As the calendars roll on into March, the day of departure rolls closer and my thoughts are more and more concentrated on the 4,000 miles ahead of me. There are many things I am aiming to achieve by cycling across America; it’s about time I laid them all out clearly.

The cycling tracks around Dunedin in the southerly end of New Zealand’s South Island are regarded as some of the best in the world. I hired a bike, via text message from iBikeHire, and set off towards Tunnel Beach – a route recommended by Nick from iBikeHire “if I was feeling adventurous”.

Initially I thought that getting some bike time before arriving in L.A. in March would be impossible, but during my six weeks in Australia, I was able to rack up over 22 hours of pedal time, over 300km travelled. I cycled over the ANZAC and Harbour Bridges in Sydney; and around the MCG, Port Melbourne and Yarra Trail in Melbourne. I feel fit, strong and healthy; always able to cycle again the next day.

As I tried to make clear in the Day Zero post, this journey is one I would be making anyway. I am not satisfied by a tourist-trap tour of a country, I want to escape the tourist bubbles and learn about cities and cultures by living there, fully embracing the day-to-day mundanities of life as a citizen of these places.

After my experiences in Vietnam and Cambodia it was always clear to me that the first charity I should cycle in aid of would be War Child UK. The second is one of my sponsors, Top Order Tours’ partner charity, Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research. The third took much consideration but it struck me like a lightening bolt on the evening (Malaysian time) of Sunday 27th November 2011.