Tacos Tyring Travels

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2011-01-10T08:16:00.002+10:00

So far only Blondes on Bikes, Dublin to Vladivostok. Click on 'tmotten' to go to the channel for full size and to see the list.

2008/09 South America on 2 BMW F650's (Part 1)

2009-03-09T10:15:00.007+10:00

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We finally touched down after stopovers in Sydney, Auckland and Santiago. The chick at Flight centre assured us there wouldn’t be one at Auckland, but it wasn’t so. Not impressed…..

Clearing custom the day after we arrive wasn’t too bad. One of the staff saw it all through, so all we had to do was pay. And plenty of it. An extra USD350+ which we didn’t know about. Ouch. All up the finances aren’t looking good. The crash of the Aussie dollar is really hurting, and we may only make it to Quito in Ecuador where the bikes may have to go on a boat back.
My precious crash bars didn’t survive the flight too well. I reckon the boys in Santiago who had to swap airline pallets tightened the tie-downs so tight, that it complete buckled one of mine. I thought of getting it fixed, but now really can’t be bothered. I’ll have to make another one when I get back.

So it’s now day 4 and I’m still trying to get used to this again. Doesn’t help that the first few thousand kilometres are going through a landscape similar to the Nullarbor in Australia.

It´s not always this green.

So not a very nice introduction.

Not helped by the 2 punctures we’ve had already. Both on the same wheel. Well, it’s actually 3 punctures, but the I’m not counting one of them because that was due to me pinching the tube trying to get it back on. Luckily for me there was a tyre repair dude nearby. But 30km down the road it went flat again. Only this time in the middle of nowhere. So we decided to swap the tube all together. A bit of a worry really, because that’s our only spare and we couldn’t find what caused it. No visible hole in the tube and no sign of anything on the inside of the tyre. Hmmm. So now we’re looking for a 17¨ tube for a spare and hope we can make the one on the wheel last. We’ll put another patch on the broken tube, but it’s the fourth on that one so it’s pretty much a goner.

We’ve found a few camps on the side of the road.

Looking for a suitable site. Jeez this thing is heavy.

On this site we were visited by the local police and the landowner telling us to leave. But after some chatting he let us stay providing we would be gone by sunset.

So far the food has been disappointing, and this place was a prime example.

Today though we camped at this lovely spot by a river. The town surprised us with a great bakery and nice tree lined streets.

So we finally crossed the barren landscape the Argentineans call La Pampa and arrives in the Lake District. You know it’s bad and with a lot of it when the locals have a name for it.

Because it’s so flat and barren, it’s sweltering hot and very windy. And because the bikes are so heavily laden, they are producing a lot more vibes through the foot pegs. So much so that doing 100km produce sores on my foot from banging up against the boots.

We finally reached a river which meant some more options for camp sites. They are crazy about fencing here, and finding somewhere to pitch your tent is a real hassle. We’ve had a visit by a land owner and the coppers already. Luckily I managed to talk the owner into letting us stay until sunrise. But you look around at the waste land they own, and wonder why they care.

These guys were really nice though, and pointed us to the camp site.

The flat La Pampa gave way to some hilly La Pampa, which meant that the lake district was near.

Finally some green on our way to San Carlos de Bariloche.

We stayed in town for one night, arriving late. And set off to San Martin de Los Andes along a dirt road running right through the guts of the National Park Nahuel Huapi.

We hit our first proper gravel road, and it was tough going. It was freshly laid, and we’re not that strong through this stuff as it is.

The views were so stunning, we were in no rush anyway.

They serve some mean flesh out here.

Although it´s very cold at night, the campsites are awesome.

The route to SM de los Andes, was going to spit us back out onto Ruta 40 which runs from the north-east of Argentina to the southern tip of it. We took it back to Bariloche for a day off. Normally we arrive late for a night, and ride out again in the morning. But this time we thought we’d use the opportunity for doing some laundry.

And eating some cheesy fondu.

We arrived just a bit too late for this history show they put on, but it was pretty cool seeing an endless string of all these guys in their traditional kit riding out of town.

From Bariloche we headed south along the famed Ruta 40. I’ve never heard of it before I started researching this trip, but apparently it’s similar in fame to Route 66.

I try not to research to much normally to keep that sense of discovery, and you always end up changing your mind anyway. In this case I noticed on the map that there was another national park between Bariloche and the route south. Luckily enough, because it has become a bit of a highlight.
The park (Parque Nacional Lago Puelo) is set amongst these snow covered mountains with a bunch of lakes in it.

The road through it is all dirt.

We found an awesome camp site here. To me it´s the best of all our travels. We shared it with this crazy Polish couple who were cycling around the world for the last two years. They moved up the lake a bit, so it still felt like we had the place to ourselves. But the company was really nice so we went to get a bottle of vino to share around a camp fire. Magic.

The photo´s never do it justice, but you get the picture.

The riding here was great.

The park spits you out back onto Ruta 40 and it become very barren again.

We thought camping was going to be a problem again, but we weren´t surprised with a police visit this time.

The first day of proper dirt riding over Ruta 40 was just brilliant. I loved every minute of it. The bikes are performing as they should, and you really don’t notice the luggage much at all. Mine weighs 275kg + fuel and water, but we were flying over this stuff at 80-100km/h without problems.

The further south it went, the more the straights became twisties.

The south of Argentina is famous for the prevailing winds. It’s where the Pacific winds cross over land to the Atlantic. And they blow fierce. Hence these signs. This is what day 2 of the big push towards the Glaciers National Park was going to bring us.

With the winds it was really like there were 2 people riding the bike. Note on the picture that although I’m turning into a left turn, I’m still pushing the bike to the right. At one point I got blown of the road.

The scenery started to change further south from steppe to more lunar type landscapes.

Being more and more remote, we had to increasingly keep an eye on our fuel range. This town of 100 had one restaurant, one shop and one fuel station. And all in run by the same bloke. But he had a proper coffee machine, so we were happy.

We encountered quite a bit of wildlife. I´ve had two armadillo´s cross in front of me, at least 10 rhea´s which are like an emu or ostrich. Beautifull to see them run. And off course a few Llama relatives. Not sure if they are Vicuna's or Guanaco's.

The ripio (what they call a gravel or dirt road here) lasted untill the tiny town of Tres Lagos from where the bitumen lead you all the way to either the tourist towns of El Chalten, or El Calafate. We chose to drop into El Chalten first. The weather was really shitty here. The hostel owner told us that the town wasn´t built in the best possible location, as the weather is always better just outside of town.

This is the road leading in to it.

We only stayed a night there as we´d come back to see if we would be able to cross into Chile from here. Something that as far as I now had never been done on a motorbike because it´s really a horse track between 2 lakes. Sounds like a challenge to me.

The road to El Calafate (largely Ruta 40 again) is almost entirely paved, but we enjoyed the dirt sections the most. Helped that these were the least wind swepped sections.

The glacial lakes here have this vivid turquoise colour.

The only real reason for El Calafate to exist is the glacier Perito Moreno. It´s massive. 50-55 metres high........ and a bit nippy.

2008/09 South America on 2 BMW F650's (Part 2)

2009-03-09T10:12:00.003+10:00

After getting sick of all that pizza and wifi everywhere, it was time to make a move towards Chile and the Torres Del Paine.

This national park is in Chile, so it was going to be our first border crossing on the continent. And it turned out to be very easy. No issues with our very basic bike papers or anything.

The road in and to the national park is all dirt, so it became quite an eventfull ride.

After about 90 km to the entrance of the park you pay your 20 Aussie dollars and you ride wherever you want to along the few dirt routes. It’s all quite well setup really and offered some awesome dirt riding.

The mountains are these bunch of wind carved jagged peaks which has some walking trails in and around it. But to accommodate the tour buses, they also built these dirt routes around it, although nowhere near as many as the walking trails, which get much closer.

Awesome riding though.

We figured that we’d take 2 nights at one of the camp sites available. These offer the required tent shelters. Because the winds can reach up to 300km/h (in winter) there are a real necessity for camping around here. No rough camping allowed anyway.
On this campsite we were visited by a Puma, and judging by the staff’s reaction this doesn’t happen very often.

They first saw it on the ridge, but because they chased it up there, it turned into the camp site and walked right passed our parked bikes. Luckily Mars wasn’t there, because I was on my way getting beers when we saw it.

We are parked just on the other side of that dirt path.

It walked across the road into the mountains after that.

The weather was much improved after the cloudy and windy day before, and we did a bit of riding around the park.

Our next plan was to ride the Carreterra Austral in Chile north to Santiago. Unfortunately, due to all the glaciers and mountains, this part of Chile is separated from the rest and only accessible via boat to the north, or by road via Argentina the way we came. So we had to get backtrack into Argentina and find another border crossing into Chile. Unlucky for us the border crossing we had in mind is currently not accessible by motorbikes. We had planned to take a ferry across Lago Desertio near El Chalten, but we met some cyclists that did that and they mentioned mud up to the knees and thick trees fallen onto the horse trail. So we now had to try and see if there was another ferry crossing across the larger Lago Villa O´Higgins which required us to drive all the way back to Tres Lagos.

Again unluckily, the wind was twice as bad as before, and we were really getting blown of the road at times.
Some of it was dirt, but as if it was planned, they were the least windy sections and are a lot of fun.

In Tres Lagos they told us that the ferry we saw on a map didn’t operate anymore, which meant we had to backtrack another 300 odd km along Ruta 40 to Baja Caracoles.

Where I had a great time riding days before, now it was pure misery. The winds were so strong that you couldn’t stay in the wheel tracks and at every gust we were blown into the deep pebbles on the side of it which sent you off the road due to the lack of traction for the next gust.

Just minutes before we arrived at Baja Caracoles, Mars had her second drop doing a U-turn. The first one was scraping a car, but the driver didn’t care less about that one. Mars was less impressed with this one. But she hides it well, eh?

From Baja Caracoles you can take a little track (Ruta 41) to the border. This was a fantastic dirt ride. The track was in a lot better condition and became a windy 4WD track towards the border which just begged to be flown over.

