp and bleak. Whereas in Australia we, it's green everywhere. So my first experience of spring in Europe was like, wow, this is mega. Yes. It's an assault to the eyes. Did you find that as well?

Speaker: 31:20

Not in Italy so much, even though it was spring. I think spring in Italy is possibly not as striking, not as vibrant, but definitely saw it right up in the north of Norway, even though it was June and it was theoretically summer here. When we left, um, the North Cape cycling south, the first day we didn't actually cycle south from the North Cape. We took a ferry of the first stop to avoid a deep tunnel that's there. That's quite terrifying, apparently. Oh, that's that 10 kilometer tunnel? Yes. Or,

Speaker 2: 31:51

or, or, or, well, I dunno how long it is, but it, it goes down at 10% and then upper 10% for ages.

Speaker: 31:56

Yeah. So we wanted to avoid that. We weren't fit enough to do that, so we decided it'd be sensible and we avoided that. And so we ended up somewhere further west, and then we had to climb over two mountain ranges or up over two plateaus. And up there on the plateau, there was no green. It was all brown and gray and white, and it was amazing. Stunning scenery. Absolutely cob smacky, but there was no green. But then as we went further south, down further towards the coast and then further south, you could see the green leaves starting on the trees. And then the more south we went, the more there were leaves and trees. And by the time I was sort of a hundred kilometers later, it was full on forest.

Speaker 2: 32:34

And it's amazing to see that transformation.

Speaker: 32:36

Yes, absolutely. And

Speaker 2: 32:37

also, as you mentioned there, as you kept going a hundred kilometers, the idea that the landscape's transforming as you're traveling as well. Yes. Because it's not such an instant change. You've taken your time, but you are seeing that change along the way.

Speaker: 32:51

Absolutely. And that's one of the joys of bicycle traveling is being so immersed in the landscape that you see those small changes and you see the changes not only seasonally, but also through the area that you're riding with. You're riding along along the riverside through the rice paddies, and then going up into the mountains where it's all bush and beers. All forest and bears and down again through a, along a stream. It's always different. It's fascinating. It's absolutely fascinating.

Speaker 2: 33:17

You also hear it too, like you hear the sounds as well.

Speaker: 33:20

Yeah. See, thinking about that whole thing, one of the reasons Japan was so fascinating for me last year was I started Inao, which is almost Arctic. It's big agriculture. It's very deep snow, as most Australians know that go skiing there. It's the Ooc O Sea up on the north, you've got Russia just across the water. It's big and it's cold and it's, yeah, it's almost arctic. Somebody once said it's, it's like Alaska, and then you go down to Honshu and it's, it's mountains and it's forest and it's rice patties, and it's all very civilized, and it's one city and village after another, and Kiosha is mountains and forests. But then you get down to Okinawa and it's tropical, and it's snorkeling and diving and beaches and sunburn and all of those things. Which are unheard of up in Hodo.

Speaker 2: 34:06

It's amazing the transformation that's happening in those islands, isn't it? Yes. Funny. Terry. I studied Japanese at school. Right? When I say study Japanese, it was like the token Australian way of teaching a language where I think we learnt it for like a semester. Yes. For three years in a row. And each year we learnt the same thing. So listeners, I can tell you from this day, I can count one to 10 in Japanese. I can say, hello, this is my name. Nice to meet you. Thank you. And randomly, the only other Japanese word I know is Midori, which means green and Yes. And it's a drink. Exactly. But I, until you've said that it, it hasn't actually struck me. Just the temperature change and the different type of environmental change. It happens along that length of that chain.

Speaker: 34:53

Yes. And because Japan, it's a long country which runs from north to south. Because of that, it goes from various climatic regions. And you have all of those changes, which is fascinating, absolutely fascinating.

Speaker 2: 35:05

We've come to Japan, I don't, I wanna jump back to Europe. Yes. You know how you did that journey, that first journey there, three journeys over three years. Were there points during those journeys where you just didn't want to do it anymore? Like were there points where you wondered actually, you know, reflecting back, I preferred walking along the Camino to this, why am I riding or, or other reasons maybe?

Speaker: 35:28

No, not so much that I do love walking and I have lots of long walks still on my bucket list as well. What happened in Denmark after a week or 10 days of nothing but torrential rain all day, every day was, I just decided I was fed up with it and I could see on the weather forecast it was gonna be like that for weeks. And so I took that opportunity to go home, but I had to go home anyway to do what I wanted, what I had to do. The following year, I cycled from Copenhagen to and Kona, and I wasn't planning to finish when I did. I had one day, the last day of cycling. I had a few incidents there, which made me question what I was doing. For example, I was sitting on a beach having a picnic lunch, and I looked up and there was a gentleman staffed naked sitting three meters in front of me with his legs wide apart, just looking at me and I thought, I don't need to be here.

Speaker 2: 36:21

You weren't on like a nudist beach, were you Like this was

Speaker: 36:24

No, no, no. It was just a beach, but it wasn't pleasant, so I thought, I don't need to be here. I had an incident that same day where I was going under a bridge. There was a road going under a bridge, so crossroads could have ridden along the road underneath, but there was a lot of traffic, so I chose to walk my bicycle along the footpath, and there was a railing between the path and the road. But there was a six or eight feet drop from the footpath down to the road 'cause the road went down under. So I'm pushing my bike through this very narrow path and a young teenager came from the other side and walked right up to the bike and then just stood there,

Speaker 2: 36:59

just intimidating you.

Speaker: 37:01

Well I think he was just not aware, rather he wasn't threatening, but it could have been. And he just stood there and I thought, well, you know, what are we gonna do? I can't go backwards. This path is too narrow. I've got pans on, I can only go forwards. Couldn't say anything to him. I don't speaky tea. In the end, he climbed over the railing and spied along and you know, we both wet our separate ways, but it could have been something a bit dodgy, but it wasn't. But the third incident then was cycling into an Kona. Very, very busy road. Nowhere for the bike for me to ride. No shoulder on the road. Two lanes of incredibly busy traffic, all going in, racing in an Kona to the sherry. And I thought, this is scary. Don't like doing this. There's nowhere safe for me to ride. I hit upon the idea of just staying still on the side, waiting for a break to the traffic pedaling as fast as I could until the traffic caught up to me standing there waiting until the next break in the traffic pedaling as fast as I could to the next few hundred meters. And so made my way to Kona and I was fine with that. But looking on the map that night, I saw that the roads for the next few days were also equally busy. And I thought, I'm a bit over this. I think I'll go home. So I took my bike down to Bari, did a few touristy things there, wanted to go to Matero to have a look at that. So I went there and when I was in Matera, I thought, actually, I don't wanna give up on this trip. I wanna keep going, but not now. I think I'll come back next year and do it. And so I found a place to store my bike in Matera. I stored it there for, I don't know, four or five months. I. Went back to Australia and came back spring the following year, picked up my bike in materia, took it back to Anona and started again from where I'd left off.

Speaker 2: 38:45

Oh wow. So you actually went back to the part that you weren't happy with to continue the journey on?

Speaker 3: 38:51

Yes,

Speaker 2: 38:51

which tells me two well, which tells me one thing primarily is someone that really likes being able to look at something and not feel like you missed a gap.

Speaker: 39:02

Yeah. I wanted to do the whole route.

Speaker 2: 39:05

Was it also proving it to yourself that you could do it? Was there an element of that?

Speaker: 39:09

Yeah, possibly. Yeah, probably. Probably. And I think, yeah, it was a challenge and it's a challenge I wanted to take on and I wanted to succeed at. Having said that, I'm not a complete, what's the word? I'm not completely obsessed with it, because I looked at the Alps and I thought, I'm not riding up those. And I took a bus on the train from Innsbrook to the top of the Alps with my bike and rode down.

Speaker 2: 39:31

I know you meant, we were talking about the Pyrenees and you were saying how much you liked them, but you don't want the mountains. I don't know if you know this, but there is a route that actually doesn't take the mountains in Really? Yeah. It's called the V 81. It's called the V 81. Listeners. If you wanna do it, it stays in the foothills and it combines a whole heap of quiet roads or, yeah, formed paths and stuff. It's quite, it's not too bad. I've done big sections of it, um, linking up. I like mountain climb, so generally trying to link those together in different ways. So maybe that's the way you can enjoy my neck of the woods. Without having to go up and over things like the cold tomac,

Speaker: 40:07

I'm thinking in the future I'll have an e-bike. And I said that to my bike genius here in Melbourne, the the young man that built my bike for me and he said, you are not ready for that yet. And I said, oh, okay, fine. I don't get an e-bike yet. I've gotta wait a few years till he'll build me one yet.

