JosieDew.co.uk
Title
www.josiedew.co.uk - pedal-powered travel tales from cyclist Josie Dew
Description
I was still at primary school when I developed an overpowering urge to travel. I also fell out of a fast moving vehicle and, as a result, rather inconveniently developed a lifelong aversion to cars. Then, when I was eleven, I started cycle touring: around the Isle of Wight, around Wales, to Land's End, the Lake District, Scotland - that sort of thing. I rode my bike every day to school and back (20 miles) plus after school rides which often topped my daily milage to the 40 - 50 mile mark.
The best thing about school was the cycling there and back. Education was not my forte. I was too fidgety for that. So, as I loved cycling and had always enjoyed cooking, I set up a small catering business when I was 15 (cooking and delivering three-course multi-storeyed meals by bicycle and cycle trailer) which I worked at full time when I was 16.
As soon as I got some money together I cycled to Africa. That was in 1985. I had cajoled Ward, my non-cycling Liverpudlian mega tea-drinking boyfriend, into coming with me. After realising on the ferry from Harwich that I had left his four month supply of Tetley tea bags at home (which did not go down well) we set off from the Hook of Holland (where we spent several long-winded hours getting lost looking for a place called Dorgand Verkeer (on-going traffic) before sallying forth through Belgium (flat), Luxembourg (flatish with lumps), France (French), Germany (Black-Forest flavoured), Switzerland (v. lumpy), Italy (long), Tunisia (hot), Algeria (sandy). We had hoped to reach Morocco but Ward had picked up something that felt at home in his intestinal department so we curtailed Africa and cycled home through France.
