ON ROAD FOR 14 YEARS

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33451, 5 February 1974, Page 14

ON ROAD FOR 14 YEARS

f By

KEN COATES)

A blond West German, Heinz Stucke, aged 34. who began cycling around countries to see the world 14 years ago, just cannot stop. It has i become a way of life. In Christchurch on a tour of New Zealand, with 230,000 miles of travel behind .him, he admits that sooner or later he will have to return home, because he is running out of countries. Pedalling a laden Germanmade bicycle with thick tyres. Mr Stucke is brimful of the confidence' he has gained during his travels in 80 countries. A stocky, muscled tool and die-maker who did not like his job, he has found he can become the perpetual tourist without working—at least without doing what he calls work. SELLS STORIES “I show slides, sell stories and photographs, and booklets of my travels,” he said. !“1 make money by doing ■ something I consider is not •work.” This method was highly successful in Japan where he became “a yen ■ millionaire” through selling I booklets. Early on his travels, Mr Stucke decided that a short time in one area was not long .enough to learn something of the people, their culture and environment. “I decided on a minimum of two to six months, depending on the size of the country.” he said. “Time • just passed by, and there was always another country • around the corner.” Once a man who stopped , to give him a ride outside ] I New York drove away with ■his camera, equipment, 1000 ■ slides, passport and diary. | ZAMBIAN INCIDENT Another time, exhausted, i 1 dirty and thirsty, he stopped at a native village in Northern Rhodesia, today! Zambia. A pistol he carried! accidentally went off and the bullet went between two ; people and into a wall. He paid generously for his i< drink, staggered out into the p bright sun and pedalled 1

furiously off up a hill. Halfway up he collapsed, and woke up later when a big dog licked his face. No-one harmed him. Mr Stucke has taught himself English and Spanish and has travelled the African 'continent, and both American continents. ARAB RACISM He says most people do not realise Africa is not overwhelmingly Negro; a large !part is Arabic. “Arabs are very prejudiced ;against the Negro; as much ■so, for example, as the whites ■of South Africa or Rhodesia.” [he said. _ “In the Sudan, although

little publicised, there is prob-, ably more hatred and apartheid by the Arab of the! north against the Negro ini the south, than there is in! South Africa.” Riding a bicycle can be very difficult, particularly in the United States. “Once I got on to-a highway that had no shoulder, and it was impossible to ride; 1 thought I would be killed,” he said. Expressways had replaced good highways, some of which were virtually! empty, and quite suitable for cycling. Mr Stucke carries a small; tent and a hammock; he also! stays in cheap hotels, youth! hostels, or with people who' invite him in. SLEPT “EVERYWHERE” But with night falling and nowhere to go he has stayed in churches, mosques, temples. ruins, empty houses, on bridges, under bridges, on benches, beaches, tables (once on a pool table), in! trucks, cars, trains, on buses, in offices, schools, fire sta-‘ tions, on yachts, in canoes,! pleasure houses, villas, policei stations, stables, caves, cells/

[military camps and 24-hour truck stops. I “Once 1 slept in a teleiphone box. You name it, I’ve 'slept in it,” he said. He has had his fair share of accidents. In El Salvador, he was in a car which hit a tree; on the Alaskan highway he was a passenger in a car which went off the road and rolled over; and in Chile, while listening to his radio at the side of the road, he [was hit by a truck. WHERE NEXT? Where to now for the Ger|inan who is reluctant to get I off his cycle, even after ‘pedalling 80,000 miles? He tried cycling in Russia, jbut they told him there were no roads in Siberia, and in Moscow he was told he should not have been allowed in at the Siberian port of Nakhodka, and he was ordered out of the country. So he is heading for home via Fiji, the Pacific Islands, Indonesia, and other countries “along the way.” After that he is not sure—except he does not want to go back and work in a factory.