Speaker 2: 40:23

So okay. Europe, three trips in three years. I could do a whole session just on that. I could do a session on each of those trips, to be fair. And I always get torn, Terry, because I feel I have to like just glimpse the very tops of a trip. Yes. And I don't get to get into the details, but I have read your book, biking to Bassan. Yep. Listeners, I hundred percent recommend. I'm gonna provide a link in the show notes for you so you can read it as well. And I wanna focus a lot of this podcast on that story before you could get yourself over to Taiwan. For this trip though, the pandemic happened, so I have this feel that you've discovered this. Awesome way of travel that you really enjoyed the freedom to explore and to see. Yes. And then all of a sudden you are locked in.

Speaker 3: 41:07

Yes.

Speaker 2: 41:07

Obviously then a lot of this Asian trip got schemed up during that Australian lockdown.

Speaker: 41:12

During the lockdown I did that Excel spreadsheet that I was talking about. You need to

Speaker 2: 41:17

send me that by the way. I would love to see it.

Speaker: 41:19

It's you hilarious. It's something that that only a complete nerd would dream up of doing, but they were stuck in lockdown. We actually had lockdown in Australia or lockdown lighter even for three years. I mean, I know the rest of the world had it a lot shorter. Really, the covid thing, it was two years, but then the third year I didn't feel confident about going overseas yet. The other side of it was actually after the first year had finished, the Victorian government put out a call for retired teachers to go back and become tutors in schools. And so I went back to my previous school and became a tutor and um, I enjoyed it. I basically went back to work, so I, that was another reason to stay in Australia for the third year. So I did that tutoring for the second and third year of the pandemic.

Speaker 2: 42:02

Okay, so that kept your mind busy as well?

Speaker: 42:04

Yes, but I was really hanging out to just leave the country halfway through that third year. I just couldn't stand it. But anyway, so that's when I've set up this Excel spreadsheet.

Speaker 2: 42:15

And was it the spreadsheet that led you to scheme a trip to Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea?

Speaker: 42:21

No. Um, what happened then? Oh, it's always been in the news in Australia. I dunno about the rest of the world, how China would really wants to reunify China. Basically taking over Taiwan and, and incorporating it back into China. And at that stage there was actually a date put on it. Like people were saying 2029, you know, when China's gonna really ramp up the pressure. And I sort of thought, oh, okay, if I wanna see Taiwan, maybe now's the time to go because you know, I remember being in my early twenties and people had been talking about traveling through Afghanistan and what a wonderful place it was. And then woke up one morning, my second year of uni and the Russians that invaded Afghanistan and it was no longer possible to travel in Afghanistan. And sort of thing in the back of my mind is, you think something like this is maybe not gonna be possible in the future. Maybe you need to go and do it now. So I sort of went, ah, Taiwan. And while I'm there I might as well look at Japan and South Korea as well, because they're different, different places. On top of that, I'd also 2019, after I finished that third leg of that Norway to Malta route. At the end of that, I then rode from the north of Germany, from lube down to Kaon. Got as far as Kaon via orange, so directly south from north of Germany all the way down to orange, and then turned right and got as far as kaka on, or as the

Speaker 2: 43:48

Frenchies would call it, a orange, but yes, yes,

Speaker: 43:52

yes, a orange. Okay. And during that trip, I thought, yeah, it's lovely, it's wonderful. I'm enjoying it very much, but a little bit of me is just a bit bored, wanting to see something a bit more challenging, and maybe the next trip needs to be somewhere else and not in Europe. And that's sort of where the Taiwan, Japan, Korea idea came into be. And then over the Covid pandemic, and then through all of this international politicing that we always sort of get to hear about, then I decided that maybe it was a good time to go to those three countries. Then rather than just leaving it on the drawing board for some time in the future.

Speaker 2: 44:27

When I was reading your book, something that really occurred to me when you arrive in Taiwan is that overt sense of itchy feet of, I've been hemmed in and I really want to explore because I think when you arrive there, I think there was a rule that new travelers had to sort of lock themselves down in a, in a hotel was, but you didn't know whether the was really a rule that was going to be policed or not.

Speaker: 44:49

Yeah. I'd looked on the government website of Taiwan and they said that incoming travelers had to spend seven days in a hotel room with their own bathroom.

Speaker 2: 44:58

That did your head in, didn't it?

Speaker: 45:00

Yeah, it did. Really. So I didn't know how much they were gonna police that, and I thought why risk it? I mean, it could be that they would check on arrival whether you had something booked or not. And so I booked a hotel room and I. Because it was so soon before I was leaving, all of the relatively sensible priced accommodations in Taipei were booked out. And I ended up being 30 kilometers out of town in Taiwan, out near the airport. And that was okay. There was a train into the city, and you're allowed to leave your accommodation during the day. They just required you to be in a hotel, be in the same place with your own bathroom. And in the end, of course, nobody checked it. Nobody cared at all where I was staying or anything, but because this place, I was looking for somewhere that was reasonably priced. I didn't realize it didn't have any windows and yeah, being overnight in a room with no windows, so it was like a jail cell.

Speaker 2: 45:50

Oh, it would be horrendous.

Speaker: 45:52

Yeah. And also first trip outside of Australia in three years and culture shock and just the tiredness from travel and all of those sorts of things. It's, it's, it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy, so I was very happy. Once I could leave, but of course there was the drama with the, um, the rear axle to get through first.

Speaker 2: 46:13

Yes.

Speaker: 46:14

I dunno if you remember that. I do

Speaker 2: 46:15

remember that. Because your bike, it was the tool.

Speaker: 46:18

Yeah. I'd taken my bike into Taipei to a bike workshop because I knew I could put it together, but I wasn't confident that I would do a really good job of putting it together. So I wanted a bike shop to help me. So took the bike in the box to this bike shop in Taipei. I arranged with them beforehand for them to help me putting it together. So we did that and that's fine. And then I rode it out to Taiwan and the next day I thought, actually I'd really like to just know that I can take both of the wheels out in case I get a puncture. So I took the front wheel out and that came out quite easily and not a problem. Put it back in. Tried to take the rear wheel out. It was in too tight. I could not undo it, couldn't undo the axle at all. So I thought, ah, not a problem. I'll just go around to a bike shop. And there was one around the corner. And rode my bike around there and said to the guys, can you please help me just loosen the axle so I can take the rear wheel out? And the chap got out his Allen keys or whatever it was, and he tried and he said, no, can't take it out. It's broken. The axle's broken. It's completely broken inside. And I said, what? He said, it's broken. He called over the boss.

Speaker 2: 47:20

This was a new bike too, FYA?

Speaker: 47:23

Yeah, this brand new bike. So the boss came over and he tried with the tools and he said, no, it's completely broken. You have to take it back to the, to the um, manufacturer. There's nothing we can do. We can't force it. We can't try. We'll just break it even more. I was absolutely distraught. There I am in Taiwan with a brand new bike and a back wheel that I can't take off. I didn't know what to do, so I just slept on it and then the next day I rode it back to the bike shop. To the young man there who ran the bike shop and he listened to my story and I'm on, I'm from the verge of tears as I'm telling him I can't take the rear wheel out and the axle's broken and I dunno what I've done and yada, yada, yada, yada. And he just took the bike off me, got out a, was it an Allen key or a different sort of key and put it in and turned it and took the bike wheel out. And he said, there's nothing wrong with it. You just need to know what you're doing and you need to have the right tool. And that was it.

Speaker 2: 48:10

It's like everything with bikes too though, isn't it? Like things like that can defeat us and make and stop us. Yeah. But then all you need sometimes is to just have someone show you all the right tool and then all of a sudden that that mountain that was insurmountable is no longer there.

