Theresa and I are living in the HQ having been picked up by Tegshee, the President, and one of the Prospects (like a new gang-member who is still on probation, so not trusted with deep secrets and important things). We were escorted into UB through the snarling traffic, and arrived at the headquarters with only one fist fight on the way. High doses of coffee, cognac, jaegermeister, Airag (fermented horse milk), traditional noodles, horseshoes (pastry), and manti later, and we’re basically part of the furniture now, and organising a karaoke night and winter camping trip to the Gobi desert with the club.

Riding from the Altai mountains to Irkutsk, Theresa’s front suspension died and my rear tyre went bald. We stopped in Kemerovo, and made good friends with the Yamaha guys there, who helped us out. We told them we were in a real hurry to get to the Mongolia border since we only had 14 days of visa left, and 2200km to go. It seems like plenty of time, but we really wanted to spend time exploring Lake Baikal. It was one of the places that Theresa especially wanted to see on the trip. The Yamaha guys fixed the suspension and tyre the next day, and we were off the day after. No worries, 12 days left. We made it to Krasnoyarsk in 2 days, and pulled into a hotel to wait for an ice-cold rain storm to pass. It took two days. While we were there we got felt insoles for our boots which has improved our lives measurably, so it wasn’t all time wasted. We pushed on as soon as the temperature came above zero and the rain stopped (8 days, 1700km to go). It was about 4 degrees as we rode to Kansk, and we were rugged up in everything we owned. It turns out that no matter how rugged up you are, 4 degrees C in a 100km/h breeze eventually gets cold. Bone cold. Theresa had the foresight to buy a thermos in Krasnoyarsk (really, that place was all about getting warm), and tea pretty much saved us.

We decided to push on to the next town and find a hotel, but the only hotel there was a member of some kind of crazy Krasnoyarsk Oblast Superior Hotel League Association (with a stamp to prove it), and was so expensive we decided to push on again, and in Nizhny Ilgash we found a nice place to sleep, with 8 days left. 

I’m going to splice in another timeline here, so  ​

(I was denied entry on the first attempt to enter Russia. The second was more successful)
August 4, and Theresa and I are waiting in the vehicle line to enter Russia. We’re approached by a Russian man with his little boy, keen on seeing motorcycles (the boy, not the man). Max couldn’t help himself and needed to see the bikes up close, so Vasily brought him over. Theresa bribed him (Max, not Vasily) with biscuits and pretty soon we were all mates. Vasily and his wife Anna helped us to cross the border (Russian paperwork is somewhat intimidating), and they invited us to spend time with them in Valday, at a cottage on a lake, which we did, but that is a story in itself, really. The important thing here is that we became pretty good friends with Vasily and Anna, ad they promised to help us out on our journey if we need anything.

So, 6 days to go, I woke up early and rode 800km from Nizhny Ilgash to Irkutsk, and man that ride was cold. I thought I knew cold. There was ice. Lakes were frozen. Rivers were frozen. There was snow. I started at 8am, and the temperature only came above zero at 11am. My beard froze into my helmet so I couldn’t take it off - the helmet, that is. It snowed. Really, it was was cold. Theresa’s train, which we thought would get her to Irkutsk that day didn’t. Instead, she was going to arrive at 9am the next morning (what day are we up to here? I started riding with 14 days to go). That afternoon I got a message from a guy called Nikita. He also heard about our problems via Vasily’s VK call-to-arms, and he was going to look after me, just call when I arrive in Irkutsk.

Do I feel like it? Can I meet another person? I kind of just want to find a place to sleep. 

I arrived at 8pm, dark and, believe it or not, cold. I called Nikita. He came and met me and took me to a warm garage to park the BMW. He took me to the supermarket for vodka, and his Babushka lit the fire in the Banya (Russian sauna), and we sauna-ed and vodka-ed and ate, and he told me we would pick up Theresa the next morning and go see Baikal. Ha! so we would see Baikal after all. 

5 days and 680km to go. Nikita and his mate Daniil took us to Lake Baikal. We saw Nerpas, ate smoked fish (Omul), and came up with a plan. Since it was cold and snow everywhere, we would freight the bike to Ulan Ude (500km) on Nikita’s father’s truck. Theresa would go with the bike, I would go by train, and we would try to ride to Mongolia from there. The truck could leave in 2 days (T-3), it takes one day (T-2), one day to the border (T-1)… plenty of time..?

bow wow wow yippie -o yippie -ay
It’s theresa on the motorbike and mat are on the way.

