Home to Rome - 2018

Good evening all..

Well this is it everyone, the final 'Home To Rome 2018' post before the curtain comes down on what has been an amazing journey. This evening we presented our fundraising cheque to the amazing amount of €20,000.00 to Mr Neil O'Sullivan from the Waterford Hospice Board of Directors in Waterford University Hospital. This has really been such an emotional journey. From the birth of the idea that was kept in the back of my mind for a number of months to the point of sharing it with Jordan. For talking me around Jordan and convincing me we could do it - Thank you Son, you are an inspiration to me and I am very proud of you. Once the decision was made to do this everything else was a flash - The brief bit of training ,the preparation and the constant nerves that this was not going to be possible. For making the raffles possible and pushing this idea & its awareness as much as possible in such a short space time. For all the tireless running around and keeping all ticking along while we were away. Your efforts pushed this as much as possible - Thank you Karen & Emily. I love you both.

To Eamon and all @ Altitude, Waterford - For all the professional advice, time & providing a real personal touch - Thank you guys for going above and beyond.

To Barry and Co @ Suirdezign - For turning around our last minute requests and providing some amazing layouts/ideas. Such wonderful people who run an amazing service - Thank you guys for such an amazing service.

To Leslie & Evelyn @ Russell Fitness - In a short space of time you did your best to get me as fit as I could be for what lay ahead (Was never going to be easy!!) - I cant recommend these guys enough. Give them a try over the winter months. You will not regret it - A very professional set up with a lovely friendly atmosphere.

To Kieran Foley @ Munster Express - A talented writer/reporter who we are so grateful to have been able to share our intentions with and why. His much read platform pushed our story through Waterford & beyond. Thank you Kieran.

To Geoff, John, Eamonn, Daniel & all at WLR - A wonderful radio station with so many wonderful people. The call in's with Geoff while on the road were memorable and the airtime spread our story and intentions wide & far. Thank you WLR.

To Linda Spillane who from the start advised us, gave us ideas and set up connections with media avenues. You do so much for so many and on this occassion we recevied that wonderful support. Thank you Linda.

To the people of our parish in Ballyduff & Kilmeaden and the wider community. You know who you are. I would be here for hours naming everyone who helped so much, raffles, bucket collections, arranging prizes for draws.So so much.

The send off we got, the support all the way along and the home coming we received. From start to finish it was amazing and it reminded me how lucky we are to live in such a wonderful place and know so many wonderful people.

This was a story, a promise made with a wonderful woman I am proud to call my Mum who I love with all my heart and miss every day.This lady both shared our journey and kept us safe each day and gave us hope when I wanted to give up.

This story was supported by so many and from the bottom of my heart I want to thank you all for the generous donations of your hard earned money, the constant support and the gentle pushes that allowed us reach the intended destination.

It really has been something else and has really reminded me how wonderful people are.
The 20K was achieved by all of us.

So thats it.........

WE ALL REACHED THE FINISH LINE.

Thank you.

So 2019 is just around the corner...

Hmmm, what can be done next..

Watch this space......

Goodnight everyone.

Have a lovely weekend....

Arthur...

