Bruce & Pete Round The World

Back in South Africa

2011-07-06T02:18:00.000-07:00

We are back in South Africa and Bruce has said she will take over the Blog for a while as She has finally learned how to use a computer, hehehe
Since our return we have already been up to Lesuto and over to Namibia
We are House, Dogs and Motorcycle hire and repair shop sitting for Thomas who is in Germany for 3 mths.
Its cold here as its midwinter, just like a English Summer!!!!!!

New photo link

2010-04-04T10:03:00.000-07:00

sorry, i havn,t posted for ages, were in Chile after travelling down through OZ and Tasmania and NZ; I hate internet cafes so I have got a mate to put a link on to all our photos, it sort of reads like a blog because I have captioned the pics, were off to Argentina in the next few days and then up to Bolivia and Peru, just pick the photo album of choice and thats what we did there, I,ll try to get better at posting but basically it became a real chore doing the blog so I stopped for a while but I was still putting photos in our a lbum

Just click here to view our Photo Albums. Enjoy

Er which way was it, more Mark an Rueben

2010-01-01T21:49:00.000-08:00

Which way then mates

It looks slippy eh, it was worse than that

Smiley Bruce

The meet up and ride with Mark and Rueben

2010-01-01T21:39:00.000-08:00

Mark and Rueben

2010-01-01T21:25:00.000-08:00

Met these 2 through Horizonsunlimited web site, we did a rather longer ride out with these 2, over 400km mostly on trails and back roads in the pissin rain, I thought it was supposed to be hot here!!!!! we met up at 8.30am( I know seems unlikely for us but its true) and headed off into the rain forest and boy did it live upto its name, Both guys were on road bikes with road tyres and we did some great trails, they did really well on road tyres, I was slipping all over the place on Trail tyres, I can,t list everywhere we went cos I havn,t got a clue all I know is it was another great day and we wound up back at Marks in Brisbane where we stopped the night and eat a homemade curry and drank a lot of beer so thanks mates for a great day out.Mark has given us a load of maps with detailed instructions of great roads, we are heading off tomorrow to head down to Sidney and surrounding ares and probably going to a bike rally that Mark told us about in Cambera, Pics to follow

Bruce, Amanda and Glen at natural bridge

2010-01-01T21:22:00.000-08:00

Couple of ride outs we did with people we met here

2010-01-01T21:01:00.000-08:00

We met Amanda, (no not that one, this is one who lives here) havin a smoke outside a pub here, turns out she,s a Warrington girl and she rides bikes, were a bloody magnet me an B, She very kindly offered to show us round some of the back routes through the mountains east of here, her boyfriend Glen came with us in a very tidy 67 Mustang, we met up at her house and set off to a place called Natural bridge, a great ride out and very good company

2010-01-01T20:46:00.000-08:00

Christmas in OZ

2010-01-01T20:27:00.000-08:00

After John left we started to prepare for Cristmas at my Bro,s Andrea,( his new wife, well not that new but its only the second time we,ve met so she,s still new to me!!!!) made us very welcome which was great as she was so busy preparing for a traditional Christmas for everybody, she put so much work into it so thanks Andrea and Mike for a great time, it was a bit strange for Bruce and I as we normally piss off Skiing for Christmas and last year we were camping at Arusha in Tanzania, I havnt had a traditional Crimbo for at least 20yrs!!!! Surprise suprise it was great, The last time I had Christmas with my Brother was about 50yrs ago, honest!On Christmas day Andreas Daughter, husband and 3 kids showed up along with her son and his girlfriend, so massive dinner, a few drinks and then in the pool, it is so strange for it to be hot on chrismas day, no, not strange its plain wrong, it should be snowing or at least cold and raining, hmmmm missing Manchester, well a bit, OK some more pics

That bleedin car/ potholes and fuel pump

2010-01-01T20:18:00.000-08:00

2010-01-01T20:07:00.000-08:00

2009-12-29T20:32:00.000-08:00

Rewind, I do a lot of this!!

2009-12-29T20:24:00.000-08:00

Before we got to Mersang we went to a national park, this place has the most Tigers in Malasia plus Elephants, Rhinos and lots more, as it happens the were apparently on holiday whilst we were there cos we saw sod all
Once again we were the only people in the whole place and its pretty big about 2 million acres, we had to wake the guy up on the gates to let us in.
I,m sure its great but they need to repair the footbridge at the least, loads of slats missing or broken and I,m not a great lover of hights at the best of times, great waterfalls and streams and pools in the rain forest

2009-12-29T20:15:00.000-08:00

That suite

The inside of the hotel!!!!!!!!!!