The border was again very simple, with even less paperwork. The weather became a bit rainy though, but the Chilean border guard offered us a cup of Nescafe to warm up. Can’t say I’ve ever had anything like that happen before.
We plugged in our modified heated jackets and put on our rain gear and away we went into Chile. That heated clothing thing is just fantastic. Can’t rave about it enough. I bought a Gerbing battery heated vest and found they used heated pads kept in little pockets. All the other gear is resistance wire sewn into the usually crappy fabric. But with this we would be able to sew pockets into our windproof soft-shell jackets and we’d have 2 in 1. I also asked a mate at work who’s an electrical engineer to built me a 7.4v - 12v converter. This way we could run it straight of the bike and leave the battery to warm up the sleeping bag at night if things get really cold. It’s now summer anywhere we go.

It all improved on the other side of the pass, and it then became all about dodging Guanaco’s. Whole herds of them hanging out in the background.

Mars noticed a crack in her pannier though, so we needed to be on the lookout for an aluminium welder somewhere.

Cochrane, the first town we’d visit, didn’t have any. But we were told that Coyhaique 350km odd up the road would.

At the outskirts of Cochrane we met 2 Brazilian and 1 South African bikers and they had some good news on the purchasing tyres issue. Osorna had everything we would need, and luckily for us it´s right at the end of the Carreterra Austral.

The Carreterra Austral was meant to be gorgeous, but besides the areas around Cochrane I thought is wasn’t living up the reputation. The condition of the road is really bad but due to the blind corners it doesn’t allow you to ride aggressively.

At a place where we had lunch the owner told us about this road up a river valley which he said would be awesome. But besides the camp site we found it wasn’t all that really.

Some glaciers up in the mountains.

It was a cold night, but the morning scenery made up for it.

The rest of the day did offer some great views along the lakes.

The pavement starts in the last tiny town 100 odd km before Coyhaique and becomes this race track of concrete for a section of it. But than it turns to bitumen all the way through a valley that had me wonder if I was in the European Alps and almost thought about popping into my folks for a coffee. But reality kicked in and we rode into Coyhaique and the fun of finding and haggling for hotels was to start.

After a day off we packed everything up to leave town. But as we did that we found the cause of the noises on my bike. The top box was just too heavy for the little frame holding it.

So I dismantled the rear of the bike and got it welded along with Mars´ pannier by the only Aluminium welder in town. But he didn’t use a TIG or MIG, so I’m not quite sure how he managed. The little frame looked pretty good after the repair.

Mars´ bike which I used for transport didn’t sound all that hot either. It actually had more rattles than mine, so there were even most spanners to be turned. A few loose and missing bolts, but no damage.

Besides a nice area around Cochrane, we weren’t very inspired by the Carretera Austral. The scenery wasn’t all that great to live up to the hype and the road is in a crap condition to be a fun dirt ride.

Just outside of town the valley was in full bloom.

Things then got tighter and often became single lane, 2 way.

Mars scared and hiding from the rumbles of the nearby glaciers and potholes.

Not far down the road Mars had here second ever puncture caused by one of those potholes.

So the lookout was now for some shade so I could repair it. There was nothing road side and it was stinking hot, but a local dairy farmer took pity on us and let us do it on the side of his shaded farm road.

The puncture was a beauty. It ripped a nice hole into Mars´ tyre. Luckily for her this tyre only needed to finish the Carretera Austral as new tyres were on the horizon in Osorno.

The ferry to Puerto Montt leaves from Chaiten which only months ago became a ghost town after the nearby volcano erupted leaving the whole place covered in ash. Only weeks ago no-one was allowed to stay here. But someone challenged this in the courts and it got overruled. Luckily for us because there is no fuel nearby and the ferry in only twice a week.

There is only one place to stay with a few more probably opening back up soon. No restaurants or café’s though, so the only open shop and the hostess´ cooking is all you have to food.

We had a day and a half of waiting to do, and went completely stir crazy. So when that ferry was ready to leave, so were we.

The ferry seemed to take forever, but then again I’ve never really had sea legs and the patience for being on a boat for ages. It finally popped us off in Puerto Montt.
We headed straight to Osorno to find some tyres which we’ve been told about back on the Carretera Austral over the famed Pan American Highway.

In Osorno Mars noticed that her shock had transformed itself into a pogo stick. This revelation made me less than happy because those shocks were specially purchased to fit the trip with all it´s bad roads and heavy luggage. Karma I suppose. So to the internet cafe with us and luckily the people at Wilbers and their representatives were super quick with information and directed me to their rep. in Santiago where they would be able to repair it under warranty.

The PanAm Hwy takes you past the the lake district which is littered with volcanos.

We went off the PanAm to get a bit closer to the lakes looking for a camp site near Villarica. Taking the right turnoff proved a bit problematic but the philosophy of keeping your luggage as narrow as possible pays off in more ways than one.

The race to Santiago meant that we wouldn’t always have the opportunity of finding nice camp sites. Sometimes you just end up having to the pitch tent next to a servo.

Once in Santiago we fought a hair raising battle with local peak traffic the worst we’ve ever experienced and this time with a bouncing bike with a Mars on it. Who in town centre decided to run an amber light just as I had both front and rear ABS brakes kick in which stopped me with screaming tyres. She ran into my left pannier taking a chunk out of it and falling over the raised pavement markers centimetres from a near brand new Discovery 3. Luckily she was fine and showing a smile about it all.

In town we found a student house which lets out rooms when available to travellers and kindly let us park our bikes in their foyer.

We thought a few beers would finish the day off nicely.

We found Carlos from Wilbers who besides representing Wilbers also sells hard to find accessories as well as clothing, luggage and runs his own repair shop. All from his house.

Because it was late Friday we thought we’d spend the weekend in Valparaiso so that we wouldn’t be trapped in Santiago for too long.

We headed for the square and found our way from there.

It’s not a bad town really which is heritage listed.

And we happily did the tourist thing for a day. But that´s about as much as we could muster though.

Plenty of time for some beers. Gotta love a girl who appreciates jugs.

Back in Santiago I removed the broken shock and let him have a sticky at it.

Carlos found that the shaft had jammed itself into the seal and become stuck in it. Very rare apparently but bad timing for us. Could it have been the volcanic ashes? But mine is fine and we crawled through it to not kick it up. Who knows.

I kept the seal as a souvenir.

Keen to get back on the road we took off and crossed the pass into Argentina near the city of Mendoza famous for its wine.

This area is hot..... and windy. We figured that Argentina must mean ´hot and windy place´ in some local language. It must have been easily near the 40´s C. Beautifull though.

2008/09 South America on 2 BMW F650's (Part 3)

2009-03-09T10:08:00.002+10:00

We missed the turn off for the famous ´Puenta del Inca´ but due to the heat we couldn’t be bothered turning around.

This place is littered with cacti. This one reminded me of something else.

I thought this one was a bit rude.

The road became long and straight again.

And dead quiet.

We were on our way to Salta where we would have our replacement phone sim card sent to. The route to Salta takes you through all sorts of towns, big and small. This one named Londres (Spanish for London) kept us in the dark about which way to go. Getting directions was a bit problematic.

We found this awesome camp site on a river bed. Jeez it was nice to stick our feet in soft sand again.

The roads became a bit boring after a while....

and because everyone referred to us as the riders in black we became inspired to give them what they wanted and gladly started posing as Power Rangers.

The road became twisty again towards Cafayate which surprised us how much of a tourist town it was.
Good place to have a coffee though.

The road between Cafayate and Salta is this awesome twisty road through these beautiful valleys lined with stunning rock formations.

It wasn’t too hot and zipping through these twisty turns was just a great surprise and change.

It all ended when we entered Salta.
As usual finding the main square was pretty easy and it´s always a good reason to stop for a cuppa.

Everywhere along our trip people asked us if we were contesting in the Dakar Rally, but the people of Salta took it a step further and celebrated the arrival of the first contestants with a parade through the streets passing the bikes in honour.

We didn’t have the heart to tell them we’re not doing it this year. Maybe the next.

Because the Sim card hadn’t arrived yet we thought we’d take the opportunity to ride out to Iruya where the Guinness add was filmed. The one with the massive pint glass made of books that gets set off by a domino off all this local crap lying around.
Anyway. The road takes your across the tropic of Capricorn.

The weather became worse the further north we went. And although we were lucky by not having any rain during the day, we had our fist proper rain storm that night. We found a camp site along the side of the road littered with cacti and other thorny scrub. So we had to be careful finding our way through it.

They are really everywhere.

Handy place to dry your thongs though.

The next morning we met an Argentinean biker from Ushuaia (the southern most city in the world) on his way back there from a trip including Bolivia. He had some good info for us and we were already looking forward to that place.

As the clouds starting coming in we took the turn off from Ruta 9 to Iruya. The scenery became very alpine.

You do have to endure the occasional dickhead though. Two in this case.

This area must have seen consistent rain for a while because the dirt turned to mud a lot.

With heaps of crossings.

And then it became just riverbed.

This road was a dead end road to Iruya so we’d have to return this way again. My GPS showed that we’d done several km’s of this stuff already and there was at least 20-30 more of it until it would cross a larger creek. With the clouds starting to let go some thunder and us being knackered, we decided to turn around.

We got to test our rain gear at least.

So after spending Christmas in Salta, we´ll be spending New Years here as well. At least I get to set off some fireworks just like back home in Holland. All in all, it´s not a bad place to be holed up in.

The memory of being stuck in Almaty in Kazakhstan is still very fresh in our mind.

It felt great to finally be on the road again. We’re not that great at sitting still. We took Route 9 the way we came back from our failed attempt to conquer the road to Iruya. This time it didn’t rain. It’s a nice ride really. Nice and green, a pleasant change.

There was going to be no sitting around sipping latté’s until we’d hit San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. The aim was to cross the famed Paso de Jama. To get there you go over several passes and it was beginning to get cold.

Argentina has it’s own salt lake (as does Chile) but it’s no patch on the Salar in Bolivia. It’s set in this eerie valley that as luck would have it would be our camp site.

It felt like there was no-one and nothing for miles around, and being low on fuel didn’t help the eeriness. Nice sun set though.

We felt hardcore in the morning though. Funny that, eh.

The border post surprised us with this massive queue.

But they finally decided to open a separate desk for private vehicles. So it was time to conquer the pass.

The colours were just beautiful, and we were getting very excited about the Bolivian Altiplano. (BTW, the pass it fully paved. Just couldn’t resist to pose on the dirt).

