Author Archives: dinosaur

Lost GPS…

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I just rode away from a park with the gps on a pannier, and only realised a few km down the road where we stopped for lunch.

Shit.

Swearing, I left Sal at the restaurant and rode back to town not really thinking I’d find it, and not even sure where I’d lost it. I asked around the carpark, in a couple of shops I’d been in and eventually gave up and went back to where I’d left Sal about 2km away.

We started brainstorming ideas to get a new one delivered into remote Zambia while eating goat and veg with pap, when an out of breath african guy ran up to the table holding the gps!

“You dropped it in town and I took it because some other people there wanted to keep it, but I thought you might come back, then I saw you again riding past and I shouted and waved but you didn’t see me, so I just kept walking hoping to find you”

We were speechless!

“Thank you so much, you have no idea how important this is for us.”

We gave him ten kwachas for his trouble, which he was pumped with.

Sometimes you get lucky. We like Zambia 😁

Zimbabwe

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So we’re in Victoria Falls and have managed to score a super cheap camp site for $14 a night. Everywhere else was $60+ so we were pretty pumped! We are the only ones camping as it’s getting as low as 7 degrees over night but we’ve found sleeping in all our clothes seems to get us through…the things we do to save money!

Saving money on things like accommodation means we have more money to spend on experiences, which is the way we justified booking on to the champagne and sushi sunset cruise last night 😳

This is not the kind of thing we usually do but it was $12 and 14 people difference from the basic sunset cruise.

‘how many people are on the cheaper boat?’

’14’

‘how many on the super luxo one?’

‘0’

‘sold!’

We were the first to be picked up in a bus from our campsite and we proceeded to pick up the other 14 people from their luxury majestic hotels…it was pretty funny to think all those staying in the most expensive hotels in town were doing the cheaper boat and us two doing the luxo boat were staying in a tent!

Once we got to the river we were seperated on to the two boats and were greeted with champagne and snacks and taken to a beautiful old English style boat with leather couches and carpet while the rest had to cram onto a standard boat and had no champagne…they were all looking at us with envy and slight confusion. We were both in our puffer jackets and I had leggings, my trusty camo skirt that’s been around the world twice and motorbike boots on.

It was a really nice experience and we saw hippos, not much else but the sunset was beautiful. There was an open bar so we made the most of that although Dean did a much better job than me with and is suffering the consequences today – he even announced ‘NTD’ with a big grin (night time dean for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him) which was concerning as it was still day time… I don’t think the staff on the boat were used to having Australians on board and were a little shocked when we kept accepting more drinks…they actually stopped asking us so Dean had to go up to the bar for more…we put a good dent in their gin supply..!

We spent the day visiting the falls which I think were really beautiful except the spray/rain from the plunge pool was so heavy we couldn’t really see anything.

We got totally drenched despite having rain jackets on but I was very brave and didn’t try and run away from the rain like I usually do (there was nowhere to run!)

Today we head to Livingstone, Zambia where we plan on doing a safari in Chobe National Park. We have loved our short experience in Zimbabwe. The people are friendly and smiley and we have felt totally safe and welcome everywhere we’ve been.

Kruger

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I guess it’s time to start blogging! With lack of internet and motivation it’s hard to get my head into the space to write but I’ll give it a go!

From Johannesburg we headed straight for Nelspruit, a town near Kruger where we could rent a car. Seeing as we couldn’t ride Betsy through Kruger (as much as we’d love to!) we decided to hire a car and do a ‘self drive’ safari. It’s one of the only parks you can do this in Africa and also the cheapest way.

As we were doing it on the cheap we took our tent and booked a couple of nights in a couple of different sites in the park.

We were pretty excited driving into Kruger and over the two days we saw herds of elephants, giraffe, zebra, impala, wildebeest, buffalo, warthog and antelope.

We also saw rhinos, hippos and the best of all, a lion!

It’s amazing seeing these animals in the wild, I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn’t in a zoo! Prior to going to Kruger we had been told that it was over run with people and whenever you see an animal there will be at least 10 other cars there with you. While this was true at times we were also totally alone on many occasions… we decided to veer off the main road at one point and take a dirt road to our campsite. Whilst travelling at the usual 20/hour looking from side to side I glanced at the road ahead and saw a lion laying in the middle of the road. I was so excited and speechless I just started hitting Dean and pointing.