crating at the port

Jahor and Singapore

2009-12-29T19:36:00.000-08:00

We left the Island somewhat regretfully and headed of to Jahor with no idea where we were staying or even a street map to help us, so we arrived with not a clue, when in doubt ask a Yamaha rider, I asked said rider and he took us to the Zon hotel which is in a duty free part of Jahor, still bloody expensive!!!! we made the mistake of having to many beers and had to check in at the very expensive Zon hotel, it was more expensive because they only had 2 suites left, very nice they were to, we stayed there for 2 nights and then me an Bruce went off to find somewhere more to our budget. We found a great hotel in town that was part of the same chain as the hotel we stayed in in Port Dickson at a quarter the price of Zon so the 3 of us moved there.
So,,,,,,,,,,, in to Singapore or so we thought, I had the name of a shipping agent who could arrange shipping to Darwin or so I was told, so armed with the address we headed off on the causway over to Singapore only to be deported on arrival, well actually it was only the bikes that were deported, turns out we would need to register the bikes, tax them for a year, insure them for a year, all this just to ride em to the docks.
Hmmmmmm, plan B was needed!!!!!!!!! I asked the manager of the hotel we were staying in does he know anybody who can help with the shipping, ah yes he sais you need to meet Mr yap who as it happens is just next door. So off to meet Mr Yap who turned out to be a star, yes we can ship to OZ from Jahor but no not to Darwin, the best he could do was Brisbane. As this is only 100km south of my Bros place we decided to go for it and worry about how the hell we would get from Darwin to Brisbane(we were determined to do OZ overland, if not on the bikes)
Things went very slowly for a few days and then all hell broke loose, can you meet me at the docks Mr Yap says on the phone, yeh sure I said, when? NOW he asked so off we went to meet the cargo forwarder who had his carpenter standing by to crate the bikes up, I was still getting off the bike whilst he was measuring up! I,ll put some pics up of our time in Jahor bear with me as I,m using a new format for the pictures, it must be easier as I did them twice at the last attempt, ho hum

2009-12-29T19:33:00.000-08:00

2009-12-29T19:25:00.000-08:00

Mersang, Biera island, Jahor

2009-12-29T19:15:00.000-08:00

With our back up crew carrying our gear we left Malacca and headed sth, stayed in a couple of places on the way down that were OK but the further sth you get the harder it is to get a beer, not impossable just harder, the rule seemed to be if there was a chinese sighn outside beer was available, we then entered Jahor provence and it all changed, we found the pirate bar in Mersang down at the docks, cold beer good food and the OZ moto GP on the telly, run by a biker called Froggy, his mate Rhino(really) told us he owned a resort on Biera island and the price was right for a few days stay.

2009-12-29T16:31:00.000-08:00

2009-12-29T16:24:00.000-08:00

Some door eh, old town Malaca
First sight of the sth China sea

2009-12-29T16:19:00.000-08:00

Public transport in Malaca

2009-12-29T16:16:00.000-08:00

Me an John on ciggy break whilst the girls window shop

2009-12-29T16:14:00.000-08:00

John pulling silly face at the circuit

2009-12-29T16:13:00.000-08:00

Amanda at Sepang

Made it to OZ

2009-12-29T02:57:00.000-08:00

Sorry I hav,nt posted for a while but leaving Malasia and getting the bikes into OZ was stressful to say the least, and I still hate the internet, plus I,m a selfish Bxxxxxd and I just couldn,t be arsed!!!!! we are relaxed now and installed at my brothers 100km sth of Brisbane and I can now post up the trip down through Malasia and into OZ over the next few days.John and Amanda made it to KL for the GP and a good time was had by all, we all stayed in a hotel at Port Dickson about 30km south of Sepang and it was great to see our mates with new supplies of books, newspapers and tales of blighty, so a big thanks to them. I have to put some photos up of the amazing places we went to in Malasia on the way to Jahor where we shipped the bikes from, we went to Malacca the oldest trading port in Malasia and then back up to KL to see Amanda off, at this point It had been agreed that John would join us down to OZ and take a break from the UK, John hired a car and we rode the bikes so just like Charley and Ewan we now had a support crew and it was great to ride without loading the bikes up so thanks mate for that.We travelled down the East coast of Malasia and stopped at a couple of places of no import, but we wound up at a place called Mersang which we really liked ,it a jump off point for the really nice islands in the south China sea, we are not going that way again so decided to go to one of the islands for a few days, it turned out we were the only guests on the whole island, we had a staff ratio of about 7 to 1 in our favour, a very relaxing 3 days that we would not of done without John being there. Hope to come on again tomorrow with some pics and more tales

Sepang circuit

2009-10-10T21:29:00.000-07:00

We have John and Amanda arriving to watch the MOTO GP at Sepang so we decided to have a ride out to check out the circuit, security was lax, Sooooooooo!

Rection racing and the Bungalo at Martins and Sasha,s once again thanks for a memorable stay, keep in touch guys

2009-10-06T23:22:00.000-07:00

Big rewind I thought I,d lost all these but I found a memory card with some pics on so I,d like to thank Martin Sasha and the kids for a great stay

2009-10-06T22:57:00.000-07:00

We posted up on horizons , anybody fancy a drink in SA, Swaziland and got a reply from Martin in Hazyview SA, Call in and see us they sez, we were expecting to be in a guest house or hotel nearby but no they had a spare bungalow, as you do in the grounds of their house that was spare!!We also at this time needed new tyres and Martin put us in touch with Reaction racing in Nelspruit who were great. Martin is a great cook and his wife Sasha and the kids, Toby, Zac and Ben, I hope thats right cos it was a long time ago all made us welcome, Martin has a great toy cabinet, several BMW dirt bikes and a KTM enduro bike that he let me have a play on, the 2 oldest lads both have dirt bikes whilst the youngest is practising hard. Many thanks once again and I,m sorry this took so long but I tried to post it a week after we left and lost it all, (my IT skills) have improved a bit it seems. The only thing the family would let us do was to cook them a meal before we left, thanks guys for a great time

