That dream of cycling away via the Danube

What's the furthest you've ever cycled? And could you go further? Words from Nicola Baird  (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

Bikes with unusual loads, but the paniers have all sorts of potential
for a long journey.

About 10 years after I left university a guy in the year above had a book published about cycling across Chile, Argentina and Bolivia to raise funds for the Leukaemia Reseach Fund. I was so impressed that even another 20 years on, during a recent book clear out I decided to keep his book on my shelves. This was clearly a man who knew something secret about life and tenacity. The trail to Titicaca by Rupert Attlee is a good read too.

Long distance journeys have always been popular. It's a challenging way to grow up, get away from the old you, fit into your skin, explore etc. We all know travel's attraction dating right back to Odysseus (the Greek who gave us the wonderful word odyssey).

Nowadays long distance travel is often more about taking a holiday to push yourself because (good) experiences are more important than possessions. I pretty much agree with that sentiment (especially if it involves low carbon travel and doesn't begin and end with a plane flight), except somehow I've never managed to cycle more than 50 miles in one day. But, I remember that journey with pride as I managed to get from London to Oxford in aid of charity. It was a total killer and at the celebration gig afterwards with the exuberant Bhundu Boys (from Zimbabwe) playing I crashed out asleep. Clearly I wasn't bicycle honed. And yet I've cycled almost every day since I was 16 years old at sixth form, and love the way a bicycle offers freedom and speedy journeys.

No surprise then that I like to read about bike journeys. At the start of 2017 I was hooked by Tim Moore's latest book The Cyclist Who Went Out In the Cold. Tim has a serious track record at pushing himself to do slightly daft - aka challenging - routes. This time he cycles 6,000 miles along the route of the old Cold War front on a tiny-wheeled, two-geared East German-made shopping bike (a MIFA 900). And he starts the journey in the Arctic Circle, in winter: you couldn't make his stories up. It's an inspiring read, often funny and good for your Cold War knowledge (well it's helped mine)...

When you see a cycle book and think
that could be me out there...

The perseverance travel bug kicks in fast.

Inspired by Tim Moore's cycle journeys up the Alps, and along historic borders I'm now looking closely at The Danube Cycleway (volume 2), published by long distance travel guide specialists Cicerone, thinking could I? Could I get on my bike and pedal from Budapest to the Black Sea (this is the end part of Europe's second longest river)?

My guidebook isn't dog-eared yet, but I've read a few of the recommended stages and feel it's possible. I think it helps having a cyclist in glasses gracing the front cover who looks rather like a government ad to get more women active ("still slow, still lapping the couch"). That woman could be me. Or it could be me when I've got just a few less childcare responsibilities. Unless of course I can talk my youngest teenager into joining me...

The Danube Cycleway (Volume 1 and 2) are extremely detailed, but not that huge. Which is why they recommend taking additional more detailed maps for Hungary, Croatia, Serbia and Romania and provide info about where to find those formal maps. I feel the Cicerone approach really works for an armchair traveller (who might well become the real thing) - as it helps you imagine (and potentially plan) every detail from what to wear to how to get your bike to the starting point. There are some great tables which show the mileage, likely timings, location of cycle shops and accommodation. This kind of info isn't in Tim Moore's book - it makes his ability to cycle such challenging routes seem extra brilliant - but it clearly saves hours of research. It's still going to be hard work doing the route planning (eg, around weather, where to stay and language).

I have real problems looking at maps and seeing their world. Guide books make it a bit easier to imagine the terrain, people and even sunlight. Nothing beats being there, but in order to decide where to be these handy Cicerone guides take me a lot closer to a 3D imagining! And perhaps it's almost a sign that the last person to cut my hair grew up in Budapest...

More tellingly both Tim Moore's book and the Danube Cycleway make Romania look the sort of country I would adore visiting, even if Romanian dogs are clearly not keen on cyclists.

The Danube Cycleway (vol 2 from Budapest to the Black Sea) by Mike Wells (Cicerone, £16.95)

Where's that bird from?

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. A half term visit to Wales introduced me to some south american locals.  This post is by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about books and blogs). 


