Long road home as Tomás heads south
A LOVE of travelling and testing his limits have set, cyclist Tomas Mac an tSaoir on his most ambitious adventure to date.
The 25-year-old Ballyferriter man set off for New Zealand on Tuesday from where he will cycle home to his family’s pub and the promise of a creamy pint. This 25,000km journey, which he aims to complete over the next two years will bring him through 40 countries and extraordinarily challenging terrain.
Tomás left for Auckland on Tuesday and will cycle from there via Wellington to Invercargill
at the southern tip of New Zealand. After that he will fly to Australia where his planned route from Sydney to Perth is under review because of the devastating forest fires that have blazed across the country.
This is one of the many challenges and decisions that will face him as he sets course from the Southern Hemisphere to Tig a’ tSaorsaigh in Ballyferriter. His route will take him through the Malay peninsula heading northwards towards the Himalyan countries, west through Iran, Azerbijan and Georgia, and finally across Europe and home to West Kerry.
Though far away and travelling alone, he will provide daily updates on his activities and encounters on various social media channels. His plan is to average 100km per day and he is likely to split the journey and fly home to work in the summer of 2021 before returning to complete the cycle.
The intrepid cyclist is an experienced transcontinental traveller having already cycled the length of Africa and the breadth of the United States. This cycle will bring him through three more continents – Oceania, Asia and Europe – which means he will have cycled through five of the world’s six continents. The only one remaiining will be Antarctica - which isn’t generally considered good cycling country.
For updates on his progress you can view his social media accounts where Tomás posts regularly. Daily progress, subject to the availability of an
Internet connection can be seen at the following social media accounts:
Twitter: @tomasworldcycle ,Ins tag ram :@ ardor otha rs ears tom as, Facebook: tom as world cycle with videos available on Youtube, search for #ardorothar.