5 countries and 1100 miles in just 11 days

Originally posted on 16th August 2007

For those of you who are following my summarised version of Mark Beaumont's epic cycle around the world, he spent last night in Krakow, Poland's historic second city and former capital. Despite an eventful few days, he had time to send a report back for the web diary on http://www.artemisworldcycle.com/ . As he gets further into his journey, the website and also the BBC's interactive documentary are becoming more media rich with photos and even some audio recordings. Click here to listen to Mark discussing progress with Steve Jones in Glasgow who is building the BBC website.

I was at BBC Glasgow today and met both Steve and the BBC cameraman David Peat who is making the film documentary of Mark's journey. He is flying out to Istanbul in the next few days to catch up with Mark and do some more filming. It is incredible to think that by tomorrow Mark will be well into the Ukraine and will have reached Istanbul as you are returning to school. He is cycling the equivalent of a return journey from Edinburgh to Glasgow every day! Why not get on your bikes, cycle a few miles and then think what the prospect of 18000 miles must be like?

Today Mark has been pedalling through southern Poland and this morning his GPS tracker logged him in this intriguing rural landscape..

The settlement pattern is interesting with houses in lines - not along the roads but at right angles to the roads. The field pattern is also unique and not at all like the chequerboard landscape we have in Britain today. Strip farming comes to mind and I wonder whether the houses in each line belong to members of one family who have built houses over the years on the strip of land belonging to that family.

The resolution of the images which Google is throwing up for this part of Poland is excellent - you can almost imagine Mark having a breather in the shade of that tree!

And here, just a few miles to the north, are a few meanders doing exactly what the textbooks say they do - depositing on the inside of the bend and eroding on the outside!