In the beginning.....

Hi Steve & I (Deb),

Well Stephen really!! has been planning this trip of a life time to do a motor bike touring holiday.  First off Steve got his DR650 all fitted out for touring across Siberia to the UK. Then when Steve put his leave in for Long Service Leave it was denied....

But a new plan evolved, our good friends Claudia & Werner decided to get married back in Germany & guess what we got an invite!  How could we say no to that.  We looked at the cost of shipping the bike from Alice Springs (home) to Germany, with the costs of freight $5500.00 return we thought of looking for a bike to purchase in Germany.

Stephen on the DR650 northeast of Alice Springs.

the other bike we own is a Bmw...

Coming out of Gosses Bluff, west of Alice Springs.

So as luck would have it; we found a Honda Africa Twin XRV750 for sale. Unfortunately it's previous owner had been killed (on another bike) and his family were looking to now sell his unwanted possessions, and the XRV was one of those. We are sure the previous owner would be happy for the bike to continue it's role as an 'Adventure Touring bike' !

Our Honda XRV 750 and panniers.

The 43L long range tank we also bought.

Steve and Deb's office for the next 3 months!!

A few technical issues about how to register the bike have been sorted out. It is now in our friend, Werner's home town of
Remscheid, Germany and is waiting for us to arrive. We will be adding several options before we get to use it. Yes, Stephen has been shopping (on-line) and getting parts delivered ready for him & Werner to fit.  This will take at least 3 or 4 days to fit. The list is :-

bike centre stand, heated grips, suspension springs front/rear, Ohlins rear shock (with pre-load adj), tank bag and tank pannier bags, and various other 'bits'.


So with a bike ready to go,
One of our first trips we'll be doing is on an 'Adventure Touring Motorbike Rally', lucky in another town in Germany about 220k's away.  We'll probably be the only Ozzies there - so we'll be conversing with our friends Claudia & Werner.  We have learnt a few German words....but, can't quite put any sentences together.


As I write this with only 18 days  to go, panic is setting in...always so much to do & so little time to do it.  Food for the kids, cats & dogs! Money in the account for their shopping.  Stuffing the suitcases, weighing them & re-weighing.  Oh & only one pair of shoes (but you have your riding boots !! Steve).

Stephen here now.
So where are we exactly going!! Well the plan is.. To not have to detailed a plan! Almost all the holidays/vacation I've taken they have been planned down to the hour. This time with a longer time frame I am only doing a 'general' outline plan, and it goes like this:

We arrive in Dusseldorf 22-Sep-2011 about 21:30 local. Werner and Claudia plan to pick us up from the airport there, and take us and luggage the 50kms East/South East to Remscheid to stay with them.

After spending 3-4 days working on the XRV getting it ready. We hope to do a short 2-3 day tour down to the Nuremberg Ring race track. Then we head to the Motorbike Rally for 4 days of camping and meeting with other motorbike like minded folks.

After the rally Deb and I will spend 4 days touring East (Berlin, Hamburg etc) and then back to Remscheid for the wedding over the weekend (9th Sep). A few days after this we'll start touring 'proper'. Heading through the 'Romantic Rhine', and down through Munich (BMW Museum of course), Schloss Neuschwanstein (that Castle!), and many other places (like the Touratech factory, and HPN workshops) plus a bunch of 'shops' that'll make up for my visits to 'Bike' workshops etc.

After about 2 -3 weeks we'll be heading through Austria, and the Alps region of Italy. Then into Switzerland where we plan to meet up with my brother and his wife and kids. Who will also be on holidays, for a few days family get together.

Then onto Alp-deurs and up that (steep) road where the Tour-de France bike race goes each year. Then down to the French Mediterranean (getting warmed up) and across Spain to Northern Portugal. Down the Pacific coast, back into Spain and over to 'That British Rock". After a few days of English hospitality we take a ferry over to Morocco via the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, before we cross into Africa proper.

Again not sure how long we spend in Morocco, but about 2-3 week I guess. We'll exit via the other Spanish enclave of Melilla east of where we entered. Back in Spain we'll head up to Valencia for the last round of the 2011 MotoGP calendar. We (I) hope the Bike racing goes down to the wire, and we can cheer Casey Stoner on to win the seasons racing!!

Leaving Spain up and over the Pyrenees and into France where we take a 2 week tour back through Luxemburg and back into Germany to Remscheid where we  park up the bike, and then fly back home. It will be mid to late November by this stage, so it will be cold and wet riding, not much camping, we hope to be in 'home stays' and the like.

Well that's the 1st post to this Blog, more updates as events unfold.


Cheers
Stephen and Debbie.