We booked it from Digermulen to Alingsas (to be precise, to Östängs Gård Farm, to stay with Ylva and Jonas). We had previously applied to them for some WWOOFing work on their farm, and they told us we could be of use in 2 days or so.

It’s not so far, only about 1700km, but to understand how far this is in Mat and Theresa-land, you should know that we don’t zoom about like swallows, rather we wallow about, like loons. Also, in Norway, 80km/h is the max. So, when faced with a 20hr google maps estimate drive time, we budget about 4 days. In a world-speed-record attempt, I think we did it in 3. We camped two nights in Sweden, and were rained on with colossal force on the third day as we neared  Östängs Gård, but eventually, about a day late, we made it.

We had a great time with Ylva and Jonas, helping in the gardens, pollarding the trees, painting the barn and enjoying fika. I’ve heard not all WWOOFing is a great experience but this really was, we learned a lot, and made very good friends with our hosts at  Östängs Gård. They’re well prepared for WWOOFers and the end of the world. Really, they have approximately one of everything on their farm, what they don’t have they can make, and when it all goes pear-shaped,  Östängs Gård ​will stand calmly in the centre. 

We stayed at  Östängs Gård for two weeks, and in the middle we visited a mate of ours. This visit was the reason for going to Sweden, and arguably a pivotal cause of our anti-clockwise Baltic loop that saw us heading distinctly in the opposite direction of our so-called goal (Australia). In fact, our mate, Johannes, was to get married to his (now) wife, Tania. In Mjolby, near a place called Lynkoping. The Swedes don’t say “Lyn-koping”, they say “Lyiyn-sho-a-oping”, so it is quite difficult to talk to anyone about the place unless you’ve been forewarned by a kind Swede. Or Turnip. We were going to ride our bikes, but first, Theresa’s back breaks desperately needed changing (no pads left at all… oops), and her front ones might as well be changed (1mm pads). So I called the local bike shop in Trollhattan and confirmed that they had the parts. They did. Two copies of them. “I’ll be there in an hour” (it’s an hour’s ride from  Östängs Gård), “OK” said they guy.

Lovely day for a ride - it rained only a few times, and I arrived at the bike shop, grabbed a few things I needed, fronted up to the desk; “Grab those brake pads for me, would you?”. You can probably guess I am not writing this story as a method of torturing the audience, where I crap on for ages about something as banal (which, incidentally, I recently found out does not rhyme with “anal”) as buying spare parts and everything goes well. After about forty minutes the guy returns to the desk and says “we don’t have them. Must be a computer error, why don’t you come back when we do”. 

Sheesh.

What can you do? Nothing, there is nothing to do. Ride home, brakeless. I didn’t buy the other things (a chain and sprocket for the Yamaha, brake fluid etc) out of spite, and I rode home.

I tried to order the brakes online from the UK - it seemed cheapest there, but a couple days later, I got an email to the effect that since I was using a card registered to an Australian address, and was shipping to a Swedish address, I would need to furnish the online shop with a copy of a utilities bill at my Australian address to demonstrate I was not scamming them. FFS. or FML, as I hear some people say.

So, no brakes for Theresa’s BMW, and it is 2up on the Yamaha from  Östängs Gård to Mjolby. It’s only 3 hours or so, no worries. The wedding was awesome. The cake delicious, the bride lovely, the grrom bearded. All was in order. We got some quality time with the French (and spanish, germano-english) crowd from Moulis where I worked who came to the wedding. Come to think of it, it was one of each (French, Germano-english, and Spanish), so let’s call them “the crowd from Moulis”. Or.. Jeff, Nuria and Aisha (but not Keoni).

We drank and danced and played games and all too soon had to leave Mjolby, and go back to  Östängs Gård, so Theresa and I saddled up once again and motored off into the (6-hour-long) sunset. It really was like that - the sun in your eyes the whole time. Beautiful in a so many ways and slightly blinding in others. You constantly wonder and hope there is, and simultaneously hope there is not, a moose on the side of the road. 

There wasn’t.

But there was a noise and it was coming from the bike. From the drive chain somewhere. I couldn’t pin down what it was, but the rattley noise was accompanied by a feeling of being in neutral, and I feared the worse for the gearbox of my trusty Tenere, which has been totally rock solid up until now. We stopped and checked it out. Luckily it wasn’t the gear box. Unluckily, the front drive sprocket had no teeth left on it. Really, no teeth. We weren’t going anywhere, and we were in a place called Gullered. Population John (and his family).

