Last day, sort of...

Murphy's Law. We have a long, boring transit across Germany and France, and this is the best weather day we've seen for some time. Blue sky, no wind. Perfect riding day for a tedious high speed haul.

Munchen, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Mannheim, Saarbrucken, Metz, Reims, Calais, arriving by chance 25 minutes before the ferry sails; perfect timing.

We've seen nothing but motorways today. Sitting on 95MPH, stop for fuel, back to 95. Had to slow to 40 for the French border, but other than that, tedious. Beautiful sky; perfect azure with an elaborate lattice of jet vapour trails.

Finally back in England. I debate routes to get to Dave and Jane's house on Hayling Island, near Portsmouth on the South coast. Given that it's 9 PM on Sunday, I decide to take the M23 to Brighton, then A27 West to Hayling; a simple route, and there shouldn't be any traffic. Correct on both counts. Unfortunately the access to the A27 West is to the East, and thus less than obvious. After an unscheduled tour of Brighton we were on the right road.

Then the rain started. Probably just a shower, but at the closing phase of a long day, now dark and slippery, it seemed like a torrent.

Finally, Hayling Island. 11PM, we've been riding for 14 hours Og tells me... but we have done 830 miles.

For me the trip is now technically over, given that I started from here. Cooper's in St Albans was where we set off together. Like most endings this is a bit of a let down. Dave and Jane are away, but we have keys! The house is dark, we're both tired, and there's no beer in the fridge. Showered and changed, we congratulate each other on the amazing good fortune that we have had that has allowed us to have this huge adventure.

Unwisely, Dave has left a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label on view. Perfectly appropriate. We'll have to replace it tomorrow....

Grossglockner

We had to leave Helga and Klaus' home in Innsbruck in a bit of haste. There was no great social blunder that caused this, it was yet another case of me getting slightly confused about the time - space continuum. Confident that my flight home was 10PM Friday, I was a bit surprised to find on checking that it is actually mid - day Thursday, effectively two full days earlier than I'd thought.

It was dry and overcast, the Grossglockner forecast had been for fair today and good tomorrow. It looked ok, so we went for it.

Dry down the freeway, but increasingly wet and steady rain as we crossed the Gerlos Pass. Shame, that, because it is a loveiery ride, great road and postcard standard scenery.

At least it was dry, with high, light grey cloud as we pulled up at the Grossglockner toll booths. We had a plan. Cross the pass for a "sighting" run, then a liesurely return with lots of photo stops. And like all good plans....

€17 each gets us a day pass. Grossglockner actively promotes itself as the most motorcycle friendly pass, in addition to being the roof of Austria. There is a lot of good rider info; suggested routes, specific "biker points" and so on. "Biker Points" have lockers so you can secure your helmet and jacket while you go for a walk and take in the natural wonderment. All of the info is in German, of course.

So we're into it. It is superb. Great surface, wide, hairpins are all second gear jobs, traffic is light. Glorious fanging. We take the turning up to the real Franz Josef glacier, where there is a vast multi storey carpark, with a large, chained off, motorcycle parking area at ground level. Having marvelled at it all, we rode on and down to Heiligeniblut, the Southern end, for fuel. Back for the photo run, and feeling very smug.

Stopping at the toll booth to show our passes, we were rapidly de - smugged. The advice from the booth girl was that the weather had changed, it was now snowing and may not be safe for motorcycles. She made a call and then told us to go, but to go straight over and not stop. Stelvio is still etched into our muscles, we could be called "snow shy", and I have formally seen enough of the bloody stuff to last me forever. But from the other side we head Salzburg, Munich, London, so we went.

It was wet, it was foggy and snowing wet, sticky flakes, but nowhere as bad as Stelvio. Suffice to say that we don't have many photos as proof, but we did it.

That marked the official end of the fun. All that remains is the transit back to the UK. So we start that. Gradually growing roads until we're on the freeway and then the Autobahn. Salzburg, then Munich. Should have been straightforward, and was (I suppose) apart from the detour. Part of the Abahn was closed for works, so three lanes of traffic were directed through a string of villages, regulated by one intersection where the light sequence would allow a max of six cars through at a time. Utter bedlam, and in a thunderous storm, possibly the heaviest rain we have seen on the trip. Trickling around and through, we made better of it than the cars.

Naturally it was fully dark by the time we hit the Munchen ring road. Round we went, exiting for Erding, a really nice village not far from the airport and close to the freeway. Close to the freeway, but 26km from the ring road! Og was convinced that I was lost. Anyway... a good hotel in town, a great bar/restaurant down an alleyway, and a glorious snooze capped the day.

Innsbruck by Og

After a pleasant morning in Bormio pondering the map and weather reports we decided that most of the passes we intended to ride would now be too dangerous for the bikes. We even rang the Grossglockner weather advice line and were told that although the pass was currently open it may not be later in the day. So we opted to visit my friends Klaus and Helga in Innsbruck and save the passes for another day. We still needed to cross the alps, and the Santa Maria pass seemed lower so we took that option. That meant riding up the Stelvio to the turn off, so we contined up to turn 7 to visit the scene of our adventure. The road was clear of snow, but at least there was another car off the side where we got stuck so we made the right decision in getting the truck to get us off the mountain.


The ride up now meant that we did complete the ride of the Stelvio! Picture above.

We will check Grossglockner again today, it is fine and sunny in Innsbruck so we may be able to do it tomorrow on our way north to Nurburgring and eventually England.

Many updates and adventures, by Og

Well finally an internet cafe, in the hamlet of Bormio in the Italian Alps. This morning we woke to see we were surrounded by snow capped mountains. No great surprise, we were up there yesterday as you will see from the postings. Massey has provided the next few blog updates, he still has the luxury of GPRS at night while I hunt rabbits.

A lot has happened in the true Boy's Own adventure theme. At no stage life threatening (for the 'worriers') but the time came when we could say pudding knowing that we were experiencing the more interesting and rare moments of life.


Read on, more photos when I can upload them a bit faster. I have an 8 megapixel camera and without any way to reduce the file size they take for ever to post.

Pass Out.

Forecast rain, and it was raining when we woke up at the slightly more conventional time of 7.30. By the time we wre ready to roll it had stopped, and the sky showed promise. Eschewing the rompers, a real risk, I was at last vindicated; the day just got better and better.

Heading back to Chiavenna, but bearing right, we rode the Maloja Pass. This was brilliant. The sun was out, the road dry, long sweepers through the pine trees before an abrupt change to first gear hairpins, which delivered us onto the plateau. Lakes, yachts, and general prettiness rolls into St Moritz against a backdrop of speccy mountains freshly dusted with ominously new snow. We took a picture of a coffee, because we knew from the look of the place that we could not afford to buy one, let alone two...

From there we skipped the San Bernina for Zernez and the Ofenpass. This was brilliant; fast, flowing and open like Luckmanier (without the falling down), scenic, with only two hairpins....but it delivered us to the Northern approach to the mighty Stelvio. In nervous anticipation we had a coffee at San Gian. In hindsight this was probably a critical error.

Stelvio is THE pass, 48 hairpins, numbered from the top on this side, 36 on the Bormio side. Weather is deteriorating as we climb. By hairpin 30 something it's raining, and by hairpin 40 it has turned to snow. Cresting the pass, there's a dusting of snow on the ground. We follow a deliver truck down, riding in the broad strip left by his dual wheels.

Until we round hairpin 7, that is. Despite rolling against a closed throttle, it's getting tricky. I hear that disquieting graunching sound of motorcycle on pavement, look in the mirror to see Og sliding....and fall off myself. We get up, fall down, get up again, fall down, get up again (just like the Chumbalunga song - Og). There's a layer of ice on the road and you can't hold the bike up. We try wheeling them, we try walking them with the stand down, but the result is always the same. Forget control. We are stuck.

After a brief consultation we decide to stop. Not really our decision, of course, given that we'd passed the famous point of no return, yet progress was not an option.

