About us
Jacqui
I grew up on a beautiful cattle farm in NSW, Australia and loved being able to roam free through the paddocks, riding horses, bicycles or motor bikes and looking after which ever pet happened to be flavour of the month or year (and there were quite a few!) It's a blessing that my parents still have the farm and that home is always there for me.
But the bright city lights of London beconed, and after university in Canberra and qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in Sydney I jumped at the chance to go on a one year secondment to the UK.
That was 13 years ago! The vibrancy of London, the open spaces and serenity of Blackheath Village where I lived, the proximity of mainland Europe and the luxury of being able to cycle along the Thames from home to my office in the City where in recent years I was a partner of a global accounting firm, all made London a wonderful place to be.
The economic downturn ensued and again I found myself seeking new experiences and opportunities. In the last 9 months I have studied french in France, qualified as a yoga teacher at an ashram in the Bahamas, spent a wonderful few months visiting family and friends in Australia, studied reiki and cycled 2,800km from the UK to Budapest! And now for theBigcycleTrip - which I can now say may be potentially dangerous (sorry Mum....), but am sure that I will be able to look back and think "Wow, that was amazing...."
Etienne
I grew up in a country so small and in a village so small that Tolkien’s Hobbits would have had to duck in order to make it through the main gate. Not that there was a main gate as such, but the fact that everyone knew everyone made it for me all a bit too, well, smothering.
I would not change a bit about my life if given the chance to start all over again. I studied all the right and all the wrong things, camped my way through one compulsory year of army service and went backpacking all over Africa. I lived in Mandela’s paradise for a few years and slowly started to see it as my second home.
I've written a novel titled (click on the title to have a look at the synopsis) and when not fervently writing or roaming the Dark Continent I worked for a big multinational. It was them who eventually planted me in London, which I, after four years of many headless beers, endless queues and rain-filled summers, decided to leave behind on a quest to find the Sun. After all, it could not really have completely disappeared as I had heard rumours that it from time to time popped-up in countries so far away that walking the distance would have been impossible to do. So a trip on a bike was the only option.
Anyhow, as Jacqui said: danger could be lurking around the corner, but there are two things to keep in mind: the worst experiences are the best memories, and secondly: there is nothing more dangerous than cycling in London.