It is an interesting place, Sweden. Arguably the safest place in the world. The place is full of Swedes who we all know are the nicest, happiest, most well educated, least violent, friendliest people in the world. Everyone loves Sweden, and Swedes. Except the Swedish. Did you know you shouldn’t bother hitchhiking in Sweden? The wont pick you up for fear of rampaging psychos with knives, guns and scams. This is what we were told by John, who lives in Gullered.

We were shit out of luck, and rolling (literally rolling - a bike with no front sprocket is very quickly downgraded from “motorcycle” to “scooter”, and not the type with a motor.. a push scooter, that you scoot with) down the side of the road looking for a place to stop. Theresa noticed John watching us with interest, or scepticism, from his house, sparked up a conversation, and next thing John was helping us to park the bike in his shed and explaining to us that our plan of hitchhiking back to Östängs Gård was a failure before it was hatched, that no Swede would ever pick us up, not even himself. No way would he, too many horror stories. Too many scams: who can you trust these days? And to that end, he put us in his car and drove us to Östängs Gård. It’s about an hours drive to Östängs Gård, so it was no small trip. Anyone reading this in Australia or Canada or Russia might think nothing of it, but the rest of the world is a smaller place. An hour away is a long way. And it was 11pm (so the sun was almost set). And to make sure we got home, John gave us a lift.

It worked well, and in just a few days we had managed to borrow a car from a friend of Jonas and Ylva, and the trailer from Jonas and Ylva, and we drove out and brought the stranded Yamaha back home. We owe John and his family some pretty big favours. I hope his next house doesn’t burn down (his previous one did…), and I hope he comes to visit us in Australia one day, he was a scream and his family were awesome.

Fast forward a trip to the local ducati enthusiast shop with Jonas, a ducati die-hard and professional, some pollarding, wood stacking, bed weeding, and insect hotel opening, and Theresa and I were ready for our next adventure.

Russia.

What a place to be going! Who knows anything, really, about Russia? A country of strong people, hard people. Spies, Ladas, Borst, Vodka, queues for life’s essentials, beautiful women in fur hats, bear wrestling-vodka slushing cold, serious people. We’re going!

After 5 months of organising my visa to Russia (Theresa got hers in a few weeks by comparison - there were many hiccups in the organisation of mine, which warrant their own story chapter), we were going to Russia. 
Step 1: ride to Stockholm
Step 2: collect visa
Step 3: Ferry to Estonia
Step 4: ride to the border
Step 5: cross border
Step 6: ride to St Petersburg

It’s a simple plan, and so we packed our shit. We loaded the bikes. We put on our safety gear. We left Östängs Gård. For Russia, Comrade!

(check out the Sweden Photo Gallery for more pics)

Sometimes you go to Lofoten to ski, sometimes because you want to sail. We were going because Theresa had heard from everyone she ever met that Lofoten was awesome.

And how can you ignore that? So we were going.

I messaged Eivind, a mate of mine who I had met in Australia in 2004. A Norwegian. I had run into him again in 2007 in Norway, and who I thought: why not? We’re on a world tour. Better visit everyone in the world. So I asked him where he was, and he said in Molde, but that he would soon be in Digermulen in Lofoten, arriving by boat, and that 2016 was the perfect year to meet up.

And so to Å, at the end of the alphabet (Norwegian) and the end of the road (Lofotonian), we motored. This is the drive to Lofoten from Tromso: Wow, look at the fjords. (Another corner..) Man, I can’t believe how spectacular these fjords are. (Corner) far out, these fjords. Better stop for a photo, it can’t get better than this. (next corner) Shit, I’ll stop, this must be the best one, I’ll take a photo here. (next) No, this. This is the best - one photo here.

About an seven hours later, you have managed about 19km, and the day is slipping away (not that the sun sets, so I guess it doesn’t matter). But you feel like you need to get some where. Anywhere. Make a few kilometres maybe. Ok, that’s it: this is clearly as good as the landscape could be. This is the money shot. I’ll stop for this one, take this photo.

Lofoten calmly responds with: You’re a rank amateur. The landscapes haven’t even begun.