The pass peaks at 4830m, and I have to say. Again we felt justified to choose the so called unreliable F650 for our travel bikes. FI is awesome. It´s like you’re riding a diesel. You turn the throttle and nothing happens. On the steep sections I had to down shift, but it purred like at sea level. A bit harder to start though, due to the narrow air intake, but it gets there every time.

In town we found some nice parking for the hard working beasts.

The town itself surprised us as well. It’s a collection of tourist tack shops, tour agents, money changers and pizza restaurants.

Mars had come down with what we thought was a bladder infection and was on sickening antibiotics for a few days now, but it didn’t seem to lift. We did a bit of homework, and we found that it can become rather serious, so we decided to head to the hospital in Calama and hour out of town.

The road passes the Valle de Luna (Lunar Valley) which I had completely forgotten about. Again you have to go over a pass to get into another valley towards Calama.

It’s a desert really. I think it marks the start for the Atacama Desert. No trip goes without visiting a desert it seems.

While waiting for the necessary tests we decided to head into the Valle de Luna, which made for a nice day trip.

The doctor who saw us spoke reasonable but broken English, and said that the drugs we had taken is considered immune for this infection in Chile and gave Mars these other ones. These ones make her twice as sick unfortunately. The list of side effects is pretty rough. So heading into Bolivia’s altiplano was going to be no picnic, but she wanted to keep moving none the less. Hopefully these pills would kick it.

The first attraction on offer was Laguna Verde. We nearly missed it, and actually lost the track going to it. So after a bit of off piste action we were back on track.

Or several tracks really. All as bad as each other. Often heavily corrugated, but also often loose sandy/ gravelly soil. Weird really. Definitely the worst and deepest corrugation we’ve seen. Worse than Kazakhstan (although there it’s the huge crater potholes on the once paved roads that are the killer) and Mongolia. So deep that we couldn’t speed over it, although the big sandy section made sure of that. Luckily the whole bit was within our fuel range anyway.

It is absolutely stunning there though. The colours are so vivid. So we didn’t mind going slow.

Sometimes there is a track though. This one is on the way to the customs office, which is 14 or so kilometres from the immigrations office because of a mine. Must be keen to get those taxes, eh. The customs happens to be at an elevation of 5024m. Unbelievable, and a record for us that will remain for some time I reckon. Getting off the bike makes you short of breath. We had to actually find an officer, but in the absence of one a helpful mine workers gave us the forms and even stamped it for us!!!!

Second attraction (yep, it’s a national park with all this listed out) are some hot springs. But as we arrive there was a whole bus of backpackers hanging out in it, so I took a miss. It’s a concrete pool, not a natural rock pool, for all you romantics.

2008/09 South America on 2 BMW F650's (Part 4)

2009-03-09T09:41:00.013+10:00

We did have a yarn with some fellow bikers though.

This is a big bike route. We had already met some guys on F650 GS´s, Transalp and even and HP2 that turned back due to the heavy corrugation.

We had enough energy for a Power Rangers pose though. Just.

The last bit to Laguna Colorada proved to be the hardest bit. It’s always the last bit, isn’t it. Mars had a big stack and was caught under neigh the 280 kg bike for as long as it took me to u-turn in it to get back to her. She had hurt her ankle rather badly judging by her reaction. She always gets up and dusts herself off and keeps a brave face not wanting to be the wimpy girl amongst men, but she struggled standing on it, and changing gear was painful.

As always the war story is not substantiated by the photo because it never looks as bad, but your foot disappears in this stuff on the sides of the wheel track when you put it down. Makes for interesting moments at photo stops.

We didn´t think much of Laguna Colorada, but it has a hostal to prevent having to camp in the freezing conditions.

We were told that the next section to Villa Alota would be just a bad or worse. It started off nicely, with more soft sandy tracks. Mars was to set the pace, and it became a first and second gear affair.

The saddles between valleys are usually very rocky.

I had to put the kidney belt back on, because I really started to feel the constant bumping up and down. The sun is right above on this one. Even if Mars wasn’t injured, we wouldn’t have been able to fly over it. Would have a bike left other wise.

Stone tree. Couldn’t believe there is actually a parking sign near it.

When we came to the three Laguna’s , one of which called Hondo, we found this half finished eco hostel type place. My GPS showed my that the main road built by the mines to the coast of Chile wasn’t far, so we stopped to be cuppa and some directions. The bloke told me that indeed go that direction and you would find it. But for another 30 or k´s we rode on this 4WD track. Rocky at least, with one creek crossing for good practice. But we getting really low on fuel. Just after leaving the hotel place my light came on and I calculated that due to the low gears we got shocking mileage. There was a very good possibility that we wouldn’t have enough to get to Villa Alota, and we were starting to freak out silently. We passed no one for 4/5ths of it until finally we saw another 4WD with some backpackers on a tour of the Altiplano. The place is littered with it, which kind of ruins the in the middle of nowhere experience. You stop to have lunch, and 4 of them rock up. But this time it was a god sent. The bloke told me that all we had to do was to stick to this track and we’d find the main road. Villa Alota was according to him only 30-40 km, which may only have given us a 20km spare fuel range.

We did finally find it and managed to find some fuel in town. Out of a jerry can, but still, enough to get to Uyuni and the salt flat.

We thought it was time for some props.

We met 2 Mexicans and a English rider on 1200 GS´s. They were going to take the same route as we just did. The Mexican riders didn’t look very comfortable on the dirt, so I’m not sure how they went, but we made sure we’d pass on our experiences. They in turn told us that the salt flat was un-rideable. Ah well, we’d just hire a 4WD and ruin that instead. What about that Linox spray I had carted all the way from Aussie though???

The ride to Uyuni was all easy dirt riding really. Really dusty so I rode as close and next to Mars as I could. She had a newfound confidence and was flying. I kind of felt like we were doing a special in the rally really. Good fun.

In Uyuni we were again surprised by the size of tourism. Full of pizza places and backpackers. Not wanting to sit with 6 or 7 in a land cruiser we sussed out a few places for private tours instead. One told us of another couple also on a bike who had the same plan, so they hooked us up and that’s how we met Trevor (aka Sp4ce) and Nina. Regulars on ADVrider. http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=404564
We got on great and because they were going the way we came and we the way they came we were able to share all our experiences.

The tour first kicks you out at this train grave.

But than gets you onto the salar. Wet as…

Makes cool reflections though.

As a kid I’ve always seen discovery channel footage of the island in the middle being this desolate place. But a it turns out there is a bar (where Nina opted to get some coldies. Bless her for being the token alcy instead of me.), toilets, shop, registration office where you have to get a ticket, and heaps of salt tables for all the 4WD´s to parks their passengers for lunch.

They make sure you know who where you are.

A must do is taking photo’s of you balancing on things.

Mars preferred the all-fours option. Gotta love a girl like that. The things she won’t do for a Toblerone.

For some reason the Salar section has this hexagon pattern covering it.

Trevor and Nina wanted an operator who was willing to stay till sunset, and ours was apparently the only one.

It gets pretty cold pretty quick at this altitude.

From Uyuni we rode to Potosi, famous for being able o buy dynamite in the shops to give to the miners.

This was going to be our last dirt road in Bolivia and was really good.

We had some trouble find a decent hotel with parking, and because it was raining, and Mars feeling like crap we had to settle for this festy one. Being not very inspired and Mars not kicking the infection but sill getting sick each time taking the medication, w decided that we didn’t come here to buy dynamite but to ride. So riding we’d do.

Next stop….. La Paz.

Trevor warned us for La Paz, spending 2 hours finding a hotel and not finding that La Paz warrants the stay. So we decided to pass through on our way to Coroico. End point for the famed ´Camino de la Muerte´ or Road of Death. It’s now upgraded in certain sections and replaced in other sections so that there is not only about 40km left of it.

It starts off like this in the La Paz side of the pass, but the new section are an amazing piece of infrastructure. We did most of it in the fog, which was scary, but what we didn’t know was that the government somehow screwed up the signage. Leaving the exit of the through road with the main entrance road into the actuall town un-signed, meanwhile signing the back door entrance. At this point it was pitch dark, and all we could make out was that there were these collection of buildings lit on the top of the mountain. The track itself was paved with cobble stones and only wide enough for one car and no side barrier. So knowing that there was a steep to near vertical drop on the side of the track, we stuck to the inside like flies stick to shit. There were numerous switchbacks and the occasional washout leaving a bit hole giving you the occasional glimpse of the world below. We really wandered if this could really be the main route supplying a tourist town of a decent size, but we didn’t miss any turnoff. We were sure if it. We met a 4WD who asked us what the road was like, which didn’t help our worries, but finally there were some farm animals and buildings. The last section into the town felt like a bit of an achievement. As it turned out it wasn’t the main road at all, and asking why there was no sign for the main exit but there was one for the backdoor entrance, he made the stupid sign of the finger on the side of the head. Great. We went back to the end section (lazy) to see how bad it was, and even though the end section widened out, it was still pretty dodgy.

View down.

We spent two nights in Coroico to chill and suss out the story about the Road of Death, and found out that it’s now a tourist attraction with hundreds of backpackers going down it on mountain bike followed by a mini-bus with 100m long ropes in it. We did notice that half the traffic on the new road were those mini-buses on their way back to La Paz.. We met some of them and they told us that we should not try going up it during most of the hours around noon, because they come flying around the corners and we’d clean up a few. That put us in a predicament because we didn’t want to go back to the turn off on the La Paz side and go back to Coroico and back to La Paz because we didn’t want to have to stay there. Anyway, logistical problems aside, the decision was made for us in end as the morning of our departure it was pissing down, and the whole areas was covered in fog and reduced the dirt roads to mud. Bad luck, but we figured we had done our own road of death corny as may be.

The main road out of town reminded us how steep this area really is.

So, we’d push on to Copacabana on Lago Titicaca back up the new road of death, but perfectly safe.

There are tons of these suspended sections of road.

Lake Titicaca surprised me, because all I had ever seen of the place was the area near the reed islands. This area reminded us a bit of Wales or northern South Island New Zealand.

You cross the lake at it’s narrowest point on little wooden barges.

Mars worked hard keeping the bike upright.

