THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HAS SUPPORTED US!

We are home after an amazing wander through Europe. We have seen, and experienced so much. We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Chernihiv and seeing the revival centre. Perhaps we both were most affected by our visit to the village and visiting the family there. Their son suffered from meningitis at the same age as our daughter Ruth. She was fortunate and received drugs, he did not. She is now completing a postgraduate degree, he is severely disabled. So if you would like to help families like these PLEASE visit www.justgiving.com/jamiejudymackay thank youi!

Well we completed our journey yesterday with the most wonderful welcome from everyone at the Revival Centre! The children, parents and staff lined the road waving flags, balloons and banners! We even had a police escort into Chernihiv! We were filmed by two national news channels and two local channels, and numerous newspapers! They say everyone has 15 minutes of fame I think that was ours!
We are now having three wonderful days at the Centre this morning the children put on a superb concert for us - and I had an opportunity to look round the Speech and Language Therapy department. I can not put any pictures up as I can not get onto the net with my computer I am using one of the centers computer and it suddenly changes into Ukrainian script.
We are home on Monday so we will put up some pictures of our time here.
2500 kms came up on our bike computer as we arrived at the centre. Thank you to everyone who has supported us and thank you to Garry and Liz for supporting us so well through Germany and Poland, and Alan and Pauline in Ukraine.
It has been quite a remarkable experience and I can recommend it as an excellent way to see Europe!

28th July

Fairly uneventful ride to Kiev about 102 miles in distance. We found Kiev itself huge and it took us a long time to negotiate our way across the city. We had to carry the tandem down under passes and over pedestrian bridges as the drivers are a little pushy in the city and they seem to park anyway. Still we are now on the far side of Kiev which will make our exit very easy in the morning for the last day of the ride! Can't believe it! We are staying at a really whacky hotel in Kiev I think it is worth a look on the internet it is called the Perlina Dnipra Hotel. However no bears in the car park!

A storm brewing in Kiev.

Kiev.

To remind people to drive carefully!

A puncture in the middle of Kiev!

A visit to a space museum in Zytomyr we are standing in front of a space capsule which returned three Russian cosmonauts to earth.

If you don't have a real stork living in your garden you simply have to have a plastic one!

Another expresso coffee break!

The advert for our ride on the side of Alan and Pauline's van

Pulled into the car park at the hotel we were staying at on26th July and we found this Russian brown bear in the corner! Strange but true!

Our stop two nights ago can you work out where it was!

Notes from a bus man's holiday (Jamie)

As we cross Germany, Poland into Ukraine the interest in farming and land use has inspired some contrasting views and dare I say insight. Milk cows tethered to men on bicycles have crossed freshly finished dual carriage ways. We have seen folk throwing mown hay manually onto horse drawn carts, and rickety looking rusty perhaps out dated combine harvesters with plumes of black smoke slowly devouring sometimes standing other times partly lodged fields of corn. In contrast vast fields of mostly standing wheat, rape seed and sometimes sunflowers are indications that these countries have the technologies similar to the corn barons and family farms of East Anglia.

Alan and Pauline's friend Valeri suggested that the good soils of Ukraine were capable of producing around 40% more crop were productive land made available and techniques improved. In our 400 miles across Ukraine we have seen vast open spaces and can only wonder at the scale of this resource.

Garry & Liz on way home

When handing over J&J at the Polish-Ukrainian border town of Chelm into Alan and Pauline's care, is was quite difficult for us not to abandon all previous plans and simply carry on the journey with J&J.

However, here we are, most of the way home now, but managed to fit in a pleasant cycle ride around the canals of Holland, ( at a much slower and sedate pace than we'd been doing with J&J!!!).

Looking forward to all the next posts - helps us feel still part of it !

Day 19: Only two more to go after today

Today we have cycled just over 70 miles to Zytomyr. As we entered the city a policeman pointed a radar gun at us to check we weren't speeding which gave us all a good laugh! Jamie went into a little shop to buy some biscuits which were weighed out and the shopkeeper then calculated the change using an abacus, quite amazing.
Last night Dr Valeri from the Revival Centre turned up at our hotel, we hadn't met him but obviously he knew Alan and Pauline. What a great character. Dr P. needs daily reports of how we are getting on and keeps sending people out to look after us on our journey, very kind.

Day 18

No internet so I am updating via text: We had an easy ride today from Rivne to Novohrad Volyns'kyj of 67 miles along a brand new dual carriageway. We have had lovely cool weather today. The Ukranians are showing a lot of interest in the tandem, one man even offered to buy it producing a handful of Grivna!

This came trotting down the main Kiev road at lunch time!

A nest on a lamp post praps this baby stork required a night light!

some of the hazzards that walk onto the main Kiev road!

The view from our coffee stop on Sunday. There are superb little shops which sell very strong expresso coffee just what two weary cyclists need!

We made it!

In the queue for the Ukraine border

"Toi Toi" these public toilets are all along the road leading up to the border as sometimes the queues for the border can be dreadful!

Well this is a complete miracle that I am even on the blog! At this hotel Ihad to buy a card to get onto the net and then it all came up in Ukrainian I just highlighted a few words and somehow I got connected!
Had huge storms last night which seems to have calmed the weather down, much cooler and over cast phew!
Anyway we are well into Ukraine today we have cycled 95 miles from Kovel to Rivne. We were a little worried about the state of the roads yesterday. They were very just huge rectangles of concrete with the odd bit of tarmac the poor bike juddered along! However today we have experienced much better roads indeed even a few bits of dual carriageway. It is all quite strange we are on one of the major roads which crosses Ukraine, so there is quite a lot of freight traffic. However when you get into the villages there are horses and carts. chickens and turkeys wander along the road along with a few stray dogs and tethered horses and cows.

Seen the usual storks on nests, flying etc. and also two ravens.

Thank you for your comments it is always great to hear from everyone!

Ukraine!

We have arrived at Kovel in Ukraine. We had an easy border crossing and caused quite a stir by arriving on a tandem! We were sent to the front of the queue where a man told us he had been waiting three and a half hours in his car so we suggested that maybe next time he should ride a bicycle for a quicker border crossing. The Ukrainian roads are very bumpy. When we got to Kovel we had absolutely no idea where we had to go but were greeted by a couple who spoke English, it turned out Dr P from The Revival Centre in Chernihiv had sent them to meet us and I guess the tandem stands out, how wonderful. The girl studied English at University but this is the first time she had ever spoken to English people.