Thunder & Sunshine

Thunder & Sunshine

by Alastair Humphreys
Thunder & Sunshine

Thunder & Sunshine

by Alastair Humphreys

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Overview

Thunder and Sunshine is the sequel to the best-selling Moods of Future Joys.

At the age of 24, Alastair Humphreys left England in August 2001 to cycle round the world. By the time he arrived back home, four years later, he had ridden 46,000 miles across in just over 1500 days, through five continents and 60 countries on a tiny budget of just £7,000.

His journey, as well as a quest for adventure, helped to raise the profile of the charity Hope and Homes for Children. When scores of people have visited the Poles and £30,000 is needed to get up Everest, Alastair s expedition was refreshingly original. Alastair was alone on the road for four years, in countries few people visit, and enduring an 85° C temperature range. This was an expedition of self-belief and optimism rather than satellite hook-ups and lucrative sponsorship.

Thunder & Sunshine is the story of Alastair s journey from South Africa back to Yorkshire, via the whole of the Americas, South to North, then Siberia in winter, Japan, and back through China, Central Asia and Europe.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781908646309
Publisher: Eye Books
Publication date: 10/01/2015
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 368
File size: 5 MB

Read an Excerpt

Thunder & Sunshine


By Alastair Humphreys

Eye Books Ltd

Copyright © 2007 Alastair Humphreys
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-908646-30-9



CHAPTER 1

Gone to Patagonia


Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.

– Erma Bombeck


At home, above the fireplace, since I was a child, hung a painting. A maelstrom of slate green waves and leaden troughs, a wild and savage ocean, heaved and pounded and shattered. In the thick of the fury, unmoved and constant, the rain-shrouded, craggy black outcrop of Cape Horn looms, the southernmost tip of South America and, amongst sailors, the most feared and revered spot on our planet. Incredibly, ludicrously, alone in the midst of such power and fury, is a little boat. Just 53 feet of mahogany, sailed by one man. This painting of the yacht Gipsy Moth IV, sailed by Francis Chichester, was my first introduction to Patagonia and the deep south of the world, 50 degrees below the equator, past the 'Roaring 40s' and into the 'Screaming 50s.' Sailors said, "Below 40 degrees, there is no law. Below 50 degrees, there is no God."

Patagonia, spans both Argentina and Chile. Mountains plateau and plains taper down to the rocky southern tip. South across the Straits of Magellan is the island of Tierra del Fuego, and at the far tip of that island, Ushuaia, the most southern town on the planet.

The names, Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego and Ushuaia, had thrilled and lured me for years. As I stepped off the bus in Ushuaia, I discovered that my yearning for el fin del mundo was not particularly original. A six-foot tall fluffy penguin demanded two pesos to pose for a picture with me to celebrate my arrival among the tourists at the remote end of the world. Ushuaia is a colourful hotchpotch of pink, blue, green and orange corrugated metal buildings in the lee of dark mountains on the tranquil shore of the Beagle Channel.

Tourism flourishes in Ushuaia, but probably not for the guided city tour, highlights of which included the old house of Mr. Pastoriza's, who worked in a sardine canning company. The project failed because the sardines never appeared. Or Mr. Solomon's General Goods store which became famous for the variety of its products, and which closed in 1970. No. People went to enjoy the beautiful ruggedness of Patagonia, to look out to sea, knowing that only Antarctica lay beyond the horizon. I looked in the opposite direction. I looked north, up the road I meant to follow to its very end, in Alaska.

The morning I began riding, I found it even harder than usual to get up. How do you persuade yourself to leave a nice warm sleeping bag and begin cycling, with 17,848 kilometres between you and your destination? Staying in bed seemed a far more attractive option. All the riding I had done counted for nothing now. I was back at the beginning, a brand new start at the bottom of a continental landmass, whose top was one third of the circumference of the globe away.

