'We're only halfway' - Waterford couple on travelling 18,500km around the world

Waterford couple, Mark Graham and Ellie O'Byrne, are halfway through their incredible two-year long journey of cycling all around the world.

Right now the pair are in Singapore, celebrating their one year anniversary of cycling around the world with another year left to go.

"You're talking to us at a really interesting point in time because we're halfway through our journey now. We set off on February 1, 2025 and so we're really really happy and excited to be celebrating this anniversary which is a really amazing milestone for us," Ellie O' Byrne said.

"We've done 18,500 plus kilometres so far and at the moment we're in Singapore and so we're kind of at a funny midpoint where actually pretty soon we're going to be going home if you know what I mean."

Next for the couple is a cycle around Japan and then they are heading off to Canada and the United States where the rest of their incredible journey awaits.

From there they will head back to Canada and then they will make their way back to Ireland.

The Waterford couple started their journey in Tramore, Waterford on February 1, 2025, "inspired by the cyclist Dervla Murphy who cycled from Lismore in Waterford in the 1960s all the way to India and wrote some brilliant books about her cycles," Mark said.

"A cold wet and grey morning in February and we cycled from the Prom to the ferry in Rosslare and we went to France and cycled across Europe from France, and into Turkey, and then from Turkey we went into Central Asia.

"For the last 10 years we've been doing shorter cycles so we would have cycled in parts of Italy, we would have cycled around Ireland, we cycled in Albania and Croatia and Bosnia, yeah so different places in Europe, and we would have only cycled for about a week or two weeks at a time, but we always said we wanted to cycle for longer.

"It was always in our heads and then for about three years we planned to do this and we renovated two double-decker buses and converted them into tiny homes and sold them to pay for this cycle around the world.

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"As we're going I can kind of take an inspiration from Dervla Murphy as well because we write about what we do so we have a newsletter and that's available at www.spokeyoke.substack.com and every week we write a newsletter about what happened that week. We also put up a video about where we are in the world.

Mark and Ellie said they pretty much never fight which makes their journey and experience work so well for them.

"We've also been very lucky that very occasionally we meet people, sometimes we stay in people's houses if we ever can and there's a cycling community online called warm showers, and they're kind of like couch surfing. We've been really lucky to spend a couple of days cycling with people here and there but for the most part we're on our own."

To celebrate their halfway milestone, the couple are giving a talk in the Irish embassy in Singapore with a coffee morning organised to tell them a few stories from the road.

"We're going to have cups of coffee and cups of tea and a scone and I have a couple of birthday candles. I think we might stake a candle in our scones when we're having our cup of tea just to celebrate the first birthday of our world cycle.

"There's a really nice couple here in Singapore who are looking after us, John and Mona from Sligo, and he cycled a little bit of the way he showed us around Singapore on his bike and he had a couple of bags of Tayto and he's given us a couple of bags of Tayto," Mark said.

Ellie said that a highlight of their journey so far was cycling in the highlands in Vietnam.

"When we got to the top we couldn't find anywhere to stay and we didn't have a tent with us at that period in our journey, and all of a sudden we stumbled upon what looked like a truck stop, but they had some tents set up inside a shop inside. We were completely exhausted, quite wet and cold from cycling up these big mountains, and the next thing we were camping inside a shop in the middle of the night in this like small rural area in Vietnam.

The couple said that they both miss their families very much and if their adventures have taught them anything it's the importance of spending time with family.

"We miss our families very much but they're very supportive and we're very very lucky in that way....we can't wait to get home and in other ways we wish that this journey would never end because it's so amazing and we're seeing so much and learning so much about the world. After cycling 18 and a half thousand kilometres, all we have to do now is cycle another 18 and a half thousand kilometers to get back home again....which should be easy, I think!," Mark joked.