Similarly, calling for help was not really optional. Challenging, given that we're 3km down the Stelvio and speak neither Italian nor German, but eventually the message got through. This was confirmed by various passing motorists, which was reassuring. We became quite good friends with the snow plough driver, chatting with him each time he passed. All the while it was snowing. Chucking it down. In our riding kit and helmets we were warm and sort of dry-ish, so we waited relatively happily, bemused by the ridiculous absurdity of our position.

Eventually the Carbinieri arrived. Coppers, Og, but not as we Aussies know them. Great guys, happy, helpful. One of them told us that he'd taken his BMW on a 2800km ride around Italy on his last leave. They offered to take us down to the police station until the rescue truck arrived, but we declined.

Finally, after four hours, the truck arrives. A tilt-tray, we easily pushed the bikes up. Surprisingly, the driver knew how to tie bikes down, and had those nifty handlebar end tie downs. More than 20cm of snow had fallen. It was still falling heavily down at turn 30, so our Alpine prospects are looking very, very poor at the moment.

At dinner in Bormio (Oh oh, Bormio sung to Van Morrison's Domino - Og) we discovered that 40cm of snow had fallen. So we have ridden the Stelvio, although the descent was in the front cab of a truck.

Massey Makes the Haj

Promptly at 9.45 I woke up, stirred by Og's gentle remonstrations "Massey, wake up, it's 9.45!!" He was in shock from the same discovery.

We had a plan for the day. There's nothing at Mandello other than the sacred shrine of the Guzzisti, and the museum does not open until 3.00. So we'll find an internet cafe and update the blog. This, dear reader, you know did not work. From the hotel we had directions, a long walk when you ache all over, only to find that the internet cafe was now the Irish pub...

Og found a place to download his now full camera memory card to CD, an act of great faith, given that the woman in the place inspired no confidence at all.

At 2.00 we gave up searching for an internet cafe and went over to Mandello. Og was right; there's not much there apart from The Factory. Tourist season is officially over, so most of the cafes are just shut, and the place has an air of closed-ness about it.

Initially the guard at the factory gate wanted to move us on, but when we explained that we just wanted a photo of our bikes at the factory he softened. Then he shut the gate so that we had the red gate with the Guzzi logo in the background as well! There was no way we'd get in before the museum opening time. I asked if we could see the wind tunnel, a pantomime of explanation to the non-English speaking guard, but the answer was clear.

We pootled around to Agostini's, the Guzzi agent in Mandello. Closed for lunch. Most of Italy closes 12.30 - 2.30 and goes home for lunch. Drives the rest of the EU mad, but what can you do?

At 2.45 we're back at The Factory and it's starting to rain. We gather with the few other visitors and wait. I am very excited. Whilst the great bulk of this tour has been a new idea, for many years I had whimsically fancied riding a Guzzi to the factory, a whimsy now realised.

Grinning enormously on the inside, we followed the museum man down the central laneway and up into the museum. This has, according to Og, radically improved since his last visit (smarty-pants) ten years ago.

Where it was once a single long hall jammed with bikes crammed so close as to be difficult to see, it's now spread through double the area. Up one floor we start in the middle of the lower level, although this is not apparent at the time. Crest the stairs and before us is No1, as last used, in a glass case. Behind it the hall has ramps sloping up on either side, with early bikes in chronological sequence mounted at angles which means really good vision of each bike. Most are restored, but many are not, which I like. Our guide runs a commentary on each bike. Unfortunately (and typically) it is in Italian only. Great for the Italian couple, but not much use for the other ten or dozen of us.

Up the stairs to the next floor, which is essentially post-war, a hall twice the length of the first, with the bikes closer packed. Again, sequencing is loosely chronologic.

Downstairs at the end into another room. This has a raised central platform about 600mm high with a few notable bikes, including a V8, at ideal peering height. An assortment of engines are suspended from the ceiling at perfect peering level.

Round the curtain at the end and we're back at the start. Another lap, check out a few things more thoroughly and then exit via the gift shop. Italy is starting to get the marketing act together. There is still some way to go. A couple of T shirts later we're out into the poring rain. Our waterproofs are, naturally, in the hotel.

Around to Agostinis, now open, for a look. Og buys a new mirror, but they're out of footboard rubbers for Calis. The quest for an internet cafe resumes.

Suffice to say that this quest also failed, but not for want of trying. Four times we asked directions and were generally directed to the same area. but could not find an internet cafe. We gave up, and headed out of town to where we'd seen an internet cafe on the way to Mandello. We'd looked for it on the way back, but hadn't seen it. Easily found going the other way, parking was difficult, even for a couple of bikes. Despite a big sign on the wall proclaiming it, this too was a dud. Motioning to a computer game console thingy, the barrista said "that thing there, but is broken"

So we continue the search another day.

Pass rate, 9 Today! But there's more...

Any morning when you wake up in a storybook hotel halfway up the Furka Pass is the start of a great day. It's a tiny room, no curtains, and a full height window. From the bed I can see that there's low cloud, and that it's dry. Passes today, Mandello del Lario tonight. I have waited a long time for this.

Breakfast doesn't start until 8.00, so it's almost 9 by the time we head out. The roads are wet, and it's cool, about 10*, and we've planned a circuit of 7 passes.

24 hours later as I write this, the passes have all merged in my mind. All were different, all quite stunning, and most had different weather on the ascent and descent.

First off we finish climbing Furka. and drop down the other side to pick up the St Gotthard and climb into ridiculous fog. Visibility is less than 10m at the top; enough to see two white lines on the road. Not much point in photos. From St Gottard we sought the Nufen, which was tricky to find, because it was generally signed as "Passo del Navone", although not exclusively.

We did find it, and it took us back to Gletsch for the Grimsel, a stunning series of switchback hairpins that agin took us into fog, though not so thick this time. Stopped for coffee at top, where they had a strange menagerie that included native beaver-ish things.

From there the Susten, a great combination of everything alpen, into Andermatt. This looks like a scale model town with natty little Triang trains, but is real. Trains cart endless tourists to the Matterhorn in carriages with glassed sides and roof, and we follow the line for a bit. Tourists gawp. Dead jealous, I reckon. We leave them to go under while we go over the Oberalp. This is an unusual pass, because it is through grassy farm land. Damned steep grassy farmland, but not precipitous rock like the others. This brings us to Luckmanier Pass.

Luckmanier climbs along the flank of a long spur, much more open than the other passes, lots of fast sweepers, a great ride. Roaring through a long gallery at about 70MPH, enjoying the reverberration of the exhaust and well in the groove, the fun is suspended without notice. It's mid afternoon, clear and dry, good visibilty, a near straight section with no traffic and I'm leading. The front slides, the rear slides, there's a nanosecond of reflex correction and I'm dumped hard on the road. The bike's ahead of me, which is good, on it's left side, showering sparks prettily as it spins it's way down the road. I'm flat on my back in the gutter following it. Some would suggest that I've been flat on my back in the gutter before, but I deny it!

I don't think I'd even come to a halt when I saw that Og had gone down as well, and his bike was also on it's left side spinning down the road with an equally pretty show of sparks, thankfully far enough away not to worry me.

By the time I got up Og was getting up too. Neither of us were hurt, there was no blood. We picked up the bikes and looked at each other. What? Og found the cause. Through the concrete road surface was leaching groung water which left a slime deposit so slippery that Og almost fell when standing on it. The slick was about 10m long, and barely visible, we had no chance.

The damage count is pretty modest. Both bikes have crash bars. These and the panniers took most of the punishment. Both bikes have a bit ground off the front mudguard stay, an abrasion mark on the screen, and tiny grind off the front left indicator. Og lost the left mirror, but mine was loose and so twisted rather than broke. My bike must have slid against the guard rail, because the top box has had a hiding.