I pedalled south out of town, and down to the seashore where the road to Alaska truly began. I looked across the slate-coloured Lapataia Bay. Patches of white snow were on the upper scree slopes of the sharp grey mountains behind me. To welcome me back onto the road, a headwind was brewing. A clean green stream wound through the boggy fields and blended into the clean, pebbly shallows of the bay. My ears were cold and a light mist pearled tiny droplets over my fleece jacket and eyelashes. I stood still and felt small in the silence, and in awe of the phenomenal distance ahead of me. The bike was heavier than I was accustomed to, loaded with clothes I hadn't needed in Africa, like a fleece jacket, a hat and a pair of gloves. The gaffa tape was peeling from one of the holes in my faded bags. I needed to fix that; I was probably in for a few weeks of rain. Far away, a chainsaw started up and amplified how quiet the little cove was. My hand swirled through the cold water, I was intimidated by the road ahead. The old self- doubt rose through me, but I was determined not to cry. This runaway expedition had dragged me along and stampeded me. I was just managing to cling on. I was going to enjoy this ride up the Americas. I was determined. Come on, Al, let's go have some fun!

I climbed onto my bike and began to pedal, away from one sea towards another, far distant one. The first pedal strokes of millions, turning up the crunching dirt track through the lichen covered forest, away from the sea, back into Ushuaia and out the other side. It was mid-February. I hoped to reach Alaska by the end of summer next year.

My ride up the Americas was under way. I planned to cross to Asia and cycle back to England. This leg of my journey had begun months before, thousands of miles away, on another distant shore.

CHAPTER 2

New beginnings


Every new beginning comes from some other new beginning's end.

– 'Feeling Strangely Fine,' Semisonic


Strange that South America should begin under South Africa's Table Mountain. I was aboard Maiden bound for Rio de Janeiro yet, as I gripped a halyard on the yacht's foredeck, it felt more like a start than a farewell. Table Bay teemed with all the glamour and excitement of the triennial Cape to Rio race. Amongst the racing yachts were sailing boats, jet-skis, power boats, canoes, press boats, gin palaces and bathtub rowing boats. A dramatic horizon of spears of masts, and bird-wing curves of white sail. Television helicopters swept low over the fleet, swooping for the perfect shot. Beneath the rotors water fretted in a circular frenzy and sailors panicked as their sails crashed from filled efficiency into flapping maelstrom. The shoreline was lined with people and on Signal Hill scores of binoculars flashed. I tipped back my head in the warm breeze to squint at the sun and I was happy. I was ready to go.

When I had left home I had assumed that I would fly across the oceans between continents. However the idea of making it around the planet without leaving its surface germinated as I rode the hot and dry roads of Africa. How would I find a sailing boat willing to give me a lift across an ocean? Especially with so little money ...

I sought advice at the Royal Cape Yacht Club in Cape Town. I set about making myself useful, crewing in races, cleaning boats, networking, phoning people to ask if anybody knew anybody who knew anybody planning to sail across the Atlantic. After six weeks of dead ends and rejections, Terry Nielsen, owner and skipper of ocean-going yacht Maiden, offered me a ride. He was competing in the Cape to Rio race, had a spare berth and was happy to give me a ride.

I loaded my bike and gear into a freight container that was taking the fleet's spare sails and anchors to Rio de Janeiro, and I lived out of a tiny rucksack for another month until departure. I fixed my bike, gave talks, partied, sat on the beach, made friends and tried to get my head round the fact that, contrary to everything I had been telling myself, Cape Town was not actually the end of the road. I had cajoled and dragged myself down the length of Africa only by convincing myself this would be the end. I had refused to think further ahead than Cape Town. If I was to cycle around the world though, Cape Town was not even half of the journey. I seemed to be on an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending path. Once a way across the ocean had come my way, and the departure date set, the reality and the implications sank in. If I continued to South America I would be putting myself, once again, at the beginning of a very long road. A new horizon would open up, demanding to be crossed, challenging me to try.

My aim was to cycle round the world, to complete a circumnavigation, crossing the length of the world's three greatest land-masses. I had ridden the length of Africa. Now I planned to ride from the bottom of South America to the northern coast of Alaska, and then search for a boat to cross the Pacific, and ride across Asia, back to Europe and home.

After Christmas and New Year and only just before the start of the race, a badly delayed Maiden reached Cape Town. As crew flew in from around the world we prepared her for the race. An ocean-crossing novice, I tried to make myself useful, and at the same time not get in the way. Two hours before the race began I doubted we would make it to the start-line on time. I was stuck in a supermarket checkout queue with one trolley full of bananas and another of bread, last minute additions to the three weeks food supply for 15 people. Grannies fumbled in their purses for the exact change while I fretted about missing my escape from Africa.