Again we would run out of daylight, but were treated with a beautiful sunset.

We crossed the border into Peru and found the most meticulous customs officer on this trip. Luckily the friendliness we encountered from the Bolivians crossed the border into Peru, and this stall keeper made us feel very welcome.

We realised that we couldn't complete the planned route earlier on, so when we crossed into Peru we started getting used to the idea of finishing it off in Lima. Mars was still feeling crook from all the antibiotics, our finances were in tatters after the pound Stirling crashed and from what we heard, Lima would be the most obvious port to organise shipping from. So when we finally hit Cusco we thought it would be a good place to start asking for some quotes.

When we walked into TNT's office to see what the possibilities were, we didn't actually expect they'd handle 2 bikes. But their quote was actually pretty good, and the agent was filling us with confidence.

Cusco is the ancient capitol of the Inka culture, and is famous for it's original stone walls that have a slight incline.

We even had one of those walls in our hotel.

It's a real tourist town, with all the things you'd expect to keep the tourists occupied.

It's also the stepping stone for Machu Pichu. We didn't opt to get up extra early for the sunrise, which was a good thing.

The fog did start to lift though.

Until we got the famous view.

Arranging shipping in a country like Peru takes for ever, but we finally did end up at the crate building stage. Unfortunately for us the crate maker didn't know about the 'measure twice, cut once' mantra. So the first crate (my crate) was a mess compared to the second one. Must have learned his lesson with it.

This was halfway through. They tried to talk me out of putting up plywood around it, but after I saw their holding area I'm glad I kept my food down.

So away it was for us ourselves. Getting out of South America is a bit hit and miss with flights, so we ended up braking the golden rule when we left our bikes behind. Thoughts of finding them as parts on Ebay went through our minds.

Our flights took us back to Lima where they voted for a new constitution only a day before.

And a bit of hanging time in Buenos Aires.

So now we're back home and bike less. Well, I did manage to find a great deal on some trail bikes :), so not really bike less. No gear means no riding though. ;(
Should have it all back by the middle or end of April. Fingers crossed.

BMW F650 GS Dakar Modification (part 1)

2008-10-22T14:09:00.009+10:00

BIKE CHOICE

After looking back at the experiences from our last trip we came to the conclusion that spending heaps of money modifying a bike built in 1988 wasn't really that good of an idea. Parts are getting pretty expensive to get and never in stock. So upgrading to a new model was really the only thing left to do. We looked at the size first and still thought that a 650 single would be most suited. There were really 3 models we could look at.
The BMW F650 GS Dakar, the KTM 640 Adventure and the Suzuki DR650. Although the DR was by far the cheapest, it was also the oldest design, and really not a step up from the XT. I liked the KTM a lot, but it was too tall for Mars, so the F650 was really the only choice. On the plus side there was heaps of info about it on F650.com. It has fuel injecting, very comfortable and a modern design. So no more leaking fuel when it falls over and no more fuel taps. It's heaps more economical, has heaps of aluminium and plastics which is good when you live on the coast, has a 400w alternator and has a comfortable seat with the fuel tank right below it which is great for the low centre of gravity. It also makes working on the bike a bit more convenient as you don’t have to remove a tank full of fuel anymore. The motor is made by Rotax and apparently should be good for 200,000+km. In Australia it comes standard with ABS and heated grips as well as a hazard warning light. Nice when you have to pull up along the side of the road all the time (don't ask).

On the down side it is very heavy and has some weird design issues like it using a solid oil return hose to the oil tank, making it very difficult to change the water pump. And off course it's a BMW, so aesthetics is often more important than usability or ease of maintenance.
So, as good as it might be, there are always things you want to modify. And I had a list of things based on things I didn't like on the last trip.

ACCESSORY WIRING

First job was to do the wiring. This trip was going to be very cold in the mountains, so I wanted to add heaps of heat options. Last time we went with the heated vest option, but that didn't really do the trick. This time we're going with the standard heated grips, as well as heated socks, optional heated glove liners (I already own some, so might as well lay the wiring) and a plug for a heated vest that I already own.

Other items which I'm allowing for are:
1. Alarm and warning LED
2. LED's all over the rear and front to be noticed
3. Inverter (why take 12v chargers?)
4. Datel battery monitor (more later)
5. GPS
6. Spot lights for a wider light spread.
7. Horn upgrade (for blind turns)
8. And a general plug for things like battery charger or tyre pumps.

This is the resulting diagram that I came up with.

Here are a few pictures:

The additional fuse box. I just used another OEM one. Cheap and tiny.

The master relay and master fuse. I wanted everything to be off when the ignition is off.
Unfortunately the only place we found to put it was above the engine. This makes removing the spark plug a bit harder.

The switched wire was to be the one coming from the ignition switch which we tapped into in the relay box.

The relays on both sides of the head light bracket operate the spotties and horn. The spotties needed to be hooked up to the high beam as well as by itself. The horn needed to be operable with the existing horn switch.

This all resulted in a lot of wiring running along the bike

I added the switches for the spotties and front LED’s to the front ‘dashboard’ as well as the alarm LED warning light.

To keep an eye on the charging of the battery I went with a Datel volt metre. Because it’s so light I was happy to mount it onto the instrument panel with a bit of ‘make a bracket yourself’ or whatever it’s called from Bunnings Warehouse which is the local hardware store.

I bent it to suit, drilled the holes and bolted it to the cover. To stop it sliding out from underneath it I used some glue backed Velcro. Then I painted it and stuck it on.

The horn also needed an upgrade to make ourselves heard around blind corners. The only option for me was a Stebel horn, but I decided against the Nautilus air horn because of a few reports that mentioned that the air compressor broke due to dust and vibration. They’re also a bit bigger and would make mounting a bit harder. The Magnum is not a loud as the Nautilus but is electromagnetic with no moving parts.
I simply added a steel bar to the engine mounting bolt and bolted the horn to that. It’s wired into the existing horn so I can still use both on the existing horn button.

See the links on the right hand side for more information.

LIGHTING

I found some cheap spotties at Super Cheap Auto for only 25 bucks a pair. The only thing I needed to do now was to build some brackets for it. Just in front of the indicators was the obvious place for them. BMW mount the indicators on a small triangular plastic panel. All I had to do was use the mounting bolts it used and drill a hole for the wiring.

I shaped a small bit of aluminium for it and bolted the spot light bracket to that. For spacers I used nylon washers taped together.

The LED’s I wanted were really expensive, so I thought I would build some myself. How hard can it be right? I found some rubber grommets with a long stem on them.

I cut the grommet off it and slid the pre-wired 12v 5mm LED in it. I found the LED’s on EBay for 15 bucks for a pack of 20.
I also got some large diameter adhesive heat shrink which was going to tie the 3 LED’s together and keep the water out of the tubes.

Then I used hose clamps to mount it onto the crash bars that are mentioned below.

They stand out a mile even in the daylight.

I did the same for the rear with the only difference being that I used 4 LED’s and wired 2 onto the brake light.

PROTECTION

Protecting the bike from all the stacking we would be doing was high on the list. In particular the faux tank and the $500 panels.

I didn’t really like any of the crash bars sold on the market, so I decided to make my own.
I never really did anything like this before so it took a lot of blood sweat and tears, but I’m really happy with what I ended up with.

I got a pipe bender off eBay, some pipe and some plastic conduit with steel wire in it for a form.
Here some pickies:
The bender

The formed conduit taped onto the bike

The bent steel

Welded, powdercoated and fitted

See the links on the right hand side for more information.

To protect the head light I went with an AMHP cover which is Aussie made. We had a similar protector on the old bikes for the last trip, and they did the trick.

Acerbis Multiplo hand guards are to protect the handlebar, levers and hands. I went with the hinged mounts. The mount on the right had to be mount upside down to fit.

Acerbis mount their hand guards with a expanding pipe anchor which goes into the ends of the handle bar. Unfortunately BMW built custom bars to suit the wiring of their heated grips which is fed through the ends.

As shown in the picture, the bars have some thread which is only 6mm and we kept bending the bolt after a crash.
I wanted to get rid of the BMW bars and get some aftermarket ones which are much stronger, and in the case of the bars needing replacing on the road I could just swap them. I went with the Renthal Dakar High bend which is very close to the original but a bit wider. Because they were wider I would need to replace the TouraTech 3cm longer brake hose that I put on when I added the bar risers. I quite like the PVC coated Spiegler brake hose I got though.
The heated grips are just resistance wire wound over a PVC tube which has grooves cut into them. They do this on both sides which means the diameter of the grips are the same on both sides. This means that when you have to replace your grips you would have to buy 2 sets for 1 bike. I could buy new heated grips, but was really too cheap to do this when I had perfectly working grips. So I thought to just rewind the wire into the other direction. The BMW grips are also a bit longer which meant I needed to cut the throttle tube a bit as well.

This is the clutch end ready to have the grip slid over it.

What the picture doesn’t show is the heatshrink which I put over the handlebar and wound the wire over.
This is the resulting look

The stock bashplate is a bit short. So I got some aluminium plate from the scrap yard and cut in the right shape.

Fitted with some of these clamps

I went with the BMW engine crash bars because they’re pretty cheap and I couldn’t be bothered building anything for it. It looks really good as well I reckon.

BMW F650 GS Dakar Modification (part 2)

2008-10-22T14:08:00.007+10:00

PROTECTION (continued)
To protect the fuel filter which is built into the pressure regulator I added an inline fuel filter to the fuel system which is zip tied to the frame with some rubber backing. I had to take a connector of it’s mount at the computer for it though.

The fork seals are renowned to leak. Probably because they’re so exposed. Apparently BMW designed the cooling system to very tight tolerances which can cause overheating if you block airflow to the radiator. The normal harmonica type gaiters are quite wide, so I thought I’d give the neoprene ones a go. I got these ones from SRC and I think they look much better as well.

Protecting the radiator from rocks becomes tricky if it’s prone to overheating. So to solve that, I used some wire from a chicken wire fence. I mounted that to the radiator shrouds with some bolts, mud guard washers and zip ties.

While I was down there I also filled the gap between the front of the radiator and the back of the frame with some adhesive foam to prevent rocks and pebbles wearing holes into it. Yep, it has happened to others.