Monsoon bar

2009-10-06T22:38:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to Hilton and partner Anyela/anya sorry I,ve forgot the name but a top host and hostess and great to meet Clare and the rest at Monsoon

Bit of a rewind

2009-10-06T22:30:00.000-07:00

Before we left Thailand we spent some time in Au nang about 400km from the malay border and met up with a really nice bunch of people at the monsoon bar, had a great night playing poker with them and they clued us in on which border to head for, what to avoid, etc anywayhere are some pics

Landed on our feet in KL

2009-10-05T01:11:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post as its nearly beer o,clock here in sunny Kuala Lumpar, having had to kick rats out of the way to park our bikes at 1 of the hotels we were checking out (we did find a better one) we went to a bar for a beer and they sold Stella there so I ordered 2 pints without without checking the price. 12 quid!!!! OUCH, I asked the waiter if it was served with a tube of KY jelly as I just been F*****d. he didn,t get the joke!!! Anyway we got talking to a bunch of guys who are living here and they clued us in on what to drink, exchange rates, local flavour and just about answered all our questions, thanks guys. It turns out 1 of the guys Scouser Dr John was leaving for the UK for 3wks and would we like to have his appartment till the 20th of Oct, what a result!!! anyhow we moved in today and what a brilliant place it is, top security, pool, parking, washing mashine, telly, computer, we can,t thank him enough a really great guy and a good joke teller! I,ll put some pics up in a couple of days as we are stressed dealing with the brit embassy at the mo as we have used all the pages in our passports. Thats about all for now P n B

Bridge over the river Kwai

2009-09-24T01:21:00.000-07:00

Snake n Rice , Mmmmmmm nice

2009-09-24T01:16:00.000-07:00

Found this on my bed when we woke up, extremely dangerous and bloody huge

2009-09-24T01:12:00.000-07:00

THE BEATLES ARE PLAYING, THE BEATLES ARE PLAYING TONIGHT!!!!!

2009-09-23T00:40:00.000-07:00

Or so we were told by the lady at the guest house we found in a little town, do you want to see them? Oh yes please say we, after all they believe in reincarnation around here and her name was Apple, honestly

So after a shower and a beer off we go with Apple to see John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Disapointingly it was the Beetles that were playing not the beatles it was a Stag beetle fight, the tournament had lasted 3 days and this was the last night, a lot of gambling takes place on these fights and prizes given out for 1st 2nd and 3rd place there is an official judge and it is shown on a big screen with tierd seating.

We were the only westerners there and were the centre of attention for a while, even to the point of interviewing us and getting me to do some commentary, photos were taken of us and we assume we made it into the local paper but we will never know.

I,m going to put some photos up but I have to explain the rules, the contest takes place on a log and both beetles are released in the middle, the beetle that pushes the other one off the end of the log wins, as far as we could figure it was the best out of 5 bouts to decide the winner, that beetle goes forward to the next heat, OK got that

Some river crossings

2009-09-13T03:39:00.001-07:00

Trail ride to the Burmese border

2009-09-13T03:30:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to put some shots up of Christian, Pon and myself on a 3 day ride up in the mountains, Pon is Thailands enduro champion and we named him the Pain master, 3 days of it but he really knows the mountains round here, Bruce stayed in Chiang mai making sure the bikes got fixed

And some more

2009-09-09T03:53:00.001-07:00

And some more

2009-09-09T03:42:00.001-07:00

Some photos

2009-09-09T03:36:00.001-07:00

Chaing rai and Chiang mai

2009-09-07T04:54:00.000-07:00

Cleared the border from Laos to Thailand, real easy border and headed to Chaing rai to get new tyres for the bikes, met a great guy who ownes the cat bar there , Sam shit hot guitarist and all round good guy, he really did his best to get us the tyres but in the end we had to head off tho Chaing mai to get them, but not before we had a few good nights at the Cat bar, we had a great Jam session with Sam on Bass and me on Rythm and harmonica, we had 4 backing singers, really great english girls, very preppy but a great laugh, finally found some youth who know how to party!!!!
Youth is wasted on em.
Sam if you read this the email adress you gave wont work.
We have met some great guys here in Chiang mai, we have new accomodation tomorrow and new tyres aswell, David from gt-rider.com has been a fountain of information for us, it was strange to meet up with him as we have been using the maps he creates all through Laos, he,s quite famous round here, we bumped into him totally by accident when we rushed into a bar to watch the Moto GP.
I have some more great photos but as usual either the pooters playing up or more likely I,m useless.
I hope to do some more tomorrow, P n B

2009-08-28T03:12:00.001-07:00

2009-08-28T03:08:00.001-07:00

2009-08-28T03:08:00.000-07:00

Some pics, hopefully

2009-08-28T02:54:00.000-07:00

Feeling better

2009-08-28T02:23:00.000-07:00

Well now, we have been busy, we are currently in Vientiane the capitol of Laos getting new visas for Thailand and trying to get new tyres for the bikes which is proving to be a problem as the normal tyre size for trail bikes is 18in and Yamaha in their wisdom use 17 inch, we are heading north again up to Thailand so we will try again there, we know somebody in BKK so we will try to get them sent up to us.
We have had an amazing time here in Laos and have some great pics of the trails, mountains, rivers and caves here, the scenery is a lot more interesting than Cambodia thats for sure, we have met some great folks on the road, and have enjoyed the company of to name a few Mark and Cloe, Kim and Jonny , Evan and his partner , sorry the names gone, begins with an M.
The officials in Cambodia and Laos are great no problems at all.
We both fell off the bikes in Cambodia and I hurt my shoulder but its OK now , that Cambodia gravel is great to ride on but its slippy as hell when the gravel washes off , its just clay underneath.
as always I will try to put some pics on now, we,ll see if it works, hope all is well, we certainly are, P n B