My BMW touring jacket is wrecked. The fabric has rubbed through to the back protector in a couple of spots, but more annoying is that it has rubbed right through on the left forearm. While I was sliding down the gutter I had my left arm bent at the elbow, so my hand was up in the air. My forearm was running along the kerb edge, and that wore through the jacket. It's a deficiency of these synthetic jackets that there's not much protection in the non-armoured bits. Leather would have been better. Scuffing on my leather pants and boots will blacken and vanish.

Og's waterproof trousers have a hole worn through near the knee, and the Draggin jeans a tiny rub mark. We got off very lightly.

Somewhere along the way we came to the realisation that we'd never make Mandello (the Guzzi factory) for the museum open hours of 3.00PM to 4.00PM, so we added San Bernardino and Splugen. San Bernardino was a foggy climb, visibility down to 20m in places, but gloriously clear on the Swiss side. The fine weather held while we climbed Splugen, but only just. Cloud was tumbling in rapidly, and I think we were lucky to get our photos. Splugen is a great string of first gear hairpins, most so close together that second gear is not an option.

Cresting Splugen, now in soupy fog, we came to the Italian border. We slowed, but didn't stop as the signs directed. The border guards in their office did not even turn to look at us....

And so the descent. More hairpins, it seems to go forever, right through Chiavenna to the Como shore, clearing as we go, but getting dark.

Eventually we arrive in Lecco, having passed within a few hundred metres of that holy of holies, the Guzzi factory at Mandello del Lario.

It's been a long day. We're knackered from fun overdose, compounded by pride injuries. Find a hotel. 2 nights please. Dinner, couple of bottles of cheap red, then bed. Tomorrow is the Big Day.

Pass One

Sunday morning. We've planned an 0800 departure, and get away at exactly 0800...GMT, that is, 0900 Roma time. We have had a great time with Cate, Marco and their kids, but are reminded of the Czech proverb; "Visitors are like fish, after two days they start to smell".

Quickly out of Roma, onto the GRA and thence the A1 North via Firenze, Bologna, Milano. Relatively quiet Sunday traffic, good roads, we blast along, aspiring for 90 - 95 MPH I am inevitably drawn over the magic "ton" for the sheer naughtiness of doing it. There's a school of thought to the effect that the fuel economies of 75MPH are worth being patient for, and that's probably true. However, it fails to consider the Italian school of tolls. €29.50 each for the 600km Roma - Milan. Consider that €33 will fill both bikes, and suddenly fuel consumption is a minor issue.

As a transit day, the weather has been ideal. Low cloud blots out the sun, making it cool enough for pleasnat riding. Visibility is about 5km, and the forcast rain almost leaves us alone, except for some drizzle near Milano.

North of Milano the cloud drops lower. We pass Lake Maggiore, but can only see the nearer parts. The rest vanishes into the soup. GPS delivered us to Domosomosola or something like it, the last town in Italy. The Alps are a different map set, to be loaded tomorrow. In the traffic we'd become separated by a few car lengths, so I arrived at the Swiss border first. The car ahead of me was waved through, the guard glanced at me waved me through and turned his back on me. Perhaps he saw the UK plate as I passed, but for whatever reason, he gave Og the third degree.

Being now in Switzerland we're already on the first big name pass; the Simplon. We've already ridden alpine passes in Sweden, Greece and Italy, but this is the first certified biggie. It's damp, the road surface is wet, but good. Traffic and commonsense mean a cautious climb. Lots of hairpins, several tunnels and as we get higher the fog thickens until we cross the actual pass without realising until too late. So we stop and return for a photo. Visibility was barely 100m.

Dropping down towards Brig things cleared quickly, and were much drier. 9.5% descent for some silly distance, most of it through "galleries", a sort of half tunnel that has the low side open, supported by pillars. Very speccy, but there's not much opportunity for a photo stop. Swiss weather is looking better than on the Italian side, too.

We turn right at Brig, heading for Glietsch, which is the common connection of the Furka, Grimsel, and Neurfen passes. I've misread the map and think it's only 19km (it's really 55) so start harbouring thoughts of a lap of the Furka/Grimsel before it gets dark. The road is narrow, winding along the valley floor through village after village. Quite slow, and the nearer we get to Glietsch, the wetter it gets. In Glietsch it's misting rain, so we decide to stop. There's not much in Glietsch, a grand hotel and a road junction. The hotel looks deserted, but there are lights on. As I'm about to go in, Og points out a stone building in the distance, halfway up the Furka pass, and says " Now that would be a cool place to stay, but I bet it's only a restaurant". So I go into the hotel, a Marie Celeste experience. Eventually I find a living soul who dissappears to consult and returns to advise that the hotel is closed tonight. She recommends "The Belvedere", and indicates up the Furka pass.

I report to Og, who notes some little orange figures way up on the roadway and tells me of the huge crashing crunching noise he just heard, sounding, he thinks, like a rock fall.

We head off up the famous Furka pass. We find the little orange vest clad figures directing traffic around a rock fall. Only about half a dozen rocks, but rocks of a size that one on it's own would ruin your day completely.

Og's dream is realised. The Belvedere is built in a hairpin on the Furka pass. Stone, quaint, imposing, 95 Swiss francs per person per night, and the only show open for miles around. Two single rooms, so at least they have two bathrooms to clean!

The hotel is old, with the look of an Agatha Christie novel; wide, creaking stairways, long hallways, an open fire in the sitting room. The rooms are small, but have stunning outlooks in the fading light. Hopefully the camera caught it. We head for the bar, but there isn't one. We're ushered into the dining room, which is built into the hairpin, rounded, with picture windows so that you can peer down onto passing cars. Some beer, some food, some amusement supplied by the Americans, then to sleep to the sound of running water falling off the Rhone Glacier. Which just happens to be 100m away.

Gran Sasso

Gran sasso? No, I'd never heard of it either.

Apparently "sasso" is Italian for "very big rock", so a grand one is even bigger. We're staying with Cate and Marco, and they've invited us to a family lunch in Grand Sasso. This involves all of Marco's family, so there's no room in the car and we will have to ride. Marco assures us that it is a good place for motorcycles. So we set the GPS for Santa Stefano di Sessanio and charge off.

Italian road signage can be tricky. Usually you only get one sign, buried amongst a lot of others, compounded by the need to abbreviate long and complex names. So we're looking for "Santa Stefano di Sessanio", but it is signed as "S Stefano S". GPS saves us again.

Now we learn that Marco was right, that the Grand Sasso is actually the dividing range that runs down the spine of Italy, and that it offers stunning riding only 120km from Rome. The range is so high that it is well above the snow line, and since it is all rock with a minimum of dirt, the overall effect is not unlike Nordkapp; a spectacular moonscape, with ribbons of narrow bitumen across it. Through Calascio, a quick visit to Rocka Calascio, the castle ruin on the mountain top, left through Castel del Monte and up onto the plateau.

In the middle of this, really the middle of nowhere, we came across what we thought was a bustling cafe, so we stopped. 4.30, Saturday afternoon and there must have been forty people inside, drinking not coffee but local grappa. The place is fundamentally a macelleria, selling meat, local cheeses, and local hooch. People obviously come for miles, simply because there isn't another building, let alone a house, within 10 or 15 miles of it.




Starved of the essential caffiene hit, we soldiered on through the twisties into the next cafe, at "ferro cement" (sic). There were a few other riders there, including a group from Pescare, all on BMWs. Their first question to me was "What has broken down?" Truthfully, I could only admit to a fork seal, and luckily they didn't ask about Og's bike.....

In order to take control, we gave them a good serve on their lack of patriotism in riding German product, the dearth of the passionate Italians of legend, the wonderment of Guzzi provenance, etc. They took this well enough to insist on a group photo at the end.

From there we're back on the motorway to Rome. It's a toll road, €7.60 each, but it's also a 95-100MPH blast. You get a ticket as you enter, which you present as you exit...which means that they also monitor elapsed times. Fortunately there's a servo just before the exit booths, and a 20 minute queue that remove any fine risk from our trip.

