Open Letter to a fellow traveller…

Happy 2010 to all!

I hope this blog finds you in good spirits and looking forward to an adventurous decade!

With the New Year here, I thought I would share a letter I recently wrote to a fellow traveller who is about to undertake his own expedition around the world by bicycle. The letter reflects on the CSX journey to date as well as touching on lessons learned, what it’s like on the road, heeding the ‘call to adventure’ and more personal insights.

Lee Hughes is currently in England planning for his solo trip around the world by bicycle and recently asked me to write a guest blog. This was my letter to him, from one fellow traveller to another…

“With every continent explored, every coastline chartered and every river mapped, it’s challenges like these that set the benchmark for modern adventures.

What Lee is about to undertake will undoubtedly change his life, but not in the way he expects. Nine months and over 12,000 km since leaving Australia on The Cycle Strongman Expedition (CSX) and I know that it has already changed my life in ways I could never have imagined. Change is always unexpected; one day you’ll go hungry to the point of exhaustion and the next you’ll be eating like a king with a cheeky broad grin from ear to ear. A wise man once told me “…on the road, a smile is your best friend.” You have to learn to say yes to it all; and smile, at yourself, at your situation and at others. It is perhaps the greatest lesson of all and one I am still learning to fully appreciate.

What is it that drives one to explore the world around us? Is it simply answering questions to the unknown? Is it searching inside yourself to find what you are capable of?  This ‘call to adventure’ takes many forms. For some it may be discovering the cure for cancer or perhaps following your passion to become an artist, a writer, a musician or a doctor. While, for others, the passion and joy might be in following the adventure itself. To hit the road, to explore and to learn is the essence of an expedition. Whatever the ‘adventure’ represents, we all follow a similar path, leaping into the unknown, conquering our own doubt,  fear and anxiety and, as the well respected mythologist Joseph Campbell once put it, either being swallowed up in the process or emerge to see world in a different light.

Cycling around the world is unlike most other expeditions. It’s not tackling Everest, it’s not sailing a feeble wooden vessel into the Antarctic and it’s not journeying to distant foreign lands in search of wealth or material gain. Whatever the reasons individuals decide to undertake such adventures, answering the ‘call to adventure’ is in itself, a bold and commendable undertaking. Apart from the extremes in weather and variety of landscapes, the obstacles are many. You often you have to dig deep and search within yourself for that strength to go on. Sometimes you go without food and water; sometimes you have to adapt and at other times you have to simply improvise. You’ll need to learn dozens of languages, dodge packs of wild dogs, avoid getting killed by drunken drivers, confront thieves, evade police, make friends with complete strangers, and tactfully negotiate checkpoints manned by trigger happy and often bored armies in foreign languages. At times you’ll be completely lost, not shower for weeks and sleep in a gutter. You’ll need to push yourself further and harder than you ever thought possible, and then you’ll have to do it again. Most of the time you don’t know where you’ll end up. You live outside of any definition of a ‘comfort zone’ and in doing so continually challenge yourself. And within all of this, you have to simply have faith (because everything will be OK). Say yes to it all!

Constantly confronting yourself each day is a hard and sometimes painful process but, at the same time, both a liberating and insightful experience. Conquering your own fears, spending long hours on the bike and often being alone for weeks in remote environments is not for the faint at heart. But there is magic is heeding the call to adventure. The magic that is found in the journey and the experience rather than any particular destination.

A little over a year ago, in a similar situation to Lee, I found myself busy planning routes, finding sponsors, researching gear and preparing for the adventure. However quietly inside I was struggling to grapple with what I was about to do. At the time I didn’t understand the ‘why’. Yet I was equally so certain that there had to be a why. I even had a few people who thought they knew the answer tell me why: “…because you can” – which felt like it was almost the inverse of the question itself. One colleague at work even went as far as calling it “life avoidance” which couldn’t be further from the truth. It was perhaps the hardest question I kept getting asked. In my head I thought I had lots of answers. But I couldn’t really qualify the feeling inside that drove me to sell everything I owned, leave all that I loved behind and heed this, for lack of a better word, ‘calling’. Once on the road, the ‘why’ didn’t matter any more. It would be something akin to asking “the meaning of life?”. You can give examples of meaning in your life and what you may ‘think’ it is, but sometimes the magic is in the mystery. A great quote comes to mind by Philippe Petit who, when after tightrope walking across the Twin Towers in New York in the 70’s, was berated by the media that asked “Why, Why WHY? Philippe risked his life to do something so beautiful, to dance on thin air; for us. While being escorted away from police after have played, touted and teased them for some time and eventually surrendering, he simply turned to the media scrum in response, stuck his head out of the police car and remarked, “There is no why!” With perspective and through the felt experience, I understand my own reasons better now. It was a ‘calling’ (of sorts). A calling I believe we all must take; to leap into the unknown, conquer our fears and grow as individuals. The calling and the adventure are as unique as the individual. The result is the discovery of the world around and within them. For some it may express itself through art, music, helping others or spiritual practice. But for some it requires two wheels and a long time on the road.

Physically The CSX has been quite hard, but mentally I found it even tougher. The mountains are high, the roads endless and every day is a new and exciting challenge. You learn to accept the heat, the cold, the humidity, the rain, the headwinds and the exhaustion with a smile. You learn to let go of control, doubt and fear and simply take each day as it comes. Day by day is how you cycle around the world. From little things big things grow.

Being on the road and travelling by bicycle is unique. You give yourself the greatest gift, the gift of time. Time to explore thoughts and ideas, time to reflect, time to just be. A bicycle opens doors. Doors to people and cultures, doors to discover the world and yourself within it. It slows you down to enough to see, smell, hear, touch, taste and feel. A famous Buddhist belief is that if you liberate yourself you liberate the world. I believe there is no more noble pursuit. The rewards lies in the journey itself and within each fleeting experience. You learn to trust yourself, to believe in yourself and have faith (in the true sense of the word).

…and so to you Lee, who is about to embark on such a journey, I can only smile. Knowing some of what lies ahead of you makes me happy. Remember to say yes to it all and smile. I look forward to meeting you on the road. Travel safe. May you find smooth roads and light wind on your back.”

Regards,

Chris Roach

The Cycle Strongman Expedition (December 2009).

Having commenced in early 2009, the Cycle Strongman Expedition is a bold attempt to cycle around the world in an effort to inspire others, promoting sustainable thinking and raise money for Oxfam Australia – no end date, just the open road and endless possibilities. For more about this unique expedition visit www.cyclestrongman.com.