The 16,000 kilometre photo was taken in the town of Foping, China on 1st September 2011. In an area with 0.4 pandas per square kilometre we were lucky to have three available to pose with us for this monumental photo. To be honest the photo was snapped at 16,012km but we thought the pandas were worth waiting for. Our panda encounters on this day weren’t only with the concrete variety as we unexpectedly had a sighting of a real live panda a few hours earlier. – Posted by Justin

The awesome scenery in the Altay region almost made us miss the 13,000 kilometre mark as on 15th June 2011 we were just outside Onguday, Russia cycling along the Chuysky Tract. The previous few days had seen the flat forested landscape we had become used to change first into rolling hills and then into craggy peaks, sandy grasslands and rushing rivers. Like the 12,000 kilometre photo this one came up so quickly that we had to do a double check of our bike computers and trip notes to make sure it was correct. – Posted by Justin

At 143 days after our last 1000km photo we’ve finally completed 9000 kilometres on the bicycles. This photo was taken on 22 January 2011 at Rumelifeneri on the Black Sea Coast, auspiciously marking the middle point of our longest and hilliest training ride since settling in Istanbul. – Posted by Emma

The 21,000 kilometre photo was taken on the way to Thakhek, Laos on 14th December 2011. This was almost exactly one month after our 20,000km photo was taken and must be one of our slowest thousand kilometres so far. Finding a way to show the 21 count was challenging but after experimenting with Justin using his toes we borrowed the fingers of a helpful but confused local man to make up the numbers. – Posted by Justin