I sprinted down the jetty with the shopping bags, the bowline was thrown off, I jumped aboard and we were away. The friends I had made in Cape Town waved and walked down the jetty. More fragile, precious connections broken. I was on my own again, in motion once again, and I had left Africa.


As the spectators turned for home the 30 or so competing yachts faced 4000 miles of ocean. Our crew of 15 had just come together and only now, at sea, was there time for proper introductions. My new companions were English, German, South African, Zimbabwean, Canadian, American and Spanish. We were students, business men, professional sailors, oil-workers, shop owners and architects. We were men and women, from 18 to 50-ish. We were a shambles. We were happy. Alberto, the second in command, was a charming Spanish Casanova who had been sailing his way round the world for three years on various yachts. He stood at the stern playing his guitar and singing, Bob Marley style, "Every little wind, is gonna be alright." Retired lawyer Terry set about turning the rabble into a team. Hen, a city girl in a dinky little Union Jack crop top, looked towards the empty horizon and declared cheerfully, "Well, at least we are out of sight of land now." Everyone laughed and turned her round; there were pedestrians on the shore just a few hundred metres away. Spirits were high although the wind was not and our boat had already stopped. The on-board GPS gave us an ETA for Rio de Janeiro of October; the finish line was ten months away on current progress. Perhaps I should have bought more bananas.

As our first night at sea approached, the breeze stiffened and the yacht stopped wallowing and began to heel. As Maiden came to life, she cut through the waves and I felt a thrill to be travelling again. I was totally free, and I was a lucky man for that. I sat with my legs dangling over the rushing water. I had not cut my hair since leaving home, and the sun-bleached dreadlocks whipped around my face. We chased the sunset, bearing west, heaving across the planet by the pure force of wind in our sails. The yacht ahead of us silhouetted dark against a late orange sky, the one behind us glowed peach on green waves. Maiden's hull thumped the waves, and spray leapt up to my face. I was soaked, frozen, nauseous and grinning like an idiot.

Seasickness caught me and I spent that first night hanging over the side of the boat. In my cycling clothes and shoes I was soaking wet and cold. I had no sailing gear. But by sunset on the second day I had found sea legs and I set to learning about life aboard a 58-foot yacht. We were divided into two four-hour watches. The on-watch cooked, cleaned made repairs and sailed the boat. The off-watch slept. Our life slipping into our new tiny little world revolved on the sequence of watches. Each yacht in the race had by now diverged on its own chosen route searching for the best possible winds across the vast spread of ocean. We were alone on the vast blue canvas. Nothing else was in sight.


It took 24 days to sail across the Atlantic. Think how many people you talk to, how many miles you drive and how many phone calls you make in 24 days. Weeks in the office, weekends at home. Ever-changing horizons. Hours of television, reams of newspapers. Text messages, emails, changes of pants. But, for us, at sea, the world was reduced to blue water, 58 feet of boat and 14 other people who, until the starting cannon, had not known each other. There was nowhere to go. It was a massive simplification of my life, already simplified when I pedalled away from my past life and priorities and cares. I loved crossing the ocean, it was so different to a cyclist's life. On the bike I had grown sensitive, literally, I had become so aware of all that was around me, of the sights and sounds, smells and tastes, and the feel of the wind on my face. As the miles of sea crept by, I read seventeen books, drank countless cups of tea, daydreamed of sailing around the world, snoozed in the sail lockers and nattered like a granny with everybody.

Small events broke up the days: Pete being smacked in the head by a passing flying fish one night, and exacting his revenge by frying the fourteen he found on deck for breakfast; hilarity over a version of clay pigeon shooting involving a tray of rotten eggs;Terry's angry shouts of, "Only admirals and arseholes stand in the hatchway"; Sparky, our Mr. Fixit genius, trying heroically to repair the water de-salinator; an increasingly vocal campaign amongst the rest of the crew to cut my hair; the clamouring race for second helpings at dinner with the greediest of us on deck sitting right above the kitchen hatch for rapid access to leftovers; the stillness as we sat together and shared the sunsets.

