ADVENTUROUS TRIP
15,000 MILES ON BICYCLE JUNGLES AND DESERT SANDS THRILLS AND DELIGHTS A fifteen-thousand miles' trip by bicycle was recently completed by Mr. K. D. Poulton. With Mr. R. S. Koclcler, he travelled the whole way up Africa, through Palestine, Asia Minor, Turkey, the Balkans, Austria, Germany, and Franco to England on a bicycle with a miniature petrol engine. The two men were travelling for four months through every type of country and over every possible—and impossible —type of road. Their many adventures in uncivilised parts, the setbacks and the final rewards make a thrilling tale, says the Capetown correspondent of the Herald.
The two adventurers left Johannesburg on July 9, 1932, for London, intending to do the whole journey by land, except where actually impossible. They had only their bicycles and the necessary scanty equipment, and no special arrangements made ahead. Neither had had any experience of tho route. They arrived at South Africa House, Trafalgar Square, London, on April 11 last, having done actually more than 15,000 miles by land. The run through the Continent was largely a matter of riding from one official reception to another, on perfect roads, with a comfortable bed to sleep in every night. But before the riders had travelled through hundreds of miles of bush country and jungles, over towering heights, through desert
sands. Every kind of wild animal was encountered, locusts, mosquitoes and tsetse flic/ added to the hardships. At no time could they carry more than the barest minimum of stores, and' sometimes oven hunger added to their obstacles.
Itoads began to get bad for the light mounts in Rhodesia, where tho cyclists had their first sight of lions. On the three nights they slept out on the way to Wankie they were forced to take it in turns to sit jip. In Tanganyika they had to pay their record price for petrol—ss 6d a gallon.
From Juba to Khartum the travellers were compelled by the Government to take the water way. They tackled the Nubian Desert after having been in hospital in Khartum with malaria for 14 days, and rodo into Cairo on Christmas Eve. One land speed record they set up was crossing the Sinai Desert into Palestine in 22 hours. And so onwards to Syria. On the Lebanon Mountains tlio first snowfalls were mantling the heighls. Terrible winter conditions had set in, blinding snowstorms alternating with torrential rain. Again and again the riders were stranded in the mud, alone and nearly frozen, with wolves lurking everywhere. The two cyclists battled their way through the trackless territories of the Balkans into Austria. From Bulgaria 011 the going was better —Sofia, Belgrade, Marburg to Vienna. And here, more or less, started the pleasure cruise. In Germany Poulton acquired the nickname of " the cycling fool." There was much excitement when the pair arrived at the works of Fichtel and Lachs at Schwcinfurt, the home of tho machines they were using. Poulton was asked to inscribe his name in the " Golden Book in Bavaria, the only other signatures being those of the King of Bavaria and two Ministers of Sate.
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Bibliographic details
New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21698, 13 January 1934, Page 2 (Supplement)
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520ADVENTUROUS TRIP New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21698, 13 January 1934, Page 2 (Supplement)
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