Dydh da Kernow!
I never really bought into the whole idea that to venture north of Cornwall is to leave yourself open to all sorts of madness – well it’s a hard position to stomach considering more or less everything is north of Cornwall!
‘Ooh they’re a strange bunch up North son, you’re better off stayin’ down here” the stereotypically Cornish, ex-tin miner says to me as I make my way through the village of Gunnislake – well in my mind anyway. I’m young though and I think I know better. I want to see what the world, beyond the rows of evergreens that line the Tamar Valley, has to offer. So when my ticket arrived I took it, I packed my bags and off I went off to NottinghamUniversity to study.
Several years passed and I graduated. However, despite studying Philosophy, I still had no answer to the big question of ‘what should I do with my life’. Such an attitude gets you nowhere and fast, and soon I found myself working as a temp in a small Mansfield office – it was a cold grey winter. Now Mansfield isn’t the worst place… it gave the world Richard Bacon and Rebecca Addlington, but for someone spoilt by the riches of the south Cornish coast, the north Cornish coast, everything in between and even the lands end, the mid-Midlands is enough to send anyone into a spiral of wild desperate thought.
Quite exactly what went through my mind during the month of February 09 I will never know (though it could be illustrated best through a picture by Escher), but in short I concluded that I had to get out of Mansfield fast, perhaps travel, maybe Europe – by bicycle??!
And that is exactly what I decided to do. Setting a date in the future, the summer of 2010, I decided that it would be a really good idea to Cycle 6000 miles around Europe. I picked up a red pen, printed off a Google map and sketched out a provisional route that would take me through Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Switzerland, (over the Alps), Italy, Spain, (over the Pyrenees), France, Belgium and Holland. No problem, right?!
Excited by my wild plan I packed my things once again and returned to the ‘homeland’ for a spell. Whilst back in Gunnislake, plotting my next steps, I stumbled upon a very interesting idea in the ‘Your Cornwall’ Newspaper. It was about an organisation, based out of Cornwall, looking to attain recognition for all the many regions of culture located in Europe. On reading this my head almost popped and I immediately concluded that there must surely be a way for me to help this cause whilst on my own two wheeled ramblings. Once I knew a bit more about what is was I was attempting I contacted EROC and got the tires rolling…
…But wait, to complicate matters further I had also decided, from the very beginning, that I wished to do some good with my physical exploits. Consequently I got in contact with Buiga Sunrise (a non profit community program in Banda Kyandaaza, Uganda) run by a family I'm friends with, and asked if I could fundraise on their behalf. They were thrilled, especially as in 2009 a lady named Tara had cycled across Canada for them, and wondered if I would consider collecting funds that would ultimately help them build a Primary school in the village. I accepted and have been on a mission ever since.
Through this blog kindly set up for me by the kind folk running the European Regions of Culture, Miranda & Charlie, you will be able to follow my adventures and read all about the best regions Europe has to offer.
This blog will be dedicated to describing the various regions I go through on my travels. There will also be a more general blog that can be found on my own website - www.jbd2010.co.uk - from here you will also be able to donate funds to the Buiga Charity, so please do. The only other thing I feel I should mention here is that I leave on Monday the 21st June 2010!!
Meur ras for reading, I hope you enjoy my travelling yarns, please visit my home site and donate to a really worthy (non-European) cause!
Julian (off of jBd2010)
www.jbd2010.co.uk
www.buigasunrise.org
julianbraceydavis@googlemail.com
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