Speaker: 48:25

No, it wasn't an issue. Not an issue. But the, one of the things that threw me is the people that put the bike together originally had two different axle types in the front and the rear using two different, so one used an L and key and the other. That's right. The rear one used a talk key. So I had to have two different keys for these two axles. And when I came back to Australia at the end of that trip and I found a really good bicycle engineer here in Melbourne, and I said to him, we need to change this. I want this bike to be as easy and as simple for me to maintain as possible. So he changed out the rear axle and it just uses a normal Allen key now, and we also changed the front axle because I used to have a dynamo in it, and that just died under the stress of cycling in, I don't know, whichever country. And just put a simple axle in there instead. And every time we adjust or adapt anything, the whole idea is it has to be a simple and idiot proof as possible. So that I can deal with it.

Speaker 2: 49:21

I wouldn't call you an idiot by any measure, but I do like the idea of making things as simple as possible with your equipment so that if something happens, it's a, it's a much more simple fix as well. Yes. And also the idea that you don't need to carry extra specific things that you may not find in places and and things like that. I think that's a really good hot tip to anyone who's thinking of doing this, who hasn't yet like take these lessons on board. I think they're brilliant ones, Terry.

Speaker: 49:47

And the other thing I said to my bike guys, I do not wanna have any components which have to have their own individual specific tool that I have to cart around every week. I don't want to have an axle that has to have its own tool, which I don't use for anything else.

Speaker 2: 50:02

And And one that could be problematic to find somewhere as well.

Speaker: 50:05

Yes, yes. But also, yeah, I don't wanna carry all these extra tools. I don't wanna have to carry a whole mechanical workshop with me. And the latest tweak we did was the clamp on the, the seat post for the saddle. It was a lever clamp. And I find that I just don't have the strength in my hands to tighten it properly, which is an issue. So we've just taken that off and replaced it with a clamp that I do up with an Allen key. And I said to him, make sure please, that the Allen key that we use for this is the same as the ones that we use for everything else on the bike. Because they don't want to have to have a specific sized Alan King just for this one clamp.

Speaker 2: 50:40

No. Smart. I love these. I love these sort of insights and they're things that sometimes you don't think about until you've had the problem first.

Speaker: 50:46

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 50:47

Terry, I wanna take you to away from your bike, and I wanna take you to something which I came about in your book, and you wrote this when you were in Taiwan and you said. By cycling and collapsing at the end of each day. I felt that I was skimming the surface of life in Taiwan. I was missing a deeper insight into the local people and their lives. What did they enjoy? I'm sorry. What did they enjoy looking at and experiencing when they were on holiday at the coast? What did they find wonderful? What gave them joy in their lives? And the reason I wanted to quote about that was it took it away from you being somewhere and a place, and to see a beautiful coastline or weather to go up into the mountains of Taiwan, which is what you had debated earlier before this had happened. And it took me to that thought that part of your motivation for travel is actually connecting with people.

Speaker 3: 51:37

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 51:37

I wanna know, you had three different countries that you went to. It was three different cultures. But I want you to tell me about maybe a connection that you had there with people by slowing down and, and what that was like for you as well. Because I think when, something I've learnt when I've interviewed so many guests is it's these interactions with complete strangers that actually are the most impactful ones during your journeys as well.

Speaker: 52:01

Yeah. I found, of the three countries, I think Taiwan was the one where I managed to get the deepest connections with people, which is not to say that they were very deep, but still the deepest Japan, I had the most connections by far because people were there, were quite happy to come and have a chat. But our chats were invariably, who are you, where are you going, where are you coming from? And often how old are you? And Wow, I'm so amazed. That was basically the conversation. In fact, a lot of their questions I could answer in Japanese because it was the same question over and over and I, I learned the Japanese answers and away we went. Taiwan, I didn't meet quite so many people, but the ones who I did meet, I was able to keep in contact with for longer and ask more deep and meaningful questions. And one thing that really I was very interested in when I was cycling through Taiwan is what they think about China and whether they are concerned about Chinese aggression, possible aggression in the future. And I ask that question of everybody, but you can't ask that question the minute you've met somebody. No. You have to make a bit of a bit of an effort to talk to them and get to know them a little bit before you can ask them, are you scared of the Chinese? Or What do you think's going to happen in the future?

Speaker 2: 53:15

Yeah. You've gotta build a bit of rapport with that person.

Speaker: 53:17

Yes. And so I was able to ask that question of, I don't know, I think four or five people. I was in Taiwan for six weeks in total.

Speaker 4: 53:23

Mm-hmm.

Speaker: 53:24

I met quite a few people there, but. Of the ones where I actually had a deeper conversation with, was able to ask that question. Yeah. So the answers varied. The most interesting answer I think was from a young man who ran a um, like an Airbnb and I asked him, are you worried about the future? What the future holds? And he said, no, I'm not worried, or I'm not scared because if I worry, the Chinese have already won the battle. And I thought, wow, for a young man, that's a very insightful comment.

Speaker 2: 53:52

It's almost a philosophical one too, isn't it?

Speaker: 53:55

Yeah. And I spoke with a teacher who was on the East Coast and she teaches a lot of First Nations children there. And I asked her what she called about the whole Chinese issue. She said she doesn't think about it at all. It's such a different world. They were so isolated on the East coast. Her students were so in needy in many other ways that she had no time to think about the Chinese issue at all. And then I met another young man of a filmmaker who was. Determined that Taiwan should become an independent, a completely independent country, and announce its independence, which is like red rag to a bull, to the Chinese government. And yeah, it was very interesting, different people's responsive to those questions.

Speaker 2: 54:37

Did you find, I guess it's hard to know because you, you can only talk about the interactions that you had, but you, you've made mention about, you know, you're traveling at an age, at a later stage in life. Did you. Feel like because of your age, the interactions that you had with people were different? And I guess what potentially were maybe some of the advantages of that?

Speaker: 55:01

I'd say they're very different. Very definitely. I'm not a threat in any way to anybody. I'm an old lady cycling around on a bicycle. I'm usually drenched in sweat. My hair's flying in all directions.

Speaker 2: 56:22

I'm flying the flag for a fairly curly haired person here

Speaker: 56:25

now to get all my hair cut off in preparation for my next trip. Yeah. And I think because I'm not concerned about doing distances in a day, I am quite happy to stand there and chat with anybody that really wants to come and have a chat with me. And in Japan in particular, I've spoken to so many people.'cause I'd be standing outside a convenience store, just checking on my phone, where to go next, and somebody would come past and smile. And so I'd smile back and before we know it, we'd have a little conversation going and, um. I remember one day I saw two old gentlemen in the car park and they had these amazing Harley Davidson motorbikes. Three wheelers must have cost an absolute fortune. Anyway, I asked if I could take a photo of their bikes and then we got chatting, you know, using Google change later. Of course, yeah. Chatted a bit back and forth and then they ruined off in big clouds of smoke and all the rest of it. And half an hour later I got a text on Instagram from a young woman. She said, you spoke with my dad on the motorbike. He was the one on the left. He was so pleased to meet you. And that sort of interaction happens so often. So often. Yeah. I remember being in a, um, campground in Hokkaido, just putting out my tent, and this gentleman walked past and we just smiled and got chatting and whatever, and he wished me luck and walked off. And an hour later, same thing, got a text on my Instagram from the young woman you spoke with my dad. And he was really, really pleased to talk with you and he wishes you well for the rest of your journey. And so these things all the time.

Speaker 2: 57:58

And so do you think those interactions, maybe they're more likely to happen because there isn't that, actually, I wanna reframe that. Interviewing so many people. Something I've learned is that interactions are likely to happen when you travel solo because you stick out and you're doing something that's not common. Yes. And I wonder whether perhaps also some of your interactions that you had is you're doing that plus you're older, and obviously you're female. Yes. But also because you're in countries where maybe that's even more completely foreign.

Speaker: 58:31

Yes. Do you think that's the case? Yes, absolutely. In fact, um, a lot of the interactions were, because it's so different, so people were fascinated. I had this flag flying on the back of my bike. It's just a bright yellow high vis vest, cut into a flag shape by a friend of mine and sewn together. And at one of the hostels, I got the gentleman to write Hokkaido to Okinawa on it in Texta. So everybody coming past could read in Japanese Okana, um, Hokkaido to Okinawa. And once I had that flag up, the number of people coming up to talk to me double immediately.'cause I could see that I was doing something really strange, really odd, really unusual,

Speaker 2: 59:12

really different.