We've only just touched on Grand Sasso. By the look of the detailed road maps there is probably a good week's worth just within short commute of Rome. Makes a note for next time. (Photos coming, I forgot the CDs of the pictures in the hotel room, from Og)

Felice

Before the girls had arrived we had left the bikes with Felice, the Moto Guzzi Club del Roma recommended mechanic. Og's was running like a dog and drinking fuel, mine was ok but had popped a fork seal, both were long overdue oil changes and regular service.

Felice spoke no English, less than my Italian, but we are both fluent in Guzzi, so we left the bikes for two weeks for general service and sundry repairs. There was an element of faith in this; Felice's workshop was full of Guzzis, and it was obvious that many of them had been there a long time.

This morning we collected the bikes. Felice had done a really good job; he'd done all the work we asked for, plus had gone through and tidied everything; replaced missing screws, replaced missing rubber caps and bungs, variously tweaked and adjusted anything and everything that looked to need it. And he'd cleaned both bikes; even took the dead bird out of Og's, where it had mummified itself between the left cylinder and fuel pump. Both bikes now look and run like not quite so old and neglected as they once looked.

The fuel injection problem that had plagued Og's bike was fixed by replacement of the entire injector/throttle body/TPS on the right side. Felice did give me a detailed explanation of the where and why of this, but in technical italian. I bracketed the assembly between thumb and forefinger and said to him "Nuovo?", to which he replied "Si" Anything more technical is lost completely, but the bike is fixed.

The additional cost of Og's injector bits equated with the additional labour for the fork seals on mine, nett result just a whisker under €400 each. We were both a bit shocked at this initially when the figure was relayed by phone to us. Given that I have never before paid anyone to service my bike I certainly had no idea of what to expect. However, on seeing the bikes and the detailed attention Felice had applied to them, we both felt that we had been very fortunate to find him, and that we have fair value.

And so the recommendation, for anyone needing Guzzi anything in Roma:

Felice Denci
Riparazioni Moto
Via Bolognetta, 79
Via Casalina km18.100 - Finocchio
00132 - Roma

Ph/fax 06 2076 2254
cell 347 445 3945
(but only for Italian speakers!)

Wine

Og and I have been known to enjoy a glass of red; in fact it was the third bottle one night a year or so ago that spawned this trip.

I've never been a great fan of the lighter reds we get in Oz, but was pleasantly surprised by the Italian reds we tried. Good colour, full flavoured, slightly lower alcohol content and less tannin. Very, very drinkable. From the villa we discovered one day a local drop, "Montipuciano", which was a snip at €7.78 a bottle, which is A$13.26 according to calculations.

Whilst this does not sound cheap, you need to consider how much you get. 750ml bottles are pretentious, and we first tried Montipuciano in 1.5 litre bottles. It was so good we had to buy the big bottles; that's FIVE LITRES for €7.78, Equivalent to almost 7 standard bottles at A$2 each! Waaaayyyy to go!!!

The 5 litre bottles are screw capped and refillable. We first encountered these in Firenze, where we had to buy one in a wine shop. This place had three stainless steel vats, each roughly a 200litre (44 gallon) drum on end size, with a dinky little tap on the bottom end. Select your bottle, select your variety (blanco, chianti, rosso) and watch it fill at €2.20 per litre. Adding the cost of the bottle, that made it an expensive €17 for 5 litres, for quite good wine, given the pretentious nature of the shop and the fact that we did buy in Firenze.

However, it would be a very good buy indeed to top the Montepuciano from the supermarket in Mercatale.

Roma, after the Villa and Venice now with pictures

Just a quick few words. I am in an internet cafe near the station in Rome, full ID documents supplied to prevent terrorism. Ha. In the last week or so there has been a coup in Thailand, and a very pleasant holiday in Italy, not connected.


I can't add photos to the blog from here, for the first time ever the Olympus will not install as an external disk on the computer. So in the mean time folks will have to imagine rolling hills, valleys filled with morning mist, local wine in 5 litre flagons, the azure blue of the swimming pool, walled cities, winding passageways, vaporetti on the Grand Canal...

Later, some piccies:

Roma and North by Og

Have dropped off bikes, collected the women, got the rental car and arrived at the villa in Umbria. Well Umbria by about 200m, the Tuscany/Umbria sign is just near the house. It is nice to have more than one night in a bed, and not to be boiling in black motorcycle clothes. Black Italian clothes instead.

Have just finished a blog update in Perugia (ppicture above), we have not been near an internet cafe with time to spare for a week.

Amalfi by Massey

I don't remember the last dispatch, so forgive any duplication or ommission.

The ferry to Bari was notable mainly for the great sleep. Bari is notable for being forgettable, but that gave us an opportunity to ride the Amalfi coast and thus completing the "big three" coastal rides. Across Italy to Salerno was a straightforward blat. Italian speed limits are very conservative, but universally ignored, so no worries at all. No worries apart from signage, that is.

The GPS has gone West (Poland roads have finally had their revenge, the Bluetooth has stopped), so we're on the analogue paper map and post-it notes on the windscreen system, thus dependent on road signs. Italian road signs tend to have a lot of information, which is not presented consistently. Your major destination may be anywhere amongst the many places listed, and not highlighted. There is also an Italian technique for signing something straight ahead which need adapting to. Elswhere, straight ahead is show with an "up" arrow. Here it's not. They use a "left" or a "right" arrow, set not quite square on. We think that a left arrow on the right and a right arrow on the left both mean straight ahead, wheras a left arrow on the left means turn left. Suffice to say that we have seen some parts of Italy that we had not planned to...

And so Salerno, and the Amalfi Coast. This doe deserve it's place at the top of the list of great coastal roads. It's stunning. Tight, narrow, good surface, spectacular scenery in the extreme (even on a hazy day) it wins, no contest. Unfortunately it carries the traffic of Chapel street on Saturday morning. If deserted it is a first and second gear ride, with rare snatches of third; but in traffic and 35*C heat was not as much fun as it might have been. At one stage Og lowered his arm and a stream of sweat ran from the cuff. Yuk. Despite the tightness, overtaking was easy and so threading through with second gear blasts was the way to go. There were heards of scooters, and it was very annoying that they were so hard to shake off.

The Sorrento end of the coast was not as spectacular, and it delivers in Napoli, which is far from attractive. So we took the motorway for Rome, a 95MPH blast. It's a toll road. take a ticket when you get on, pay according to distance travelled when you get off.

At the booth near Rome, I inserted my ticket. €11.50 owing, so a €2 coin in the slot, €10 note in the bill slot, change comes out, boom gate opens, I go through and wait for Og. Og inserts ticket, €11.50 owing. Feeds €10 note, machine burps and displays "please insert ticket". No credit, no ticket, and worst of all...no opening boom gate. Pushing the "help" button only gives the same recording in sing song Italian. After a short, if animated, period we discover that you can physically lift the boom gate enough to get a bike through.

And into Rome, to Og's mates Cath and Marco, arriving at about 8.00PM.

Wednesday.

We'd been in touch with the Moto Guzzi Club of Rome who had recommended a mechanic to service both bikes, tweak the errant fuel injection on Og's and fit long overdue fork seals in mine. Marco calledon our behalf and teed it up. Felice will be very happy to have both bikes for the 2 weeks that the girls are here, a great arrangement that suits both parties.

Felice speaks less English than I do Italian, but he has maybe 30 Guzzis in his workshop, from V7 to Breva. His workshop is in a basement, and has no external signage. "Look for the Guzzi on the ramp", his Le Mans III. Hopefully he's Rome's Barry Jones. We'll find out in a fortnight.

After a great time in Turkey, we're back in Og's second home, Thessaloniki. A fantastic night with Yanna and Petros last night, Greek BBQ with Petros' selection of very fine Greek reds.