And they haven’t. As a result, a 200km drive along a string of islands out into the Norwegian sea, at 68 degrees Latitude, can take weeks. So it was that we were tootling along at about 7pm, when we passed a sign for Digermulen. I remembered this was where Eivind would be. We stopped and discussed. We decided to head out to Digermulen. As the reader I feel like you might disparage me, feeling all proud that I remembered the name of a place on an island. Woop-di-do. But, I ask you, consider that I saw a lot of place names. That most were confusing. In fact, all were Norwegian and unpronounceable and ultimately all were confusing. It was a feat of mental prowess of the highest order to remember the name Digermulen. About 20km down the side road is Digermulen, and we were keen for some Alle Manns Ratten. Some beach. Some view of distant peaks and reflections of islands in the ocean. And we weren’t disappointed. The beach, a fire, some pasta, some Gin, and the next day we went to find Eivind.

Digermulen has a cafe. It is part of the general store, and you can get coffee there, but not wifi. This meant that while we were caffeinating satisfactorily, we weren’t able to contact Eivind. We went into the store and asked the checkout chick if she knew someway we might contact Eivind. Maybe she knew him. He’s tall. Stands out. Digermulen is small. She knew him. He lives up the road, has a white house and blue car. We would finish our coffees and go there. While we were finishing our coffee, the girl (I never learned her name in an attack of rudeness) came and told us that Eivind was in fact most likely on his boat in the marina. The marina is about a 30m walk from the shop so she took me there, pointed out the boat (there were only two to choose from. “Marina” is a stretch, let’s say pontoon), and went back to work.

“I’m looking for Eivind” I said to the giant blonde man coming towards me after I knocked on his boat and interrupted a conversation he was having. “I’m Eivind” he said. I guessed he’d change, the last time I saw Eivind, he was lean and brown-red haired. This guy was robust and blonde. Possibly a viking. We had a chat for about an hour about what the hell I was doing. About his boat, and about who I was looking for. Eivind, obviously. Wait. Which Eivind? Nordebrg? Hang one one second, said Eivind: Eivind is coming to Digermulen next week!

Could it be true? Does Eivind know Eivind? Eivind grabbed his phone and phoned Eivind, and pretty soon I was talking with my Eivind, and organising that Eivind would look after us, tell us how things were, and generally entertain us for a week until Eivind arrived.

We spent some days with Eivind, Liza, Ragne, Mikel and Tove. Climbed the hill and slept in a (nearly completed) sauna on the beach.

We toured Lofoten and made good use of Allemansratten, a scandinavian concept that all people have a right to the land. This means that you can camp basically anywhere, provided you’re not a dick. Not smashing crops or bunging your tent in the front yard of someone's house, but in general, if you’re out of sight, don’t trash the place, take your rubbish away, and generally are there to enjoy the place, you can stay for a night in one place (provided there isn’t a big “no camping” sign). So we did, swimming in fjords and lakes, visiting the largest viking longhouse discovered, and meeting more people.

One of our campsites was behind a burned out house, next to a lake. We had roamed around looking to make it to Reine so we could take a hike we’d heard of. There was precious little flat ground available for a tent and the locals in this place had the shits with tourists trashing the joint (very popular tourist area, and no one likes a tourist). We were having some trouble finding a place to sleep. Finally we rode past this spot. It had a slightly difficult access, so we parked the bike up the street and walked down for a look. It was flat, next to a lake, shielded from the road by the old burnt out house, had plenty of firewood, and no one else camping there. Perfect. We wandered back to bring up the bikes, and Theresa jumped on hers, and zoomed off, securing the place while I was still messing around getting my helmet ready.

At the risk of going on too long, let me explain something at this point. Theresa likes to take her time. Sort things out. Helmet, sena cam, jacket, one glove, other glove, on the bike, give it a shake, make sure things are together. In short, it can take 5 minutes (and typically does) for her to transition from “about to leave” to “moving”. This time it took less than about 3 seconds. She’s convinced the reason we got the prime camp spot was her snappy movement.

So we camped and hiked. We took photos, and organised a Russian visa (or did we? Hint: not yet), toured, and camped (check out the Norway photos, they speak for themselves). Eventually, we made it back to Digermulen and found the right Eivind.

And that’s not as quirky as finding the wrong one, so I’ll leave it there.

Next: How Digermulen became the next hot concert location.

But they're not all sharks.

