In 2002 I got on my bike and cycled from my home town of Melbourne to Darwin , crossing the Australian Outback in 90 days. I was preparing for an ambitious bicycle tour which would take me from North Cape in Norway to Cape Town in South Africa . As things turned out, I landed a job in South Korea teaching English, and after completing my work there in mid-2004, I needed a real holiday. I decided to travel, using various modes of transport, across Siberia and southern Europe to Spain . There I began a 750km winter walk on the Camino de Santiago, starting at Saint- Jean-Pied-de-Port. Gradually I decided that one day I would undertake a more challenging pilgrimage, by bicycle.