Not happy, we has both eaten the dirt and I,ve done my shoulder in

2009-08-27T02:48:00.000-07:00

Cambodia

2009-08-06T04:26:00.000-07:00

Finally got out of Thailand, very easy transition into Cambodia, finally found a customs point that knows what a carnet doc is!! We went to Angkor wat to see the temples and very nice they were too, we left Siam reap the nearest town to the site and headed off towards Laos, I spotted a short cut on the map which would of saved us about 300km if the road had not turned into a lake, as it happened it jus added 200km to our journey and cost us another night at a hotel, the same hotel we left that morning, they were glad to see us back though as the bar takings had plummeted.
We are now 120km south of the Laos border on the Mekong river at a place called Kratie, just checked into a backpackers for 6$ a night but we move on tomorrow, Cambodia topography is a bit boring, just rice fields and water really, we have been told there are some waterfalls on our next stretch so we,ll see, P n B

Leaving BKK, got the bikes back, Yipee

2009-07-29T06:30:00.000-07:00

Finally got the bikes cleared by customs yesterday at 4pm, built them up and got them back to our hotel, BKK is OK but we,ll be glad to leave ,its like Sodam an Tommora here to many ugly westerners with stunning Thai girls, Yeh right mate its love!!
We leave for Cambodia in the morning about 250km so a nice easy ride to get back into it, we went out to test ride the bikes today and got nicked for riding with the rest of the traffic, apparently at rush hour you have to use the bus lanes only if you are on a bike, topsy turvy world eh, in the UK its the other way round, the cops were having none of it and fined us 400bhat each, about 8quid, hey ho, lerta see what cambodias like, its nice to see some old pals putting some comments on here Hi Ed plus the usual suspects, we are coming back into Thailand after Cambodia and Laos so will do a better write up about some nicer places as and when, see you soon P n B

Thailand first thoughts

2009-07-16T00:34:00.000-07:00

Arrived in Bangkok absolutely shattered, 26 hrs of travelling found the hotel that had been recomended and very nice it is aswell for 20quid a night
we are right on their sky train network which as it says is a train in the sky brilliant ,clean, aircom and every 10min, we have a night market over the road with a beer garden and every kind of food you can think of, if it squawked, moo,d, grunted, baaad or blew bubbles you can get it here!
Bikes are supposed to arrive in about 10days so we will probably go and do some island hopping for a week or so but as we have found a bar that is showing the MOTO GP on Sunday we aim to leave here monday.Its very hot and humid here at the moment and we need the bikes to head off into the hills, into Cambodia from here and then north up to Laos and then back into Thailand all in the Golden triangle, this is the plan but as we find out on the road plans change.
We are also applying for our Austrailia visas whilst here but this computer in the hotel won,t let me onto the website so I,ll have to go to a cyber cafe to do it, I hate computers and hate cyber cafe,s even more thats about it for now, Pete n Bruce

Leaving SA

2009-07-07T02:15:00.000-07:00

Tonight we leave SA and get a flight to Thailand, I havn,t posted on here for a while as not a lot has been happening.

The bikes are on their way by ship to Bangkok, we had a leaving do at our local bar last night.

Thanks to all who showed up and thanks to the Thumpers , the local bike club for making our stay here so good,

We finally got to go to a game reserve and got to see the big 5.

Bruce has been a star as usual and she has quit smoking but drinks more hehehe!!!

I,ve been a bit depressed lately as we have had a lot of hassle shipping the bikes and havn,t felt much like comunicating with anybody, but all thats finished now and we are looking forward to SE Asia.

Its been so long since I,ve been on here that I may have forgot how to put pictures up but I,ll have a go

Sum up

2009-05-04T13:40:00.000-07:00

The pics only tell a bit of the story, we have met some great people on this leg of our journey, and made some, I hope lasting friendships,------------ not the spitting cobra that is in the pics that Bruce met on the way to the loo at fish river canyon tho!!!!!!
It was great to be able to ride the big dunes even though I binned it before I got the hang of it, when in doubt wind the power on!!! I hope to get back on tomorrow and edit this a bit and caption the pics.
we are looking into our next move now and are waiting for a phone call from a shipper and have already priced up our flight tickets to Thailand, plan ???? what plan!!

Cape town

2009-05-04T13:34:00.001-07:00

And again

2009-05-04T13:26:00.000-07:00

some more pics

2009-05-04T13:19:00.000-07:00

What a fantastic month

2009-05-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

Were back in port shepstown after a great month on the road, we did the desert run in Namibia with Thomas and his clients Juergen and Volker and had a great but hard time, we went to fish river canyon, Swarkopmund, cape town, all over the place really.

We have added another 8000 km onto our journey, I don,t have a lot of time on this computer so I will try and put some pics up.

