Planting our way to Croatia

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.

View this map in fullscreen

We’re having a cool drink and escaping the sun while we wait for a garden centre to re-open to pick up more trees, having run out of our original batch from Berlin.

It’s so hot that most businesses close during the middle of the day to avoid the heat. It also makes it hard to cycle, so were planning on riding later in the day to be able to cover some miles in less intense weather.

We’re both pretty tired today, both because of the heat and some loud teenagers that set up camp next to us and talked loudly all night. Hopefully we can make it in to Pula tomorrow and find a little more energy for the final leg of the trip, down the coast to Petrcane.

5:19 pm • 26 August 2010 • View comments