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ATE last month, Englishman Leigh Timmis cycled into his home town of Derby — after 69 000km and seven years on a bike.

When he’d left on June 14 2010, his plan was to cycle the globe in two years to raise funds for a local charity.

But, as he told the BBC, as soon as he got out on the road he realised his challenges. “I didn’t know how to do what I’d set out to do. I couldn’t speak languages, I didn’t know how to sleep wild,” he said. “So I began meeting people — sharing evenings with them and meeting their families.”

Instead of racing from country to country, he started to collect experiences, and when he ran out of money, he found work and kept going.

Travelling on a budget of £5 (about R87) a day, his daily routine entailed six hours of cycling, a basic diet of rice and vegetables, fresh air and “time for myself”.

Every day, his mission was to find water and place to camp, then to head to the rural markets to try things and learn languages.

Timmis, who has now raised more than £10 000 for the children’s charity, credits “cake, music, small steps and strangers” with keeping him going.

He shared some highlights of his trip with the Derby Telegraph, his local paper.

HIS BEST MOMENT: Nepal Timmis counts this as his “moment of enlightenment”. After leaving Europe, crossing the Middle East and Central Asia and being arrested on the frozen Tibetan Plateau, he says he sat in the foothills of the Himalayas and pondered his achievements.

“I had ridden a bicycle from my home in grey, industrial England to the incense and prayer flags of Nepal’s temples. It was huge.

“From that moment there was no doubt I could, and would, circumnavigate the world.”

WORST MOMENT: Southeast Asia Sometimes loneliness got the better of him, particularly in countries where he couldn’t speak the language. In Southeast Asia, in the peak of monsoon season, he said, “the cycle of negative thoughts drove me to insanity”.

MEMORABLE MOMENT: A decision Timmis spent some time in New Zealand helping to repair a yacht, whose crew were next heading to Fiji. For weeks, he asked if he could sail with them when they went but they turned him down. Then, the day before they sailed, he was invited along after all. By