Helming duties rotated hourly and occasional frenzies of activity were needed when the sails were changed, but generally there was not a lot to do. We were becalmed and barely moved for several days. Cabin fever escalated. The heat was getting to us all and the unusual wallowing motion of the boat was far harder to sleep through than the severe, but constant, heeling of the boat in a strong wind. So we covered ourselves from head to foot in soap and leapt from the bow for a swim and a wash, surfacing in a fizzing cloud of soap bubbles and hoping that there weren't any sharks nearby. It was an uneasy feeling to jump from my tiny island of sanctuary into water five kilometres deep with thousands of kilometres to the nearest landfall and God only knows how many millions of kilometres of emptiness above me. I felt very small.

Music blasted constantly through the speakers on deck and arguments flew about music preferences. Ken, the broad, strong Canadian oil worker with a handlebar moustache who I shared my bunk with, would put on one of his CD's and emerge on deck declaring, "There's only two types of music worth listening to, boys and girls, and that's Country, and Western!" before launching into one of his surprisingly camp dance routines. Minutes later the CD would be abruptly changed by a Country Music hater, of which there were 14, and the arguments would begin again. Every dawn the on-watch people would debate what tune to pick to welcome the sunrise with. My favourite was the morning when our watch lined up in the stern at the first golden sliver of sun and moshed to full-volume Come as you are from Nirvana before waking the other watch with a cacophony of banging pans. They were not best pleased.

We spent hours fishing as dorado circled beneath the boat, mocking our attempts to catch them. Eventually we hooked one, our only one, and hauled the 10kg of slippery muscle on board, watching its incredible death display as its entire body changed colour, shimmering through blue and gold and green and crimson until death drained all the colour and we sliced the beautiful fish into strips and ate the poor thing.

We all cheered as we crossed the Greenwich Meridian. The GPS rolled over to 0.00.000, and Alberto made the first tea of the Western hemisphere. I only had 360 degrees to travel.

I lay on shaded parts of the deck trying to mentally prepare myself for what lay ahead. I studied my map of South America and grew excited as I looked at the roads and mountains and cities and tried to imagine what lay in wait. I looked forward to turning the red lines of the roads and the yellow dots of towns into real memories. I reminisced about Africa, already remembering it as a wonderful experience, for 'one always begins to forgive a place as soon as it's left behind.'

The days blazed beneath a pale blue sky and above an incredibly clear blue ocean streaked deep with shafts of white light. The world felt a simple and pure place. Sunset brought relief from the heat, leaving the world to darkness, us and the comforting glow of the GPS and compass. When there was no moon the black sky was crowded with so many stars and shooting stars that they seemed to spill over into the ocean, where showers of phosphorescent sparks streamed in our wake like a bonfire, a wake of churning white water that stretched back to Africa and the end of the thin tyre tracks beginning from my home. We began the race with a fat cream moon in a golden halo, dead ahead of us. We made bets on the precise time of moonset. Silver clouds shone as we cruised down the yellow carpet of moonlight. The helmsman heaved on the wheel as we surfed the heavy, fast black waves. Eternal motion, racing ever onwards towards South America. The fair wind was flying now and we excitedly crowded over the GPS hoping to beat speed records set by the other watch.


(Continues...)

Excerpted from Thunder & Sunshine by Alastair Humphreys. Copyright © 2007 Alastair Humphreys. Excerpted by permission of Eye Books Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword,
Prologue,
THE AMERICAS,
Gone to Patagonia,
New beginnings,
My road,
Here or there,
Feeling and understanding,
The sound of your wheels,
The last time for first times,
Imaginings of fear,
Throwing off the bow line,
Closer now,
Large and in charge,
Coming alive,
By paddle and track,
A little while longer,
ASIA,
A road in the forest,
Heaven and hell,
The records of a travel-worn satchel,
I like Chinese,
The middle of nowhere,
The centre of civilisation,
The golden road at last,
Dancing my way through,
Back to the end,
Getting on with it,
My penguin's egg,
To be continued ...,
Recipes from the road,
Kit List,
The Magic Letter,
A List of '-ests',
Acknowledgments,
A Carbon Neutral Book,
Hope and Homes for Children,
About this Author,

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