Home to Rome - 2018

Hi guys its me......feeling excited......emotional.....and wishing my boys were here right now...... but I'm also feeling lucky and proud to be hitting the road to Dublin tomorrow to go get them and bring them home to Waterford where they will build their bikes back up and cycle their way back to Ballyduff, Kilmeaden where there will be a host of people there to see them arrive back.....see you all at the church Thursday 6th Sept at 7pm.....Once again thank you all for your help,donations and support..... Good night and God bless Karen 🇻🇦️️.........to ....... 🇮🇪️ 😘

Good evening everyone, we are still overwhelmed by yesterday’s events! ☺️Today turned out to be a busy and unusual day as we spent the day trying to find cardboard that we could use to box up our bikes 😂 It turned out to be a slightly trickier task to find some than we thought and we were turned down by a lot of businesses which had what we needed but just didn’t want to to know/ help us 🙄.. Some people on our campsite advised us that there was a shopping centre about 5km’s away. We managed to find some tape easily enough and after a lot of asking, a security guard helped us find some cardboard in a supermarket which we were allowed to take 😂Finally after finding some cardboard we spent the evening taping it all together and taking our bikes apart and now the bikes are both boxed up and ready for their flight home! ✈️👍also thanks Nicky for your advice and time on the phone earlier on today regarding the bike’s, very much appreciated 👍

Day 30 & 31 ~ Hi all, what a day! From our earlier post you may already be aware that we have finally achieved our goal and have made it to Rome! 🇮🇹Both yesterday and today were both very challenging days. Yesterday started off dry but with very heavy headwinds, which made it feel like we were getting nowhere and then at about 1 the rain made yet another appearance and didn’t leave us for the rest of the day. The Italian roads are absolutely horrendous and are in bits! (We’ll never complain about the Irish roads ever again 😂)Trying to avoid the pot holes is impossible because of the heavy traffic all the time so it was either go through the pot hole or get blown out of it by a car 😅, so we are now going to be coming home with 4 very buckled bike wheels 😬however despite the torrential rain we managed to clock up about 110 kilometres which left us with 70 kilometres left to cycle today, We left our campsite extremely early this morning hoping to reach the Vatican City by about lunch time to avoid both morning and evening rush hour Monday traffic.. We did well for time and managed to get here for about 1 but getting here was probably the most dangerous day of our whole journey and certainly one of the scariest experiences we’ve both ever had.. the roads In the city are so busy and dangerous to cycle on and I’ve no doubt we were probably cycling on roads we shouldn’t of been cycling on 😬after many close misses I’m glad to say we made it here safely. We had intended to bring our bikes into the Vatican City and to the Coliseum for photographs but after experiencing the traffic we decided it would be best not to bring the bikes into the centre and to go straight to our campsite, however we somehow still managed to stumble along the Coliseum on our way 😂We reached our campsite locked the bikes up, got changed and used public transport to get into the city centre. Walking into the Basilica in the Vatican completely blew both of us away and left us speechless, the photographs we took really don’t do it any justice at all and anybody who has visited this special place will understand this. Prior to leaving Ballyduff Father Richard kindly blessed some small precious items which are close to Dads heart, we carried these items with us for the entire journey and today managed to get them blessed inside the Basilica, we spent an hour or two inside this amazing place, saying a few prayers and having a look around. During this time we felt really close to Nan/Mam and thanked her for keeping us safe during this long journey, they were very special and emotional moments which we will both cherish forever.. After leaving the Vatican we took a quick look around the other landmarks in Rome and even managed to fit in some time to visit an A.S Roma store and get a very cool jersey and meet the fantastic staff there! Rome you are a very beautiful and amazing place, we are sorry we couldn’t see more of the city but were are absolutely shattered and are in need of a lot of sleep 😴 the next two days will be just as busy as we have to somehow find a bike shop that will help us box up our bikes and prepare them for their flight home on Thursday morning, (if anybody knows or has any advice/suggestions on preparing a bike for transit please share as we are a bit confused on this😂) With Home to Rome complete we now need to turn around and start our journey from Rome to Home, hopefully this journey will be a bit easier 👍we read every single comment we received earlier today and as usual we are blown away with this volume of amazing support, words can’t describe how thankful we are! We will continue to post updates for the next week or two so we can share our journey back home👍 ciao ciao and buona notte from Roma, Italia 🇮🇹🚴🏻‍♂️🚴🏻‍♂️

Sorry guys its me again😜. I know you would much prefer Jordan's up dates but sure I think you will have to wait till tomorrow evening😃.
I just want to get a message out there so please everyone feel free to share, like and spread the word🐎
All going well........ My boys will be home here in Ballyduff, Kilmeaden on Thursday 6th Sept.
They will cycle up to the church for approx 7pm where I hope there will be a great number of people there to welcome them back.
The flags will be flying high on the green. ️🇮🇪️-️🇮🇹-️️🇻🇦️
I have a little team of helpers at hand but please feel free to contact myself if you are free to give a hand.
The parent council at the school will be serving teas and coffees in the upstairs function room in the local community hall after the church. All are welcome. ☕🍪☕
Thank you for all the support over the last 4/5 weeks you have given my boys please don't stop yet they are far from home yet ....... its you guys that have kept them peddling on 🚴‍♂️🚴‍♂️