MARTHA HILL

AWAY FROM THE NOISE MARTHA HILL

CYCLE TOURING...

Hey, I'm Martha Hill and I'm a musician from Newcastle Upon Tyne.

This is my "away from the noise" feature for Come Play With Me. I'm gonna be talking about cycle touring. I've done a few over the years, mostly around the UK, but also down into Europe. I like to try get away in the winters and switch my brain off.

A few years ago me and a bunch of mates cycled from Santander in Spain down to Lagos in Portugal, through the Picos mountains. It was beaut. I love packing all my shit into my panniers and missioning about, sleeping whenever you get tired in whatever weird place seems most suitable (parks, construction sites, forests, whatever).

One night we set up camp in a tiny bit of field, the only flat bit of land we could find running along the Douro River in Portugal. We'd noticed a few cowpats as we were setting up, but there were no fences or anything so thought nothing of it. Just as we'd sat down to cook, a herd of cows started running past, about a metre from where we were sat, followed by a massive bull and a tiny skinny Portuguese lad with a stick! My mate Spud grabbed a stick and stopped them from trampling all our stuff, but I just shit myself and jumped up the nearest tree... I'm no hero haha. Anyway, I love whizzing down hills singing to myself and being in my own head and watching the world fly by. It's the best.

My latest EP "Dog Hearted Man" was written in part about the yearning to go travelling and have that space of mind and freedom to daydream.

I'm hoping 2021 will bring some of that for me. Hope you like the EP, and if you do then come see me on tour this October!