We rented a couple of kayaks today and paddled around the corner from Petrcane to plant the final tree of the trip. Tim and James handled the digging duties on a rocky little point over looking the Adriatic sea.
Planting our way to Croatia
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Follow us on twitter!We are Jean-Michel Massey from Devon, England and Mike Pierce from Sydney, Australia. This August we will be cycling from Berlin to Croatia, crossing through 6 countries and over the alps.
The trip will surely be a personal challenge for both of us — both physically and mentally, so we're asking our friends to help us out.
Annie Peacock was the mother of three incredible young men (James, Tim and Jonny Rowden) who sadly lost her battle with cancer just a few short weeks ago. In memoriam to her, we plan to raise money for the Penny Brohn Cancer Centre who provided care and support for her and her boys throughout her illness.
The route will start in Berlin, Germany on the 4th of August. We'll head south to Prague, then across to Munich, we'll then head over the alps — taking the highest possible road — and toward the northern coast of Italy, heading south east toward to Croatia, ending up in Petrcane, Croatia about a month after starting.
Sourcing local saplings on our route, our aim to is to plant a tree every 100km of the trip. We'll take pictures and GPS locations of each sapling so we can follow the progress of their growth in years to come. In fact, we'll be documenting the entire journey right here on this blog, uploading photos, videos and stories as we go.
So we ask of you just a couple of things. Visit the site, leave comments and tips as we travel. We'll be relying on kind words and encouragement from you to keep us going. More importantly, if you can spare even a little bit, we'd love for you to make a donation here to the Penny Brohn Cancer Centre to help us reach our target.
Follow Our Progress
The purple line is our projected route, however it's quite likely we'll deviate from this quite often. The marker is our last noted location — if you're lucky you may even catch us moving if you refresh the page a couple of minutes apart during the day.
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We did it.
27 days (three of which were rest days). 1880 kilometres. 106 hours and 55 minutes in the saddle. 17.57 km/h average speed. 72.99 km/h (Mike) and 73.67 km/h (Jean-Michel) top speed. ~15000 metres climbed. ~150000 calories burned. One puncture. One crash (Mike) and two unintentional dismounts (also Mike). Lots of rain. Lots of wind. Some camping. Some hotels. Two guys (plus James for the last four days). One amazing adventure.
We’ve arrived! What an amazing feeling- an incredible achievement, don’t know what to say- will update again later, for now, we’re having a beer by the sea.
The 16th tree has the most beautiful view of all the trees so far, our ride today has been breathtaking, we’ve had the sun in our faces, and the wind on our back…
N 44’20.779 E 015’12.683
Early lunch in Pag… Super hot and windy today… Making good progress.
Liveblog. We’re on the peninsula north of petrecane. It’s looking pretty baron, and pretty hot.
Today was incredible. An insane water taxi ride, a turbo roll over hills and around cliff tops, and an insane storm with wind gusts that sent us two metres sideways, threatening to send us off the edge of said cliff. Not to mention the trouble we had trying to find a room in this tiny ferry stop town we’re now in.
But it’s all worth it for that incredible sunset. Pictures simply do not do it justice. Plus it’s only around 85kms to our destination. Amazing.
An hour or so ago, James planted the 15th tree, one of two Ginkgos we bought in Umag a few days ago. It has a wonderful view over to the island of Krk where we stayed last night.
The weather today in Croatia is truly wet! We’re all soaked to the bone, but pushing on all the same.
