A couple of days before I set off from home to Turkey to start this adventure, our daughter Eleanor gave me a bracelet she’d made for me. It reads ‘DON’T STOP PEDALLING’ – a reiteration of a beautiful song all three of our children recorded for me when I cycled from home to the top of Mont Ventoux in the south of France (the first leg of this cycling odyssey). I have the song on my phone, but need to find a moment of exceptional mental fortitude to be able to listen to it without a major lip wobble! The bracelet, meanwhile, provides a constant and touching reminder of the children, and I haven’t taken it off since Eleanor fastened it to my wrist.

Apart from the English Channel and the Caspian Sea, I’ve cycled an unbroken route from home to Beyneu, Kazakhstan – in different legs, but always starting each leg at the point where the previous one ended. Reaching Beyneu has been a journey of 7,187 kilometres (4,466 miles), with 60,102 metres (197,185 feet) of vertical elevation. And for those imploring me not to stop pedalling, I can share that your encouragement drove me to complete just over 1.3 million pedal strokes in getting here!

The chain of my continuing route now needs to be broken, however, owing to the continued closure of Uzbekistan’s road crossing from Kazakhstan. My research on this before I left the UK was not conclusive, but initial reports suggested that the border would be closed by road for a three-month period from 1 February to 1 May for ‘refurbishment’ (opening just in time for my smooth passage through to Uzbekistan from here in Beyneu). I’d contacted the British embassy in Tashkent to seek clarification, but their response, which managed to confuse the border crossing in question with one some 1,500 miles away, was not reassuring!

My back-up plan in case the paint was still drying on the border refurbishments when I got here was to catch a train across the border, with the railway line remaining open during the road crossing closure; and it’s that back-up plan that I’m now activating. Given heavy demand for places on the train route down into Uzbekistan at the moment, I learned when visiting the railway station shortly after arriving in Beyneu that many of the trains are currently fully booked, which has necessitated my enforced three-day sojourn in the town!

The replacement of part of my cycling route with a train journey has been difficult for me to countenance. Although it’s driven by circumstances beyond my control, I felt initially very uncomfortable about it and sad that I needed to break the chain of the continuous bike route. But I’ve had two days to adjust to the idea, and have managed to cultivate a more positive perspective! The chain would always have been broken at some point; from Almaty, most obviously, a ride east into the Xinjiang province of China would almost certainly have been unworkable for fairly stark geopolitical reasons. Catching the train (to Nukus) will allow me to continue my ride along the Silk Road through Uzbekistan – a key highlight of this adventure – and I’m determined to enjoy the quirks of fate that will get me there. As foolish as it may sound, I’m not always very good at prioritsing enjoyment over a slavish adherence to the ‘mission’. I have an opportunity here to work on that!

Beyneu has surprised me in a good way. No doubt a large measure of the contentment I’ve felt here has come from the blessing of meeting Bijou, a fellow cyclist who has also ridden here from the UK. Before he headed south to Nukus on a train yesterday afternoon, we enjoyed each other’s company over a delicious dinner (of dumpling broth and lamb and potatoes) and brunch the following morning. It was great to chat about our respective ambitions and plans, and I hope very much that we might be able to regroup along the Silk Road at some point!

With Bijou gone, I’m all too conscious of the always-looming threat of intense loneliness. For all the training and planning that goes into making an adventure like this work, it’s not easy to train for the sense of isolation, and it can strike at any moment. I miss the people I love a lot, and it can be stiflingly introspective to have to process all of my thoughts and apprehensions without recourse to the in-person conversations that are usually so effective in aminating life and putting troubles to rights.

For now, I’m grateful for Beyneu, and for the relative comforts and kindness I’ve found here. Arriving in the town reminds me of the feeling I had when arriving with my good friend Chris on the Trans-Siberian Railway in Beijing many years ago. That railway journey was one of the highlights of my life, but following the monochrome whiteness of a Siberian February, I remember finding the colours of the market stalls in the Chinese capital incredibly enticing. After the pervasive yellow hue of the desert that I grew accustomed to over the four days of cycling from Aktau to here, the buzz of life and the abundance of fresh food in Beyneu is similarly sustaining!