The Dom way round: March update

Sunday, 18 March 2012

March update

Another month and again not as much progress made on my writing as I would have hoped. At the moment I'm not sure I can see the end of this project and wonder if I've bitten off more than I can chew.

Anyway, I have managed to get the first draft done. I've written 120 pages (85,000 words) on the Americas section and 99 pages (67,000 words) on the African section. Now I'm going back over it, improving, changing etc. This will take me a month or so I guess. Then I'll need to get some professional editing help. This will be the scary part. I'll send of what I think is a good manuscript only for it to come back with loads of comments and criticism. I think this part might be hard to take. We'll see.

I've signed up for the HorizonsUnlimited bike rally in the UK in July. I'm going to do a talk on my trip agian - not sure anyone will be interested as I did it last year, but I'll offer it) and at the beginning of April Tracy and I are going off to bike around the south west of the UK. Down to Cornwall for a week. Hopefully we'll visit David and Jill ( Travels with Nancy) who I met in North America last year.

I also got a phone call out fo the blue two weeks ago. Nevil, from Canada, rang me just to say hi (Those long winter nights in Canada....) He's planning a bike trip from the UK to Monglia for next year. I also got an email from Tom (The American I rode thorugh Africa with). He's going to be in the UK in May, so I'll hook up with him which will be nice. I regularly "talk" to Darlly who's working in Canada. I believe he hasn't been able to get his bike on the road yet as it's still winter up there.

As I'm actually taking Heidi out in two weeks I'll post a few photos in April of us on tour in the UK. Every time I go out on my bike I still get a thrill from knowing that the bike I'm riding around on in the UK is the very same bike I rode in Alaska - through the US - down to Panama - from Cape Town to Nairobi.

So, sorry again to the peope who are visiting my blog at the moment. Not very exciting I know. But if you scrool down, or look at a different page you can catch up on what I did last year. This time last year my bike arrived in Cape Town and I was about to set off on the African section of my trip.......

1 comment:

Diane18 March 2012 at 12:52
I know the feeling well. We drove from the UK to what was then Rhodesia in 1953. When I say we I mean my brother and my parents. I have done a website http://www.great1953trek.nidi.org.uk but with many other interesting happenings in my life, I decided to write a book putting it all together. It is just not happening as quickly as I hoped!! Keep at it you will get there. Diane
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Hello

Hi. My name is Dom and in July 2010 I rode a motorcycle (partly) around the world. I started in Alaska and headed for Panama. It took me 6 months and I covered 21,000 miles. I then shipped my bike from Panama to South Africa. I returned to the UK for February and in March 2011 I flew to South Africa. Starting in Cape Town I took three months (and 9,000 miles) to get to Nairobi.

As well as riding a bike I stopped off and did some voluntary work along the way. In Mexico I worked on a turtle rescue project for two weeks and in Costa Rica at a Sloth Sanctuary for three weeks. In Cape Town I taught for three weeks in a Primary school in a township.

In North America my wife, Tracy, came out for three weeks and also joined me for two months in Central America.

I returned to the UK in June 2011. Although I'd kept a blog (obviously) throughout the trip I honestly had no desire to try to write a book. But that changed. Within days of getting home I started writing. Then in Autumn 2011 I found out about The Ted Simon Foundation and applied to be a Jupiter's Traveller. Unbelievably they accepted me and I starting a whole new, and much more frightening, adventure... Trying to write a book about my trip.

'Gone Riding' was published in November 2013. Signed copies are available direct from me at www.domgiles.co.uk. The book is also on Amazon where you can also get the kindle edition. There is lots more information about my trip and the book on my website where you'll find links to my Facebook page and Twitter account.

I now use this blog to write about my current bike trips. In 2013 we went to Scandinavia for the summer and in 2014 we went to Romania. Summer 2015 was spent solo around the Balkans. In July 2016 I went to Poland, the Baltic and Finland.

In the summer of 2017 we went to Northern Spain and France and in 2018 we went to Ireland.

I sold my bike in January 2019!!!