After saving for years, Red Nicholson and his girlfriend Helen leave for Vancouver on Sunday (9th May), before beginning their tour of Western Europe, visiting such cities as London, Paris, Barcelona, Rome, Berlin, and Amsterdam.

Red's taking his electric wheelchair on the journey, which he says was a 'big call'.

"I'll be honest; it'd be much more practical to take a manual chair. But my independence is so important to me, and I'd hate to saddle Helen with pushing me as well as carrying all the bags!" confessed Red.

Red says he hopes to develop a new appreciation for accessibility standards back home in Auckland.

"Through my research I've been absolutely gobsmacked at how inaccessible much of Europe is to wheelchair users. Things that I take for granted back here, like accessible buses and trains, are in short supply over there!"

He's found the internet to be an invaluable resource for planning his trip, by reading other disabled traveller's blogs, looking at travel review sites, and using Google Maps, he reckons he's got a fairly good understanding of each city they're visiting, but also realises that when they arrive, "all bets are off, and we'll be two tiny fishes in a massive pond". ]

Red will be video-blogging parts of his trip, in the hope that other disabled travellers can use his experiences to plan their own "Wheely Big OE". You can visit his blog at www.rednz.com and keep up to date with what sort of trouble he's managed to get himself into!

"I found plenty of disability-centric blogs and travel diaries while planning our trip, but not much in the way of photos or videos, and as they say - a picture tells a thousand words, so I'll be taking plenty of them!"

Red and Helen arrive back in New Zealand in July, and will hopefully bring with them lots of stories, and not too many flat tyres!

Red Nicholson

Ross Flood rflood@cpsociety.org.nz