Speaker: 59:12

Yes. And the fact that it was an older woman, so many young people said to me, I'm gonna go home and tell my mum about you.

Speaker 2: 59:19

That's awesome. Because it's something else that you write about in your books and you, you sort of say it's one of the reasons to write your books is that you wanna show that this is possible, that other people can also do this.

Speaker 3: 59:30

Yes.

Speaker 2: 59:31

Ah, I'd love to find out how many people have decided or maybe even thought to do this.'cause of perhaps what you've done, because I'm sure that you've got the thought bubble rolling there.'cause I think, I know as an Aussie speaking to an Aussie, there is definitely an aspect in our culture where we work all our lives to then retire and do the things. But doing the things in the way that you are doing it certainly isn't something that people would conceive as being something they could do.

Speaker: 59:59

No.

Speaker 2: 1:00:00

Oh no, I'm too old for that. Oh, and, and people say that to me, oh, you're good. Young thing. Or strong legs. I couldn't do that at my age. Or something like that. But you are a case in point that that's, you know, a bit of BS in a way. Yeah, it is. It is.

Speaker: 1:00:14

Yeah. I had a really lovely response to my last YouTube video from a lady in the US who said she would love to do the same sort of thing, but she's always been told, no she can't or she shouldn't, or whatever. And you know, she's seriously thinking about doing it. And I thought that was absolutely lovely. But the hilarious one was when I was in Japan, just finished writing this Shiman Cato. And rolled up to a hostel. And there was another solo female cyclist there, Linda, who is in her sixties from Florida. And she was also cycling around Japan. And she at the time, was considering flying home. She'd been cycling Japan for about six weeks or something. And anyway, we said, well, let's go out for dinner to get, oh, let's go out and have a coffee.'cause it was early in the afternoon. So we went to a cafe and sat down and had a coffee. And I was telling her a bit about my trip and she said, oh, I read a book by this lady who also cycled these areas. And I said, oh, okay. Sounds very interesting. And then we chatted a bit more and then she started quoting parts of my book back to me and I said, she said, I think that's you. And I said, in the end we decided it was me. Well, I got a picture with my book up. She said, oh yeah, we realized that she'd read my book. She's one of the only, I don't know. I've sold not many copies at all, but she had bought one

Speaker 2: 1:01:29

and read it. Well, your biking de Busan book, I've read it and I love it, and I said this before we press record Terry listeners. What I really love it is, it's a great read. It's informative, it tells you, and you feel like you're on a cycle tour, but I really love the way that you narrate your thoughts. And what I mean by that is I really had a sense of knowing how you felt in each and every moment. Yes. As opposed to the whole chronological day one, this distance, blah, blah, blah. There there's a, there's an element of your human on this. Actually something that made me sad. You were really pining to see other bike travelers. Yes. And whenever you saw a cyclist on the road, invariably they were people that paid you no attention or they seemed past and No, it was tran. You were like, at one point, I think, I can't remember the words you used and which country it was, but you were like, I wanted to throw myself across the road and stop him, him and say, speak to me. He pitched. That was in Taiwan at the start. There are people that resonate with that so deeply, don't

Speaker: 1:02:28

you? Yes. That was in Taiwan right at the start because I was quite distraught at the start because of, yeah, culture shock and all of that. And I only saw the one cycle tourist if I'd known that. He was the only one that I'd see the whole time. I said I would've thrown myself across the road and stopped him, but anyway. But yeah, I cycled the four Rivers path in Korea as well.

Speaker 2: 1:02:48

How did you find that?

Speaker: 1:02:50

It's a bit of a, there are positives and negatives. The most brilliant cycle path in the whole world. Hands down easily because there are no traffic lights, there are no bumps, no lumps and no things to fall off and ride over and all the rest of it. It is absolutely brilliant. But you

Speaker 2: 1:03:04

don't have any, um, Japanese bicycle infrastructure barriers to work your way through. None of that excitement. They're horrendous.

Speaker: 1:03:12

Yes, none of that. So it was absolutely brilliant. It's cycled by a lot of people, but it's invariably groups and couples didn't see any. I saw one other solo cyclist. The thing with couples is they're very happy in their couple bubble and they don't need to stop and talk with the solo cyclists. And so, you know, I might smile and try to initiate a conversation, but they just weren't interested. They just kept going. And um, I thought that was a bit sad 'cause I remember your latest, um, podcast with Sasha.

Speaker 2: 1:03:42

Sasha, yes.

Speaker: 1:03:43

Talking about the root, the a Austral ero and how it's so friendly and everybody helps each other out and you know, at the very least say hello to each other. That aspect was missing on the the Korean one from the other cycle tourists. The Koreans, on the other hand were amazing. They were constantly coming up and wanting to talk to me and all the rest of it. So yeah, that was good. But I would've loved to have had a chat with some of the other cycle tourists from. Switzerland or Britain or wherever they were from.

Speaker 2: 1:04:13

That's interesting, isn't it? Mm. Cycle tourists from everywhere else. Were sort of, you know, lenses on, focused on their own thing.

Speaker: 1:04:22

Uh, yeah, that's, yeah, that's probably partly why actually they all were wearing the, um, Lycra and cycling gear as I'm trundling along in my shorts and t-shirts. And they had minimal luggage. They were obviously on a time limit per day. They had to do certain distances per day to get to their pre-booked hotel because they weren't carrying camping gear or anything with them. Whereas I'm just tootling along, like I said, in my t-shirts and shorts and loaded to the gun whales with my tent and all my camping gear and all the rest of it. It's a completely different style.

Speaker 2: 1:04:51

It is a completely different style and I can say I've been someone who does both styles.'cause I do, yes, and, and I came to bike travel, I would say late. I predominantly used to just do the Lycra style and I've changed a lot lately. I still do a bit of the Lycra stuff. I live in the Pyrenees for God's sake. I'd ride the big climbs and I'll tell you when I do that, I do it on a lighter bike. Generally yes. But I also see in tourist season there. Groups of roadies out there flogging themselves up the hills. And if I'm in my Lycra, I get acknowledged if I'm on my touring bike riding somewhere with my, with my panties and my bike packing bags on, or, you know, God forbid I'm actually got the panties on to do the local, you know, the weekly shopping commute, which I also do. Oh, I never get a, I never get a hello or anything. No. I kill them with kindness. Terry, I always make sure to say hello. Hello? Yes. Have a great day. What fills me with the biggest joy, and it's so immature listeners, but. Living where I do don't have it so much now, but I, I generally have a, an okay level of fitness, especially having to do the weekly shopping, commute with, you know, 25 kilos worth of food or whatever. It's, and I, I do live in a village that's on, in a valley, so I'm, you know, it's up a hill. I'm generally pretty okay on a bike, so if I get passed by a, a ly, a roadie that doesn't wanna say hello, there's so much joy when I overtake them with my heavy laden bike.

Speaker 4: 1:06:14

Hello. Have a lovely day.

Speaker 2: 1:06:19

Oh. Anyway, I digress. I actually have a couple of questions. One from a previous guest and one from a soon to be guest. Both of them have a linkage to your story in different ways. Oh, really? They do. So the first one, I want to play it for you and I want you to listen to the question and then give me your answer. So this question is from someone that you know and a fan of this show, Sue Chapel. Hi Sue. Sue's done heaps and heaps and heaps of adventures, and I wanna play you this question from Sue and tell me what you think.

Speaker 5: 1:06:53

Hi Terry. I'm so amazed that you are being interviewed by Bella. It was incredible to meet you recently down in Victoria, my troop at Christmas time. You are so inspiring and such an awesome person. One of the questions I have for you is when everything is really tough, how do you dig deep and find that resilience on a cycling tour? It's the resilience we all have to find, but how do you do it? What is it that you do?

Speaker 2: 1:07:23

Oh, so really good one too. Sue. How do you find you're inner resilience? Like a moment that was really tough, that had you at breaking point? What do you do?