One of the guys on the Chain Gang forum (www.f650.com) made some protection for the rear shock out of some pool lining. He was nice enough to make some more for others so I fitted that as well. It’s done an awesome job so far. It really keeps the crap of the bike.

A German law dictates that a certain amount of the wheel has to be covered. To do this a designer at BMW mounted one of these over the rear wheel.

A bit of rough going can turn this thing into a lethal weapon for the bike so instead of spending heaps of money on an aluminium aftermarket item I just cut the stems off.
This leaves the chain guard and speedo sensor guard separate.

As shown above I also zip tied all the spokes to each other where they cross. It’s apparently an old motorcross trick to stock spokes from braking and if they do flying all over the place possibly puncturing a tyre.

MAINTENANCE MODS

Doing maintenance on the road is a real pain is the arse. Basically, you’ve got 2 options. Your first option is a private place like a servo, hotel yard, or mechanics workshop and risk overstaying your welcome. This depends on how much you have to remove to do the job and how messy your job is. The second option is a public place like a quite courtyard or a field somewhere.
Personally I prefer the first option, but I’ve done it in both. Basically, the faster you can do it the better. Also, the less parts you have to bring the better.

First off, any new bike should really be looked over and lubed up. Factories are notorious for under lubing the bike. On the F650 this is mostly the case for the steering head bearings and the swingarm linkage bearings. On both of mine they were really dry so I put heaps of grease on there. Now I’ll have a better idea whether the bearings and/or design is bad or just not lubed.

For the oil changes on the Dakar you have to remove the bashplate and crashbar to get to the super soft sump plug. To avoid that I got a Fumoto drain valve (FG8: size 24mm - 1.5). It’s basically a ball valve and comes with a soft gasket washer. The washer has caused some leaks for other people. But I haven’t had a single leak yet. The bike has taken a beating on rocky trails and tight single trail, and it hasn’t caused any issues.

Instead of bringing heaps of oil filters I got a reusable Scotts Performance stainless oil filter which is meant to filter more as well. It’s cleanable with some turpentine.

BMW use a paper air filter which when it gets wet can end up in the engine. It’s not cleanable so I’d have to bring spares. Not being to keen on that, I got a foam filter from Unifilter which can get cleaned and reused easily.

Cleaning the chain also meant cleaning the goop that’s collected in most bikes front sprocket guard. Also, because it’s made of plastic, it would do nothing to protect the engine casing in the case the chain snaps. The Touratech chain guard opens all that up and also provides a bit of protection as it’s made from aluminium. I didn’t even have to remove it to change the sprocket. I changed the sprocket from a 16 tooth to a 15 tooth to get a bit lower gearing. I quite like it now.

On the last trip the battery died because it had run low on liquid and or got damaged due to the corrugation and potholes in the desert. This meant I had to kickstart it in the 45 degree heat. The Dakar is dead without a battery as the fuel pump needs to start before the button gets pressed to start the thing. The battery is also positioned above the engine which causes wet cell batteries to dry out very quickly often between service intervals. The only real option would be to upgrade to a sealed AGM battery. I went with a Deka ETX15L which fits straight in.

A well know weak point on this bikes design is the water pump. It’s basically an impeller which is has 2 seals on it to separate the coolant from the oil. But because the impeller’s shaft uses the seals as bearings effectively it is prone to leaking. Rotax solved the problem by putting a weep hole on the water pump casing so the owner can keen an eye on it. When it starts leaking coolant through this you take the water pump cover off, remove the clutch cover (!!!) and replace the seals. Some people have had this happen at 25000km intervals, but really there is no specific mileage for it to happen.
The problem is that when BMW assembled the bike and looked at the oil return hose between the motor and the tank it must have had some drama's with the route. So they put this solid tube on which blocks the clutch cover.

So to remove the cover you need to remove this tube which means you have to dump the oil. So to solve this I had a 0.5" fitting made by cutting the tube off the banjo at the end, silver solder a rotating fitting and a 90 degree elbow on it with a barb fitting at the end.

Than it was simply putting the hose I got (stainless braided for the bling factor) and routing it differently to the oil tank.

Need to make sure it doesn’t touch anything hot or fragile though.

COMFORT AND GENERAL MODS

The stock ergonomics are a little cramped and the bars a bit low. To raise that I got some Touratech handlebar risers. This modification did require me to get a longer brake hose as well.

The raising of the handlebar meant that the hand guard would hit the screen before it would go to full lock. So I cut some of the screen out to suit.

Mirrors and indicators are usually the first things to brake in a fall. FAR in Italy (www.FAR.it) do hinged mirrors for KTM’s as well as having a whole range of mirrors for other bikes. If got some mirrors of them that come with 4 mounting adapters. 10mm LHS and RHS thread and the same for 8mm. This meant that I could easily swap between bikes. They have a stem with a ratchety hinge halfway along the stem as well as a hinge where the mirror attaches to the stem. So far we’ve come off heaps of times without them braking. Let’s hope we keep it that way because they’ve been removed it from their catalogue.

The indicators on the Dakar are not flexible for some reason. It’s only a matter of time before they brake. I’ve thought about getting flat mounting car type indicators, but so far I’ve gone for some cheap flexible bike indicators. There are many different ones, but the local bike shop has these and so far they have stood up to the abuse.

The stock footpegs are really narrow which makes standing on them for a long time almost impossible. There are heaps of options for aftermarket pegs, but I went with the Fastway pegs. They’re nice and chunky and have replaceable parts including the tips.

The Dakar is a bit higher than the normal GS. But BMW couldn’t be bothered building 2 side stands. So the one on the Dakar is really a bit too short. I solved this by bolting an ice hockey puck to it.

SUSPENSION

The suspension on the bike isn't very good. The shock apparently doesn't last very long and the forks don't provide a lot of feedback. Because of the additional weight that we'll add to the bike I was always going to upgrade, but when the guys on F650.com organised a group buy discount for some Race Tech gold valve emulators, I couldn't resist. Because you have to change springs as well I could order springs for the loaded weight of the bike. Two birds with one stone I reckon.
These are the valves and the only other thing you need to do is drill out the dampening rods.

This shows the difference between the 2 shocks. The quality difference is enormous. Installation was simple and was a good oppurtunity to lube the underlubed suspension bearings. A must for all new owners.

BMW F650 GS Dakar Luggage Setup

2008-10-22T14:03:00.008+10:00

TOP BOXES AND RACK:

As we never really unpacked the gear we used on the last trip, we knew what was staying and going. This in turn meant that I could design something that would work around the gear we bring, rather than the other way around.

I started with the best way to pack it and build a cardboard box around that. Most of the heavier stuff would go in the side panniers, so the top box would only really have the tent, sleeping bag and mattress in it. Pretty bulky items, but not very heavy.
I drew it all up and send it to a sheet metal place to have it cut and bent. I asked a mate of mine to have it TIG welded.

While I waited for the box to return I started working out what to do with mounting it.
I cut out an option from cardboard.

I figured that because the box would be rather large, it I would need some support at the front. Hence the brackets at the front end. Because of the shape that I ended up with, I would need to get it laser cut. Not cheap, but it would look pretty good. I used 5mm plate aluminium plate.

Still have access to the rear compartment.

For a stop I used a half inch round bar drilled on either end and fed through some U-bolts. I figure I might as well put a half inch drive on it to turn it into a breaker bar.

To prevent the gear from getting ripped up I used dome nuts.

As I'll be travelling with an inverter I used a powerlet plug for easily accessible power. To stop my gear from going black I put some paint onto it. Nothing fancy, it’ll all get scratched anyway. Which is a good, because I suck at it.

The first round of fittings. Some tie-down loop and the latches.

The second round of fittings, showing the hinges, elastic webbing and the pole holders to be able to tie a tarp between the 2 bikes for some shade in the desert or anywhere else where there is none.

Other side.

I’ve put a carabiner on the lid to have somewhere to put the helmet securely at borders or when refuelling which some elastic on it to stop it rattling.

PARTS TUBE:

I’ve experimented with some larger diameter ‘tool’ tubes.

But a the first round of trails they broke. On both bikes.

I never really gave up on the idea but decided to use it for parts instead. I had heaps of brake pads and a few bearings that I didn’t really know where to put them so that solved that issue. I also thought that I might be able to use the tubes as tools for driving things like fork seals or steering head bearings into place, so it’s a tool in it’s own right as well. This time the length and diameter should be small enough to survive.

PANNIER RACK:

Being a tight arse I didn’t want to spend heaps of dollars on a new pannier frame when I had perfectly good one off our old XT’s. So I cut the brackets of the rectangle, and tried my best to tack the new brackets on symmetrical. I had to be a bit creative with the pipe bender on the rear bracket though, but I’m pretty happy with the outcome.

What you can’t see is the brace between the 2 elbow pieces because it’s obscured by the rear mud guard.

I went with the standard design of 3 mounting points. The rear of the sub-frame, the middle of the sub-frame and the pillion foot peg. I’m hoping that because the rear bracket is below half way down the rectangle, I may get away with not having a second brace between the bottom ends of the rectangles. The mounting points are there in case I will need it. No welding required.

I used the pipe clamps that Metal Mule use, which is simply some 18mm pipe, cut diagonally with a bolt through it. So as you tighten the bolt, the pipe bits want to slide over the diagonal which than expand and press onto the outside of the pillion peg bracket. Unfortunately I couldn’t get it tight enough, so I welded a bracket onto the frame so I can also put a U-bolt against it.

That should do it.

PANNIERS:

On our last trip we used the Metal Mule panniers. They only came in 2 sizes back than. Large and Xtra large. We actually bought 2 TT and 2 MM panniers to try and see which one was better. We preferred the MM pannier because of it’s locking system. But in the end we found them both unsuitable. They off-the-shelf designs are just too wide. This is mainly a safety issue for us as you don’t really anticipate the rear width if it’s not in your view. So last minute manoeuvring (very common when riding in poor countries) becomes a hazard. It also doesn’t help the stability of the bike or the ease of packing.

So I packed up all the crap I wanted to take on the next trip and bought some cardboard to build a prototype. The rule was and still is. If it doesn’t fit anywhere inside, it’s not coming. I have having crap all strewn over the place.