We both screamed and dean quickly closed our windows. I was hoping to see a lion but having one on the road in front of us with no one else around seemed like a dream! He just layed there watching us, looking around and yawning. So so cool! It was so tempting to lean out the window to take a photo but I couldn’t risk being one of those stupid people you read about… We had no way of getting past him and he seemed pretty content lying there so we just stared and waited. He eventually got up and strode away. We felt so lucky to have experienced that moment totally alone with a lion.

We made it to the camp just as the gates were closing for the night and ended up staying in a round thatched cabin. The next day we set out at 6.30am and drove until 5.30pm😳 We had another private interlude but this time with an elephant. We saw a lone elephant by the side of the road so I pulled over to watch him…. he then started walking straight for us…in hind site it was possibly a dangerous situation which I should have reversed out of but it was too exciting to leave so we stayed there with the windows down staring…as he got closer and closer we got a little nervous as he could have easily crushed the car or nudged us out of the way but luckily he decided to walk past…again, we were totally alone 😁

There was so much amazing wildlife in the park, and we had a fantastic time. We saw more than we expected to see and all up it cost us less than $300. We have a few other safaris pencilled in over the next couple of months so it will be interesting to see the difference of doing it on our own versus being guided.

Feeling very blessed 💕

Into Zimbabwe

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Micro blog.

Yesterday we crossed into Zimbabwe, the RSA side of the crossing took ten mins, but the Zimbabwe side was about 4 hours in line, dodging fixers, fighting other people from jumping queue, and trying to keep my sense of humour.

Eventually we were waved through and all was forgotten amidst the smiling friendly people saying hello.

The ride to Bulawayo was pretty flat and a little boring aside from the road stop wherever got our first real taste of African food, overcooked beef, a few slices of tomato and a big lump of pap (cassava) for $1. Mmmmm yummy.

Tonight we should arrive at Vic falls, long day ahead.

Love to all xxoo

Reunited!

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Today the three of us came together again 😁

We had one of those rare days where everything just worked…we found a cheap place to stay near the airport (where it didn’t feel we may get mugged), we received Betsy with minimal fuss and a sixteenth of the cost we were expecting and got her together within two hours and she started first time 😁

We spent the evening in our room re organising luggage and getting our gear together whilst streaming triple J. We did our first load of handwashing in the bath and cooked dinner in the room on our camping stove (because apparently it is possible to get mugged at night in this area)

I’ve realised I’ve packed too much, dean has realised how many hair products I’ve tried to hide in the pannier and I need to work out how to manage this issue…I think I’ll just blame stress and jet lag and go to bed and deal with it tomorrow! Hopefully he’ll forget about all of my ‘cremas’ after a good nights sleep 😉 Love xx

A Shaky Start

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Laying in bed writing this on my phone with Sal passed out next me, so don’t expect much…

The flight was 32hrs of long, uncomfortable, bored. Most of which was spent next to an overweight old lady who seemed to like leaning against me while she slept. She also really liked bad perfume. Yuck.

We spent an hour in the Joburg airport trying to find missing luggage and a fee free ATM, then had a mild panic attack at the hostel due to getting the exchange rate mixed up, (which was also the reason to spend an hour looking for a fee free atm).

It’s ten rand to one dollar, not three to one.  Stupid!!!

We’re still a bit bleary eyed today, which I’m blaming our little atm episode on…

We visited the Apartheid museum this afternoon (you think you have problems!???), but upon leaving realised it’s in a dodgy part of town and we didn’t have phone connection to order an uber… the taxis all looked like a one way ticket to stabbing-ville, so we went looking for wifi.

Long story short, three guys in cahoots somehow convinced us that we could buy a wifi pass at an atm (wtf?), one by one they wandered past and offered to help us, which ended up with Sal snatching the ATM card from me and running off, while one of them insisted that I’d broken the machine and needed to return with the card to fix it…  “um… I dont think it’s broken, um… I’m really tired… um… sorry if it is broken…”

Then we did something a little smarter and asked some security guards for help, eventually getting a cab back, and looking up “Jo’burg atm scam” …

Hey that’s exactly what happened to us!  WITHDRAW ALL THE MONEY AND CANCEL THE CARD RIGHT NOW!!!!!  Done.   I’m blaming it on the jetlag.

