Welcome to Rolling Tales

We’re Emma and Justin, two New Zealanders who have ‘gone cycling’ after six years working and living in London.

Justin is using his IT skills to make sure our website is easy to update while we’re travelling, and Emma hopes to put her 10-year-old Journalism diploma to good use making sure most of our words make sense.

Why?

Justin got his first UK bike the second summer we were in London. Emma had taken his tent to work in catering at music festivals and he encouraged her to buy the first of a series of unreliable commuting bikes shortly after she returned. We travelled London’s inner-city canals, then began commuting and enjoyed the change of perspective it gave us of the city.  We started taking them further afield – feeling a sense of achievement in cycling Hadrian’s Wall over four days of atrocious weather, taking them on ferries in the South of England and cycling out of London every way we could.

We talked about the possibility of a bigger trip quietly at first. We were on a train in England somewhere and we sketched a rudimentary map which plotted our way towards Russia. We sat in the British Library with a pile of books about cycle touring. Our cycling trips became more ambitious, and we tested our enthusiasm for the idea by cycling the length of the UK (Lands End to John O’Groats) over three weeks in 2009. We saved, brought books on the topic, started researching bikes, equipment and possible routes. After 6 years living away from New Zealand we decided it was time to pack up London lives, quit jobs and go.

Where to?

Our ferry will pull into Sandander in North-West Spain in late March 2010 and we’re planning to travel from Spain as far as Turkey within six months. We’ll probably wait out winter and decide whether we’re keen to head through Central Asia or Eastern Europe and Russia  before China and South East Asia.

Justin would like to do a ski season, and cycle some of Mongolia. Emma would like to see Russia by train and has always wanted to cycle the length of Laos. We’re both keen to take the time to slow down and see some bits of Europe and Asia along the way.

How long?

We’ll definitely be on the road for six months, almost certainly for six months after that and possibly another year after that. We have broken the trip into 6 month chunks as we think that our plans and priorities are likely to change once we’re on the road.