This morning we set of for Igounomitsa, to catch our ferry to Italy. Og wants to go via Meteora, and since I have never heard of the place, don't argue. It's a drag getting out of town, and then a highway run for a couple of hours. We turn off for Meteora and hit the twisty bits. Meteora is a group of monasteries build on absurdly inaccessible rock heights. If only they had used that energy and initiative for something for the greater benefit. It's a great riding road, but choked with tourist busses to the extent that they block each other, so they unload where they're jammed. We dodge busses, tourists etc and are impressed by the effort that has been applied here.

From there we head to Ioannina, and this is where my education has progressed. I did not realise that Greece has Alps, let alone Alpine passes, let alone a sequence of them nearly 250km in length! These are serious passes, through ski resorts, hairpins upon hairpins until it levels out at Igoumenitsa, at sea level. The road surface is generally ok, but there are some very, very slippery bits of worn surface amongst it. We've both had a number of very disconcerting front end slides, fortunately all recovered from. This road carries a lot of traffic from the ferry terminals, particularly trucks. The road is only one lane each way, double lines almost all the way. Redeeming feature is that this is a Greek road; the lanes are one and a half cars wide, and double lines have no meaning here. Drivers are good and keep to the edge when they can. It's easy to pass, and I've enjoyed a great day of sportsman-like riding, a nice change.

I've also learnt that the first part of the California to scrape is the footboard, followed very soon after by the pannier... too much fun, methinks.

So now we are in a cafe in Igoumenitsa awaiting the 7.30 boarding for our ferry to Bari. We've drunk the place out of local beer; three in total!

Sometime later:

• We're booked on the 9 o'clock ferry to Bari via Korfu. The girl in the agency was particularly helpful, pricing various options on different sailings. Yo can book a single room, a twin room, or a 4 bed room. For us to share a twin room for the overnight crossing would have cost €236; but the hot tip is that they only have 4 bed rooms. Book for a single, and you get to share with three empty beds, so......
• Og has the room, I'm notionally in a seat. We board. We go to reception. My ticket is thrust back at me. "No cabin!", so I retire to the lounge with my panniers. Og, however, is feted. A porter (!!!!!!!) carries his panniers to his state room, while I sit waiting. Eventually, a freshly showered and clean-clothed Og wanders back to my unwashed company. The door-bitch is a tyrant, guarding the access to the cabins as if she paid for them with her own money. So I go via the outside deck, park my stuff in the cupboard, have a quick wash and make a tactical withdrawal to the bar.
• Hopefully she'll give up early, but the weather is fine and calm, so access via the outside deck mick just be prudent.

Posting comments

Some folks have been asking about posting to the blog. You should be able to post as Anonymous by going through the Comments section. That does not apply to spammers!

Breakfast in Istanbul, not a bad view.

Istanbul

Well we have made it, we are in Istanbul where the keyboard has a choice of the letter 'i'. Decided to visit Gallipoli on the way instead of after, took the ferry to Chanakale for the night then rode around the areas of interest yesterday. Cape Helles, Anzac Cove. What a stupid place to land troops.

While enjoying the sea view at Chanakale I was sharing some of my limited knowldge of Islam wıth Massey, explaining the Haj and that the older men with the beanies had probably made the pilgrimage and could be comfortably addressed as Haji. Massey never believes what I say. At Anzac Cove yesterday 2 kids started chatting to us while we were eating, the 'what is your nom' and 'how old are you' type stuff. When they heard how old Massey was, the boy called hım Haji!. The grey beard helped. And because I was so nice, he called me baclava.

So Haji is out at the moment visiting Aga Sophia, I am attempting to upload some images which has been only partly successful. Tried again, no luck.

İt gets worse... by Massey

My last entry was written from the roadside while we waited for the car wrecks to be cleared. Foolishly, we thought this might be quick. After more than 3 hours there was no sign. More polis and the crash investigator with his tape measure.

We were looking at the map when one of the Polis came over and indicated an alternate route to bypass the blockage. So back to the last exit, into the village and I led us up the totally wrong road. This was a really rough, rocky track, and the ford was the real indication that it was wrong. Back to the village and Og gets us onto the right track.

Track is the key word. A single vehicle width rocky track that is doubtless the old road, and which follows beside the railway line. Not a road for which a Guzzi California is designed. First and second gear we pick though. There is some car traffic coming the other way, a comforting indication that this is the right road after all. Farm traffic is donkey drawn carts. I pick my way past a cart, expecting to find Og in the mirrors, but he's not there. Wait. Turn around, not easy on the rocks and narrow track.

Fearing the worst, I am relieved to see Og standing and the bike upright. The front of the bike is down the embankment, the weight taken on the sump and left cylinder. Two of us haul it back, no damage done other to senses of humour, which are hard taxed by now.

Moving off, we can see the highway on the other side of the valley. We see the long line of stationary cars and trucks, and are really peeved to see that they have started moving past the crash site. This silly detour would have saved us perhaps 10 minutes if I hadn't got us lost.

Naturally, we're at the tail end of a long queue at the border, where the guards have had a quiet afternoon with no traffic at all and are not pleased by a sudden workload. We fry in the 35* heat, hot. dirty, sweaty, dehydrated, tired, and not even a small bit happy.

Now we're fully two days behind the plan. Istanbul is not an option for tonight. We change plans. Thessaloniki for the night, a rest, and head for Istanbul tomorrow. By dropping the circumnavigation of the Sea of Marmara and the Venice ferry we can pick up those days.

Og does brilliantly in Thessaloniki, an air conditioned room at the back of a small hotel; cool and quiet. Out of the bike gear, cool showers, clean clothes, much better. I am feeling crook from the tribulations of the day. Og wants to show me Thessaloniki, a place he knows well. All I want to do is go to sleep, somehow Og has fired up. We go out to eat, first call the cash machine, which is when I discover that I have lost my Visa card, last used over the counter at a bank in Montenegro.

It gets worse. My phone, which does the email but also has multi-zone clock feature, has been playing up. Not so much the phone itself, but the juggling between service providers has confused it's little tin brain. Realising the seriousness of the lost card, I need to tell Robyn. I check the time. 11.30AM tomorrow in Melbourne. So I call. Og asks quizzically if I am sure I want to do this. Any other time this would have made me question; but in my fuddled state I missed that. So I called her......at 3.30AM.

We eat, I sleep. In the morning Og looks greyish and opines that we have enough wood for the Winter. Not sure what that means.

In a cool, quiet room I slept.

Og's second home, Saloniki

Just added Massey's last 3 posts, and forgot the camera in the jacket pocket so no photos yet. Bad day yesterday, my bike is running like Guzzi's agricultural engines, it is very hot and the road was blocked for hours. So much for getting into Turkey, we were advised by the Kosovar wife of an American policeman that this route was the better option than Bulgaria. On the advice of a FYROM policeman our short detour around the crash scene became a ride through a creek to a hydro station, and when we got on the right road, a ride through loose stones. No fun with a top heavy road bike, hot hard work.

When we were waiting in the queue to leave FYROM (and as it was a bad day it would not happen quickly enough), when I lowered my arm sweat ran out on my jacket sleeve. Not dripped, poured. We killed 1.5lt of water each when just inside Greece but we were still dehydrated by the time we got to Thessaloniki. Massey was exhausted, and so was I until I realised I was back in Saloniki, Saloniki, Saloniki. An early night anyway. Today my bike is getting a new front tyre as I have worn one out already, and hopefully a tune or whatever.

As for FYROM, don't bother. We spent about 14 Euro per hour for the pleasure, there's nothing to see and the borders are slow. The only interest was the African American sapper from KFOR who pushed into the queue to leave Kosovo, thereby ensuring the wrath of people behind him. He got out of the car, shouted, went into boxer stance, rolled his shoulders and ensured the attention of 3 border police. And Americans just still do not know why nobody likes them.

