Rowed Trip

Two bestselling authors combine their strengths in a travelogue, a search for roots, a romance — and a seat-of-your-pants adventure. One sunny day in 2006, Julie and Colin Angus were talking about the future, as newly engaged couples do. More unusually, they were at the time travelling together from Moscow to Vancouver by human power — boat, bike, and foot. That day, they were examining a road atlas and in particular the labyrinth of European inland waterways it revealed. Julie traced a route of interconnected canals, rivers, and coastlines that led from Colin's parents' homeland of Scotland past her mother's homeland, Germany, and on to her father's, Syria. She said, half-seriously: We could row (yes, row, as in propelling a tippy little boat on a pond) all the way from Scotland to Syria to visit our relatives. It was a reckless sort of joke to make, given the couple's addiction to adventure. The result is Rowed Trip, an odyssey by oar (and bike) from Caithness, Scotland, across the English Channel, through France, across the Rhine, the Main-Donau Canal to the Danube, the Black Sea, the Bosphorous Straits, and the Mediterranean. Julie and Colin each describe how the trip allowed them to test their relationship, to explore their roots, and to indulge to the max their shared taste for adventure.

Julie Angus (née Wafaei) has degrees in psychology, biology, and molecular biology. She has written for publications ranging from the National Post to en­Route and is the author of Rowboat in a Hurricane. Colin Angus set off at nineteen on a five-year, mostly solo, sailing odyssey. Since then he has navigated some of the world's most challenging rivers. He has written for the Globe and Mail and Reader's Digest, and his books include Beyond the Horizon, Lost in Mongolia and Amazon Extreme. Together, Colin and Julie were the first people to travel around the world on human power, a journey documented in Colin's Beyond the Horizon. Rowed Trip is their first joint venture as writers.

Map 1: THE RIGOURS AHEAD SCOTLAND (Colin) 2: "YOU WON'T STAND A CHANCE IN THOSE BOATS" ENGLAND (Julie) 3: THE TRAILER VANISHES FRANCE (Colin) 4: MAINZ ATTRACTIONS GERMANY (Julie) 5: IS IT A DOG? IS IT A BEAR? AUSTRIA (Colin) 6: A PEST-INFESTED VESTIBULE SLOVAKIA (Julie) 7: SEEING GOD HUNGARY (Colin) 8: MINEFIELD CROATIA (Julie) 9: NEW FAVOURITE COUNTRY SERBIA (Colin) 10: BACK IN THE EU BULGARIA (Julie) 11: CANAL OF DEATH ROMANIA (Colin) 12: WEDDING ANNIVERSARY BULGARIA AGAIN (Julie) 13: DANGEROUS BEAUTY TURKEY (Colin) 14: JUST LIKE OUR FAMILY SYRIA (Julie) Appendices Acknowledgements About the Authors The DVD