GLOBAL travel is pretty challenging right now, so Sam Donegan timed his 16-month trip around the world just right.

The Taunton resident, 24, set off from Plymouth on May 6, 2018, for an epic motorcycle trip around the globe.

Just five days after obtaining his motorbike licence, Donegan left England with a single goal: to reach the southern tip of New Zealand, travelling over land as much as possible.

He completed his journey last year, and has now written a book about his experience of visiting 27 counties across three continents.

Donegan rode through Spain, France, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, India, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia in order to reach New Zealand.

Donegan - who attended Parkfield Primary and then The Castle School in Taunton - recalled some of his highlights from the trip.

He told the County Gazette: “I had a close encounter at the border between Georgia and South Ossetia, which involved an angry soldier pointing his assault rifle at my head and shouting threats when I accidentally set off a car alarm... I think he worried that it was a car bomb about to go off!

“I spent four days riding 1,000km across the Kyzylkum Desert in 45 degree heat in Uzbekistan.

“I had to carry all my own food, fuel and water, because the desert is almost totally uninhabited.

“I spent one week riding 1,400km along the Pamir Highway in Tajikistan - the second highest navigable highway in the world, which rises to over 4,600m.

“300km of this ride was along the dangerous border with Afghanistan.

“While in Kyrgyzstan, I attended the World Nomad Games - Central Asia’s equivalent of the Olympics.

“There I saw horseback wrestling, mounted archery competitions and many games of Kok Boru.

“This is a Central Asian sport, similar to rugby, except it’s played on horseback, with a dead goat taking the place of the ball!

“I arrived in Varanasi, India’s holiest city, just in time for Diwali, where I watched the Ganges sprout into flame beneath thousands of lanterns and fireworks.

“In Myanmar, I saw the Tazaungdaing fire-balloon festival in Taunggyi, where huge paper balloons are launched into the air with crates of fireworks strapped beneath them.

“As the balloons rise over the hills of Shan state, the fireworks detonate above the crowd below.

“I was trekking inside the crater of Mount Ijen, a volcano on the Indonesian island of Java, when a landslide released a cloud of toxic gas and sent my tour group running for our lives to scramble out of the crater.

“While in Australia, I found myself working on a fishing boat for a short time, fishing for sharks off the coast of Tasmania in mid-winter.

“After 16 months, I finally reached Slope Point, the southern tip of New Zealand’s south island - the end goal of my travels.”

Somerset County Gazette:

FINISH: Sam Donegan at Slope Point in New Zealand

Reflecting on his journey as a whole, Donegan said: “The whole experience was really very humbling.

“You grow up believing that the way you live your life is ‘normal’ and then you go to a place like India and see over one billion people living in a completely different way.

“My idea of what constitutes ‘normality’ for most humans around the globe was radically changed, and I now see that I’m very much in the minority living the life I do in comparison to most other people on the planet.

“I was enthralled with Georgia, a little known nation tucked below the Caucasian mountains with a language, culture, and cuisine completely distinct from that of its surrounding neighbours.

“I also met many Afghan people while on the Pamir Highway. While the area has a dangerous reputation, the people I met were some of the kindest and most generous that I encountered on my entire journey.”

Donegan’s book - East of the Moon, West of the Sun: A Journey to the Antipodes - is available now on Amazon.