Speaker: 1:07:31

To be quite honest, I would really struggle to find any moments which have taken me to that point because I stop before I get there. Oh, I love that. It's wisdom. I stop before I get to that point. Um, I don't set myself to cycle such long distances per day, and when I know that there's lots of hills, for example, I will shorten the distance that I expect myself to ride. I plan my days so that on a normal day's riding, I wouldn't ride more than say, six hours maximum in the day, which I know a lot of other people do 10 or 12 hours. But for me to do 10 or 12 hours, that would reach breaking point every day. So I deliberately shorten the days and I set off, or I plan each day on the assumption that at some stage I'll get a puncture or something will happen and I'll need to deal with it. And knowing also that the vast majority of days, nothing wrong happens and I just get to Campbell, the hotel earlier then necessary. But it keeps my mind happy. Basically, it's about preventing those moments. Now I know where Sue's coming from with this because she fell off her bike in Portugal and broke her wrist. I know. I was devastated when that happened to you. Sue. Such a traumatic experience. I can't believe that anybody could get through that.

Speaker 2: 1:08:50

Sue had to take a repatriation flight back home for an operation in Australia. Yes, and try and figure out how to bike a box. And FYI Listeners, there is a legend out there who actually helped. I can't remember the full story, Sue, and you'll message me and let me know, but I think, did they come to meet you and help? Box your bike and help get you on your way too, like a total stranger.

Speaker: 1:09:11

Yes. So if something like that happened to me, well I, when I was in Taipei and I thought that the rear wheel of my bike was broken, I just thought I'll sleep on it. And I've sort sort it out tomorrow morning, a good night's sleep, sorts out a lot of issues. Other times when I've been really, really struggling to find accommodation, I thought, oh, because I always try to pre-book the day before my accommodation and in Taiwan, I got there at the start of their five day, I started cycling at the start of their five day holiday, which I wasn't aware of, and everything was booked out and I was really struggling to get accommodation booked and I thought, oh, I can't deal with this now, have a sleep. It all looks different in the morning. And of course in the morning I found something relatively easily and I also found out why. Everything was all booked out and I was able to get through that issue. Um, other things though that nearly break me, I must say, are the weather. The cycling in Japan in 35 degree or 38 degree heat with 95% humidity is just something dreadful. It's

Speaker 2: 1:10:11

the humidity that kills us, isn't it? It's the

Speaker: 1:10:12

humidity. Yeah. And I've since realized or since learned that how incredibly dangerous it is to get really hot because you can't cool down.

Speaker 2: 1:10:20

No. Because there's no evaporation.

Speaker: 1:10:22

No. So once again, it came down to prevention. I would get up at four 30 or five in the morning and cycle for, I'd be on the bike by five o'clock, five 30 at the latest in the morning and cycle for five or six hours. And then I'd spend a lot of time sitting around in air conditioned supermarkets. And whatever. And it was, it was about changing the way I cycle to prevent getting into sticking situations. Put it that way.

Speaker 2: 1:10:47

There's also something where you said, you know how everything looks different the next morning. Yes. There's also an element where sometimes everything looks different when it happens. And I wanna actually take you, I'm gonna read a little section of your book out. It is from chapter 30, Sage A and Rabbits. Oh, right. Okay. Yes. And you're talking about a climb. I dreamt about mountain passes overnight. The Sojo Mountain pass at 380 meters high and the Iqua Mountain Pass at 530 meters were both a bit higher than I was comfortable with, and I'd been stressing about these two mountain ranges ever since I first thought about doing this ride. Other bike travelers easily climb a thousand meters in a day, but I'm not so fit or so strong. And then there's the gradient to nightmare over as well. So this is, this is something that you thought about before the fact, things that give you pause, things that give you concern. Yeah. And then a couple of pages later, page 256. To be precise. It must be noted that on Wednesday the 18th of October, 2024, I conquered not one, but two mountain passes. Having stressed for days about whether I could get over them. It all turned out to be quite doable and much easier than expected. Yep. There's another case where there's a difference in anticipation, isn't there? Yes. Like sometimes you can anticipate something and you can be so excited for, I can't wait to go and see that. I can't wait to see this beautiful archeological site. I can't wait to. See where my grandfather was in Lofton and all those sort of things. And then there's the flip side of the trauma of, oh my gosh, how am I gonna do these mountains? But then you do them.

Speaker: 1:12:27

You just get in there and you just do it and you don't think about it. And those mornings where I had to get up really, really early to cycle really early, the key to that is to not think about it. You know how we very often, we are all programmed to wake up at five o'clock in the morning for 10 minutes, you might go to the toilet, whatever, and then you go back to bed and you turn over and you go back to sleep. On those hot mornings, I'd wake up at four or four 30 and then I'd stay up. And the thing is, don't think about it. Go to the toilet, pack your bags. Don't think about it. Don't think about it that it's four 30 or five o'clock and you wanna go to bed. Just get on your bike and ride. And that's what I did.

Speaker 2: 1:13:00

Don't overthink it. Just do.

Speaker: 1:13:02

Just do it. Don't overthink it. Prepare and plan as much as you possibly can. And then don't overthink it. Just do it. Get in there.

Speaker 2: 1:13:09

Oh, I love it. We're getting all the handy tips. Okay, Terry, I mentioned there were two questions. The next one is from a previous guest I interviewed Muriel Zuri way, way back on the podcast. Hi. Muriel is a super, super fan. In fact, Muriel, you have linked me up with so many people who I've since interviewed on the show. You're an absolute legend. Muriel, though. Terry has something in common with you because, well, he did a massive journey all the way from the UK over to Japan. He did ride both South Korea and Japan. Right. I thought, I'm interviewing someone who went to South Korea and Japan. Who do I know that went to South Korea and Japan and Muriel? You are the first person I thought of. And this is Muriel's question for you.

Speaker 6: 1:13:54

Hi Terry. It's Uriel former guest and huge fan of Bella's work. I too cycle in Japan and Korea time ago, but I haven't been in Taiwan. I would like to ask your opinion on the difference of cycling between Japan and Korea. Thank you.

Speaker: 1:14:10

Right, okay. Taiwan and Japan and Korea. The difference in cycling, I'm just thinking. Japan was fascinating because actually both, all three countries had cycling routes set out by their relevant tourist agencies. Taiwan has got cycling route number one, which goes all around the island, and I was told by the chap in the bike shop, that's probably not a good idea. And having done it, I can understand why. I'm very glad that I rode that route in Taiwan, but the western side of the island is very industrialized, and you're riding from city to city, basically, you're fairly safe, as in the tourist website says that there are bicycle lanes all around, but they don't actually tell you you're sharing your bike line with a million, uh, motorized scooters. Everybody, well, not everybody, but nearly everybody in Taiwan rides around on a motorbike or a scooter, and they have a special lane just for them and bicycles. So you're sharing your bike lane with all of these petrol driven engines, and they were all well behaved in that they obeyed the rules. So the road rules weren't well obeyed, but they were just too fast, far too close, and far too fast. In fact, my bike mirror was clipped one day by somebody zooming past on a motorbike. That's how close and how fast they were. Ies. Having said that, once you got outta the cities, the bike path were pretty good and the, the quiet roads were pretty good. And yeah, so Taiwan was, apart from the fact that there was the one day where it was traffic light to traffic light all day, the rest of it was actually really, really good cycling. I have to say, Japan was interesting. They also have their bicycle route. And I rode the, I got to, um, the airport at Osaka and I didn't know, I had not worked out where I was going. So I got outta the airport and I thought, well, where am I gonna go now I can go south across the Shiman Meto, which is what most people do, or I can follow the Pacific Coastal Trail following the coast north. And I sort of decided, okay, we'll follow that because it's a signed, um, advertised cycling route by the Japanese Tourist Association. But as far as cycling infrastructure goes, it was very variable. We'll say, we'll put that politely. Some of it was absolutely fantastic. Other areas were less than, less than good, less than ideal.

Speaker 2: 1:16:34

Are we talking about those ridiculous barriers?

Speaker: 1:16:37

Um, we're talking about very narrow roads with no shoulder and a lot of traffic. And the authorities have painted blue bicycles along the left lane, which indicates that it's for bicycles as well as for traffic. But painting blue bicycles on a road does not turn it into a cycling path. Unfortunately, we're talking about tunnels that have no shoulder and no path for bicycles. So you are trying to go through a tunnel with all of this traffic, which doesn't slow down for a tunnel. Japan is a country of tunnels. Every mountain's got a tunnel under it.