Oh, and Kosovo was a surprise, it was not shown on any of our maps. A place where the UN KFOR tries to stop the locals slaughtering each other. And we should never forgive the Serbs and Montenegrans for the senseless shelling of Dubrovnik our of spite. The Balkans, need I say more?

Piccies hopefully when we get to Istanbul.

Macedonia, not the Greek one but FYROM

Our Kosovar experience was great, and this morning we learned the cost; €49.5, including drinks ancd bottled water, a real bargain.

So to Pristina, where we gave up on finding tha airport, and thence into Macedonia, or FYROM, depending on your affiliations. What a racket. We need a visa (€35, only obtainable at the border, and insurance for each bike at €50, so €85 for a country we'll spend less than 2 hours crossing. Subsequently learned that you can get a "transit" pass, somewhat cheaper. "Transit" is the magic word apparently. Grumbles toself, places Mak on the list of places not to go to, ranking slightly ahead of Wales.

In the end we did get our money's worth. About 40km from the Greek border the road is blocked by a crash that has just happened. No scope to wriggle round, so we just quietly stew in our bike gear in the 35*heat..

If it's Monday...

Finally, a border crossing to expectation; half hour wait in the queue, surly, diffident border guards, who held our passports until we had insurance. We were brusquely directed towards a newish building. Across I went, noting that a truck driver I had seen earlier came around the side of the building. Crossing the stream of raw sewerage that dribbled from a drain cover, I saw that the downstairs was unfinished and empty. So around the corner, up the stair which lead to the back of the place. Enter. A rough hand drawn sign points up the passageway "insurance", a few doors up two adolescents in T shirts motion to me. It looks like their bedroom, with a couch and posters, but they are the insurance persons. €10 later (each) we both have our insurance papers, retrieve our passports and go.

The big sign says "You are now in Montenegro", but not "Welcome to...", and they mean it. Atrocious roads gradually improve as we approach the resort beaches. Og really liked these. As "managed" beaches, the sun chairs, umbrella and duck boards are all laid out with a precision that appeals to surveyors..... Countryside still much like Croatia, only a bit more spectacular. Leaving the coast we crossed a mountain pass, a stunning road that climbed from sea level into the clouds and down again into Podgorica.

This was a horrible place, with that strange smell unique to devastated places: a mix of putrifying rubbish, stinking, dank humanity and diesel exhaust fumes. We were glad to be out of it.

Had I thought about it, I would have thought that "Montenego" would mean "black mountains", but I hadn't thought that and was consequently astounded by the visual grandeur of the place. From Podgorica the road follows a fantastic ravine-gorge into spectacular rocky mountains. The road is quite good, an engineering marvel of tunnels, bridges, etc, this is such wildly mountainous country. All fine. We climb up, climb down, and think we're done. But wait! There's more, and more, and more. Brilliant riding, but slow as we negotiate traffic. We stop for coffee; Turkish in this part of the world. As we leave the crowded cafe, a local points at the eagle on the tank "Kookaburra" he says! No doubt his brother drives a taxi in Sydney.

Police are conspicuous in Montenegro, so much so that I start to think that it's an alternative to the dole. There's a speed trap in every town, although the smaller villages sometimes miss out. There are police in cars, at intersections, in the parking bays. We were stopped once, for "speeding". It's almost comical; they wave you down with a fly swat like device, and make an accusation. There is a well known scam variant of this where you pay the officer in cash, but as I had no Euros and he had no English, we got away with it.

More mountains, more tunnels. Spectacular, but slow and we realise that we're not likely to make Pristina; and we're already a day behind plan. We stopped briefly outside a really good looking motel-restaurant that had half a dozen bikes outside. They beckoned us join them, and we nearly did, but pressed on for the last hour of daylight.

This was not such a good idea. 100km to Pristina, but very slow going. And there was something we hadn't considered: Kosovo. Riding in the dark was never in the plan, riding in the dark in Serbia-Montenegro is just silly, but you'd need rocks in your head to ride Kosovo after dark. And the alternative is? So we get our visas and into Kosovo in the last fading light. At least the moon is up, so it's not all bad.

There were lots of stray and feral animals though Montenegro, and so continues. Not far into Kosovo a large dog crossed my headlight and kept going. Soon after a small white pup a bit bigger than a Jack Russell ran onto the road, crossed and turned back. I saw him look into the headlight and then the inevitable thump. At least I kept the bike up. I am a dog-person and this experience troubles me.

Feeling somewhat less cheery we rode on into the Kosovo dark, passing UN patrols etc makes you feel really safe. Eventually a village with a motel, a great roadhouse/restaurant with good clean rooms, a lock-up garage and great basic food. Smoked pork for Og, a mixed grill for me, and a few pivos. The mixed grill had a heavy pork content in the mix: pork fillet, pork chop, smoked pork, pork sausages, but very good. There's one only English language menu, and it's the only English in the place.

There is a fine collection of stuffed animals in the corner of the restaurant; wolves, wild pigs, bears, and otter-ish things. Yes, you'd have to have rocks in your head to ride at night here.

Dubrivnik, sure did.

Fortified and reinvigorated by our swim in the Adriatic (note beach bar above), we hatched a plan for Dubrovnik. The tourist info included a mention of a "biker cafe", with suitable warm fuzzy embellishment, so we thought we'd use that as a base. Suffice to say that it was a bit of a dissapointment, but it was a place to change into our shorts, and to leave the bike. The redeeming feature was the front window, which was covered in bike club stickers. Most were local and Harley-esque, but there was one from Gowanlochs, and from the Horror. Now there is a MGOCV one too.

It was maybe 500m down a rough path to the old city. This is a wonderful place; picturesque in the extreme, as you'll see from the pictures when Og uploads them. The Serbs and Slavs shelled it in 1991, an act of wanton spiteful vandalism, but it has been restored carefully. There is not one blot, not one jarring sight, and no American fast food franchises. It remains a living city with real character, jammed with tourists. Cruise ships sail right into the harbour, beside the old walls, and add to the spectacle. They add significantly to the tourist crowds. too.

Dınner was salamı, bread and cheese wıth a Croatian white on the end of the jetty.

Some words from Og

Massey still has the luxury of evenings spent posting his missives to my Yahoo account for uploading to the blog, I really wish I had GPRS on my phone.

Anyway I will post some photos of the recent voyages when I have extended time at an Internet Cafe. Today we are in Dubrovnic and I don't want to waste time staring at a screen. This is a wonderful place, it lives up to its reputation. A must see. Thousands of tourists can't be wrong, but even that does not matter.

My Cali is still giving some problems, the occasional cut out on deceleration from speed and it still drinks petrol. We have tried everything that can be done with a fuel injected system apart from the computer chip. That may be next. It is parked for the day out the front of the Biker's Cafe here in Dubrovnic, a sort of bonding experience. Off for a swim...

Dalmatians

Wien had been good for us, staying with Michael and Nives was really comfortable; to be in someone's home is much warmer than the best hotel room. And Michael had cooked us genuine Wiener Schnitzel, too. Og repayed the favour with Thai food, green chicken curry and som tom with carrot instead of mango.

Out of Wien via GPS and freeway into Slovenia, where the freeway gives way to goat track. Almost pointless border crossings into there and Croatia. Croatia unfortunately suffers from some poor marketing. Their roads are stunning. Ok, it's a toll road, but a 95MPH blast down to Split is a glorious ride. Strange country, looks to be all rock with a few shrubs struggling to hold on. Then you burst through a mountain range to look down on the Adriatic, and ultimately, Split. The highway hairpins down after a 6km tunnel, truly spectacular.

