Imagine deciding to leave your job, sell your house, split up with your girlfriend and cycle halfway across the world.
Across three continents and nearly 10,000 miles. Could you do it? And if you could, would you? Andy Brown and Tim Garratt decided to do just that, and Glasgow's Riverside Museum is honouring their achievement by including Brown's bike in its Adventurers exhibition.
Brown says: "I reached 30 and I was disillusioned with working for a big corporation and the whole suburban lifestyle. I wanted something different. I had read a few books about cycling adventures so I decided to have an adventure."
The pair were raising money for a charity, now called Practical Action, which works with poor communities worldwide.
They began their journey in August 1991 in Sydney and arrived at Valparaiso, Chile one year later. "We cycled across Australia, Africa and South America. We didn't have a support vehicle. It was just us, so no-one was going to feed us or give us water or look after us if we got sick or injured. We were out there in the wild."
Brown says the journey was tough going. "We cycled in 46C heat and quite often there wasn't water. We needed to drink about 10 litres of water a day but it was very, very hard to get that. In Africa it was all dirty and contaminated with typhoid and other nasties, so we had to filter it.
"In Zambia, we met bandits. They were all carrying knives and completely blocking the road in the jungle. We thought 'we've come so far, we're not going stop or turn around'. So we got up to full speed and just bashed through these guys.
"In Africa, if you are camping in the bush you are seen as fair game. If you're attacked, no-one is going to find out who did it. But if you are in a village and you have asked for permission from the head man to stay, they are duty bound to look after you. So in some of the more dangerous places we went into the villages and found the head man. Often those guys were drunk and said 'fine'. There was usually a lot of hoo ha and a lot of mucking about, but they kept us safe."
Generally, though, Brown says the African people were welcoming. "We always found everybody very lovely and hospitable, apart from the police. I think because we were on bicycles we were closer to them - you never see white people on bicycles in Africa. When you imagine a white person you think of them in big SUVs going about 100mph.
"One woman in Malawi read about our journey in a newspaper and she worked in this post office. When she realised who we were she came out from behind the counter and gave me this great big hug and said 'to cycle around the world, to raise money to help people in Africa. Wow, that takes a lot of love so I'm going to give you some back.'
Brown says there was a constant struggle to consume enough food. "We were burning up maybe 7000 calories a day and only able to put in about 3000 calories. It meant we had to search for food. We couldn't carry too much and often had to live off what we would find, and there wasn't much."
Both men had to carry everything they had on their bikes: "Tents, clothes, water, camping gear, cooking stuff, all that stuff. Everything was minimal but it all adds up."
Brown, who was born in London and now lives in Hong Kong, is pleased his journey, which he undertook 20 years ago, has been recognised.
"It's very nice of the people at the Riverside Museum to put my bike in their exhibition. I know I'm not a famous person. The bike was in a museum in Easter Island for a couple years and when they had to shift it they sent it to Glasgow.
"My dad was from Paisley and my mum lived in Scotland for about 30 years and I always think of myself as a bit Scottish."
He adds: "I hope the exhibition inspires young people. There are a lot of adventures in the world and you can have adventures cheaply, even in Scotland. It can change your life and your view of yourself and give you new opportunities."
Adventurers, a new display in the Riverside Museum, Glasgow, presents the stories of five modern-day Scottish adventurers, including Ewan McGregor and Mark Beaumont, told through the objects used in their epic expeditions. Visit glasgowmuseums.com.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article