Speaker 2: 1:17:07

I found Italy was a country of tunnels when I was in Italy, up in the north in the Alps. But anyway, go on. Go on. Yeah,

Speaker: 1:17:12

the tunnels varied a lot. So there were some that were absolutely brilliant. Had wonderful cycling path on the side with a barrier between the path and the road, and it was well lit and it was just brilliant. Others were the complete opposite, like. Dangerous. Very dangerous. I walked through quite a few tunnels. Most of them had a walking path that you could walk on, but it was too narrow to ride on. And the walking path would be, oh, 10 centimeters higher than the road. So if you rode on that walking path and fell off, you would fall quite significantly onto the road. You'd be dead meat.'cause there's no shoulder. The trucks are whizzing past, um, 20 centimeters away from you. So I'd be walking all along that through that tunnel, pushing my bike. And I'd have to walk very slowly and carefully because they put lights on the walking path. And also there'd be sand, or there'd be water, or there'd be mud, or there'd be broken glass or whatever. You had to be very, very careful going through the tunnels. Some tunnels you could ride through. But once again. Initially, I thought you could just race through the tunnels as quickly as you can to get out of there, but then no you don't because you don't know when you're gonna hit a patch of sand or a bit of oil or, or a hole. A pothole. Tunnels have potholes just like roads do. Yeah, tunnels are scary stuff. And for the rest, the roads and the bicycle paths varied. Like I'd be on a really, really good bicycle path. There's a barrier between me and the road, and I'd be quite happy. The bicycle path's a meter and a half wide and I'm tootling along, turn a corner, and it's overgrown with blackberries. And what do you do? I'm not gonna battle through a, you know, 50 meter patch of blackberries that turn around and go all the way back because there's a barrier between me and the road. I can't go onto the road. They have to go all the way back to the entrance of that particular bike path and then retrain my steps. And yeah, there's a lot of that sort of stuff. But having said that, there are a lot of bike paths that were really, really good as well. So it was very variable. Every day was an adventure. I have to say with Japan and with Korea, it was just amazing. It was amazing to cycle along the bike paths in Korea and know that there were not going to be any obstacle courses for that day or the next day or the day after that.

Speaker 2: 1:19:22

Yeah. So Korea definitely had the best infrastructure.

Speaker: 1:19:25

Yes.

Speaker 2: 1:19:26

What about culturally? Because I imagine there'd be huge differences culturally between the three.

Speaker: 1:19:31

Culturally, I found Japan the most fascinating, like the bike paths were substandard, but well and truly mu very much more than made up for by the culture and the scenery. Just amazing first class, the most beautiful scenery cycling around bays and up over headlands and through the mountains and along rivers, and it was just through the rice patties and the people were so friendly, often reserved, but often really friendly. I pulled up at one rice patty and there were two old ladies sowing rice using their mechanized rice sowing contraptions. And I just stood there and had a chat with them using Google Translate, and one was 70 and the other was 71. And we all had a really good chuckle over the fact that I was 65 and riding a bike and they're 70 and 71 and sowing rice in a rice pad. And yeah. And culturally, at the time that I was riding through Japan, I, um, was looking for stories that I could just bring the country more to life, to me, their history more than anything else. And I happened upon a three part series in Netflix about the history of Japan, focusing specifically on the three great unifier. So 1550 to 1600, that, that period of time there were three great unifier of Japan and this series on Netflix dramatized that history. So it was a combination of talks by lecturers and dramatized, um, battle scenes and tea ceremony scenes and everything else. It just brought that history of Japan alike me. And the fascinating part was I was riding through those areas and so there was the tomb of the third of the great Unifier tsu, and if you've read the book Shogun or seen that series Shogun that is showing on tv, that's sort of based to a certain extent on that period of time. And I was just riding along and I saw that there was a tomb of Awa ISU there up on the mountainside. So of course I went and had a look, those sorts of things. That's what the trip's all about. And then I was riding also up to the base of Mount Fuji and I saw a sign pointing to the tomb of the so brothers, and I had no idea who the so brothers were, but looked it up on internet. Of course, this is the great thing about traveling these days. You can look up anything on the internet on your phone. And I looked it up and they were two brothers who in the 11 or 12 hundreds had had their father murdered in a battle by some other, not a Shogun, but some she. They decided to take revenge. And during that taking revenge, they, um, murdered the man they were after and murdered, uh, managed to kill half a dozen of his retainers. And one of the brothers was killed in the battle and the other one was captured and was executed the following day. And in the forest up this path was this grave site of these two brothers, and discovered later that their story is one of the three great stories of rebellions by people against their masters in Japan. I. And that was a story that everybody in Japan knows. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:22:37

And then something that you stumbled upon,

Speaker: 1:22:39

just stumbled upon. Yes. It was there on the way.

Speaker 2: 1:22:42

So what about Korea then culturally as well then, because you, you talk about Korea having amazing infrastructure and there's the, oh gosh, I'm gonna get it wrong. Is it the Four Rivers of the Five Rivers park? Four

Speaker: 1:22:52

Rivers, yeah. Four Rivers path where you

Speaker 2: 1:22:54

get your passport and your medal and all that sort of stuff. Yes,

Speaker: 1:22:57

yes.

Speaker 2: 1:22:58

If you put that aside, what's Korea like then? How did you find Korea? Because you went to Korea after Taiwan and Japan.

Speaker: 1:23:04

Yes. Korea culturally wasn't the shame at all. Um, Korea was all about riding that path, but when you build a cycling path along a river, and the whole river system has been designed in the last 30 or 40 years to stop floods happening in Korea, flood mitigation. So the Koreans have spent billions of dollars on this flood mitigation schemes. They've built dams, they've built, um, weirs, causeways, all sorts of infrastructure. Also used for generation of electricity because they want to avoid the flooding. They've got the big levies, and all of the towns are built away from the river. So along the riverside you get the bike path, you get golf courses, you get sports fields, you get wetlands and marshlands, but you do not get towns and villages because they're all built further away. So you're seeing a lot of nature. You're seeing a lot of river infrastructure, but you're not really seeing the towns and the villages and you're not really getting a, an insight into the culture.

Speaker 2: 1:24:10

Which, if I take you back to that quote I read to you about when you were first in Taiwan, that was clearly something that was really important to you. It was like, what do the people do here? Why are they connecting? What are they feeling? What are they thinking? So you felt that that aspect was perhaps then missing in Korea?

Speaker: 1:24:25

Yeah, it was. It was. Well, it's not as strong there, it was as it was in other places. Like in my book, I was, I had sort of a question that I was wanting to have answered in each country or each island that I was on. And in Taiwan it was, what are they concerned about with, um, the future with China in Japan, it was their, um, their population dramas that they have there where they have a very, um, uh, shrinking population. It was difficult to discuss that with any of the Japanese people because I just couldn't get to that depth of conversation with anybody. It was all very much, um, who are you, where are you from? Where are you going and how old are you? And in Korea, it was the same questions. I was wanting to know what they thought about North Korea and whether they felt stressed or threatened by any of that. And I could ask that question of the few people who I met who were either American or European, who had been living in Korea for a number of years, I. So I could get their point of view, but I never actually got to ask any Korean people because that level of contact was missing.

Speaker 2: 1:25:29

It was never that deep.

Speaker: 1:25:30

It was never that deep. The Korean, they were amazing and they, they would come up to me and very, um, self-assured, who are you? Where are you from? Where are you going? And then they'd march off. They had their answers and they were gone. And that was a very different, sort of, a very different sort of meeting of minds there than in the other places. Yeah, in, in Japan, I was invited a few times into people's homes. Never happened in Korea.

Speaker 2: 1:25:57

If you had to, and I know you were saying earlier in the show that you go to places now 'cause you won't be back there again. If I had to force you to go back to one of these three countries again, which one would you go back to?

Speaker: 1:26:08

Uh, Japan. Absolutely. Japan. What

Speaker 2: 1:26:10

about food wise?

Speaker: 1:26:13

Ooh.

Speaker 2: 1:26:14

Always have to bring up food. Terry. I'm not a foodie. Yeah, but you do. But you talk about food in your book and it's, I, I, I read it thinking this lady likes her food.

Speaker: 1:26:23

I do like my food, but I'm not a foodie.