We've had Chilean hens for some years. Now it turns out the two Muscovie ducklings I brought home from Wales also have a South American heritage (so they are not from Moscow as I'd always thought). See pic above of mummy Muscovie and Berry (mostly yellow) and Walden (the other one).


The word "Musk-ovie" - is possibly a reference to their smell (although good news birds, this goes when you're cooked!). An American website tells me that "in southern Europe and northern Africa they are called the Barbary duck. In Brazil, they are known as the Brazilian duck, in Spain the pato, and in the Guianas the Guinea or Turkish duck."


Just like the potato, I think of a Muscovy duck as a traditional local. When it's actually anything but...


Over to you
What's something you use or see or eat that blends in with the landscape to such an extent that you've just about forgotten its original home was far, far away?

Taste of Chile

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here's how to go to Chile via a sweet tooth. This post is by Nicola Baird 

Chileans obviously have a love-hate relationship with dentists. Our family is friends with a Chilean family and have recently been given a kilo of delicious toffee sauce (made by Nestle, really it's heated up condensed milk) which is eaten on toast. I tried it on pancakes and as a topping for a cake I gave to my godson. It's very sweet, and very delicious.

Last week Lola was given a little tin of miel de palma and told by the family that it was coconut honey. The translation didn't sound right - not least because the ingredients do not include a drop of honey (I'm assuming miel is honey in Spanish...). Google turned up the goods - it's a palm syrup from a special tree that has small edible nuts (a bit like coconuts) and when the top of the palms cut it bleeds a golden juice that if heated turns into a maple syrup like concoction. Which I guess is good on toast, and on pancakes...

See what I mean about the dentists?

Here's some interesting detail about miel de palma. Anyone know any other Chilean treats I can find in London?

Using locals to speak a new language

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. This post is by Nicola Baird 


What's the easiest way to learn a language? I reckon it's necessary to listen very hard to become fluent, and then to try the words and phrases, day after day. I think it is much easier if you can let your subconscious - that bit of your brain that demands habit (mine likes coffee when I wake up) -  kick in. But I don't find learning languages very easy.


"Quel'qu'n"  this may not be spelt right, but I distinctly remember learning the phrase "is anyone in there" after staying for a couple of nights in a Paris apartment with a French family. Because the apartment was crowded there was a serious danger of walking into someone using the bathroom, so the phrase took on ridiculous importance.


In the same way hearing "mira" being repeatedly said by a babysitter dandling my baby daughter helped me learn the Spanish word for look.


Now that my 13 year old has learnt a second language (due to travelling out of the UK all summer, shh not to mention much about this on this blog and besides it was a one-off, and it's Solomon Islands pijin which very few people speak in the UK) I'm trying to encourage her to use the same listen and try techniques to get herself a Spanish GCSE. She actually made the fluent breakthrough after six weeks in the Solomons, and then one rainy day spent making baskets and toys out of coconut leaves (see pic above). And if you ever want to visit that place (the largest uninhabited island in the Pacific), know as Tetepare, see the info here.


Spanish is a fab language, I wish I spoke it. But my efforts over the years mostly in the UK - evening classes, tapes, plus short visits (pre-children & pre-blogging days) to Mexico and also Spain - have probably helped. But my know-how is very weak, so I cannot help my daughter build up her Spanish voccab, essential to get that GCSE which will give her a ticket to uni...


But there's a clever trick you can do too, whatever language you want to speak - use visitors to the UK.


Here in London there are loads of Spanish speakers so I've arranged for Lola to meet up with a Chilean family and help mum cook supper for the two boys one evening after school. 


Hopefully she'll hear phrases like "is anyone in the loo"  or "would you like some more" (all in Spanish!) that will never leave her brain. Actually I'd like to learn like this, but would prefer to go to a tapas bar, so somehow haven't got around to sorting out my language needs. 


If anyone's got any ideas about non-classroom ways of learning a language at home please share them here... Thanks.

Darwin trails

Pete, Nicola, and daughters Lola and Nell love to travel without wrecking the planet. This blog looks at ways they travel the world without leaving Britain. This post is by Nicola.