To organise the packing itself I used Eagle Creek pack-cubes. In the end I actually ended up with another brand for some stuff, but it was really only to set dimensions anyway. So the width became 135mm. The length is based on 2 pack-cubes pack side by side which turned out to be 520mm. The depth is the lengths of these pack cubes which is 355mm.

On the outside I wanted the angle of the areas to impact the ground or a leg to be 45 degrees, but the inside angle needed to be 90 degrees. So I came up with a double bottom design which I turned into a tank for water.

This is the CAD drawing.

I CADed it all up in 2D for the sheet metal folders to get it all cut and folded. A mate of mine welded it all up because there was going to be a bit of fiddling with the taps and filler and breather fittings.

We ended up welding a bit of 5mm square aluminium plate to the boxes and drilled and tapped them out.

This is the tap I used which is just a standard ball valve with a BSP thread.

The trickiest thing actually became the mounting brackets. The compromised between ease of construction, strength, ease of removal and it not rattling too much became a headache. I tried a few things, but because I modified the luggage rack (of our old XT’s) to be as close to the bike as possible I didn’t have much room to play with. This is the result, but doesn’t show the U-bolt which really secures it to the rack. I don’t really plan on taking it off at a hotel stop anyway.

I used some galvanised RHS and steel strip

Again, getting the alignment equal on both sides was a big challenge, but I came away good overall.
Below shows the setup I had in mind with a securing pin through the rack and the brackets at the top and a rotating bit of plate half way down. Unfortunately the tolerances of the used materials and the slight buckling of the sheet metal after welding it meant that it rattled too much.

So I ended up with a U-bolt as well to tighten it all up better.

This is them with the fittings and tape. I used rope for handles.

Quick access pouch and bottle holder

Filler tube at the rear

All up each pannier holds about 2.5l of liquid. I could put fuel in it, but having water conveniently available is more important to us. Hate having water bottles and other crap strapped on. We have [url=http://liquidcontainment.com/fuel_bladders.php]liquid containment fuel[/url] bladder with us for extra range, but will probably not need it.
The stability of this setup is amazing. Because the centre of gravity is really low and close to the axis of the bike you hardly notice the weight until you come to a halt.

Resulting look, ready for adventure

2007 China and Thailand

2008-09-08T16:40:00.005+10:00

View Larger Map

China had left a big impression on me when I went there first time. So when we were looking for a place to stop over on our way back to Europe it was the first place that came to mind. I was keen to see the changes that everyone keeps talking about. I would be largely the same southern route as last time, only without some of the remote places and with another route to Chengdu through Zhongdian.

We would fly into Hong Kong and have a look around. This time I wouldn’t have to apply for a visa.

Hong Kong by day

Hong Kong by night

The first place I was keen to see was Yangshuo. When I went there last time the Chinese didn’t seem to be to interesting in it. They rather stayed in the concrete jungle of Guilin just down the road. This time though, they all flocked to Yangshuo which is a much more attractive town. Where nearly all the tourism was aimed at overseas travellers, now those places were the minority.

I did a few things I didn’t get around to doing last time. Like the bamboo rafting.

If you ever go to a Chinese restaurant, than you are most likely to see this scenery hanging on the wall somewhere.

One of my favourite animals. The water buffalo.

Mars picked up some sort of illness and was coming down hard. This made us speed up the pace a bit. So we flew to Kunming and on to Lijiang.

Lijiang is a beautiful traditional Chinese city that got flattened by an earthquake in 1996. Luckily for the residents the government decided to rebuild many of the high-rise buildings in the areal in the old style providing the residents with an industry. Tourism…. And it’s big here.

Some interesting souvenirs.

Mars went on the antibiotics and seemed to kick it slowly.

From Lijiang we went to Zhongdian, gateway into Tibet.

We went for a quick meal and when we got back the whole old town was dancing.

Buddhist monastery.

Zhongdian was the starting point of a route to Chengdu that was described as the back door route.

Tibetan traditional architecture.

Tibetan traditional internal decorations. The whole place smelled of yak butter tea.
Yaks are everywhere.

Used for farming.

Or running them around town.

The scenery was great

But got even better above the tree line.

Because we had a pre-booked ticket out of Bangkok to Amsterdam we couldn’t stay in China much longer. We wanted to do a bit of driving in Thailand to the Phuket region and onto the tropical island of Koh Samui on the other side of the country.

Phuket

Muay Thai.

2005 Dublin - Vladivostok on 2 Yamaha XT Tenere's

2008-09-08T16:38:00.004+10:00

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In 2005 we set off on 2 Yamaha XT ZE Tenere (3AJ) and we soon found out that we didn't have a clue. We had read Chris Scott's Adventure Motorcycling book and watched Austin Vince's Mondo Enduro and Terra Circa and that was about as much research that we did. We asked Dave Lambeth just outside London to build us the bike with all the luggage and everything on it. All we had to do was raise the money.
Dave soon found out how little we knew about bikes so he encouraged us to at least do a beginners maintenance course. We did that, but didn’t really do much hands on stuff on our bikes. The good thing about travelling is that there are always people that can help you out. Even if you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere something good always seems to happen.

How did it all go? Well, not too bad considering. The bikes did ok. We lost 1 battery in the desert, a one way starter gear and 3 rear brake calliper brackets. We couldn’t really find tyres anywhere so we had one bike finishing the trip on the original front tyre. But for the rest we had to rely on hand me down tyres from other bikers and an overpriced second hand in Novosibirsk.

Here are some pictures.

France. Finding camping spot in densely populated Europe is always a bit of a mission.

Same in Greece

Istanbul. Need I say more?

Turkey’s Black Sea coast blew us away.

The mountains aren’t to shabby either.

As tough as Kazakhstan was, the memories of the vast open spaces are great.

It’s desert all the way to the foothill of the Pamir Mountains.

Mongolia’s mud can by very challenging. Especially just after you had a shower.

The grassy plains on the sunny day are hard to beat.

2004 NZ, Tahiti & SE Asia

2008-09-08T16:37:00.005+10:00

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With Mars having never been to New Zealand I was keen to show her the beauty of the place. I figured that I ran out of time there last time with heaps of treks still on my itinerary. So I wanted to get the maximum out of my time there now by doubling the time spent there this time. Unfortunately the weather and my health didn’t want to play their part.

We started with a simple trek firstly to get into shape. I chose to walk the St James’ Walkway again. I made that my first trek last time as well, and found it perfect to get into it. But this time I injured my knee there being a bit to zealous. It was going to play up during the whole trip in the end.

NZ had heaps of backcountry huts which means you don’t need to bring a tent to go trekking.

It’s just perfectly setup for this kind of stuff.

There is plenty to see just from the side of the road. This is Otago.

We went about by hitchhiking, which is very easy there.

I made a tiny little mistake with the budget by not allowing for contingency funds for things like injuries. The idea was to stay in the backcountry huts which is dirt cheap on an annual pass. But due to my injury I couldn’t walk much and because the rangers kick you out of the huts if you stay for more than 2 nights, we were forced to stay in hostels and other expensive accommodation. This blew the budget out pretty quickly. Luckily Queenstown was having some staffing problems. So we went there and applied for a housekeeping job in a 4 star hotel. After not too long we got sick of that, so we went to work at Subway restaurant. We didn’t last too long there either, but we made enough to sit out our time in NZ until we were going to fly out to Tahiti.

Luckily for us Queenstown very pretty if the weather is right.

Lake Wakatipu

The founder and his best mate. How Kiwi is that?

To spend the time we travelled around the South Island to take in all the hot spots.

Franz Joseph glacier

Milford Sound

The fjords

Just amazing the carving power that those glaciers have.

We did do one 2 day trek still. The Croesus Track. It’s still one of the best I’ve done because of the time spent above the tree line.

The Tasman Sea is on the other side of the fog.

Warming up next to the stove.

What goes up must come down.

Our flight and our friends were in Auckland, so we had to make our way over to the North Island as well. I prefer the South Island over the North.

Mount Ngauruhoe is an active volcano.

Next stop was Tahiti.

Moorea Island is one of the many islands that make up Tahiti.

The accommodation isn’t too shabby. Talked US$100 off this one. But that still left heaps to pay.

From Tahiti we flew to Kuala Lumpur the Malaysian capitol via Australia on our way to London to be a bit closer to my family.

The Petronas Towers. Once the tallest building in the world.

Having already travelled some of the northern part of South East Asia, I wanted to see some of the southern part. So we aimed to travel to Krabi in Thailand. It was very beautiful, but on this stretch of the trip I decided that I had enough of backpacking and wanted to start riding a motorbike around instead.

The famous limestone peaks sticking out of the water at Ao Nang near Krabi.

2003 East Africa

2008-09-08T16:35:00.006+10:00

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Somehow we got the idea to do more hitch-hiking. I've done a lot in the past and it worked pretty good with the two of use, so we thought it would be a good idea to base an entire trip on it. So for a destination I thought hitch-hiking around the Sahara sounded like a pretty good idea. I had never been to Africa, but have seen plenty of desert. Somehow deserts were a part of every trip I have ever done, but never the mother of all deserts. We started by joining my parents for part of their way south to Southern France. An opportunity to spend some time with them as I've been overseas for most of the time I have been out of home.

Mum and Dad and the dog.

A typical French town

We were dropped of just outside Toulouse and managed to get our first ride within 5 minutes. I don't think we waiter for more than 20 minutes on this entire trip.
It took us three rides to get to the outskirts of Barcelona where we hung our hammocks in the trees next to a service station. The next day we took a ride into town.

Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia

Camp Nou. A palace of football.

Getting out of a large town such as Barcelona proved tricky. Getting picked up on suburban on-ramps even trickier.

We headed straight for Madrid.

Royal Palace

We took a train to the outskirts this time.

The train station is more like a jungle.

We managed to get to Cadiz pretty quickly. They must have had some sort of festival on as we arrived. A bit surreal.

You see a lot of these littered around the countryside.

Cadiz is a gorgeous little town. A complete surprise to us.

Cadiz Cathedral

The edge of the old town. The longest oldest continuously-inhabited city in the Iberian Peninsula.

We thought we would have to take the ferry from Gibraltar. Not that I would need and excuse to visit that place.

The gated entry. Originally the only way in other than by sea.

The streets of Gibraltar. Another surreal place. A lot of poms with Spanish first names, and bobbies on the streets with a Spanish flavour.