Speaker 2: 1:26:25

You don't need to be a foodie to tell me about a great meal. Which country gave you the best food?

Speaker: 1:26:29

Um, Taiwan was really, when I think about food, it's not just the meal, it's the whole convenience of getting it as well.'cause when you're on a bike, you wanna be able to ride up to a place, park your bike, go in, get a meal, relax, chill, whatever, and leave. Or in the evenings you wanna be able to camp or go to a motel or hotel, that same thing, find a meal that's not too difficult, not too complicated When you're on a long tour like this. I find I'm not open to that whole restaurant thing every day because it's just too, it's just too much. It's also not affordable. Yeah. And it's also just too much in the evenings. I've got far too much on that I have to do, and I don't have time to sit around in a restaurant being Moy coddled. So food for me, it's much more a practical thing rather than, than a foody sort of thing. So Taiwan, it was really good. They had the convenience stores with tables and chairs inside Spotless. You could go in, uh, go to the toilet, wash your hands, go to the food, countless, choose what you wanted, put it in the microwave, sit down in a civilized manner at a table. Chairs, charge your devices. When you finish, throw your rubbish into the rubbish feed and wash your hands out. You go again. Done, all done. Within an hour, whatever. Japan was very much the same, spotless once again, and good selection of food in their convenience stores, but nowhere to sit. So I was invariably sitting on the footpath in the car park, like a vagrant

Speaker 2: 1:27:57

pavement picnic, as I call it.

Speaker: 1:28:00

Yes. Which was hilarious in its way because so many times people would come up and hand me a drink or start up a conversation. It just happened constantly. Or hand me an ice cream or hand me a, a cold tea or whatever

Speaker 2: 1:28:11

benefits to a pavement picnic, isn't it? Like if you wanna have those connectors and meet with strangers, just, just being their way in the entrance

Speaker: 1:28:18

to the store. I remember once sitting at the entrance and it was a really hot day and my phone was flat. So I, and the convenience stores in Japan all have fans at the door and the hot days, they stand, get the fan going, which of course they have a PowerPoint, but there are always two PowerPoints, but only one fan. So there's one PowerPoint available. So I was just sitting there next to the fan with my phone plugged in, charging away, and these two ladies walked past and didn't say anything or whatever and yeah, that's okay. And they went in and when they came out, they handed me a drink, kept on their way. It didn't start a conversation or anything, but I made sure that I stood up and I bowed my thanks to them if they drove off. And um, yeah, that sort of thing happens so often.

Speaker 2: 1:28:58

I'm gonna ask you, Terry, to do something which I ask all my guests to do, and to be fair, you've done this for one of our midweek mini episodes, but I want you to tell me and the listeners about one day of your trip. It can be any day, any country, anywhere. It could be a day where a lot happened or not a lot happened, but I want you to take me and the listeners there, what day are you gonna tell us about?

Speaker: 1:29:20

Okay. It was a day in SHU this last year. So I left, like I've said a few times before I left really, really early in the morning, like about six o'clock I think. I was in the mountains and I had been planning to go to the East coast, but there was a typhoon all along the East coast and it looked like it was gonna be torrential downfalls for the next 10 days or so. And doing my research, I realized that the West coast has a lot less rain than the East coast. So I thought, righto, that's it. Going down the West coast, which required crossing a couple of big hills. And I'm not a fan of Big hills. So anyway, and the weather was absolutely stinking hot. It was one of those 38 degree days with 95% humidity types of weather. So I left at six in the morning and cycling along the river and there were some people out in the fields and they were sort of not waving, but smiling at me and you know, giving me a thumbs up as I was cycling along, which is a lovely way to start the morning. So a cycling up the valley got to a point where one river was merging into another river and there was a shrine there. So I thought, oh, it's a very large looking shrine. I mean, I've stopped seeing thousands of shrines, but this one looks different to a lot of the other ones. So I pulled over and parked my bike and went through the main gate and there was the big shrine and there were half a dozen small shrines and there were quite a few, um, steely sort of stones with the engravings on them, and it was a lot to look at. And walking out there afterwards came across a couple. In their, I'm guessing their mid fifties and they sort of wanted to have a chat. So we stopped and had a chat and they told me that they'd been married for 30 years and had their honeymoon in Australia for in Sydney 30 years ago. And we chatted a little bit about that and then they gifted me an apple and sent me on their way and I kept on cycling and then they had to go up to the top of the mountain range and it was commute had said that it was going to be, I think about 7%, something like that. So 4% for quite a long way, and then a short 7% and then a be dropped down over the next side. But there was a tunnel, so I cycled up all of the 4% past and before it got to 7%, there was a tunnel. So it went through the tunnel. But once again, walking and not cycling because you have to be very careful with these tunnels and came out the other side and then cycling down that side of the mountain. Then I had a bit of a question, which sort of comes up reasonably often on my research. Before that, I had seen that the cam commute route went up the next mountain, then very steep, seven, 8%. But I had looked on the map and seen that there was a railway line that actually went around in a big curve. It didn't go straight up the mountain, like the convert route. It went around, added a few kilometers, but railways, the trains don't like going up such deep things slopes. So I figured that a road following the railway line would be a lot better. So I had researched that early and decided I'd try and take that road around, but I wasn't sure if I was gonna take it or not.'cause it didn't look too good on the maps. So I got to that intersection and then had a bit of a, do I go this way? Do I go that way? And then decided to go along that smaller road following the railway line. And that was just the best decision that I made. I reckon in the whole trip. I rode in my diary afterwards, was the sort of ride for 20 kilometers that you wish that anybody coming to Japan could have. First through forest and then through the fields. And then there were people working in their paddy fields and then there was a village with saw mills and woodworking shops and houses, old houses and new houses, and passed another village and a along through more rice patties. And it was just beautiful, really nice weather, a really nice scenic ride. Not too steep, no convenient stores at all for the whole 20 kilometers. So it was very isolated sort of area. I. Just beautiful and I stopped and had a picnic lunch somewhere on the ray. Way kept going, came out at the other end to the town that I was aiming for and rode around there for a while because I knew that I could stay overnight in the Onsen, the hot Spring hotel there. They had advertised on booking.com, but I wasn't sure if they'd let me in because often places want a reservation 24 hours in advance and I can't do that 'cause I can't ring up and talk to 'em in Japanese. So I was planning to go and stay the night there, but just in case they wouldn't let me in. I was looking for a plan B because once again. The way to avoid disasters is to prepare and plan beforehand. So I was looking for a Plan B just in case I wasn't allowed into the hotel. So I rode around a bit and found at three or four different places at Awkward Camp and worked out which one would be Plan B. And then I rode along to the SSON and got in there and said to the receptionist, I thought to stay here overnight please. And she said, oh yeah, it'll cost you, I think 3000 yen for a room. And I said, no, no, no, I don't want a room. I want this Sleeping bag option, which they had advertised on booking.com. So I showed her and she said, oh, okay. The sleeping bag option, which was basically your higher sleeping bag and your sleeping on the floor. Oh, wow. Then yes. So I said, sleeping bag auction, please. So that was going to be 2000 yen, so 20 Australian dollars. And then she looked at me and said, are you senior? And I said, yes. So then it was down to. It was initially gonna be 22,500 yen, so $25. But being a senior, they dropped it down to 2000 yen,$20, and that's all very good. And then I said, oh, and I have my own sleeping bag. Oh. So that cut off another 5,000 yen off the price. So then we're down to 15, 1500 yen. It's

Speaker 2: 1:34:49

better and better. Yeah. Then you'll say something and they'll throw in a meal.

Speaker: 1:34:53

So then she took me to the gave, took me on a guided tour of the whole place and showed me the room I was going to sleep. It was an eight tot mat room. They measured the size of their room according to how many tot mats fit in it, because the tar Tommy mats are all the standard size. And this was an eight to Tommy mat room that I had to myself. I laid my sleeping bag on the floor. I had PowerPoints, I had water, had a kettle, had a microwave, everything you need, sleeping in an onsen overnight. And I went to the Onsen machine to buy a ticket and she came running up and said, no, no, no, no, no, no ticket. And so I saved another 400 y could have the hot spring bath. That was all included in the price. I slept there that night and thought it was wonderful. And the best thing is the next morning I got up at five o'clock again and there was nobody there. And because there was nobody there, I could actually take some video footage inside the Onsen because normally you can't because there's all these people wandering around. But yeah, I could walk around in the, on some undisturbed and take a bit of video footage and it was great. But there was a real cultural experience sleeping on the floor overnight. In an on, on a, in an on some what? A

Speaker 2: 1:35:59

what day.

