TWO Irishmen are roughly halfway through an epic cross world motorbike trip.
The Irish pair are biking 35,000km around the world for Make-a-Wish Ireland.
Patrick Mullen (27) from Dún Laoghaire and Kieran Elliott (32) from Cavan are in Mongolia, 45 days after they set off in a westerly direction around the globe.
The journey began on on Sunday, June 10 and since then they have already travelled across Canada, the United States, riding from Quebec to Alaska in the North West, and passing through Montreal, Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, and the National Parks of Wisconsin and Minnesota.
They then traversed the central planes and prairies to Calgary where they ascended the Rocky Mountains and Banff National Park before making their way north into the Yukon and heading west to Alaska and Anchorage.
Once in Alaska they rode the 500 miles of the Dalton Highway into the Arctic Circle before heading south once again through the Yukon and Rocky Mountains into Vancouver before catching a flight across the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk leaving them in Seoul, South Korea. After arriving in Korea the pair drove to the east coast where they boarded a ferry to Vladivostok in the Far East of Russia
?? the heart of Siberia.
From Vladivostok they followed the route of the Trans Siberian railway, north of China and west to Lake Baikal where they turned south into Mongolia.
They are currently in Ulaanbaatar, a place that Patrick had been looking forward to reaching.
“From the outset this has been the place I’ve looked forward to the most, not necessarily as a destination but more so as the entry point to the enormous amount of unpaved, unmarked and open land that spans out to the west and the freedom that goes with it,
? he wrote on his blog.
“We’ve been in Mongolia for about four days now and it has already far exceeded what we had imagined over the last number of years. The same is true for Russia, it’s quite remarkable how the entire nature of the trip has changed since leaving Korea.
“We met up with some fine fellows on the boat from Korea and, given the great number of warnings we received from locals, we decided to ride with them through part of Siberia to avoid being savaged by hill people. Our bikes were impounded for a number of days in Vladivostok and having exhausted all the tourist sights within a day we were only too happy to get on and head north.
?
After crossing the Gobi Desert they will continue for 4,000 kilometres west into Moscow, Lithuania, Latvia and St Petersbourg before heading North into Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and across Northern Europe before arriving home approximately 105 days later.
Their journey is being undertaken as an opportunity to raise funds for Make-a-Wish Ireland and Holy Family School for Disabled Children, Cavan.
Patrick said at the time of setting off on his journey:
“It’s going to be a tough challenge but raising funds for Make-a-Wish and Holy Family School for Disabled Children in the process will give us the energy to keep going.
?
Susan O’Dwyer of Make-a-Wish Ireland said:
“This is a tremendous challenge for Kieran and Patrick. We are delighted that they have chosen Make-a-Wish Ireland as one of their chosen charities. All of us here at Make-a-Wish, want to wish them all the best as they continue on their arduous journey.”