As a reminder, Dean Nicholson, 31, has been cycling around the world with his cat companion Nala, a happy and cute female tabby cat who he rescued on his travels. I wrote about Dean and Nala earlier. You can click on this link which opens a new tab to read about him if you wish before continuing.
They have been Instagram stars since a video of their meeting on a Montenegro mountainside went viral on YouTube. It has received 130 million views. Since then they have been biking through dozens of countries together. Nala is named after the lioness in The Lion King. She travels in a basket at the front of the bike. She appears remarkably composed throughout these long journeys. It looks scarily dangerous for a cat but they carry on in apparent safety.
At the end of June they camped overnight by Lake Balaton in Hungary. They were on their way to Slovakia after four months of Covid-19 lockdown. At 5am in the morning Nala climbed onto Nicholson apparently spooked. Nicholson immediately heard something outside the tent. He went outside to investigate and found a thief rummaging through his bags containing some his essential equipment. The thief pointed a knife at Nicholson.
Nicholson bravely threw a punch at the burglar and then ran into his tent to get his own knife before punching the burglar again. As he did so, some of Nicholson’s possessions fell out of the burglar’s bag including bike lights, a bike pump and his GoPro camera. The burglar ran off and Nicholson chased him. He said that it was a crazy 15 minutes.
He credits his cat with saving him. He said:
I protect her in the day, and in return she’s got my back at night. She is such a happy cat – so easy to look after. I totally love her.
Nicholson is writing a book about his adventures which will be written with a cowriter, Gary Jenkins who, as it happens, wrote the bestselling A Street Cat Named Bob. This is the story of James Bowen and his street cat friend who he adopted and named Bob. They are a major commercial success including a film and I hope that Nicholson and Nala will find equal success in commercialising their exploits.