It was after dark by the time we reached Split proper, and we were not impressed. Really ugly blocks of flats, and lots of them. We decided to split from Split, headed out of town and found an apartment. €25 each, but quite nice, with en suite. No worries, we move in. They have a restaurant, so we have a look; it's on the water, as in you can hear the gentle waves lapping from the table. These are micro-waves, too. So we have a contemplative beer and decide that it has been a long day, it is late, and it's not half bad, so the old principle of not eating where you sleep is shelved for tonight. Grand. The chef acts as waiter, suggests that a seafood grill is what we really need, and good Croatian wine. And he was right, spot on. We really should have enquired about the price before we agreed. No matter, bread and cheese for the next ten days we restore us to budget....

This morning we sneaked into Split to have a look at Diocletian's Palace, allegedly the most intact of all Roman ruins. Og demurred for a bit, on the basis that we were going to Rome soon, and that's where all this crap came from... Anyway, we went. Despite being the heart and cause of Split, it's not signed and was not easy to find; but once found you could spend weeks there. Diocletian built himself a nice beach house, and people have been living in it since he put his shield in the rack. End result is a vast rambling, plainly identifiable as one residence, series of shops, plazas (plazae??), alleyways, a great place to roam. An obligatory coffee and time to head for Dubrovnik.

Poor old Big Sur has just dropped another level. The road down the Dalmatian coast is a stunner; very close to the bluest water I have ever seen, it dips and winds beautifully. A bit congested, but a good surface and nice relaxed riding. Hurry is not a Croatian concept. We probably averaged less than 70kph to Dubrovnik, and it didn't matter.



A few k's short of Dubrovnik we found an apartment. There are people spruiking their apartments everywhere, but we have both principles and standards; principally, it had to be beach front, of a decent standard, with secure bike parking. In the end we compromised; it's 30m to the beach, but there's a half way bar for sustenance, and another at the beach, albeit at the far end of the 80m of (pebble) beach. Sometimes, you just have to compromise....

So we've had a swim in the pristine Adriatic. Water so clear that you cannot dive to the depth of the visible sandy floor, very salty and bouyant, a bit below bath temperature, but not by much. And so to the bar... There's a fair chance of grilled seafood for tea tonight, but we'll be asking the price first!

Kutna Hora (horror)

One thing I forgot in the last missive. 100km East of Prague is the village of Kutna Hora. At some point in the 15th or 16th century, someone returned from a pilgrimage to the holy land with a bucket of dirt, which they spread in the churchyard. This made the whole place holy to the faithful, and they were dying to get in. Perhaps all of those holes helped, too.....

Suffice to say that there was some excess of bones accumulating in the crypt, and a novel, if incredibly macabre, solution was found. They were used for ornamentation; the place is decorated in bones. There is a real coat of arms, with real arms, for example. The central chandelier is alleged to use at least one of every bone in a skeleton. The corners between walls and across the vaulted ceilings are all picked out with an alternating pattern of skulls and femurs. Most impressive are the pyramids that fill each of the four apses. These fill spaces perhaps 7m square and 4m high, neatly stacked skulls and femurs. Most macabre of all is a glass case of damaged skulls; with sword blows and bashed in sections.

We cannot say whether the bloke who did all this had a wicked sense of humour, or absolutely none, but it was one or the other! Massey.

Czech and double Czech

I think that the last entry was written as we were departing Polska for Czech Republic.

Things were not going so well. Krakow was great, we had a great hostel close to the old town. On the day we left Og wanted to visit the castle first (speccy) and then call at the salt mines on tehe way out of town. The salt mines were far better than any marketing twerp could make a salt mine sound, but the tour took 3 hours. Thus is was almost 4.00PM before we started to head for Prague. No matter, Og has keyed it into the GPS. Prague is South West of Krakow, butwe're heading North West. Not only that, but we're on a rotten old roadthrough one village after another; this does not look like to way to Prague. We stop and discuss. Og has complete faith in the technology, but sees my argument. So we take to the paper map and cross country South, crossing into Czech Republic without drama. There is a freeway from the border to Prague...but the first 40km of it are in upheaval with roadworks. It comes good and we press on into the night, conscious of all of the warnings of how bad Czech roads and drivers are. After a few minutes of fine freeway running a massive lightning bolt splits the sky and lights up all. Time for the first motel! This turns out to be a good place, nice room, good food, secure garage parking.

Next morning it's a freeway blast to Prague. Or it would be if Og's bike wasn't drinking petrol at 150% the rate that mine does. And his charge light is coming on. So we stop and replace the engine temperature sensor and press on. Og is quite sad now, with his bike and GPS both amiss. We're a little bit lost on the edge of Prague and stop to discuss tactics. Decide that we need to find an internet cafe, google a Moto Guzzi service place and go from there, when a bloke on a scooter pulls up and flashes the "MotoGuzzi World Club" badge on his jacket. I tell him we have problems and he motions that we should follow. Across town and into a workshop, drive to theback wall and a door opens at the sound of the bikes. Are we to be mugged and robbed of all valuables?

Looking around we see that the place is full ofGuzzis. Our saviour pulls off his helmet and jacket, revealling a smiling faceand "Moto Guzzi" overalls. This is Juci, President of the Moto Guzzi Club-Bohemia, and head Guzzi mechanic for the distributors...Og has formally foregone any right to moan about bad luck EVER again.

So Juci fixed Og's bike, we had coffee and conversation in sign language, and agreed to meet in a bar not far from Juci's home later on. They also recommended a camp ground a tram ride from the bar. Decided that the prudent thing to do would be to find accommodation near the bar and walking distance to town, and stumbled on Pension Akat. The only room available was an apartment set up as a 10 bed dormitory, but since only two beds were made up, we could have it for the equivalent of A$60, breakfast and secure courtyard parking included.

And so to the bar. Soon Juci arrived with his wife and his brother and his photo albums. This was particularly clever, because we could all "talk"coherently in pictures. Several other MG Bohemia members came, we ate, we drank, we had a great night. This did put us a day behind schedule and we still had not seen Prague, so aftera quick investigative tour and discussion we decided on a second night and thus 1 full day for Prague. I am so glad that we did.

Prague is stunningly beautiful, and vast. From the old town with the castle on the hill to the new town acros the Karlos Bridge, cobbled streets, Wencleslas Square, and art nouveau architecture, it would be easy to spend days wandering. The new town was founded in the 14th Century, so is not that new, really. Amazingly, thereare no 1970s monstrosities anywhere, and the ambience of the place remarkable. I really liked it.

Czech drivers deserve a special mention. Despite all advice, they are polite,couteous, and follow the road rules. Very good. Where Poland only has roadsigns and markings as a sop to Eu, because no one pays them the slightest heed, in Czech they stop if you even look like using a pedestrian crossing. It was a very pleasant surprise. We left Prague yesterday morning, Wednesday, starting with a farewell call to Juci and the guys at their shop. The trip to the border was uneventful, dodging the rain storms reasonably well. Exiting from Czech was a cursory glance at our passports, but the entry to Austria (which I had expected to be, errr, Teutonic) was a glance at us, "Ciao" and a wave with the back of the hand.

So now we are in in Wein. We pulled up outside Michael and Nives' apartmentjust as the rain started, damned good timing. Unfortunately, 24 hours later and in Michael's office, it is still raining steadily. Hopefully it will stop by morning. Contrary to my expectations, the weather has grown progressively cooler as we'vecome further South. Scandinavia was warm, with Finland hot, but yesterday itwas only 14*C according to the roadside thermometers. Tomorrow we hit Croatia and the Adriatic coast, where it will have to be warmer. Two weeks today until we meet the girls in Rome, and we're both keen for that. Both of us are sick of sharing a room with the other because he snores so badly....

Krakow, by Massey

Another wet and gloomy morning. We're about 100km North of Warsaw and heading for Krakow, 400km away.

Travelling is slow, with road works and bad road sections. Miraculously, the drivers seem to be more sensible in the wet, or maybe we're adapting.... The rolling country side is pleasant but uninteresting.

We saw Warsaw at it's very worst. I fancy that it's not that attractive at it's best, but clothed in a thick grey foggy cloudbank through which probed the stark forms of endless soviet era blocks of flats, it was not pretty. Finally we found a cash machine and had a coffee.