Hi all - Good evening to everyone. I hope this post finds you all well since our last post.
Time has been flying by since our return home. Bodies and minds are returning to normality (and boy it is taking longer than expected!!). Getting back into a work and school routine also felt really weird. Bikes have had a much needed full makeover and a bit of TLC from the experts in Altitude (Thank you guys) and ready for the next journey whatever it may be....
Since returning home the support has just been amazing and it really has blown us away. We never expected any recognition for taking this event on but the support from all from the birth of this idea all the way to the finish line kept us both going day in day out. Fantastic support & messages at times when I wanted to throw in the towel where I realised I was nowhere near fit enough for the task ahead but just reminding myself how much wonderful support we were constantly receiving and why we were doing what we were doing gave us the strength to push on and slowly day by day.
This shared journey of a father, an amazing & inspirational son, the spirit of a wonderful lady who I love and miss dearly and the fantastic support of wonderful caring people reached the finish line in Rome after 31 days filled with so so many highs & lows.
Our reason and story of 2 novice cyclists taking this journey by bicycle and why was embraced and supported by so many in so many different ways.
A promise made between my Mother & I was kept,shared, supported and fulfilled and we hope that our drop in the ocean contribution to Waterford Hospice will help these wonderful hard working people achieve and go some bit towards what they are working so hard for. The new facility under construction will be a major asset to the South East and a comfort & support to patients and their loved ones when needed.
To the people who are making it happen including everyone who have donated their hard earned money to make it happen should be very proud.
We had hoped to cease all fundraising efforts and activities with Home to Rome 2018 by the end of September and since this has been a shared journey we wanted to share with you where we are with fundraising at present. SO....To date this shared journey from Home to Rome has raised a total of ---------€19,366.37 EURO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We never in a million years expected to reach anywhere near this amount!!!. We didnt have a target figure but never expected this especially in the time frame allocated to the fundraising since mid June. Again it makes me want to say such a huge huge thank you to everyone.You all know who you are and what you did and I thank you from my heart...
To my wife Karen, who accepted what we were setting out to do and worried as a wife & mother day and night - I apologise for making you worry & I thank you with all my heart - You did so so much running around and trying to push this as far as possible and this figure would not be anywhere near this amount had it not have been for your persistance to make this a success xx
We sat tonight and did say to one another wouldnt it be great to cap this at 20K as it is so so close and decided maybe it might be possible. Although the destination was reached the journey can continue and Home to Rome 2018 can do its final curtain call as Home to Rome 20K.
We need to try and raise €600.00 EURO to reach this amazing target. Can it be done??..I dont know and I for one second am not going to ask anyone to donate again when you have all given so much hard earned money ,time,effort & support. I did want your advice though to see if you, your friends/work colleagues or family might have potential business contacts who might be able to support our final push to reach this major milestone for this worthy cause.Your thoughts?? Has anyone got any potential ideas to achieve this before the final whistle is blown next week (Friday 12.Oct.2018) and we then arrange handover of all to Waterford Hospice which will be our final post.. I am open to any potential ideas and can be contacted by email at [email protected] or please contact Karen if preffered.
Whatever happens we are all so so proud of the current figure. I thought the journey itself at times was going to be impossible but I proved myself wrong. It might be possible to cap this also and reach the amazing amount of 20K. To take away the memories of a shared journey with so many wonderful wonderful people from near and far.
Goodnight to everyone and once again thank you so so much for helping us to do this, sharing our promise and our journey,

Arthur........

Good evening everyone, just a quick update to say a huge, huge thank you to all our family and friends who came out to welcome us home yesterday. We were blown away by the unexpected crowd and warm welcome home and the effort everybody went to to make it a very special evening... we are so proud to be part of such a fantastic community. Tomorrow night O’Donnachas in Kilmeaden are hosting a welcome home party for us, where there will be live music, raffles, food etc. We look forward to seeing you all 🍻🇮🇪🚴🏻‍♂️🚴🏻‍♂️

All aboard! ✈️🇮🇪 See you soon Ireland 😁

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 🇮🇹🚴🏻‍♂️🚴🏻‍♂️

Day 31 ~ We made it here Mam/Nan, thank you for sharing our journey with us and keeping us safe 🙌

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 🚴‍♂️🚴‍♂️

Day 28 & 29 ~ Hi all, where do I begin...We left Florence two days ago continuing our journey south to Rome, the last two/three days have been very challenging and have easily been our hardest days yet, a combination of mountains, lots of steep and long hills, tiredness, aches and pains, mosquito bites, thunder and lightning storms and busy and bad Italian roads have made for a tough few days..Over the past two days we’ve only managed to cover about 130 kilometres due to these factors. Yesterday we left Florence and cycled about 80km’s to Siena, we climbed about 1,500 foot as we continued our way over the Appenine mountains ⛰ Near the end of the day I got another puncture in my front wheel as two very sharp and strong thorns went through my tyre and tube, we had to stop and change it in the middle of a busy roundabout 😅
Today we left Siena and cycled a further 50km’s through the vineyards of Tuscany to were we are staying tonight in San Quirico d’Orcia. At about mid day the heavens opened and torrential rain and thunder and lightning began. Seeing the huge lightning bolts striking the ground was an experience but at the time we where very high in a very open area with no cover which was dangerous 😬(thankfully we didn’t get struck by lightning 😂)We’ve never seen rain so heavy in our lives! We managed to come across an old derelict house which we used for shelter where we waited until the weather cleared. The day threw everything at us and left us 50km short from where we wanted to be tonight. It’s still raining now but on a brighter note we now have about 180 kilometres left until we finally reach Rome! We are both very tired now and are looking forward to getting to Rome in the next two days 🚴🏻‍♂️🚴🏻‍♂️thanks everyone at home for your unbelievable ongoing support, we look forward to reading your comments and messages at the end of every long day and they really bring a smile to both of us 😊We’re nearly there Nan 🙌