Welcome to freewheelingtwo – hosted by Gail Day and Charl Heydenrych

I hold my parents entirely to blame for my travel addiction! They habituated me in my teens and I'm hooked ... line and sinker. In 1987, on the overnight ferry between Japan and Korea, I decided to cycle the 500km to Seoul ... and discovered an entirely new high. In 1993, I cycled Britain – John O’Groats to Land’s End.

Since 1999, friend Charl has been my travel companion ... though he will tell you he is there just to carry my bags! Together we have biked Eastern Europe, New Zealand, Burma, Vietnam, Rajasthan, Turkey, southeast Asia, west Africa, Morocco, the Balkans, South Africa (on several occasions) …

Neither Charl nor I are your average cyclist. I am in my late-60s; Charl approaching his mid-70s, and we are both sizeable people!

We lust for adventure, the unexpected, the unknown. We want to “suck the marrow” before we are too old to do so. We want to live out the fantasy ...

Our longest ride began in Cape Town (South Africa) on 1 March 2019; our destination Morocco. It was the first time we had planned to cycle a continent as opposed to a country. Sadly, governments' response to Covid-19 brought us to a halt before we reached Casablanca (Morocco) in April 2020.

On 2 March 2023, we picked up where we left off. We flew to Casablanca to spend three months in Morocco, then flew from Spain to Poland to tackle eastern Europe and the Balkan states…

Scattered between the cycle tours below are other trips… Why not take a walk down our memory lane?

And perhaps “join” us in December 2024 when we take on Cuba.