We spent a few rad days in Tallinn with Nick. We ate Tallinnese food (though it seemed a lot like modern cafe food everywhere), wandered around the old town (which is awesome), saw some churches, drank the beer, and generally had a good time in the sunshine.

We met a crazy drunk Russian guy (the bearded guy who isn't me in the photo) who claimed he was my disciple, and said he needed help. From me. At least some of these claims were true.

From Tallinn, we took a ferry to Helsinki. We were feeling the pressure to get Theresa to Tromso in a hurry since she was due to get her ass to Hawaii and tell the world about her Cardinalfish (Theresa recently handed in her PhD thesis on mating systems, behaviour and genetics of a coral reef fish, the pyjama cardinalfish). You can camp wherever you want in Finland, as long as you don't destroy crops, annoy people, or other things like that. More or less, don't be a dick, and you're welcome to put your tent in basically any place. We we tired and cold that first night, so we thought that we would check in a campsite that might have showers, electricity and all those mod-cons anyway. It was going to be an absurd price, so instead we drove to the other side of a lake and pitched the tent for free. And Theresa got to test her new Lifestraw bottle.

It was a fun night and we choofed off in the morning. As the day progressed into rain and cold, and we realised we were making fewer and fewer kilometers than we needed to to make it comfortably to Tromso the stress mounted a little, and it was with kind of frayed nerves that we stopped at another ABC (you know this if you're Finnish.. if not: it is the local everything venue.. fuel, supermarket, restaurant...). We decided to make for Rokua National Park: we could pitch a tent. Have a fire. Jump in a freezing lake, and sit near the fire. That was the plan.

Instead, on the way into the national park, lost, trying to figure out the multitude of micro dirt roads and what seemed to be huts, owned by Fins, in the middle of what we though was a national park where huts don't belong, we ran into these three gentleman who arrested our progress, and forced us into their hut for coffee. Well, let me be clear: there were three older guys, and two younger (about 25 or so).

It might be a midnight-sun thing. Normally, if you sit down for a polite beverage with your mates the sun sets and reminds you gently to go to bed. Often you can even choose the sleeping surface. I suspect that if the sun never sets and you don't get this reminder, you might end up not ever realising you should sleep, and instead continue drinking. I think that's what happens. The guys were drunk. I have been drunk before, and for a short while held the world record for most drunk, but these guys blew me out of the water. In we went for coffee, and as we went in, the two younger guys outside casually cleared out. Clearly the last victims of "come and have a coffee", they hadn't found a reasonable way of extricating themselves from these older guys, saw their chance and bolted. Theresa and I were stuck with the three who were so rollicking, I was left to wonder how yhey maintained verticality. Over a coffee they decided they liked us, and insisted we stay in their cabin.

That was a bit awkward: how could Theresa and I possibly stay in a cabin with these guys? It was a small cabin, and the couch already had one napping occupant (he wasn't allowed to nap long and was frequently reinvigorated with vodka... or similar: Soumi Viina, I think). The air was flammable, and we were both already light headed from the fumes.

The thing is: polite refusal can be difficult if you barely have a common language (we didn't), if 3/5 people are blind drunk (they were), and if 2/5 can't figure a smooth way out of the situation (we couldn't), then extracting yourself might not be easy. At this point, we had out helmets off (for drinking coffee), our gloves off (for holding cups), our boots off (for entering cabins): there was no quick-dash-option.

One of the guys, the only English speaker, had a joke: he would spit on his palm, comb his hair over, and in his best American proclaim "I'm George Clooney", and we would all laugh. So let's call him George Clooney (he's on the right in the photos). George took me outside, and showed me this:

This was going to be our own cabin, they had an extra cabin! In the foreground is the outside sauna. We called it that to distinguish from the inside sauna. Which we used. A sauna, a cabin, a walk in the national park. A bed. Curtains to block the midnight sun, a comfortable sleep. Hamburgers, Siina, coffee. That is what these guys gave us. Just because they were awesome. That is the only reason I can think of. In seriousness, they lifted our spirits, warmed us up, made us laugh and shared everything they had. It was a great night, and Theresa and I now have standing obligations to be kind to every Fin we ever see, and possibly to deliberately seek out a few, and be nice to them, too.

Where do you even go from there? The park was awesome. The night was awesome. There was only one place to go the next day: North! to the arctic. Towards Tromso. And so, off we went, and saw for real our first midnight sun (the lower latitudes have a bright midnight, but the sun dips below the horizon for a brief period, cheapening the whole experience).