It’s the old rule, If you’re somewhere dodgy and someone offers to help you for no reason at all, don’t trust them.

I cant see anymore.  Need to go to sleep.  A LOT of noise coming from outside as the UEFA cup final is on tonight, I think someone just scored…

Goodnight world, we miss you xxoo

 

The End

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(just found this draft after 18 months at home… oops.)  Written while in London at the end of our trip in October 2016.

The last few days this has been running through my head

This is the end, beautiful friend
This is the end, my only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end.

So here we are in London, at the end of an amazing journey, getting ready to begin another one at home. The last 14 months have been quite extraordinary, and I feel truly blessed to have had the time, motivation and especially the most amazing travelling partner to have made this trip with, Betsy has been brilliant… and Sal isn’t bad either 😉

As we rode out of Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago, I had a bit of a wow moment with the realisation that this was the last time we’d be aboard Betsy in a foreign country. It was a cold Dutch morning and we were zooming along the icy freeway, but the sun broke through in spots, Betsy was purring and my heated grips were pouring energy into my cold hands.

For a little while it was complete bike Zen and I was king of the world, it was a moment of realisation that left me with a lump in my throat. We were going to arrive in London, in good health, good spirits, and even the bike was still running great. We’d done it.

Life doesnt get much better.

Then we (I!) missed 4 turns in a row on the 6 lane highway and had to make a 20km detour… (I find punching the tank to be quite therapeutic at these times).

Long distance motorcycle travel certainly isn’t for everyone, but I’ve learned that travel is never really rewarding unless it’s hard. If you can put up with the heat (or cold!), the long days battling insane traffic, the filthy rooms (or the tent!), the constant rhythm of arriving and leaving, and a complete lack of any creature comforts, then you can find a world of beautiful chaos filled with colourful foods, friendly people, absurd situations and amazing views.

This past year we’ve been fortunate enough to dive with the majestic manta rays in Indonesia, we’ve visited ancient temples in Cambodia, made fast friends and experienced extraordinary hospitality in all corners of the world. We battled the insane traffic of India and were rewarded with the seldom seen sights and sounds of the subcontinent, not always very nice, but absolutely unforgettable.

We’ve experienced the incredible bravery of the Pakistani military who guarded us from the Taliban as we travelled to China, we ate sheeps ass in Xing Xang, we were frozen solid in the highland grassy mountain passes of Kyrgyzstan but survived to see the most incredible scenery in the world. We spent a week following the Afghan border waving to small curious children and smiling shepherds, we followed the Silk road through the former glory of the blue city of Samarkhand, fought tooth and nail against corrupt police in Turkmenistan, and were befriended by countless people in Iran who showed us kindness that is sadly missing in our world.

We drank Prosecco in Prosecco, Valpolicella in Valpoolicella, Soave in Soave, Barolo in Barolo, Rioja in Rioja, and Bordeaux in Bordeaux!!

We slept in bamboo huts on the beach with million dollar views, $10 price tags and free bed bugs, we ate in roadside stalls where filthy shoeless children wash the plates in polluted river water, but they serve the best dahl and samosas you will ever find, we saw horses run wild in fairy tale landscapes and drank fermented mares milk from a pig’s carcass. Our hands and feet were frozen more times than I remember, and our eyes stung from the salt in the sweat pouring down our brows as we took in views of places and landscapes that will remain etched in our memories forever.

It’s been beautiful, it’s been horrible, it’s been brilliant, hard, fun, extraordinary, boring, frustrating, filthy, dusty, freezing, hot, non-stop adventure! It’s been EPIC.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning…

Friends family and laughter

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It’s Sally here (sorry mum 😉) writing what will probably be my last blog post 😢

We’ve finally made it to our destination in Essex, England where we’ve been spending time with my lovely family and getting Betsy ready for take off!

Prior to getting to England we spent some time in Holland which we absolutely loved ☺️

After the night we spent in a tree house we rode to Amsterdam to see our friend Deborah whom we met on the border of Cambodia and Laos during a stand off with some dodgy customs officers which in retrospect we are very happy happened!

