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.

Meeting with Alan and Pauline, and a farewell meal

We've met up, had a meal together and get ready to part tomorrow.

J&J will escape early, before breakfast, while Alan Pauline, Liz and I will breakfast first, before we go our separate ways.

Aaaahhhh, Liz and I get a day off from cycling tomorrow, while the adventure continues anew as J&J experience Ukraine, and how different that will be from what weve seen in Holland, Germany, and Poland.

Bon Voyage !

Another hot day in the 30s but I think we are getting use to the heat! Our last day with Garry and Liz they have been a great support team and I don't think we would have made it here without their back up!

Alan and Pauline arrived this afternoon so we are all looking forward to a good meal together tonight before we cross our final border in the morning!

Thank you everyone for the comments it is really good to hear from you!

The arrival of Alan and Pauline this afternoon in Chelm.They have a van and trailer full of aid for the revival center - this is what it is really about, and this is what we are raising money for so if you would like to donate you can by visiting www.justgiving.com/jamiejudymackay thank you very much and thank you to everyone who has already donated!

Day14.

Hot cycle ride from Radom to Lublin a distance of 74 miles in temperatures around the mid 30s still everyone has been so generous with sponsorship we have got to suffer a bit! Crossed the River Wisla at Pulawy and then cycled down the river for a bit. We noticed very fertile soil here and were amused to see hop gardens!
Another record broken today- our longest cycle ride John O'Groats to Land's End 1078 miles has been exceeded today total so far on this ride 1086!

A welcome sight for exhausted cyclists a "sklep" to re-fuel- excellent grocers every village has one - and they sell scrummy doughnuts for Jamie so no withdrawal symptoms from Dorringtons so far!

The bridge at Pulawy praps the Polish version of the Forth Road bridge!

The tandems hotel room!

St Thomas a Becket church, Sulejow

Day 14 - Naleczow - Jamie has Bratwurst

The girls had ice creams from the shop next door, and, feeling we were a bit naughty to have set up camp here and not spent anything at the burger van, Jamie orders bratwurst for lunch.

But its mid-30's and that's very, very hot for cycling !

Day 14 - Naleczow - lunch in a brick yard

Garry's choice for a lunch stop. A brick yard with a burger van.

Naleczow is quite a nice town, but every parking spot is manned by a clutch of little old ladies, and the admin involved in attempting to park (everything in triplicate) meant I sought out the only free spot in town.

Liz and Judy described the town as 'like Surrey'. On seeing my choice of lunch venue, Liz said "you can take the man out of Essex, but you can't take the Essex of of the man". Must try harder.

Day 12 - Sulejow

A walk around the monastery after dinner

1000 Miles

Today we rode past the 1000 mile mark since we left Essex. We have now arrived in Radom after a number of stops for cows in the cycle lanes. People walk their cows with them chained to bicycles out here and each family seems to have their own cow. A nice man who thought our tandem was 'superb' gave us a reflector for one of the pedals.

Jewish ghettos and concentration camps

Having a meal at this wonderful old hotel (built in 1176, just a couple of years before Felsted churuch!), we got chatting to a young family, and the wife (in her mid 30's) grew up here in the town of Opoczno, which we will be cycling thru tomorrow.

There were many towns here that had Jewish quarters, and in 1940 a Jewish ghetto was formed and many thousands crammed into that area before all being murdered.

She told us that, as a consequence of the communist era, such history was hidden and her visits to the cinema as a child were actually in what used to be the old synagogue. Only in recent years are the local populations rediscovering their own history, and starting only now, to establish memorials to all those who died.

Very poignant story. Garry & Liz will be returning to the UK in a few days, but plan to see some of that part of Poland's past by visiting Auchwitz and possibly Schindler's factory.... a dark part of our trip

Still cycling east! Or we hope we are! Left hotel this morning which was situated on the edge of a forest we say red poles and siskins. On the ride we passed a number of storks nesting on top of the telegraph poles and we saw a couple of harriers. We have seen a number of butterflies but nothing very exciting the odd peacock.

