London to Sydney. Overland. 6 months. By motorbike. Solo.
Common reactions so far, include:
“PLEASE be careful. Don’t crash again.”…Me too, hope not. Didn’t really enjoy it last time.
“Ah so how are you getting the bike to Australia? By plane or ship?”…Erm, no, you’ve not quite understood…OVERLAND. OVER…LAND…(and sea. For little bit).
“Wow, that’s awesome mate. Good on you. Let me pay for dinner”….Thank you. That’s appreciated. By a stomach that over the last 5 weeks seems to have expanded rapidly at a rate that’s inversely proportional to my bank balance.
“Just because you now have an off-road bike, it doesn’t mean that you can show-off by doing wheelies down the Lower Richmond Road. You look like a t**t”….Granted. Thanks Ginny.
“Are you mental?” [No comment]
So what’s the route? Well, you can see a map above. And it is a whopper - some 17,000 miles all-in.
In short, I’ll go through Europe, Turkey and the Caucasus region, before crossing the Caspian Sea to travel the old Silk Road routes across central Asia into western China, then on to south-east Asia and Australia. I leave London on Friday and the UK, on the Portsmouth to Cherbourg ferry, on Monday.
What else does this little escapade involve? Well, there are five key pieces of information that I wish to impart at this stage of the game:
- I’m not very good at sticking to pointless rules. But there is one that I want to try and follow, based on my experience in California and Europe, that I think will help me get the most from my time on the road - to travel cross-country using minor roads, away from multi-lane highways as much as possible.
- This route is THE DADDY. Why? Well, for a geek like me it’s due to a mixture of history, geo-politics (yes, I said it, history and GEO-POLITICS) and adventure. This route is the chance to see those places I’ve spent the last ten years reading about, in the flesh. And many of them are still at the centre of major world events today.
- A ‘bit’ of a dash…across Azerbaijan, a country perhaps famous to most because of it’s seemingly inexplicable participation in the Eurovision song-contest. That is until Australia was included this year of course. Anyway, due to a customs law there I’ll have 72 hours to cross 600 miles of Azerbaijan or the bike will be impounded. Doesn’t sound too challenging until you consider…
- …some Caspian Sea banter. The way out of Azerbaijan involves catching a ferry across the Caspian Sea to that famed land of Borat - Kazakstan. The problem is that the ferries don’t really follow a timetable and have reputation for getting stuck out at sea for days on end due to poor weather. You just have to wait for one turn up, whenever that might be.
- Then there’s the Himalayas. Pakistan is out (security), Iran too (ditto). The awful events in Nepal means crossing there is impossible and morally questionable from a rubbernecking point of view. So I figured if you can’t go over them, go round them - from Kyrgyzstan (north of Pakistan), through western China and down into Laos.
Now all of this has come together rather quickly, in the last 5 weeks or so. One fellow overlander I spoke to who took a similar route a few years back, spent over a year planning his trip.
But then again for me so long as you’re not doing anything reckless, having a tight timeframe with a clear goal is all part of the adventure - it pushes you to raise your game, to achieve more and to learn more, by expecting more. And for me, that’s one of the things this trip is about.