Aug 4 2015

Trip Prologue – Zurich to London

13 June 2015 – Lorraine in Lorraine

Time to take gadget to the UK ready for shipping to Bogota in August. This is the only free time I have before I fly to South Africa and then South America, so I’m making a mini trip of taking my bike to the UK far in advance of its departure date. I have lived in Europe for 20 years and have never been to Lorraine in France so Joern and I decided we’d head over for the weekend and then I’d continue on to the UK.

We rode through Lorraine today and it is a very pretty place, and as always we had a great fun time riding together.

I have also never taken the opportunity to see Luxembourg or Belgium, so I decided to do a mini trip through these two places once I leave Lorraine.

Mar 23 2015

Aside

23rd March 2016 Trip Prologue – Bike prep almost complete

I can’t believe this has taken so long, weekend after weekend spent servicing & upgrading my bike (new skid plate from AltRider, new panniers etc) but it is almost ready to go, just a quick doohicky change and Gadget will be back on the road.

I don’t undertake this second cross continent motorbike adventure lightly. I know what I am facing and this is not an easy holiday, certainly not a luxury holiday in fact using the world holiday is quite a stretch of the truth. Adventure motorcycling is something you do because you love adventure, love spending hours upon hours riding a motorbike and mostly because the journey means more than the destination.

On one hand I cannot wait to start this journey, to see more countries and experience different cultures, all the good things about travelling which excite me. However on the other hand I’ve been so busy and stressed at work that I’ve had so little time to really enjoy the preparations. Having to cram everything into the weekends, I’ve been feeling quite stressed about whether or not I am prepared enough. Joern said to me today that I am over thinking it. So true, so now I will stop thinking and just start living the adventure.

Joern laughing after helping put the off-road footpegs on gadget and then saying ‘’well that’s doubled the value of your bike’’… cheeky sod