A coffee break to escape the rain

A coffee break to escape the rain

As we were staying at Deb’s flat in Amsterdam we needed to get Betsy in an elevator so we could store her in the underground bicycle parking area… Maybe not something you are ‘supposed’ to do and certainly not a situation Betsy has been in before but we made it work (just) despite a few odd looks from other residents. Everyone in Holland is super cool though so we usually just got encouraging smiles 😊

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Once we were inside Deb’s flat, armed with wine, snacks and Jenga she told us that she was giving us her apartment for as long as we wanted it and was going to stay with a friend. This was so incredibly kind of her but we felt bad making her sleep elsewhere, besides, we wanted to hang out with her… We’ve had enough alone time!!

‘Stay here with us Deb!’ I said ‘I’ve had enough Dean time and he’s had enough Sally time’

We tried not to look to desperate for different company 😉

Due to her having to work she spent the first night with a friend and the rest of the weekend we hung out riding bikes, drinking, dancing and playing Jenga… It was lots of fun and so nice to see a different, more local side of Amsterdam.

Biking in the rain Amsterdam style

Biking in the rain Amsterdam style

 

Dean and Deb

Dean and Deb

I was a little scared of the Dean + booze + bicycle combination after our ‘incidents’ in Italy but he managed to keep it together and it was me that got very drunk and went tumbling off the back of a bike on to the road…. Apparently I rolled and jumped straight up and back on the bike so no blood or bruises and police were avoided (unlike the ‘incidents’ in Italy…). The guy riding the bike I fell off of wasn’t so impressed with my gymnastics and told me I wasn’t allowed to ride with him again. I didn’t blame him even though I thought I was managing quite well!

The begginings of another Jenga game

The begginings of another Jenga game

The beginnings of a big night!

The beginnings of a big night!

We sadly left Deb’s place and rode to Bruges in Belgium which is a cute medieval town where we spent the night walking around trying the local beers and feeling a little sad that it was our last night on the road but also happy to be getting ready for the trip home.

Bruges

Bruges

We made our way to Calais the next day with plenty of time up our sleeves for the ferry to England. We’d heard about ‘The jungle’ which is what they’ve named the refugee camp there and  heard there may be delays.

We rode past ‘The jungle’ which was a pretty sad sight and the smell of burning rubbish reminded us of India. It makes everything so much more real when you see the reality that these people live in everyday surrounded by barbed wire.

'The Jungle' surrounded by barbed wire

‘The Jungle’ surrounded by barbed wire

Calais was dead so we had no delays, in fact we got an earlier boat. This allowed us time to have lunch in an English pub before heading to Essex and spending the evening laughing, talking and eating pizza with my lovely aunt, cousins and their respective partners ❤️

Dean cleaning the bike...

Dean cleaning the bike…

The last two days have been spent cleaning every millimetre of Betsy and all that she contains ready for Australian quarantine. She is now sparkly and shiny and all we have to do now is pray for no rain on Monday when we take her 150km to Surrey to the freight company who are putting her on a plane to Melbourne…. hopefully, fingers crossed, in time to meet us!

CZ, DE and NL

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Well, we’re a little behind here, so where do I start?

The ride from Austria to Prague was not much fun, it was raining when we left the KTM factory, and it was still raining when we arrived in Prague, my heated handlebar grips were not working so my hands were like ice all day, and we did half of it on very slow b r0ads to avoid buying a vignette in Austria.

Then Prague, we stayed for three nights in two different places, we drank in cool little underground bars, listened to some blues (jazz???) music in a restaurant over dinner…

pretty hard going for the beer drinkers!

pretty hard going for the beer drinkers!

we walked about a million kilometers around the city, saw the famous bridge with the saints looking down on us, visited an amazing church in the middle of the old palace,

The chrush in the palace of Prague

The chrush in the palace of Prague

amazing from the inside!!

amazing from the inside!!

and generally just bummed around for a few days.

just another square in Prague

just another square in Prague

From there we rode to Berlin via Dresden where we camped the first night in really cold and rainy conditions, and subsequently booked a room in a crappy hotel near the train station (they are always the worst!).  Dresden was heavily bombed by the allies in WW2, apparently quite controversially, but the result was about 80% of the buildings destroyed.  Considering the remaining buildings, it must have been an amazingly beautiful city, as it’s still quite grand today.

Just another lovely old building in Dresden

Just another lovely old building in Dresden

From there a quick 200km ride to Berlin, where we booked ourselves into a strange little hotel, consisting of converted shipping containers, and tiny little boxes just big enough for a bed, spread over an area that looked like it could house an electro dance party.  Of course we were in half of one of the containers, which we shared with some chain smoking men for 2 of the 4 nights, resulting in our room full of smoke too, we weren’t impressed.

