Good day Mate,

Sounds familiar with many blokes aged 40 plus.

Get in touch with a fellow Ulysses member Steve Andrews, he moved to
Perth recently. Black Dog Ride around Australia (raising awareness of*depression)

He's got lots of contacts, to get you back into the real world.

Cheers
Helgo

I don't think it's an age thing - I'm still in my twenties (for a while), but for me the joy of the trip (and the pleasure of feeling 'alive') lasted for a long time after I got back. It took a few years for the colour to get washed out to grey and the noose of a tie to make it's presence felt around my neck - time to plan another big trip! The problem now was that I'm still paying off my last trip so am using an old bike donated by Domino's to cross the Sahara, problem solved!!

Now that I'm absorbed with the planning the only thing bugging me is Valentine's Day. Bloody happy couples everywhere, GRRRRR....

I'll lumber in with my two-cents on this as it's something I've just finished writing about in the epilogue of my book (not published yet).

I, like pretty much everyone else that has replied to this thread, suffered a bit (and am still in some ways) after the ending of my 'big trip'. It was three years of my life after all, not all of it on the back of my bike, but the return to 'normal life' was a shock.

I came to a number of realisations whillst I was away, specifically when I was riding across the deserts in Australia. There was a lot of time for thinking and other introspective nonsense as I was there by myself. I won't bore you too much with most of the realisations I reached, as a lot of those were very personal, but the long and the short of it?

It's all in your head.

The so-called 'adventure' I mean, it's all in your mind.

It's about how you view what you're doing at any given time. My own experiences on my travels taught me that anything can be an 'adventure', it's just about how you view it at the time. If you approach what you might term 'every-day' life as a chore, something to be endured rather than experienced, that's exactly what it will be.

Not to sound like I'm so far up my own arse I can check my teeth for fillings, but there was a quote from a French philosopher that I identified with quite a lot as I was approaching the 'end' of my expedition, and I'll paste it here in the hope that you might find it as relevant as I did:

"Something begins in order to end: an adventure doesn't let itself be extended; it achieves significance only through its death"
(Jean Paul Sartre)

The end, that's what gives it value.

I took my experiences, the things I'd learned whilst expeditioning all over the place and let them shape me as a person. Sounds like psycho-babble twaddle, but at a very basic level it's true.

To rail against what you now deem 'normal' everyday 'mundane' life is pointless as it's only in your head that it has no worth. Best bet, approach the next stage of your life with as much vigour and enthusiasm as you did your 'big trip'. After all, anything can be an adventure.

Never forget what you did, where you went, what you achieved. Take those experiences, let it shape you and how you approach life from now on.

Adventure? It's as much a state of mind as anything else.