A picture paints a thousand words as they say, oh, and we got our photo in Bike Mag SA on the desert run

The next step, plan!! what plan

2009-03-29T07:24:00.000-07:00

Bruce ejected this visitor from our room

Me an B at pace

Tomas and ricky, is it a good idea to set off into the desert with this nutter

We should of left SA by now but, Tomas has convinced us the going on the Namib desert run with him and 2 clients is a good idea.

We are taking his 4wheel drive and the trailer with 3 serious dirt bikes to Jo burg on tuesday to pick up his clients,

the bikes are a Cr650 honda, a YZ 450 yam and a 450CCM, I have to drive the support truck but get to ride the bikes half way at the rally.

The Namib run is a famous desert rally held annualy with only 300 entries, we get to ride the really big dunes and hey I will never get the chance to do this again, I,m probably to old now but I quite fancy it and Bruce is going to learn to ride sand!

So it looks like another month in Africa and another 8000km, as we are coming back via cape town, I,m just going to put some more photos on and then we may be out of touch for some time, bye bye folks

Lesotho, the roof of Africa

2009-03-29T07:03:00.000-07:00

Wild flowers were beautiful, km after km lining the trail

Helicopter arrives in the morning breaking the tranquility, it was carrying some officials from the TB

The meal

The view from the lodge, pretty good for 6quid a night

These trails can be rode at pace, ahem

We left the Sani pass the next morning and headed off to do another route into Lesotho and we had booked in at the national park lodge at about 3000mt, only problem is you book with the national tourist board and they have no way of telling the lodge you are coming!

When we arrived they had no idea we were coming, the phones dont work and the radio was broke , theres no electric just gas lamps, no beer but we took our own drinks and food, but what a great place.

Bruce and I cooked a meal for Volker and Emile, the first time they had eaten anything cooked by english people, it all got eaten!!

The going up was worth the coming down

2009-03-29T06:53:00.000-07:00

Not to far to a beer and Bruce steps the pace up

She,s gettin quite good

The surface leaves aa lot to be desired

Getting up there was pretty hard, coming down it was real scary in places, 1st gear on the back brake and still going to fast

The pics

2009-03-29T06:33:00.001-07:00

The top

Twist Isn,t it!!

The view up, hm looks like clouds

About half way up

At the start of the pass, its about to get harder, a lot harder

And the weather closed in, this is at the Sani pass backpackers place

it was bloody hot

Off to the Sani pss

2009-03-29T06:18:00.000-07:00

After a few days rest at the spotbackpackers me and Bruce,Volker and Emile set off to ride up to the Sani pass on the Losotho border, its about 250km from Shepstone and we did most of it on the gravel roads

After port st john, we rode back to Shepstown and had a rest for a few days but I had to get tomases clients back home to the backpackers

2009-03-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

A few picks of the ride back, me Emile and Volker

The guys we rode with at Port st john

2009-03-28T07:23:00.000-07:00

Stunning Angel falls

After a really hard days ride

We met up with a few hard core dirt riders in Port st johns and the guided us on a few really hard trails in the area, we also met up with 2 of tomases clients, Emile and Volker,Tomas runs a company called Motozulu tours and these guys had flown in from Germany for a tour

The puncture, for a change it wasnt me

2009-03-28T07:19:00.000-07:00

I had been following Tomas and spotted that his tyre was flat and it looked like rain and we were in the middle of nowhere

The route on

2009-03-28T07:12:00.000-07:00

The stylish wetsuit of tomas!!

Tomas , Bruce and myself went off into the mountains to ride to Port st john, A mate of tomases took the proper dirt bikes and Ricky by tar road to the port to meet up with us, here are some pics of the rtide

Port shepstown and on

2009-03-28T07:02:00.000-07:00

Arrived at Port Shepstown to meet up with Tomas and his wife Ricky and book in at Spotbackpackers only to find it was fully booked so we rang Tomas up and he said no problem come to the house, so we did , top accomodation for 2 days untill we could get in at the backpackers place.

We serviced the bikes including valve clearances, cam chains new plugs, cleaned the filters, changed the oil

More oribi gorge

2009-03-28T07:00:00.001-07:00

Port shepstown, sani pass, lesotho, port st john

2009-03-28T06:57:00.000-07:00

Cock up

2009-03-28T06:51:00.000-07:00

I have messed up completely and have lost a whole lot of our journey that I posted on the blog, I aint a clue what went wrong, but it aint there, it was about the journey from maputo to hazy view and Swazi land, I will have to do it again but for now I,m doing our time for the last few weeks

some more

2009-03-18T03:40:00.000-07:00

some photos, hopefully

2009-03-18T03:29:00.000-07:00

A hectic month

2009-03-18T01:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not coming on here and updating but we have been a bit busy.
Our friends John and Dave arrived from the UK to visit us so we left Maputo and headed north again to a wonderful beach resort at Beline, 180km out of Maputo, its situated on a lagoon that was so warm it was like having a bath, sat in the sun and relaxed.
after a week John went home and Daves wife Clionagh arrived for Daves last week, a great 2weeks folks and it was nice to see some old faces again and thanks john for bringing out my much need spare parts for the bike, the cheese and bacon were appreciated aswell.
After saying goodbye to our guests and a night back in Maputo Bruce and myself headed off to South Africa to meet up with a guy who could help me get some tyres for the bike.
Martin who had contacted me through horizonsunlimited web site had given me the phone No of reaction racing in Nelspruit run by Mark so we arranged that and went to visit Martin at his house thinking that we would be in a cheap hotel nearby.
Not a bit of it , Martin has a cottage in his garden that was ready for us so after a beer or 10 we settled in and met the family properly, Martins wife Sasha made us feel completly at home and the three kids, Ben, Zack and Toby and 7 dogs were great to be around, thanks my friends.