The remains of the Berlin wall

The remains of the Berlin wall

 

Berlin was really interesting, we spent most of our time there in museums and exhibitions learning about the history of Germany, the 2 world wars, the plight of the Jews in WW2, and the Cold War.  Really lighthearted stuff!!

The Reichsteig????, Hitlers favourite place to scream at people from.

The Reichsteig????, Hitlers favourite place to scream at people from.

We also ate in the same Italian restaurant three times for dinner, I’m not sure if that’s a poor refelction of german food or our desire to look for it, anyway…

The Victory monument, I'm not sure what they won...

The Victory monument, I’m not sure what they won…

From Berlin it was a windy 7 hour ride to Ultrecht in The Netherlands (40km from Amsterdam).  We stopped half way for a break and some wifi at a roadhouseand found a treehouse for 20euro in a campsite 5km from the centre.  Great!

The view from our treehouse :)

The view from our treehouse 🙂

The treehouse was small but dry, and the city was surprisingly bustly, with a lovely old quarter, some really cool pubs and nice restaurants.  This afternoon we left there and rode to Amsterdam, where I’m now sitting in a bar around the corner from our friend Deb’s house.  We’re here for a few days before the last little leg to Calais and the ferry crossing to the UK.

Sal tells me sadly that we only have another 570km to reach London, it’s all coming to an end  🙁

Austria

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The three of us x

The three of us x

So here we are in Salzburg, Austria! The birth place of Mozart, the setting for the Sound Of Music and the home to KTM, the birth place of Betsy!

Actually we are a little north of there in a place called Mattighofen but it sounded like a good intro so I went for it…

motogp madness!

motogp madness!

After a crazy weekend with Paul at the MotoGP we spent the next 5 days trying to get over it at Dean’s cousin Chiara’s house with Dario and Bianca. As always its super hard to pull ourselves away from the homes and families that people welcome us into, but it’s all part of travelling!

Chiara, Bianca and Dario xx

Chiara, Bianca and Dario xx

With tears in our eyes we sadly left Italy, its Apertivos, good food and ridiculously beautiful scenery and headed north through a more German Italy into Austria.

It seems that the autumn switch has been flicked over night and we are now rugged up and cold trying to avoid grey clouds and rain storms – pretty miserable riding conditions.

Austrian scenery

Austrian scenery

We managed to avoid getting much rain riding into Austria, which we were very thankful for as it was beautiful going up and over the Brenner pass. Unfortunately however, after a long tiring day, when we arrived at the campsite we had marked for the night we found out that all the campsites in the area had closed as the season was over!

It then started to pour…

We knew that everything in Austria was expensive so we hadn’t even bothered trying to find any accommodation nearby, and with sunset only an hour away, no internet and rain, we were feeling pretty miserable and deflated.

Being tired wasn’t helping our decision making skills but we eventually decided to find a place to eat, get some internet (to look for alternative accomodation), get warm and dry, and then work it out.

Austrian home

Austrian home

After much deliberation, we had initially decided to go back and put our tent up in the rain (in the closed campsite) after dinner, but 2 glasses of wine, a beef goulash and schnitzel later, Dean then found a hotel down the road with a price that we could talk ourselves into.

Anyway, we didn’t fancy having to put a wet tent away and wet riding suits back on to ride to the KTM factory in the morning.

We felt even more justified when we woke up and realised it had been raining hard all night and was going to continue to do so all day.

Unfortunately due to the weather and the expense of everything, we decided there wasn’t much point spending another night in Austria if it meant we had to spend the whole day in a hotel room  – so instead we rode though to Prague, stoppinh only for our tour of the KTM factory.

The KTM factory tour may not have been the romantic image we had in mind, but it was interesting to see where Betsy came from. I’m sure Dean would have more to say here but I can’t wait any longer for him to write about it J

getting excited!

getting excited!

We are now in Prague where the rain has stopped, the sky is blue and it has that beautiful autumn feel about it. We only have a few more riding days left before we get to the UK which we plan to get to in less than two weeks so we are going to take our time and enjoy our last days in Europe and our last days of this epic trip.

While we are both excited to see family and friends there is also the sad reality that it is all coming to an end…