When Scotsman Dean Nicholson decided to bike across the world, he assumed he would be making his journey alone.
But that changed three months into his trip when the 31-year-old found a kitten chasing him uphill in Bosnia, near the border of Montenegro.
At this point, Nicholson had cycled from Scotland to England. He then got on a ferry to the Netherlands where he traveled to Belgium, France, Switzerland and to Italy.
He was on the coast of the Adriatic when he took a ferry to Croatia and biked to Bosnia.
When he spotted the kitten, he jumped off his bike.
“I turned around and I had this wee monster chasing after me. Meowing her heart out,” Nicholson told The Dodo. “She was quite scruffy looking and she was quite skinny.”
Nicholson decided to give her something to eat. He thought that would be the end of their meeting.
But the cat just kept on following him.
“So then I thought, ‘Well, I’ve got to take her now.’ And I decided to take her on this journey.”
He made a space for the cat, which he named Nala, and let her sit in a satchel he unzippered so she could poke her head out.
But Nala didn’t like that.
She wanted to be as close to her new friend as possible.
“She climbed out and climbed up on my shoulder,” he explains.
She wouldn’t leave his side that night when they slept in the tent.
“She loves being in the tent. She dives about on the floor and there’s, like, wee cuts across all of it. She wants inside the sleeping bag. And she wants the wee nook of your armpit.”
They would bike for about 7 hours a day. Even in bad weather.
But Nala developed a chest infection after being wet in the rain.
So, he had to take to the vet. They ended up staying in a hostel for three weeks just so Nala could get better.
Now Nicholson is in no rush. He’s taking his time and catering to whatever Nala needs on the trip.
“Basically it’s her trip,” he says. “She’s 100 percent my best friend. She’s the best travel companion you could have. I love her. She’s just brilliant to be with.”
Now Nicholson and Nala are entertaining their 332,000 followers on Instagram.
Since then, Nicholson has gotten Nala’s paw print tattooed on him.
The two are currently in Greece.
They plan to hang out there until the fall when they move on to Australia. According to The Washington Post, after that, they’ll head to Argentina and up to Canada.
You can check out their Instagram page here.
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