Martin is as daft about bikes as me and two of his lads are already riding MX bikes ,pictures to follow. Martin has quite a few bikes and let me have a ride on his KTM 200cc enduro bike, 2 strokes have obviously come along a bit since my racing days, the power of this bike was awesome, it nearly pulled my arms out of their sockets.
We went out on the second day to pick up marts latest toy a brand new BMW 450 X trail he offered me a ride on that but as it was brand new I declined as the thought of crashing it was to much to bear.
Bruce and I headed off to get our tyres fitted at reaction racing via a rather special route that Mart showed me, the views over the mountains were great, a fantastic days riding.
We sadly had to leave the day after that , a great family and we will keep in touch, once again thanks for everything folks.

I have to go now to cook breakfast but will be back on later to put some Piccies up

Of Police and passports

2009-02-11T01:09:00.000-08:00

So there we were sitting in a bar in the red light district at the back of the hotel having a beer or five, its cheap and safe down there as there are so many police and door staff about and as its our 2nd night down there we don,t get hassled.
So we come to leave and as we got round the corner to the hotel we got pulled by 4 cops all with AK47,s,
"Passports please" say they, we havn,t got them with us sir as we are so close to the hotel and we were worried about being robbed.
This is very serious we will have to arrest you and take you to the police station overnight,
bruce offers to go to the hotel and get the passports as I wait with them,
this offer is rejected, so we argued some more and I,m getting pissed off, Bruce is tryng to shut me up and placating the cops at the same time,
I,ve had enough and say so lets get on with it arrest us and we will sort it out at the station, but Bruce dosnt fancy a night in the cells , I on the other hand don,t care at this point ( a stupid mix of alchohol and adrenaline)but I was fairly sure they were bluffing
After more argueing a compromise was reached, if we buy them a drink it could be sorted,
"but we dont have any money we both shout" determined not to give a blatant bribe
" if we had any money we would still be in the bar here or drinking in the hotel"
" we are but skint bikers travelling around your wonderfull country sirs"
We could see the glimmer of victory on the horizon.We had both automatically put our notes and change in different pockets earlier and when we pulled out our change from our pockets it came to about 50p
But we cant get a drink with this they said, but its all we have we say lying through our teeth.
Result-------- They gave us the change back in Disgust and we shook hands and said goodnight

Pictures

2009-02-07T04:47:00.000-08:00

With the Irish And Scotish in Malawi, and the one above speaks for itself

Puncture repairs

We only stopped for a coke!!!!!

Williams falls I found this by accident

Part of the trail at Zomba

I,m going to try to upload some photos, I,ve not had a lot of success with this, YEEEEES!!!!!!~

the cops who gave us the escort

Malawi to Moz continued

2009-02-07T04:31:00.000-08:00

We wound up at the wrong border from Malawi to Moz even though we had asked the cops for directions and had to backtrack and spend another night in Blantyre, no great problem as its quite a chilled out place .
The border crossing into Mozambique is pretty easy as far as Africa borders go but its as if somebody turned the heating up its seriously hot here and its the rainy season which in reality means it rains in the afternoons so a morning ride is adviseable.
we came back to the coast at Vilanculos where we found a cheap backpacker lodge and after a beer I discovered I had a puncture in the rear tyre, oh well that tube was repaired in Senegal so it lasted quite well.
Our tyres on both bikes are really knackered and we were trying to make it to Durban to get new ones but we have met some guys here who have told us about a road through Swaziland mountains that is supposed to be special and there is a bike shop in Swaziland that will do tyres and as its more or less on the way to Durban we may as well ride it.

Onwards to Mozambique

2009-02-07T04:21:00.000-08:00

We are currently in a place called Inhambrane in Southern Mozambique, we spent our last few days in Malawi in Zomba where the trails up in the mountains were fantastic, we even got a police escort out of Malawi,
It turns out all the police bikes in Malawi were travelling to Blantyre to meet the president and they overtook us on the road, as the last one came past (8 bikes) he motioned to Bruce for us to tuck in behind them, brilliant!!!!! we past every police road block in formation with these guys and made ahem rapid progress, now in Malawi you can expect a police check every 50km or so and we did 250 km with these guys and stopped with them for a chat when they stopped for fuel, a great mornings ride

South Lake Malawi and Lilongwe

2009-01-27T03:04:00.000-08:00

We moved on from the posh hotel, Chintheche inn, run by Bronie and John to a backpacker place called cool runnings180km south, run by a lady called Sam, very chilled out gaff,
we met 4 volunteer nurses, Sioban, Meya, Petra and sorry, forgot blondies name, I blame the drink!!!!, and had a top night out with them,(hi girls!!!) we really did drink the bar dry between us!!!! a lot of guitar playing, singing etc
We are now in Lilongwe waiting for our passports for Mozambique, we pick them up in 1hr and we move on tomorrow heading towards Blantyre where we will stop for a few days and then move on to Mozambique, there is a Plataeu on the way I want to explore its at 2000mtrs and the views are supposed to be special.
Thats it for now Pete n Bruce

2009-01-22T08:46:00.000-08:00

Back again

2009-01-21T10:44:00.000-08:00

The owners of this place have kindly let me use this again as its not so busy in the office now.
Tanzania is a fantastic country and the southern highlands we have just rode through are so fertile its hard to understand why anybody in this continent goes hungry,
it is so beautiful I have had to stop taking photos as its just another shot of paradise, the ride into Malawi is as good if not better.
We have decided to ride south to Durban and figure out our next move from there, malawi is great but the hassle factor is about 10!!!!!
Its strange but it didn,t really happen in Kenya or Tanzania, but here it can be quite agressive, and my threshold is low at the moment so its probably a good idea to get out of here.