One last thing to leave you with before we leave Finland: reindeer! How cool!

I am posting up some videos of the kind of driving we see around Europe. We have been in 5 countries in total now, and the driving style is pretty variable but at the same time, quite consistent within countries.
[check out the overtaking]

If, like me, you learned to drive in Australia, and have been driving overseas, it is clear that Australians are the best drivers in the world, and that within Australia, NSW drivers are better than QLD, Territorians are nuts, and everyone else is better than Victorians (sorry, Tassie, WA, SA: you don’t get your own mention). Australians have a quiet respect for other drivers’ “personal” space, don’t tail gate, don’t cut each other off,and definitely are always on the look out for bicycles. We always indicate. We use our lanes properly, we’re courteous, and respect each others’ right to be on the road. Alive. Or so it feels when you first drive in another country. But it turns out, it is just a matter of adjustment. So let’s adjust to the locals, in order of appearance.

The French (and mostly here I mean Ariegois) are interesting: they seem impatient, always tailgating, hovering left to right to see past you to overtake (and they will, corner or straight, clear vision or no). But you can stop in a French village, put the hazards on -blocking the road-, get out, buy a baguette, have a chat, roll a cigarette, and everyone behind you will wait. I think the unspoken rule is you have 3 or 4 minutes and everyone behind you will simply wait patiently. Start going again, and the tailgating and overtaking begins again in earnest. The other part to this is that they expect people to make crazy manoeuvres in front of them, and although the cars are all bashed up, I never once saw anyone hit another vehicle, and they are super courteous to cyclists and give them lots of space (take note, Australia). It takes some getting used to, and it can be frustrating when you’re in a hurry and every man and his dog is stopping for chats and baguettes all along the street. Indicators are used if you like.

The Germans on the other hand understand that indicators and a precise driving style is what keeps everybody alive and going. The Germans are neat drivers and prefer you to follow the rules - you overtake in the overtaking zone, when it is safe, and you do it fast. It is no surprise to many people in theory, but when you first see for yourself just how fast Germans can safely pilot their sport-suspended, well-maintained, super-cars down the autobahn (300km/h happens often enough, but 220-250 is common), you’ll be impressed. It is no wonder the F1 drivers come from Europe: an F1 is simply another car you’d causally drive, except it doesn’t have surround sound music and taught black leather interior, so why would you? Taking on the autobahn on our first day on the bikes in Germany was entirely taxing to me; it rained, and our overburdened bikes were wheat to the scythe on the A1. The Yamaha complains over 130km/h, though the BMW had no such trouble. After that first day, I never wanted to drive the autobahn on the Yamaha again. We did though, on the second and third days, and it got better. I got better. You learn to see one eye on the mirrors (take note, Australia). If you think you’ll overtake a truck (limited to 80km/h), you check the mirror, indicate and smoothly pull out. Well, really, you only do that once because in the time it took you to indicate and being sailing over to the left, Michael Schumacher has come caning down the lane from 10km behind at 300, and scares the bejesus out of you. Keep your eye on the mirror, indicate for long than you think you should, and his well-balanced car with brakes capable of stopping a freight train, and a computer system that maintains traction and straight driving have plenty of time to slow down for your lumbering 600cc.

Then one day you find yourself in Poland. Crazy. People demand that you move over to let them overtake! There might be an entire lane they could use, but they sure aren’t going to. You’ll move or it will end poorly. The flip side is that thumping along, waiting to overtake someone only requires you to indicate your intention, and the car in front of you has conveniently moved aside and you can plough on by without driving down the oncoming lane. It’s convenient, and some of the roads are even built especially for it. As you move along the baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia), this become more and more pronounced, and people become more and more keen to overtake, and to get you overtaking. Two lane roads don’t exist here - all roads are four lanes, two in each direction. They’re no painted that way, but when two oncoming cars move to their respective sides, two other cars (or trucks) can  “comfortably” overtake at the same time, barely brushing wing mirror as the scream past (and I screamed overtime for the first day, let me tell you) at a relative speed of 260km/h, straight on. But they won’t take no for an answer. On the bike you’re expected, even obliged to overtake people as they ditch they cars into the emergency lane to get out of your way. Conversely, you must absolutely stay to the edge yourself or the driver in the (by the time you’re in the Baltic states) fairly old BMW/Audi will simply not understand why you would be so rude as to deliberately foil his attempts to get somewhere.

