Scouts in Spandex: Hazel & Phil, Sean Hoban, Trevor Keppel

By Mary-Liz McGrath

This week I’d like to highlight the adventures of some totally badass Scouts on bikes: ‘Scouple’ cuties Hazel & Phil’s cycle tour of the Danube, Sean Hoban’s year-long Odyssey-style expedition to Asia, and ex-Scout Trevor’s refugee charity route across the breadth of Europe.

---

I first had the idea of doing a cycling expedition back in 2017, when I was planning a Scouting trip to Poland. Due to budgetary and logistical constraints, the original plan to cycle the Wheel2Wheel route from Warsaw to Krakow fell through, but the idea remained rooted in my mind. It would tick the ‘specialist expedition’ box for Level 8 Camping, and if I made the route long enough I could kill two birds with one stone and count it as my Rover Chief Scout Award expedition. I’ve been absolutely fixated on the challenge ever since that seed was sown three years ago.

Hazel and Andy

My fixation came up in conversation with Hazel Murray (one of my absolute favourite humans!) back at Rover Chill 2017. There, I learned about the incredible journey down the Danube she had planned with her boyfriend, Andy Garrad (also a Scout). The Scouple (a portmanteau of ‘Scout’ and ‘Couple’) envy was real.

In May 2018 they embarked on their journey from the rustic streets of Passau in Germany, through the lush Austrian countryside to the historical city of Vienna, and finally from there to the bustling city of Bratislava, Slovakia.

If you’re looking for more details about the route, Hostelworld have a great article on it from solo traveller Sophie Spencer. The route even got a mention in The Irish Times too!

When I saw the ‘Ireland To Asia: A Year On My Bike’ page pop up on my Facebook feed back in August 2018, I thought two things: 1. This is a wind up, 2. If this isn’t a wind up, this lad is going to die. Spoiler alert, it wasn’t a wind-up, and 18 year old Sean Hoban hasn’t died yet (touch wood). According to his latest social update, he’s actually currently pigging out on “homemade pasta” at Mark’s Hostel (where Sean has been volunteering for the past while) in the city of Tbilisi, Georgia. He has some time to kill at the moment while he waits for his Iranian visa to arrive (it’s on its way apparently).

Sean in Georgia

Sean’s post-Leaving Cert gap year in the saddle is funded in part by savings he made working in his local bike shop, and in part by corporate sponsors (including household name Columbia).

He’s kept a meticulous log of his journey here, which you should definitely check out for the full details of his expedition. But in essence, Sean has set himself the 11-month challenge of cycling from his home city of Waterford to somewhere along the Silk Road between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

If that doesn’t make you feel like you wasted your gap year, I don’t know what will.

I was really fortunate to bump into absolute gem and ex-Scout, Trevor Keppel, at MASI’s ‘Sounds of Change’ event at Workman’s last December. We got chatting about Scouting and refugees, when Trevor brought up that he had, over the Summer, cycled the ‘Road to Refuge’ across Europe to raise funds for CESRT, a charity ‘dedicated to providing support for both refugees and for local people’ on the Greek island of Chios.

Trevor, Gav, and Julie

Trevor and his expedition partner ‘Gav’ began the 15-day slog in Dublin Port, making their way down through the UK to Calais in France (where they volunteered in a ‘donation house’ for refugees), across to Bruges, through Germany and Eastern Europe, all the way down the Balkans into Greece, and finally to Chios. Their blog documenting the journey is well worth a read; really funny, insightful, and at times, disturbing. After arriving in Chios the guys joined up with some volunteers already on the ground, and spent the next while working hard to assist them and the refugees (more details on that here). Trevor describes the journey as “one of the best experiences of my life.”.

One super resource for you expedition planning that Trevor recommends is the Eurovelo site. It’s jam packed with blogs, detailed routes, and tour packages. The only down-side of the Eurovelo routes is that many of them are still a work-in-progress, but if you’re feeling generous you can donate to the European Cyclists' Federation through the Eurovelo site to keep the wheels turning on the project (pun intended).

I’m also just gonna’ throw it out there that Ireland has some of the best cycle routes in the world! Eurovelo describes the country as ‘a mecca for cycling holiday enthusiasts’, while Lonely Planet even feature a West Cork route in their ‘Epic Bike Rides of the World’, proving that you don’t necessarily have to leave the country or have a heap of cash to get a stellar cycling expedition in. With well developed routes such as the Mayo and Waterford Greenways, the Wild Atlantic Way, and the Ring of Kerry, there’s absolutely no excuse not to get your arse into that saddle!

Feeling inspired? I know I am.