In malawi and safe but the internet is crap

2009-01-21T02:25:00.000-08:00

Just a quick one as the hotel we are in has kindly let us use their computer.
The easiest border crossing ever, Tanzania to Malawi, 20minutes

Morogoro and onwards, football and wildlife

2009-01-13T03:19:00.000-08:00

Left the heat humidity and dust of Dar and arrived at Morogoro just outside the merkani(spelling) national park to spend the night and also to take in some local flavour via watching the UTD v Chelsea match in a local bar
These chaps are somewhat excitable in these bars and are usually great fun, it was a great night 200 people crammed in to the bar, 1 woman, 1 white chap, we really got well looked after after their initial shock, at first they thought we were more interesting than what was on tv.

A cracking night out and a good result!!!

A really early start the next morning, 6am and headed off to the reserve, bloody brilliant nobody tried to stop us and it was free,
Elephants, baboons, wildebeast, zebras, wart hogs and a whole lot more but no big cats!!
Arrived in Iringa to spend a couple of nights and update this, this is the 2nd cyber cafe that we have tried and its soooooooooo slow, my second hour is up and its beer o,clock, Ps got piss wet through yesterday for the first time since Sierra leone, hope this makes the English feel a bit better

On from Arusha

2009-01-13T02:52:00.000-08:00

We left Arusha and headed off through the mountains to see if we could get in the kilimanjaro park by the back entrance, No chance, after 45km of trail and getting through the first gate we got turned back with the explanation that there are wild animals in there, they had to be joking, people are hiking up it for charity.
Back to Moshi for the night with our bikes between our legs and to think out a plan B

Plan B , we headed off to Loshoto up another range of mountains to try our luck there at getting up a mountain, ANY MOUNTAIN!!!!!!!
Well what a bonus, Loshoto is trail riders paradise, we could ride all day without seeing a park ranger and had a fantastic few days there,

Onwards to Dar es salam for my first view of the Indian ocean, where we plotted up at a beach hut for a few days RR having been to see Ruvu ranch where Bruce spent her first 2 yrs and also visited the Aga khan hospital where she was born.
Unimpressed with the heat and humidity of Dar we have headed off to the mountains yet again but this time heading south west towards malawi

Hm, Tanzania tourist on motorcycles, I don,t think so

2008-12-31T02:21:00.000-08:00

New years eve here, big party at the camp tonight.
We are back in Arusha having had a few ride outs and spending some time (2 nights) in the mountains west of Arusha, the national parks guards make it so difficult for anybody travelling independant of a tour company.
I don,t expect to be able to ride in any of the wildlife parks(meals on wheels) but we cant even ride through the roads all the way up the mountains without coming across official roadblocks that want excessive fees just to ride along a road outside the wildlife parks.

I do realise that this area exists by its tourist income but its $200us to get into some of them, ouch!!!!
We have contributed greatly to the local brewing industry and I think we should be given a free pass at the very least, ho hum

we will try our luck further east when we leave for Dar es slam on the 2nd of Jan.
I have found a trail on the map that is just outside the Kilimanjaro national park that takes you up to 3600mtrs so I,ll have a go at doing that and see if we can avoid the AK47 brigade.

Nice to see a few coments from Friends in the UK and spain, also friends we have met along the way, happy new year to you all. Buon natale to our new found italian friends, Hi olivier and Danielle, and theres no skiing here mates!!

continued

2008-12-26T05:08:00.000-08:00

We are having thunderstorms at the moment so I have to post and continue as the computer may crash.

Christmas eve at the camp was a really lively affair, party till 5 am!!!
Boxing day night was the same
We have had a couple of rides out up into the hills around here and its all very lush and tropical,
We leave tomorrow heading west to explore the hills and to find a active volcano we have been told about, shouldn,t be that hard to find.
We have not a clue what we are going to do for new year, no plan so nothing to go wrong, right?
Thats about it for now, Pete n Bruce

Continued

2008-12-26T04:43:00.000-08:00

Set off from Nairobi to head for Tanzania, the road is supposed to be tarmac all the way , yeh right!!!!
Out of 300km about 100km of it is trail and a very dusty trail at that, if a truck was heading towards you it was really bad after it passed, visibility zero.
Cleared Kenyan customs into Tanzania with a minimum of fuss and headed off to Arusha which is right next to Kilimanjaro, the countryside you pass through to get here is spectacular, starts with rolling hills with the really big mountains behind them, Zebras munching away at the side of the road, a great days ride!!
we got to Arusha and found our campsite, its called Masai camp, run by a great guy called Darrel from new york ,once again great food, cold beers and a huge bar area that was very quiet when we arrived, we booked in to camp and we were the only tent on site, very peaceful. how wrong I was to assume this.
It seemed very strange putting a tent up on the 22nd of Dec, we are usually skiing in Italy by now and here we were in 90deg heat, it just seemed all wrong, but hey ho.
The same night 3 overland parties arrived, about 100 people all in, 2 massive pink buses, called the pink caravan adventures full of Swedes, driven by Andreas and Johanus and assisted by the quite lovely Anjelica, sorry about the spellings if they are wrong mates.
These are really nice people who we spent a few hours drinking with as they seemed to like our company and us theirs.
Thanks for the stickers folks(they must of crept up to our tents in the morning and put pink stickers on the back boxes) crept up because they left at 6am.
Top people, they do this route often and gave us valuable info for our next destination