Speaker: 1:36:00

So that day for me had pretty well everything that you have to think about and worry about during the day. It was navigation. Do I take this route or do I take that route? It was food. What food do I need in order to take this route?'cause there's no convenience stores on the way. There's the weather issues. Like what time do you start riding? And you know, do you need to have your raincoat out with you or do you pack that away? It's the accommodation thing. Where are you gonna stay that night? It was the meeting with the people in the shrine that had a lovely chat with Penny, who gifted me an Apple. It was everything all in together. It was great.

Speaker 2: 1:36:35

Oh, what mega day. Yeah. You've taken us there, Terry. I'm certain that people have listened to your story and have got a touch of inspiration from it, and I'm hoping that there's some older listeners who've gone, Ooh, maybe I'm not too old to do this just yet either. Yes, people, Terry is just a few days away from her next adventure. She's about to fly to the USA and take on a journey there if people wanna follow along and see what's happening or read your books, what's the best way that they can find you there? Online,

Speaker: 1:37:07

I'm on Instagram, Footloose freckle, one word. With no capitals,

Speaker 2: 1:37:12

Footloose, freckle on Instagram. I'm gonna link it in the show notes listeners.

Speaker: 1:37:15

Yep. And also on, um, YouTube videos. Footloose, freckle, same thing.

Speaker 2: 1:37:21

I will link both of those. And I'm also gonna provide a link, Terry, to your books as well. Yeah. And they are on Amazon. I've really enjoyed reading biking de Bosan. So listeners, if you enjoy travel books, especially with a hit of cycling, adventure, and a good sense of humor, you've listened to Terry here today and you now will get the benefit of if you buy the book, have Terry's voice in your head reading it too. So Terry, as I wrap the show up, you should know what's coming'cause you listen to the show. The first one's music related this question. You're a guest of the podcast. You get to pick a song to be the soundtrack to your adventures. It goes on the seek, travel, ride, music playlist, a song chosen by each and every guest. What song are you picking?

Speaker: 1:38:06

I'm an absolute ignoramus when it comes to music. Um, but I really like Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Cabal singing Barcelona, the duet.

Speaker 2: 1:38:16

Oh, beautiful.

Speaker: 1:38:17

Has anybody got

Speaker 2: 1:38:17

that? Oh, no one's got that. No.

Speaker: 1:38:20

Right. Okay. I love the way those voices play with each other in that song and it's the sort of thing you play at really loud blast. But I never listen to music when I'm writing. I'm always focused in the moment. Never listen to anything when I'm writing.

Speaker 2: 1:38:34

Oh, well when you're resting, if you wanna listen to this and listeners, if you wanna listen to it, you can find it on Spotify and Apple Music and I've also gotta link in the show notes. So if you look in your podcast player, you'll find that there as well. Alright, final two questions. Terry, the first one, you are given a choice. One day Terry Jockerst, you can go left and that's gonna take you down the most Bumpiest off-road teeth chattering road in the world. It full of corrugations is not a smooth bit of bitumen in sight. And you're gonna have to endure that all day. You go, right, you are gonna be going up, you're going to be faced with an endless headwind all day. Relentless. Which one are you gonna choose?

Speaker: 1:39:17

That's not too hard. Actually. I choose the headwind for the simple reason that I'm not a bite mechanic and cycling along on a rutted road all day is gonna make my bike fall to bit, half the screws will fall out and I've gotta work out where to put them back in. It's just not gonna work. And I had a dynamo on my bike originally and it died with all the corrugations and potholes and things that I hit in that Asia trip. So yeah, I'm very cautious about anything that goes rattle, bump.

Speaker 2: 1:39:42

Team headwind. I love it. Do you know what I always think with the corrugated roads, Terry, I'm not worried so much about my bike. It's more me. I feel like I'm gonna break. Yes, because it's so

Speaker: 1:39:50

work. It's a full body workout. It is. And headwind is soul destroying. But at least you can just grit your teeth and you can just go down into granny gear and just slowly plot along.

Speaker 2: 1:40:00

Or like many of my guests who've cycled through the most atrocious headwinds in Patagonia, just sit themselves in the side of a dish. Yes. Question all your life choices for hours.

Speaker: 1:40:09

Or you turn your bike around and go

Speaker 2: 1:40:10

backwards. Oh, I've had a guest who's had to do that as well. Final question, Terry, and I'm really looking forward to hearing your answer to this. I want you to finish this sentence for me, and the sentence is, the best thing about taking a bike adventure is,

Speaker: 1:40:26

oh, I haven't prepared that one. The best thing about taking a biking adventure is I feel like saying freedom, but it's actually more, I. Being immersed in the countryside and seeing all those changes from closeup, so changes seasonally and also changes over, um, distance in agriculture and nature and everything else. Yeah. Forest and beers and one island and rice patties in the next island and snorkeling and diving in the last island. Yes. That sort of stuff.

Speaker 2: 1:40:57

And hearing your answer, I can tell two things. One, you're absolutely love this form of travel, but two Japan is in your soul.

Speaker: 1:41:06

Yes. It's pretty good.

Speaker 2: 1:41:08

Terry Jockerst, I've had an absolute ball speaking with you. It's been such a pleasure to, to hear your story and. Not only with an Aussie accent sat on the, virtually on the screen opposite me, but also just listening to how you came to this. There were sprinkles of it as well along the way, how you first found out that people rode further than five kilometers on a bike, or you know, used it for more than commuting when you were in your twenties there in the Netherlands, to the idea discovering that postcard from your grandparents and deciding to go there and then plotting a route to how with each trip you overcame certain challenges. I especially love how you set yourself up for success. How you build in that idea that if I plan this right, I'm not gonna come across situations that if they happen, will break me and turn my day into a disaster.

Speaker 3: 1:41:58

Yes.

Speaker 2: 1:41:59

I think you've done that with the air of wisdom, knowing that you somehow will find a way that there will be a solution, and even the idea that I'm just gonna sleep on it and things will look different in the morning. I think listeners, if you're gonna take one lesson from Terry, that's definitely one to take. But I guess an even bigger one is that you can tour in your own style and just because you're 67 doesn't mean that you should stop doing it or talk yourself out of it. And you don't even need an e-bike yet. True. I am so happy I came across your travels. I'm super chuffed to have read your book. I wish you tailwinds and no corrugations and no scary tunnels through the US. May you have an absolutely brilliant time and thank you so, so much for sharing your stories and experiences here on the podcast on Seek Travel Ride.

Speaker: 1:42:46

Thank you so much. It has been absolute ball talking to you. It's, it's been great. It's been wonderful and I'm not nearly as nervous as I thought it would be because you're such a wonderful interviewer. So thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:42:57

There you go. Listeners age needs not be a barrier to take on these type of adventures. Did you get that vibe from Terry as well? I really love talking to her and just her no nonsense, matter of fact approach to how she has come to what she's doing. I also really love that idea that she has places she wants to see and she knows that if she wants to see them, now's the time to do it. Like the anecdote that she had about Taiwan, I need to see it now so it doesn't turn into the place that I would've loved to have seen, but wars come through and now I can't. I also just love the idea that she knows her style and she knows the type of things that are maybe going to make or break her day. And so she designs her tour roots around that could really tell that she has such a huge passion for history and that really comes across in her books as well. And as I said in my clothes, I'm wishing her just super adventures to come for this tour that's coming up in the us. And also I can tell that won't be the last one. And who knows. Terry, maybe I will see you on the V 81 riding in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Now listeners, if you've been enjoying listening to Seek Travel Ride and you wanna help support the show, you can do so by going to my buy me a coffee page. Buy me a coffee.com/seek travel ride, or hit the link in the show notes. I absolutely love hearing from fans. Buy me some virtual brews to keep the podcast rolling and let me know what is it that you love about Seek Travel Ride. And until the next episode, I'm Bella Malloy. Thanks for listening.