We were advised that the ferry's now only leave from Algeciras which is only about 20 minutes walk.

Africa in the distance.

We didn't hang around Tanger for more than a night. This trips wasn't going to be about hanging about.

Snail soup anyone?

Mackers in Casablanca. We arrived only a few days after the bombing of an internet cafe. The bloke was browsing an extremist Islamist site just before and was told not to by the owner. Extremism is not excepted in the vast majority of the Muslim world either, contrary to popular belief.

We made our way to Marrakesh and found the beauty of the Atlas mountains staggering.

The coffee is great in Morocco.

We traded our backpacks for roll bags in Spain. It was going to be a road trip, right?

We were picked up by a French engineer working on roads project who drove us to the coast of Essaouira where he lived. He was super nice and let us stay at his house and dropped us off at the beach and picked us up and everything. He had some interesting pets as well.

A desolate desert town somewhere in the Western Sahara.

Couldn't wait to get out of there.

There are a few of these about.

In Dakhla we met a friendly local who helped both us and his French mates out to cross the border with Mauritania. Us, because there is no transport across this treacherous bit of the desert covered in soft sand dunes. And his mate because along this bit with no road you need all the hands on your deck you can find. The Frenchies were with 2 cars on their way to Burkina Faso. Interestingly we heard that 2 days ago there was an attempted coup in Mauritania with some tanks rolling into the capital. Luckily for us the government didn't get overthrown, and managed to stabilize things quickly.

The border post of Morocco.

No man's land.

The Mauritanian border post.

A bloke's place along the way.

We were dropped of in Nouadhibou just over the border. We read about this mining train which also gets used for free transport. It would take us to a town in the middle of the desert where we would be able to find transport further south.

Mining train track.

Mining train.

Iron ore train carts.

Re-fuelling station.

After 18 hours spent on one of those carts.

The end of the line. Not our intended station as we missed our stop in the night.

We didn't really have any idea where we were, only that we weren't where we wanted to be. On top of that we couldn't understand why the few local fellas were climbing from cart to cart all the way to the last cart. We simply climbed out of our cart and dragged our bags through the sand. Those bags aren't as good once the pavement ends. Anyway, at the end of the train we noticed a sign. It said: 'Danger! Mines' !!!!! We freaked out a bit having just walked and dragged our bags through a mine field. But not much we can do about that now.

Luckily for us there were some cars waiting to pick up stragglers. So we jumped on it and found it drove us to a place with some white people hanging around. Turnout they were professional people like geologist and engineers involved in the mine. They were actually on their way out of there to the capitol of Nouakchott. We started talking to one of them who turned out to be a Kiwi. He kindly helped us getting on the booked out plane. Money talks right.

Our plane out of there waiting on the desert runway.

The street of Nouakchott, some would say taken over by the deserts sand.

No tanks but plenty of donkeys.

Obviously there wasn't much of a reason to hang around, so we quickly made our way to Saint-Louis in Senegal. Officially Mars needed a visa because of her Australian passport, but amazingly after a bit of bickering with the immigration officer, they let her in illegally without a visa or even a stamp in her passport! Oh the troubles that laid ahead getting back out of the country.

Saint-Louis

Actually, we left Senegal pretty easily. A bit of arguing and they let us through. That didn't mean that the Gambians were going to accept us without a neighbouring country's exit stamp. But for the small fee of 3 coca-cola's for his colleagues he was willing to stamp us into the former English colony of The Gambia. Bordered in it's entirety by Senegal with a bit of coast on the Atlantic Ocean.

The beaches of The Gambia.

Our travel plans had to be abandoned here. We gave it a good shot, but the humidity meant that we simply couldn't carry sufficient water for us to cope with our bodies shedding this water. It was oozing out of our skin.

2002 Northern & Central Asia & The Middle East (Part 1)

2008-09-08T16:29:00.005+10:00

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On my return to London I met Mariya who I talked into coming to Mongolia to me to ride a horse around for 2-3 month. Being an adventurous spirit like me she agreed and we began working out the plan. Instead of the spending a lot of money to fly into Ulaan Bataar I wanted to take the Trans Siberian the other way and save on the money. So we flew into Helsinki, took the ferry to Estonia and take it from there.

Tallinn is a beautifull town. But it being early spring it was still very cold.

We had to wait for our train to Moscow and did get a bit bored in Tallinn.

St Basil's again. Still covered in scaffolding.

Moscow's underground is the best in the world, with the stations being more like museums than stations.

After a few beers around town we took the train to Irkutsk and onto Ulaan Bataar.

We stayed at this lovely old lady called Dolumdga who also helped us out with the sewing of the saddlebags.

We bought 3 horses of this bloke we met in Ulaan Bataar from his place in Moron further inland. He turned out a rip-off, selling us 13 year old horses instead of the 7 years olds he said he would. Horses in Mongolia have to suffer a hard life and don't get very old. Having no experience with horses at all, we didn't know how to check this when we bought them. The learning curve was steep but we enjoyed every minute of it.

The creeks were still covered with ice but the weather turned hot in a matter of days.

We had the best time and were sad to have to sell the horses. We used a few over the 6 weeks or so but the last three had to go to good homes.

We were planning to go to Kyrgyzstan and do the same there, but we soon found out that the Kyrgyz conformed to the Russian way of life which in is a stark contract to the Mongolian lack of private land ownership. The horses cost a lot more as well, so we ended up buying one and simply walk with it. At least we now knew what to look for.

Camping on the foot hills of the Tian Shan mountains.

The horse trip didn't last long as the horse got stolen. So back to hitchhiking and buses again than.

Tash-Rabat carrevansarai on the silk route.

It's not all green.

The ever present Lenin.

Typical Central Asian cemetery

Kyrgyz village

We went through the troubled Fergana Valley into Uzbekistan.

The Registan in Samarkant

Tea House

Arq fortress in Bukhara

The Kalyan minaret

Timur himself

More desert. Can't escape it.

The beauty of Khiva

Apparently this is Jacob's Well.

Friendly Turkmen on their way back home.

We went back to Fergana in the valley to have a look as some old silk factories. But because Stalin drew the borders between Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in a way to displace and divide the local population and keep them occupied with their own problems rather than cause Stalin problems, we ended up briefly going through Tajikistan on the train. The border officials insisted on stamping out single entry visa which didn't cause any problems going back into Uzbekistan which technically should be possible. But when we wanted to fly to Turkmenistan the airport officials told us that our visa was already stamped for exit and therefore no longer valid for exit unless we paid a fine. Not wanting to pay the fine I called their bluff thinking they'd wave us through if we stall them for long enough. But instead they rather had us staying illegally than have us leave. They pulled our luggage of the plain and told us to come back with a valid visa. How to go about this they didn't know. Our Turkmen visa was only valid for three days, and there wouldn't be another flight for a week. So our only option was to go direct to Iran. We had the visa already luckily and all we needed now was a ticket. We had to pay in cash with local currency though.

It filled up my backpack.

2002 Northern & Central Asia & The Middle East (Part 2)

2008-09-05T14:31:00.021+10:00

The British embassy was super helpful in arranging the papers for us to leave and even drove us to the airport in the official diplomatic land rover.

We entered Iran without any hassles. Mars took a bit to get used to having to dress appropriately though.

Esfahan

Naghsh-e Jahan Square

Si-o-se Pol Bridge

The reliefs of the mosks.

Mercedes class

The ancient city of Persipolis. Sacked by Alexander The Great

To see some of this stuff you have to go to the stolen collection of the British Museum in London.

The tombs of Darius the Great and Xerxes.

The Persian coast.

Because of us running cash and the embargo meant that we couldn't use travellers cheques and or credit cards meant that we had to book a flight out of Iran to Frankfurt through a travel agent in Tehran with contact in Dubai. They than processed the card which finished this trip.

2000 Asia & New Zealand (Part 1)

2008-09-05T12:30:00.029+10:00

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After returning back to Holland from Israel I was keen to go overseas as quickly as possible. So I went to the UK after a few months at home. Living in London I managed to save enough money for another trip around Asia. This time I was going to spend a lot of time in South East Asia and China. Being in the area I thought it would be best to book a flight to Australia to visit some friend. There I heard about the New Zealand beauty so I thought to have a stab at trekking there as well. All in all it was one of the best trips and the longest to date.

I flew into Bangkok to travel anti-clockwise around Indo-China.

The Royal Palace

Thai monks

Laying Buddha.

Some interesting food. Can you recognise it?

Besides flying to Angkor What in Cambodia near Siem Reap you can travel over land. Always my preferred option. The only thing is that back then the road was so bad, it took something like 12 hours on the back of a Ute (pick up truck). Luggage in the tray and the passengers on the edges.

Gets a bit dusty.

Not the only one though.

Angkor What. The main temple of the old city of Angkor which used to house over a million people some say during the Khmer Empire approximately between the 9th and 15th century. The city is littered with temples numbering over a thousand but this main one was built in the 12th century. At the time the city was the largest pre-industrial city in the world with an urban sprawl of 400 square miles. You could spend days here.

The jungle took over the city when the people left.

Some of the decorations.

The other lasting impression of Cambodia is the S21 interrogation/ torture centre/ prison of the Pol Pot era in Phnom Penh. Leader of the Khmer Rouge. It's now turned into a museum as a reminder never to let this happen again.

The size of the cells.

Some of the torture methods.

Some of the 'tools'.

Pol Pot 'recruited' children a lot and a lot of them were involved in the activities in S21. Remarkably, S21 was a converted school. A visit here is a must but it’s not for the faint hearted. I've left out some of the more gruesome images. The Khmer Rouge is estimated to be responsible for the deaths of 1.5 million people while the world just watched and did nothing.

A monument of the atrocities filled with the skulls of some of the victims.

The next stop would be Vietnam. I was interested to see the country after is just opened up to the west after being in isolation since the 'American War'.

Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). The city hall.

Ho Chi Minh city is an interesting place. As punishment to their collaboration with the Americans some very educated people were banned from performing their profession. So you can find yourself being taken around in a rickshaw by a former judge, or Ph.D. graduate, etc.

The former American Embassy with some of the equipment left behind. It's now a museum.

Plenty of rice paddies.

The famous tunnel systems.

Pretty hard to spot.