So I think now I am a much better driver than I was, at least as far as expecting the unexpected goes. I’m almost bomb-proof, and very nearly always know who is behind me, and when they want to overtake (always). All this happens at highway speeds of about 130 (take note, Australia), and so far, and I hope for my entire trip, I haven’t seen a single incident. Mostly everyone understands that everyone else wants to get somewhere, and has something to do. It’s wonderful to watch, and great fun and occasionally shit-scary to be part of it. And I’m hooked.

The last week or so has been characterised by packing unpacking, repacking, cleaning, examining every single object we own, deciding its fate and expunging. The expunging was the most satisfying, the cleaning the least. When you move into a rental house its clean, and as time goes by, entropy ensures it doesn’t stay that way. And then, the day you move out, it is the cleanest it could be and you don’t get to enjoy it! I hope the next tenants appreciate that. And so with the help of our friends, Richard, Rachel and Tim, we cleaned, and packed. We serviced two motorbikes and packed and cleaned. And we’re pretty grateful to not only see our old mates, but also to enslave them, paying them only with the last of our dry food-stores turned into dinners of left-over couscous and lentils with rice.

As d-day (departure day, not the other one), drew closer, we found we had some things to get rid of that were proving difficult. We had three motorcycles, and we needed two. We had three top-cases and we wanted none. They were listed on leboncoin, a website you go to hock things you need to get rid of, but really, our items never received much attention. Then we received good news in the form that someone was interested to buy a bike! They would come and see it on d-day (Thursday). At 5pm! No, that’s too late! Theresa talked them back to 3.30pm - this should give us time to sell the bike, to d-, and get in 4 hours of riding before sunset.

It was d-day. It was sunny, things were packed, cleaning was being finalised, in short: everything was perfect.

Let me introduce some characters for this story: there is Sophie; the nephew; the mechanic mate; Tim; me (Mat); my brother (Tom); and Theresa. Sophie, the lady who sold us all our motorbike insurance is lovely, helpful, and charming. And it turns out her nephew (the nephew) is the one interested in the bike. Sophie, the nephew, and the mechanic mate were coming this afternoon to see the bike. Excellent. Now to ditch 3 top-cases. Tom, my brother, wants a top case, and so I stuffed it with things to give him, and it was ready. I’d give that to him in Savoie in two days, our first “stop” on the pre-trip trip. This France-Germany leg being the pre-trip to the trip from Wildeshausen-to-Tullera. One down.

The second top-case would hopefully go with the bike we were hopefully going to sell this hopeful d-day afternoon. One left. Tim, my mate from way-back-when was visiting on his motorbike, he would ride with us to Savoie. And he didn’t own a top-case. Bullseye. I talked to him, he talked to me, eventually, after showing him some useful features of the top-case: the locking mechanism, the little red plastic flap which concealed the perfect compartment for your essential paperwork: insurance, proof of bike ownership etc., Tim decided he could use the top-case, but that he would have to post it to his house in England because he couldn’t attach it to his bike immediately. So he took it, boxed it, and posted it to ol’ blightey.

3.30pm. T-minus an hour or so until we leave. We just have to convince the nephew to buy the bike (probably take a too-low price), then get on our bikes and go. We talk. These things sometimes take a little while in - it’s better to get to know someone before you buy their bike, and so we talked. It took a couple hours, but eventually, the nephew talked down a few hundred Euro-bucks and we agreed: the bike was sold. We can get going any minute. Grab the paperwork, fill it out.

Get the paper work Mat! ..

The paper work. The insurance paper, the proof of ownership! Sign it!

Remember the top-case with the little red flap that hides the perfect compartment for paperwork for your bike? Remember Tim, only a few hours ago solving a problem by taking that top case and posting it to England? Remember when I took out my paperwork from behind the little red flap? No?

Me either.

The thing is, you can’t sell a bike without proof of ownership, and you can’t provide proof of ownership if you posted it to England that morning. So the bike sits in Engomer even now.