Our hotel a converted castle!

As we cycle through small settlements people seem to have one cow in the front garden!

Storks

Heading for the border...

Four more days and we hit Chelm....Alan and Pauline are setting off tomorrow (Weds) from Felsted in their van and Chelm is where we'll all meet up (Polish-Ukrainian border) Friday evening.

As we head further east, the likelihood of internet connections lessens, yet we've been pleasantly surprised at the hotels we've landed up in - Poland is a country in which an amazing amount of investment is going on.

But if we're off the radar for a couple of days, its lovely to keep receiving your comments, and your prayers are really important. God bless, Garry

Liz and I have just spent 45 minutes with the phrase book deciphering the Polish menu for Garry and Jamie -went to order only to be asked would we like the English menu!!!!!!!

19/July

A day of road works! Started well and a really wonderful smooth track so I decided to photo it and send it to David Cameron to show him what the Poles do for cyclists! However later in the day we cycled through a large town called Sierradz the whole place was one huge road work! We had to navigate over a half made bridge with no railings! Indeed the barrier was lying on our pathway so we had to climb over it carrying the tandem! All part of the adventure Jamie tells me!!!
The fields are much smaller in this part of Poland more strip farming - a strip of wheat, then beet, then of course cabbages, courgettes, and big glass houses full of tomatos.

And sometimes the cycle paths are horrid!

Sometimes the cycle paths are very very good........

Hi this is Liz . Borrowing hubby's log in to do a sneaky update.

Jamie and Judy are really going well, and we play catch up and occasionally doing a few miles in the car to get in front of them (on the pretext that we need some diesel or something).

Had a wonderful Polish breakfast this morning. the idea was that both Garry and I would come back significantly slimmer after our efforts but it's not happening. Maybe the chicken nuggets and chips we had yesterday have something to do with it.

On the other hand, it is great being able to do a couple of extra miles in distance every day, but our efforts simply make us realise just how awesome Jamie and Judy's stamina and fitness are!

This really is a great trip - and the daily experiences and sights are fascinating. We got invited to see bands at the Rock festival last night to see Gossip and Flogging Molly (Two British Bands). As it was on until 1.30am we decided to decline (shame).

Lovely to get the comments, news from home would be good, too. love from Liz

A tough end to Day 11

Well, we have arrived in Sieradz, Poland, but with horrendous road works for final few miles making it difficult for those on bikes.

Were in a v nice hotel whose various consonants and vowels are the usual jumble, but which Liz has entitled "Hotel PolitBuro" as this seems the closest. Polish is a difficult language, with no recognisable syllables or word shapes for us to latch on to.

Rained quite a bit today, and its in the mid-20s so easier to cycle in (in fact , pleasantly cool in the morning), but still very muggy and humid.

Bring on the mosquitoes (again). Gazza

18th July

Fairly easy cycle from Glowgow to Jarocin today covering about 72 miles. We picked up Route 12 which will see us all the way to the Ukraine border next Saturday, indeed we have even seen signs to Ukraine. We cycled through an agricultural area - big fields growing wheat, rape and rye. Infact we saw one huge field growing courgettes! Not so many kites spotted today but saw a number of storks - yes real ones and plastic ones! One deer spotted in the forest .
Now in Jarocin where there is a large music festival taking place - the Glastonbury of Poland. We were offered tickets for tonight but felt it was more important to get our beauty sleep!

Day 10 - Jarocin - our graffiti !!!

we left our mark on the graffiti wall !

How about that for a pizza?

Day 10 - Jarocin Festival

Hundreds, perhaps thousands of punk rockers enjoying the 30th Jarocin rock Festival - the town is mobbed by people with tattoos and Mohican hair cuts, having taken over the whole town square, its bars, etc, and the sound of throbbing music just a couple of streets away. This was the graffiti wall - see post avove where we left our mark !!!