Herefordshire to Slovenia UK to Slovenia, Day 1 of 2 Had a similar plan to last year’s bike trip but this time consolidates both ways into 2 day riding each way. My first worry was what was going to happen in Folkestone. Not two weeks before there were severe delays in the area and drivers were queuing for hours on end to get to the Eurotunnel port. Thankfully they seemed to have sorted out the issues and there was only a slight delay at passport control.

The trip will start from Kathmandu, Nepal after which we will drive for 5-6 hours to Besisahar where the actual trek starts. According to Wikipedia the trek is anything between 160–230 km long and I can tell you after how long it will be for me. The highest point is the (in)famous Thorong La pass at 5,416 metre altitude so just about where I started to have some issues on the Kilimanjaro hike in 2019.

Had been to Slovenia many many times since I moved to the UK aback in 2007 but mostly flying and mostly with easyJet. Drove here and back once in those years and that was only to do the inital move and then drive the car back as it was a Slovenian reg and a LH drive which didn’t make sense plus made the insurance a bit tricky. Due to all the COVID issues I decided to try my first biking trip to it.

I have done a few things in my life and and a lot of them involving my feet: I’ve hiked for hundreds of miles round Pembrokeshire, jumped out of an airplane 146 times, hiked up Kilimanjaro and the worse injury I had was a sore heel. But hell noooo, I have a lovely afternoon stroll on a gravel road and I go and break a foot. That’s it, my first fractured bone in my life at 48.

Had a call about a possible adder attack on a family cat and the owner brought down the cat and also the adder. He was brought in a small detergent box. After carefully opening the box and tipping the snake into a large plastic container we realised we were dealing with a grass snake, most likely male. These snakes are non-venomous and do not constrict so they are absolutely harmless to people.

My KTM in Wales in May 2021 - Click to enlarge I finally decided to replace my Honda NC750x DCT. The Honda was a great bike, very easy to use, never stalled due to its DCT gearbox but it was very underpowered. It was a bit of a job trying to keep up with my fellow IAM riders out on our Sunday rides. Plus it didn’t help seeing this video from Yammie Noob about the top 7 dorkiest bikes .

Saturday, October 5th Didn’t have much time to savour the moment. In the evening we had our certificates and our beers and warm meals and a shower. Up at stupid o’clock to get to the Kilimanjaro Int’l airport that was about 1.5-2 hours away. When we got there and when I tried to get into the airport the security guard started to say that my passport was fake. FAKE!! It must have been a bit of travel drowsiness and it being very very early in the morning but I just couldn’t comprehend what was going on.

Friday, October 4th The descent from Kili was done very quickly. Not sure if the guides were worried I might not make it down but two of them grabbed me by my arms and almost carried me downhill. When we got back to the base camp at Kibo we were given about an hour to rest and have a warm meal. After that we had to pack all our stuff and head to Horombo.

Thursday, 3 October Elevation: 5,895 m (Uhuru peak), alpine desert This post was written months after I actually did the climb. There were so many emotions surrounding this day I needed time to process them. So as I procrastinated the post I ended just forgetting about it. Putting it to words and posting it onto this blog was of secondary importance to me. The thoughts and memories will be mine forever.

Wednesday, 2 October Elevation: 4,703 m (Kibo Hut), alpine desert Today’s hike was supposed to be 5h long to the Marangu route’s basecamp at Kibo hut. Somewhere along the 11 kilometres we hiked we left the marshland and entered what could be best described as rocky desert, a lunar landscape that has been plonked down on top of an African mountain. This is also where some in the group started to feel the altitude problems.