Nairobi and beyond

2008-12-26T04:28:00.000-08:00

Nairobi,well we finally got there only to find the bikes were in Jo,burg,
we had a complete nightmare getting the bikes to Kenya and then clearing them through customs, it seemed to take forever butwas in fact just over a week.
We had been recomended a campsite in Nairobi called upper hill campsite run by a guy from Preston of all places called Rich, top food, cold beers and friendly staff.
Rich arranged a truck which we took to the airport to pick the crate up that had the bikes in it, we then took the bikes back to the campsite so I could build them up again in peace, it was great to get my hands dirty again and as soon as I had built them up it was off to the gas station for 10ltrs of petrol to put in the bikes,(you have to drain them before they go on a plane)
I asked to borrow a set of jump leads as I assumed the batteries would be flat but decided to try them whilst they were looking for a set. Crikey they both started first time, I love yamahas, both bikes had been in a crate for over 5 weeks and the batteries were still charged .

I couldn,t resist throwing my helmet on and going straight out for a ride, he he!

funerals, electricity and the lack of it!!!

2008-12-02T06:13:00.000-08:00

Ghanayan funerals are the pits if you are recovering from malaria, what happens is they erect this huge sound system on the street and play crap music at unbelievable volume for 36 hrs non stop.
Where is the usual power cut when you need it?
Electricity is sporadic to say the least but they always seem to have it for funerals, sometimes you get a cut for just 10min,, enough thaat you just get off to sleep, then you are thrown out of bed by the bass throbbing and the windows vibrating,
fair enough people should have a good time at a funeral thought I,
so at 3 am unable to sleep I ventured out on the street to see what kind of a party was going on, what party!!!!!! the streets were deserted apart from a DJ asleep on top of the bass speakers.
It was at this point I considered getting blacked up and full camofluage and launching a commando raid on the electric supply.
Hopefully ouur next post will be from Kenya, we will see

Busua inn and hospital at dixcove

2008-12-02T06:01:00.000-08:00

Ghana is a great place to be stuck though, the guest house we are in Busua inn is run by a great French couple, Olivier and Danielle, food is great and they are good company.
When I was in hospital Olivier brought me food and drinks, thanks mate.
Bruce was invaluable at this stage as I had to have somebody to wipe my arse and clean up the vomit and change the sweat soaked sheets, whilst the staff and doctors were great and the needles and drips clean it is really difficult to run a hospital without running water and toilets!!!

Er, Um, trying to leave Ghana

2008-12-02T05:41:00.000-08:00

Well, well,well. ok our bikes are in Nairobi and we are stuck here, after re-crating the bikes and lots of being messed about,
our friends here put us onto a travel agent in Takeradi that se emed to be reasonably effecient, I remain unconvinced as when the young lady was trying to do our booking said what time would you like to fly?
there is only one flight a day!!!!
Its as if she was trying to book a cab!
Great I thought we will fly at 11 am and if we are a little late please ask the pilot to hang about a bit ..
We are supposed to fly on Saturdaay 6th Dec, we will see
I have been in hospital here for 3 days with malaria, what a crap illness, 3days of hell and another month to get bettter, I,ve lost a lot of wieght

Another thank you

2008-10-28T05:48:00.000-07:00

A big thanks to Amanda who also turned up with half the rainforest in the form of Sunday newspapers, a private eye, books, motorcycle news, bike magazine the whole yearly production of the duchy of cornwalls bacon supply, and most of that weeks production of cheddar cheese n stillton, a 14mm spanner, a 14mm socket, some chain lube, wd40 an a grease nipple. ta Amanda

winding up

2008-10-24T05:31:00.000-07:00

Thats about it for today folks, we are awaiting a quote for shipping the bikes from here to Nairobi and will then set about east africa,
For one thing its to dangerous to head through the centre, for another to expensive, the visas are outragous prices, 250 us each for angola , DRC 150 us each, Namibia 100 us this is for us to travel for a few days there,
Shit we can fly for less and more safely..
Pete n Bruce

Same gas station

2008-10-24T05:27:00.000-07:00

gas station

2008-10-24T05:19:00.000-07:00

We needed gas and water, found both here

we had to go to the match v edgy

2008-10-24T05:11:00.000-07:00

Waterfall spotted through jungle

2008-10-24T05:08:00.000-07:00

Breakfast, mystery meat n rice

2008-10-24T05:05:00.000-07:00

Mitzi n Ogri doin our washing

2008-10-24T05:02:00.000-07:00

takeradi bus station

2008-10-24T04:57:00.000-07:00

Bruce an Amanda, note suitcases on bikes

2008-10-24T04:52:00.000-07:00

A happy day for our sean

2008-10-24T04:48:00.000-07:00