58-year-old Australian Michael “Mic” Whitty is cycling roughly counterclockwise around Australia for the next few years as part of his 30-year quest to cycle to every Commonwealth War Grave cemetery in the world before VJ Day 2045 (15th August 2045).

Having discovered in late 2015 his Grandfather’s 1916 pocket diary - written whilst fighting on the Western Front - Mic set off on a journey to retrace the author’s footsteps in the diary’s Centennial year.

With just £19 ($35 AUD) in his pocket and a borrowed bicycle, Mic started pedaling from Ambleside in the Lake District of Cumbria, England, to ANZAC Cove in Gallipoli, Turkey. From there he would backtrack to France & Belgium to pick up Lieutenant Ian Whitty’s diary entries. Mic’s threadbare resources were primarily due to having spent the previous 18 months unemployed, homeless, and sleeping rough in the Welsh woods. With the help of friends, he cobbled together the essentials and reinvigorated the confidence levels needed for such an undertaking.

Upon reaching the Western Front in April 2016, Mic soon discovered that if he had of stuck to his grandfather’s diary schedule geographically, then long periods of remaining static would have been the norm, due to the nature of the First World War. Drawing on his experience of visiting all 33 Commonwealth War Grave cemeteries on the Gallipoli peninsula, he set himself the target of cycling to the approximately 440 cemeteries that are the final resting places of World War One combatants between the Belgium coast and Switzerland - the Western Front. As 2016 drew to a close, and reasonably sure that 2017 would mean returning to a state of homelessness and depression, Mic “changed the goalposts” and lengthened his trip to the end of the Centennial commemoration of WW1 and extended his list of CWGC cemeteries to visit all in France, Belgium, Netherlands, & Germany - some 2,000.

Inevitably the same “what now” question loomed as Armistice Day 2018 approached. By now it was self-evident that picking up enough cash by doing odd jobs as well as hosting presentations about his journey was a sustainable way of life, and so the goal-posts were moved out again to the end of the Centenary of the Second World War, by which time Mic’s aim is to have visited all 26,530 CWGC maintained cemeteries on the planet, as well as any other nation’s War Cemeteries that he passes en-route.

Last year (2023) saw Mic visit the 12 CWGC cemeteries in Bermuda, cycling through the New England states of the USA, a six-month 8,870-kilometre Trans-Canadian Highway crossing, and an Auckland - Christchurch in time for Christmas with friends.

Setting off from Sydney in January 2024 - 50 years to the month since his parents bundled the Whitty family into a caravan and set off from North Turramurra for a one-year around Australia - Mic will be traveling around Australia and would be very happy to make himself available for an interview or to deliver a presentation to your organization, club, or group.

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