Sophie, one of the loveliest people you will ever meet, and who you should all go and meet, and buy her insurance, knows for a fact that we own the bike: she has copies of our proof of ownership. She has seen it and stamped it. Sophie now convinced the nephew that the bike is still a good idea to buy. She says Tim can post the paper back when he gets home to England. That I can sign it, wherever I am, and post it to her. That she will give the paper to the nephew, and that he will transfer the cash, and that the sale should go ahead! How I owe Sophie something good. I don’t know the last time you managed to pull a stunt like post your proof of ownership to another country on d-day at the critical hour, but the corticosterol levels rise rapidly. This brings blood-pressure issues, and if you are standing near enough to Theresa, there is the distinct possibility you will also be posted to England, and with no return address.

Things are sorted. And the next thing you need to know is we got on our bikes after emotional good-byes to Engomer, to Florence, Heloise, and Thibaut. To the cat and we set out, around about 6pm.

At around about 6.15pm it rained.

We stay on the bikes until about 7 or 730, and stopped for dinner and cafe gourmand. An hour! That’s not nearly enough, we need to get to Savoie tomorrow to meet people: my brother, our friends. We have a decline to be in Savoie tomorrow afternoon. So we put the wet socks back on, gear up and are determined to ride to Carcassonne before quitting. Out we go into the rain. The sun has set. The Yamaha won’t start. Theresa pushes it, and off we go. About 2km down the highway I realise my headlights don’t work, and we stop to sort it out. I know the way to Carcassonne but I can’t go first: I can’t see. Tim has the twat-nav to the rescue, and we tell it: avoid motorways, take us to the heart of the Cathare!

Tim leads, me second, Theresa third. I can see the road ahead in Tim’s light, and I can see around me, to the sides, from Theresa’s light behind, and a big Yamaha-shaped shadow in front of me. It’s only 2 hours to Carcassonne. But with the rain and the vision, we took four.

It was a wet, sorry trio that squelched into the cheapest hotel in Carcassonne, demanded three beers and slept the sleep of the tired, wet and self-pitying.

Next installment: day 2.

As you might guess, a lot has happened since our last post. I finally handed in my PhD (woop woop!), and 2 days later flew to Moorea (Tahiti, French Polynesia) to collaborate for a month with the wonderful Suzie Mills. There were tiger shark encounters and dance shows and swimming in water falls and amazing Mahi-Mahi and the kind of relaxed science you need after finishing a 4 year thesis. Of course this interlude happened right in the middle of trip preparations, so now the race Is on.
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There are a million pieces of paperwork (international drivers licence, Russian visa) to sort out and of course we have to sell/ throw out/ give away most of our possessions. On top of that Mat had the ingenious idea to sell one of our lovely BMWs and exchange it for a 16 year older Enduro: a Yamaha Ténéré.

This happened because the greatest dilemma we have faced so far in planning this trip was how to get the motorbikes into Australia. Aussies are a little protective of their border and unfortunately just sneaking in would require building some kind of float and getting across 3000km of ocean..and I’m pretty sure that would land us in a retainment camp in PNG. Officially Mat (being Australian, lucky duck) can import one motorbike. Selling the other one somewhere in south-east Asia might have been possible but of course highly illegal and Mat’s not a great passenger (back seat driving..), so only having one bike to get across Australia would have been a pain. But we figured out he can import several bikes if they are older than 1989. The day after I got back from Tahiti, after 45 hours travelling and with a 12 hour time difference, we tracked to Rodez and picked up our new old bike. We like it a lot, it’s quite different from the beamers but I think it’ll do a great job. And having two very different seats to swap around might do our bums a world of good.

The sponsorship emails have been firing out, and the sponsors are coming in! Over the last couple of weeks, Theresa has been busy researching, soliciting, and cajoling. For the most part, well, the entire part, all the companies she has contacted have been jam packed with lovely people who are positive and, while not necessarily joining us as sponsors, at loeast wish us well.

I guess we weren't really expecting them to tell us to go jump, but really we've been pretty impressed with the nice-ness.

Anyway, check them out.

Given that I have been terrible at maintaining the site so far, i need to add a number of things; so get ready for new adventures! There has been a breakdown or so (a 6-month saga with the yellow bike), which I think/hope has been resolved now (as of yesterday!), and so I could go for a ride on it again! On the plus-side, not riding it has saved a lot of wear and tear on the tyres.

Pics and a painfully detailed explanation of what not to do, followed by what (hopefully.. if it holds) to do to a BMW radiator.

Other news? We're off to Paris soon to get me a new passport (mine is about to expire), and then visas to Russia, Khazakstan, Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Thailand, .. Nepal.. ? we're not sure. But, we have travel insurance!.... so now we won't have accidents