Caroline - have you tried a tricycle - no balance problem with three wheels!
Northerner - I might be interested in joining you for your run / trek.
A couple of guys in their 20s cycled from China back to UK a couple of years ago, one with diabetes - I think they called their trip "Cyclehome".
Nicholas Crane did a long solo walk along mountain ranges of Europe - and wrote a called Clear Waters Rising, published 2003. Seemed to carry an umbrella all the way, like he does on Coast and Mapman series.
I've only had 2 bike accidents in over 30 years of regular riding, wherever I've lived in Uk or overseas - once in Newfoundland when I fell off the bike owned (but not maintained!) by a physio friend, who had accompanied 2 guys who pushed themselves in wheelchairs from Istanbul to Birmingham; and once in Cambridge, when a man opened his car door without looking, resulting in a buckled wheel, torn T shirt sleeve, broken watch glass and 9cm gash in my upper arm.
Have you ever seen the film Blythe Spirit? The late great Margaret Rutherford rides a three wheeler. Hubby says he can see me in a Margarte Rutherford style outfit on a three wheeler. Unfortunately there is no space to store it-not even in the garden shed!