It is now just 4 weeks until Duncan and I depart to Cairo for our 80 day trip, riding Cairo to Cape Town with 7 other adventurers from Australia, France, Canada and USA. The last couple of months have sped by in a flurry of preparations including getting the bikes ready to ship, buying spares … More The countdown to Africa…
We left Part 2 Bear Spray, Eh? at the point of commencing our Banff rest day, which turned out to be the only day of the trip that the motorcycles were not pressured into taking us anywhere. Laundry normally takes precedence over all other rest day activity, but fortunately a full express service was discovered … More Part 3 – Don’t Pay the Ferryman
We left Part 1 IPA in the USA at the point of impending departure from the very budget motel in Lewiston Idaho on day six of the adventure to continue east on Highway 12. It is unlikely that any day of the trip had been so thoroughly scrutinised, analysed, Google Earthed and finally coin-tossed, due … More Part 2 – Bear Spray Eh?
The reason for our two week riding holiday in western USA and Canada actually began 100 years ago on the 1st July 1916 in Picardy, north eastern France. At 7:30 in the morning, the battle of the Somme commenced after a week of intense bombardment of the well-prepared German lines just east of Albert, with … More Part 1 – IPA in the USA
Stories of pumas and panthers wandering the outer urban and rural areas of Australia abound. Most have heard the rumours; the large felines were brought over by American soldiers in WW2 and were released, they escaped from a zoo, or they were the result of a crazy cat lady’s pet numbers reaching critical mass. Rarely … More The Black Panther Tour
On Monday 2nd November 2015 twenty of the survivors from Simon Pavey’s Off-Road Skills course headed out from Launceston on the five day ride-out around Tasmania, the group representing about a million dollars of mobile BMW revenue. As there was only one rider joining us who hadn’t done the training, we maintained our course level … More Finding the Tasmanian Tiger – Part 2
The Off Road Skills course run by ten-time Dakar champion Simon Pavey and organised by Compass Expeditions is now an annual event in Australia. Cindy and I did the course late 2014 in Mansfield which gave us very good preparation for our nine day Chile trip in January 2015. In late 2015 we signed on for a … More Finding the Tasmanian Tiger – Part 1
Saturday 25th of July 2015 is a day that will live in infamy for me. The day started early but not particularly bright with Cindy and me meeting the Warrego riders group in Toowoomba, for a planned weekend trip led by Luke Buenen and Dave Pidcock via mainly dirt roads down to Grafton. It had … More Back on the Horse in Cowboy Country
Before taking the tour in Chile, we had told people that we were riding motorcycles in a foreign country on the wrong side of the road, so couldn’t see what could possibly go wrong. In fact, the Chilean roads in the district were normally very good quality, and many of the drivers on the Bruce … More Chilling in Chile – The Trip
It is mid 2014 and Cindy and I had only recently returned to motorcycling after nearly 20 years hiatus. Cindy was riding a F650GS so at least looked the part for adventure touring, while I had a Triumph Street Triple, a model generally considered sub-optimal for powering through deep gravel. My previous off-road jaunt … More Chilling in Chile – the preparation
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