4 o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon sees Lola and I, just minutes from home, sharing Charles Darwin's favourite teatime snack - cucumber sandwiches with the crusts off, strawberries, ginger and treacle cake and homemade lemonade. We're in Caledonian Park, Islington along with children from nearby schools, the Mayor and an impressive number of Charles Darwin's relatives to enjoy the opening of the new Darwin Trail.

In Islington the Darwin Trail is a 10-slated loop around Caledonia Park with quotes by the great writer of The Origin of Species that link the borough, the plants in the park and naturalist knowledge. The trail cleverly bridges science and literature with some meditative finger posts set by park highlights: a hedge, a bird feeder, a holly tree, an oak and a walnut tree.

Snakes and tortoises
The oldest and boldest of the relatives, Randal Keynes, a great, great grandson (author of Annie's Box) told the crowd that he'd opened Darwin Trails throughout the world. Each has a distinctive character - but in Brazil the first users had been obliged to detour past a boa constrictor, and in the Galapagos Islands there were tortoises to avoid. In Islington we spotted a cute dog, a fluffy dog and two scary dogs as well as the famous pigeons who are descendants of Rock Doves.

Look closely and even in this uber-urban setting all is "beautiful adapatation". It's a lesson for life, by the great mapper of life. A wonderful adventure for our armchair travel diary.

Heather on Ilkley Moor

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell love to travel - but try not to rack up their carbon footprint as they go. Here's how...

A suprisingly beautiful day in west Yorkshire (we are staying in Shipley as part of a house swap with friends) inspired us to go to Ilkley and up to the famous moor. Anyone who has been here would know that Ilkley is a busy tourist spot, there's even a Pizza Express and an M&S at the station - amazing if you compare it to Keighley which isn't so far away.

In fact it's been a busy tourist trap for years. Charles Darwin stayed here with his family, at a big house now called Hillside (with blue plaque), to correct the proofs of Origin of Species in 1859. Darwin always thought he was ailing so he came partly to try out the waters at White Wells. Nowadays it is a cafe (flags from all nations up when it is open) but then you popped up for an icy plunge bath. The Victorian copy writers managed to convince the public that the Romans used to use it and that it was an unmissable experience with water that is "mellifluent, diaphanous, limpid, luminous transparent, pellucid" and the "nectar of gods and goddesses".

Darwin probably believed them, and probably had a dip too. When you realise how gullible he could be it makes his discoveries all the more amazing.

But we're tourists too - so off we go along the path to the Rocky Valley and over to the Cow & Calf rocks but on a route that just misses the Pancake rocks. On the way Pete is determined to see the cup marked rocks (there are masses marked on OS maps in this area) but when we find one scored with rings he dismisses it as local (possibly Victorian) grafitti. How we laugh when he later looks at the map and realises that was the real McCoy.

Just as they probably said about Darwin in Chile we rather implied that when it comes to fools on the look out for rocks/specimens, etc, well there's one born every minute.

And then we walked back down the path to the train station via a cart stall offering Yorkshiredales ice creams by a long-suffering, midge bitten Pole or Romanian man. I was very happy to buy his cones and stuffed with sugary cream quickly shot Ilkely Moor into the best place for a walk that I know. In summer it's got everything: prehistory, rocks, signage, controversy, scrambling opps and a cafe and ice creams.

Romana is a mum

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three happy months during summer of 2007 travelling around Britain. Now we’re home, but the travel bug is still there. Join us for the occasional sightseeing plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint. This post is from Nicola

Romana, our handsome Aracuna hen – a Chilean breed that lays blue eggs – has successfully sat for 21 days on a dozen fertilized eggs and managed to hatch seven chicks. Three are Scots Dumpies (a rare UK breed) and four white trouser-feathered Silkies. The chicks are three weeks old now and we feel incredibly lucky that they’ve survived for so long given our previous experiences with foxes and hens (see the Clucking hell chapter in Pete’s book There’s A Hippo In My Cistern/Collins, #7.99).

We didn’t do this with an incubator: the eggs were bought off e-Bay, sat at Freightliners Farm, Sheringham Road, N7 for a while and even managed to avoid mishap when cycled home once Romana went broody.