Written by MYRISSA KRENZLER
Citizen staff
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Thursday, 10 July 2008 |
Nicole Dierckx, left and Ingrid De Wilde were in Prince George Thursday on a five year, 100,000 kilometre trek around the world. Canada is the 30th country they've visited. They started the journey in 2004 and plan on finishing April 2009. (Citizen staff photo)
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Ingrid De Wilde and Nicole Dierckx have been travelling the world without the use of engines or motorized vehicles. They started in Antwerp, Belgium, in April 2004 and said they hope to be back in Belgium by April 2009. When they finish, they'll have travelled 100,000-kilometres.
The women said their refusal to use motorized engines has led them to use transportation ranging from bicycles to camels to sledges. However, this refusal almost got them into trouble while travelling through Afghanistan to Pakistan.
"It's very, very dangerous" Dierckx said. "If you enter with a car, they give you a solider with a gun. But we were with bicycles and refused to go in the car ... So we had one car before, one car behind (and) eight soldiers." They said they travelled like that for 600-kilometres and had to wear black burkas the entire time.
Canada is the 30th country they've visited and they praised both the people and the landscape.
"We like it here because it's so different than Europe," Dierckx said. "You have space. (The people) talk more and come up to us and say 'hey what's up?' and 'where are you going?' This is really nice."
This is the third trip the friends have taken together. In 1990, when they were in their 20s, the women spent a year-and-a-half cycling from Belgium to China.
"We had a regular shop," Dierckx said. "We were normal people. We were secretaries in two different firms and we came together and said 'It's so boring. Let's do something else.'" It was then they decided to travel.
"Nobody believed us," Dierckx said. "We didn't have one sponsor. Our parents were very much against it." De Wilde said this is because most Belgians don't want to travel. "The Dutch people, they go, the Germans, but not the Belgians."
After writing two books about their travels, the self-professed city girls, now in their 40s, have six sponsors and are on their second trip around the world. However, this time, they decided to travel by at least one method traditional to each country they visit. For Canada, they chose the canoe.
They left Prince George Thursday and are travelling to Barkerville and will canoe the Bowron Lake Canoe Circuit. From here, they plan on going to Kamloops and travel the back roads to Nelson, where they'll cross the Crow's Nest Pass into Lethbridge. From Lethbridge, they'll head to South Dakota.
They said the rest of the journey through Canada should be easy, as long as they don't run into anymore bears. On their way to Prince George, they said they saw 15 black bears along the highway, one of them approaching them for food.
At one point in Alaska, they even spent the night in an outhouse because a grizzly bear entered their camp. "It was for handicap so we could lie and so we spent the night," De Wilde said.
"It was a luxury outhouse," Dierckx said. "Four stars."
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 07 September 2008 )
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