It's not easy to move around in them if you're 6 feet.

Asians love their karaoke and the Vietnamese are no exception.

Vietnamese town street scape.

Ho Chi Minh mausoleum in Hanoi where his remains are for public display.

From Vietnam I made my way to Laos where the highlight of that trip was the trekking though the jungle. First time I'd been in a jungle.

Jungle village.

The rugged mountainous scenery of Laos littered with unexploded ordnance. Laos is said to be the most bombed country per capita in the world, with a ton of bombs per head of population having been dropped there. Amazing considering it has never been to war.

Poppy production is a big problem there.

From Laos I travelled back to Bangkok where I took my flight to Australia. After hanging around there for a while I flew to Christchurch in New Zealand where I was going to do a few weeks of tramping as the kiwi's call it. It's the most beautiful place I've ever been to if you get the right weather. I lucked out in that department.

From New Zealand I went back to Australia to jump onto my flight to Bangkok. In Australia I decided to travel back to Europe overland through northern Asia. The most obvious starting point for me was Hong Kong, having always wanted to go there. So in Bangkok I booked a one-way to Hong Kong where I would be able to organise a visa for China.

Hong Kong was an eye opener.

The English left overs.

Iconic Nathan Road in Kowloon.

The visa came through in 3 days which was enough time for me in Hong Kong. So into China proper I went, where the idea was to stick to the south and the western part of the country.

First port of call was Yangshuo near Guilin.

The area is littered with these beautiful lime stone peaks.

The famous Longsheng rice terraces carved in the side of the mountains.

This little known town was a complete surprise because of it's beautiful bell towers and idyllic setting. It's a bit off the beaten track because of the remoteness. I travelled for parts of it on the back of a truck.

From here I headed for Yunnan province on my way to Szechuan and the foothills of the Himalayas for some Tibetan culture as large parts of Szechuan used to be part of Tibet.

Dali in Yunnan

Lijiang, largely rebuilt after an earthquake.

The tiger leaping gorge on the Yangtze River. 60km from Lijiang.

Lined with little villages like this.

When I arrived to this village, they were distributing clothing donated by an Australian charity. It was quite amusing to see the distribution of this after having given old clothes to charities for years.

Chengdu is famous for it's Panda sanctuary.

2000 Asia & New Zealand (Part 2)

2008-09-05T12:06:00.041+10:00

Not far from Chengdu is a town called Sonpan in the mountains where you can go on a horse trek to place called ice mountain. And boy was it cold. Freezing at night which was a bit contrast from the Chengdu temperatures which were in the thirties.

The mountain scenery.

Visiting a small monastery.

Yak herder.

She was happy to have a picture taken.

Travelling through formerly Tibetan lands.

Road workers camp

The little town of Langmusi in Gansu province. One of my favourite places in China for in-explainable reasons. Must be just the vibe of the place.

Tibetan family

Outdoor pool is popular in the mountains.

Xiahe, the second most important pilgrimage site.

Pilgrims

Tibetan prayer wheels

Buddhist monk. And there was I thinking that you would have to give up worldly possessions to reach nirvana.

Monks watching football. Man U I believe.

From Gansu I travelled into Xinjiang or Turkestan as the local Uygur people like to have it be. They face the same struggle as Tibet but without the media coverage. Interestingly so as they are ethnically further related to the Han Chinese than the Tibetans. The Uygur are part of the Turkic ethnic group.

Xinjiang is enormously varied filled with contrasts. From deserts to lush mountains.

The hills around Turpan.

Old town of Turpan

The middle of the Talkamakan desert seemed like a good place to spend the night. So I got the bus driver to stop there and hopefully find another bus cruising through in the morning. They only leave in the morning and evening. So if I were to miss one in the morning I'd be stuffed for a day in the desert in the middle of summer.

A stall in the Kashgar markets. Formerly a very important stop along the old silk route as the northern and southern route converged there.

Id Khar Mosque

Silk worms.

The old town of Kashgar.

The Tian Shan mountains near the Kyrgyz and Tajik border. Home to a small Tajik minority lost between the two countries when the borders were drawn. China won't issue them have a passport because that will depopulate the area with them leaving for Tajikistan.

The nice man was happy enough for all of us to spend the night in his tiny little mud hut as none of use had any camping gear other than a sleeping bag with us.

As my visa was on it's last extension and it was about to run out, it was time to leave the minorities of China and go to the power base of the Han Chinese to pick up a Mongolian visa. Beijing.

Mao is keeping an eye on everybody.

The forbidden city.

The throne of the emperor. The emperors have gone but the place is still run as an empire.

You can't go to China and not go to the Great Wall. I've been seeing much of it on the train ride from Xinjiang but only the mud wall sections.

Seriously steep.

It was well and truly time to get out of there. Mongolia was beckoning.

The Russians built the Mongolian rail roads and they use different gauges than the Chinese. So to solve that problem they simply change the boogies as the wheel assemblies are called.

Mongolia is littered with these felt tents called Ger's along the vast and open countryside.

I lucked out with the timing because the annual festival of Naadam was one during my stay. This skills festival is based on the tournaments of the Chingis Khan days. The skills include archery and wrestling for the men and a horse race for the kids which was my favourite.

I fell in love with this country and just had to come back.
Unfortunately visas as well as travel funds only last so long, so I had to get a move on back to Europe. So I organised a Russian visa which was neither easy nor cheap as well as a train ticket to Irkutsk on Lake Baikal. It’s the largest freshwater body on the planet holding a fifth of the world’s fresh water supply.

Irkutsk

Lake Baikal's beaches. The Russian sun bath standing up.

From Irkutsk I bought a ticket to Moscow which is a 5 or 6 day journey but only cost me US$80! Bargain. I would have to use that train to get to Asia again. Beats flying.

Siberian villages line the railway.

For five days I spend in the train cabin with this family. But even than Russian don't smile on photos.

Red Square in Moscow.

The palace inside the Kremlin

The Bolshoi Theatre

Police Lada's

Lenin is still there

But Stalin was relocated and slightly defaced.

Besides Moscow I was interested to see Saint Petersburg which is the cultural capitol of Russia.

Kazan Cathedral on Nevsky Prospect.

The Church of the Savior on Blood

The Hermitage. Previously the Winter Palace. Now a museum.

From Petersburg you can catch the local train to the border with Finland where you can catch the international train to Helsinki

Helsinki Cathedral

There is a ferry to Stockholm from here which was going to be my last public transport as my travel funds we down and near out. So I would hitchhike from there to Holland to meet my family and then on to London to find some work.

The harbour of Stockholm.

1999 South Asia & The Middle East

2008-09-04T16:14:00.016+10:00

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I was pretty hooked from the previous trip to Australia. So I saved up some more money in Holland to travel in India with some mates I made in Australia. The trip quickly expanded to Nepal and later into Pakistan, Turkey and Israel.

New Delhi streetscape

The road towards Rishikesh in the Indian Himalaya’s where a truck had just fallen over the edge. The driver ended up in my taxi to be driven to the local hospital.

Rishikesh street performers and their pets.

Accessories are serious business here.

Jodhpur is a wonderful place.

A view from Mehrangarh Fort which was never taken.

The palace inside the fort.

The colours of the Rajastani women.

Luke and I mobbed by the local teens.

Not sure what this is called, but it's one of my favourite places in the world.

Another angle.

The fortress city of Jaisalmer. At night you feel like Aladdin. Off course the bang cookies help with that experience.

Jaisalmer is famous for it's camel safari's.

The beauty of the Nepalese Himalayas on the way to the Annapurna Base Camp. The base camp of one of the 10 7000m+ peaks in the world.

Is that her? Who knows.

The only way is up.

Four days of this. Buns of steel!

Can't complain too much when these guys are walking with bare feet.

Or on thongs (flip flops to some).

Base camp. Finally.

All that for this view?

Sometimes you could just make it out.

The famous Golden Temple in Amritsar in the Punjab near the border with Pakistan. This is taken the day before we were entering Pakistan and Musharraf took control of the country in a coup.

Lahore is just across the border.

The real beauty of Pakistan is in the Northwest Frontier province and the Karakorum mountain range. The Karakorum highway is cut between these immensely steep 7000m high peaks.

Snow capped peaks everywhere you look.

We met this couple with a map of a trail drawn on the back of a napkin leading to a base camp of one of those peaks.

It turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip with the trail being along side this massive glacier.

It must get really cold here at night.

A river of ice.

Base camp. A bit different this one.

Sun light in the morning to warm you up never felt as good. And than there was the view.

Off course the other side of Pakistan is the infamous border region with Afghanistan. You can't visit this region and not have a look around Dara Adam Khel in the lawlessness of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Which mean, Pakistan has no say here. The entire town evolves around gun making.

With basic tools these guys can copy and manufacture the latest rifle in two weeks. There are some craftsmen to be found here.

Keeping the kids off the street and out of trouble.

Each place makes a certain part....

Which gets assembled at the end.

Some bullet making.

Pen gun probably inspired by James Bond.

I quite like the design of the revolver shot gun.

The people here are immensely proud. This is an old tribal guard.

We couldn't get an Iranian visa so we ended up having to fly to Turkey. No pictures sorry but have a look in the 2005 bike trip for some Turkey photo's.
We were offered to stay at a mate's place in Israel, so from Turkey we flew to Israel. A very interesting place.

The walls of Jerusalem.

Probably the most controversial piece of landownership. The dome of the rock, where Mohammed leaped on horse back to the heavens. Unfortunately also the site of the Holy Temple on the Temple Mount. The first two were destroyed and apparently according to the bible there is meant to be a third one built on this site. Too bad it's the second most holy Muslim site in the world. Sound like there is going to be some trouble in the future.

The only remains of the Holy Temple on the Temple Mount. The wailing wall.

Bloke wailing.

1997 Australia

2008-09-04T14:19:00.015+10:00

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After graduation and working for a few months to save up some money, I decided to go overseas to travel. Having always had an interest in Australia and it being on the other side of the world I picked this country as a first stab at traveling. Unfortunately I don't have many photo's of this trip but here are a few teasers.

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Blue Mountains

Camping in the Blue Mountains National Park

Near Byron Bay

Near Margaret River WA. Had to have a picture with a Combi in there.

Margaret River