Rowed Trip - From Scotland To Syria By Oar

by Colin Angus, Julie Angus

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, 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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Adventure

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Tuck]

quite an adventure tale: make your own boat w/trailer, pull that with your bike, and when you hit the water or canal, put your bike in the boat and paddle. camp out mostly. and do that from john o groats to Aleppo. Julie Angus and her husband do just that. in like 5 months. sheesh. i like my history and politics a little less naive though so only gets 3 stars. colin angus has ridden and paddled around the world in one trip. julie angus paddled across the Atlantic unassisted, so these folks know how its done.
the route down the Danube is much better described by Patrick Fermor, fyi

[Mike Fantauzzi]

Rowed Trip is a great husband-and-wife-team adventure story. It was very interesting to read about the various cultures of Europe as well as the differences in how they accept/embrace human-powered transportation. For someone who enjoys peddling, paddling and travelling, this information was both fun to read and useful for future travels. The co-authors meeting their extended relatives in their respective homelands was a nice personal touch.

I would definitely read more by Colin & Julie.

[Joseph Simpson]

A Canadian couple that decided to learn a bit about their heritage on a journey from Scotland to Syria. I was worried that this book would get pretentious really quickly as most outdoors books do but this one hit the mark much better than most. There’s travel notes, history, and good couples banter. Not every chapter is as comprehensive as the next, and it’s almost 20 years old, so I certainly wouldn’t use this book to plan your Euro summer, but it was still a great read.

[Ew Lake]

I enjoyed the writing the further I got into the book. The first few chapters were too much of, "First we went here, and then we went there."

[Zoë Mertz]

Seattle Book Bingo 2021 - Sports (or at least the closest thing to a sports book I was interested enough to read)

[Lucy]

3.5 stars. Colin and Julie Angus cycled spent 7 months making their way from Scotland to Syria under their own power, using bicycles and home-made rowboats. Very impressive.

[Joe White]

This book is more oriented toward a travelogue narrative than an adventure how-to guide. However it is very contemporary. it covers a unique travel method on or near rivers in Europe that while are historic, are seen from the instant look of a fast travel-through traveler seeing and dealing with today's (2008/2009) political and environmental conditions. There are quite a few details of Great Britain's, France's, Germany's, and other eastern Europe canal and river navigation system for small boats. Interactions with the indigenous populations and food serving details shed light for someone considering travel to these specific areas.
I was hoping for more of the boring technical "how-to" details of the boat construction and handling as well as more complete details of loading and travel weights. Clearances, passports, maps, and shipping were mentioned, and some web links for reference were provided at the end of the book but I would have preferred that they provide more of the main course of the book. I did like the summary statistics format provided at the end where each country and waterway route were summarized. The mention at the end of the book when entering Syria, regarding shipping was especially enlightening. Particularly regarding the loss of the ocean rowing boat described in "Rowboat in a Hurricane", due to Costa Rican bureaucratic red tape.
The family investigation which served as the backbone purpose of the trip only provided a reason for the destination and route, but provided little of interest to me, resulting in those personal sections being skimmed.
The book is well written from an articulation standpoint and the reading flows easily and naturally from section to section.

[Martha☀]

I have read all the adventures of Colin and Julie and each one makes me admire their collective sense of adventure even more. I would love to be a fly on the wall when they discuss ideas for new adventures! Imagine coming up with the idea to link their two ancestral lineages through a bike and boat journey! Imagine trying to design and build a boat that would be sea-worthy enough to manage a crossing of the English Channel, large enough to carry 7 months worth of gear, agile enough to negotiate narrow rivers and light enough to be towed by bicycle over mountainous passes! Imagine trying to research the countries, route options, visas, traditional customs and keeping a website updated as you travel. Imagine the fluidity of thought required to deal with countless unknowns - like lazy Scotland locks-keepers and unknown rules for obtaining Turkish visas. These two travellers tell a great story of yet another amazing adventure.

[Jilanna]

Started 2 July 10.

5 July 10 - I loved Colin's book about their previous adventure, Beyond the Horizon -- about the first human-powered circumnavigation of the Earth -- and was so excited to find this at Westminster Books on Friday.

Finished ~14 / 15 July 10.

[Khadija]

This is the second book I read from Colin Angus, and like "Lost in Mongolia' it was quite interesting. I liked all this information about the countries they went to, the people they saw, the funny and scary moments they lived. Also it's easy to read. A book worth reading.

[Megan]

So many adventures!

[Margo]

I have read all of Colin Angus' books of his world travel adventures. also Julie's recent ROWBOAT IN A HURRICANE -- account of her trip (first & only WOMAN to row Atlantic Ocean)

[Shannon]

What an entertaining and fun read. A great story of a couple traveling and the highs and lows during the journey of a lifetime.

[Margaret Greenway]

This was my first book I read by Colin and Julie Angus and I am hooked. The conversational tone made this a captivating read.