After that the day improved. As the day improved, the driving deteriorated until the sun came out and it was plain lunatic. We've both had frights from cars either appearing from behind or flying past at warp speed that we both now spend more time on the mirrors than looking ahead. Quite scary.

Somewhere in the sunshine we stopped for fuel. A bike went by, I waved, they waved then turned in. It was a Polish couple on a heavily laden sports Suzuki, on their way to a rally about 80km from Krakow. They insisted we go with them, and if Krakow had looked like Riga, we would have. But Krakow did not, and we hearby apologise to our Polish friends.

Krakow old town is World Heritage listed, vast, and beautiful. It covers an area comparable to the Melbourne CBD, around a main square the size of one of Melbourne's main commercial blocks, Where Tallinn is a museum city of tourists, Krakow is a living city preserved, and the main voices are Polish. Poland in the last hundred years or so has been poor and there has been no development. Krakow escaped the war unscathed, a remarkable place.

Saturday, Krakow by Og

 Well here we are in Krakow, and worth the visit.  Amazing living city that deserves its World Heritage listing.  We managed to find a hostel almost by accident while looking for one mentioned in the Lonely Planet Guide, the Cinema Hostel http://cinemahostel.com/.  Complete with brand new bathrooms, just the 2 of us in a 6 bed room, and courtyard parking for the bikes, and only 60 zlots each and just 5 minutes walk to the old town.

I have been updating the blog, adding images and 2 recent posts from Massey as the hostel also has free Internet.  It is easy to get images off my Olympus, but Massey's Canon is always a problem.  I have little need to add anything regarding the unique driving styles here, just to say that we spend more time watching our mirrors than we do the road in front.  Some cars can appear next to you from nowhere.  There is a supposed 90kph limit on the roads, maybe the locals think that means miles per hour?

Sitting in the square last night, listening to the 2 guys on the accordians playing classical music, videoing the wedding party that was being videoed (and to video is a verb), finishing with the worst Georgian food I have ever eaten.  Maybe they don't expect their customers have been to Georgia.

So off to the Castle, then to the salt mines then we head to Prague.

Grutos Park

Our hotel in Vilnius was out of the way, really quiet and we slept very well. Another wet morning.

South East out of Vilnius for Druskininskia (??) and the Grutos Park of Soviet Statuary, nick-named "Stalin World".

It was an interesting ride. We'd been warned about Polish driving, but Lithuanian driving is something to behold. Not even out of Vilnius and a dirty great truck overtakes another on a hill, without reference to anyone else; the overtake-ee realises and moves right, the oncoming traffic does the same, and without slackening pace the road is now three lanes. The road seal extends out about 600mm past the edge line, and they use every bit. Don't tell Steve Bracks or there'll be more paint on Victorian roads. A while later we stopped to sort waterproofs. In the space of 3 or 4 minutes we saw two examples of overtaking over double lines, around a blind bend, in the wet. Everyone seems to just accept that someone might need to barge in at no notice. This sort of thing would be far better seen on TV than first hand on the bike.

Against that, Southern Lithuania was a pleasant ride through rolling hills and farms. Obviously poor; grazing animals are tethered rather than fenced, and the farms seem small.

The other excitement for the day was learning that we could get 180 miles out of a tank of fuel. 17L into Og's, 16L into mime, 20+ miles with the fuel light steady on. Must check the book for the tank capacity.

And so to Grutos Park. You enter past an old train with a cattle wagon of the type used to send people to the Gulags. Pay to get in, pay per camera in addition. Walk through an open grassed area lined with mounted newspaper cuttings and gradually you tune into the marshall muzak. Enter the park proper and you're at an outdoor theatre, bench seats, Lenin image, Lenin quotes etc, with a huge and brightly coloured children's playground in the background. Following the path you meander through a forest, puncuated at intervals with sculptures or bronzes, each captioned and explained in English. Nearly 200 in all. Throughout there is stirring marshall music and song, played through speakers on the guard towers.... A very strange experience, explaining the whole communist era in an emotionless way, bizarre without being irreverent or respectful.
And so to Poland. We knew what to expect; worst drivers, worst roads, people so poor that they steal the man hole covers to sell for scrap, a hazard in addition to the cavernous potholes. We haven't been to that bit of Poland yet. We've been riding across a pleasant rolling green countryside, on variable roads that are generally OK. Polish driving is highly imaginative; use your imagination, it is that bad. Lines on roads are open to any interpretation you like. I've been frightened a couple of times when lunatics have come roaring up on the wrong side so fast that I have not seen them coming. Traffic lights also warant special treatment. It seems that regardless of the colour, lights are for trucks. If the tucks are going the same way as you, then you do what the trucks do. If they're not going your way, then do the opposite.



We're safely ensconced before dark, in a lovely Soviet style hotel that smells of mildew. At least our room is OK, with en-suite and an open window. Cost is 80 zlotls per night, under A$40. Snag is that we only have 110 zlotls between us, and cards are not an option. So bread, cheese, smoked reindeer (a Finnish investment) and enough left over for 3 beers each at 3 zlotls.



Money is becoming an irritation. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland are all Eu members, but they don't have common currency. Dandy, we can all deal with this. But why do all four countries have near identical currency pieces, that ALL look like euro. So out of a pocketful of shrapnel, which you'd reckon to be just money, anyone in a shop inspects each coin and rejects any that aren't "theirs". So we think that we can afford one large and one small beer before bed time!

Via Baltica

 Via Baltica is the main drag from Tallinn to Riga, the main road artery. It's heavily trucked and would have been quite ugly a few years back. As it is now, there are enough sections where the bitumen has been worn into two troughs (from the combination of dual wheels and tandem B-double wheels) which are not nice to ride. You have the option of rut1 or rut 2, and if it was wet it would be horrible... but it wasn't. In truth, most of it has been rebuilt and is quite ok, however, an awful lot is still in construction. Traffic lights, contra-flows, detours on to temporary side roads: horrible, but all of it sealed and not so bad. It just seems worse waiting for those lights.

So we arrive in Riga, capitol of Latvia, a UNESCO listed World Heritage old town. Or it is at the moment. They are building tasteless glass walled monstrosities throughout and between the old buildings; a shambles. We went up the church tower for the view over the old town, and it looks surprisingly like any other city. Roamed around in the evening, had pizza for tea, and were generally unimpressed by most of it. Stayed in a cheapo hotel in the old town, bikes locked together in the street out front. There is no sense of threat or danger here and we have no qualms.

So from Riga to Vilnius, Lithuania. We're a bit lucky with the weather; it's raining in front of us, so for most of the day we're riding wet roads without being in the rain as such. Countryside is rolling green, broken with derelect Soviet factories. Two conspicuous features today, stork nests and Lituanian driving. Storks build their hests on top of power poles, a metre diameter block of sticks, up to half a metre thick. We even saw a stork in one of them.

The border crossing was again anti climactic; no queue, and no drama, almost disappointing. There is an obvious geographic difference across the border, from flat and boring to much more rolling countryside and a few pretty lakes. Not a patch on Finland though.

Lithuanian drivers are, errrrr, exciting. Remember that we're riding on the "wrong" (right) side so I sit just right of the centre line, asserting my right. In the mirror I see a red Honda car overtake Og, no indicators, over double lines on the crest of a hill. Mumble to myself inside my helmet. My practice has been to hold my road position until I'm content for the following pratt to pass, when I move hard to the right. Watching the red Honda approach, I prepare to move right......except the bloody Honda is there!!! Yep, he overtook me on the wrong side. Welcome to Eastern Europe.

And so to Vilnius. By now it is raining lightly. I baulk at the cost of a hotel on the edge of the old town, and agree to one on the edge of the main city. We walk into town. It's overcast, gloomy, but not technically raining until we've passed the point of no return to the jackets and brollies. The old town is pleasant enough, far more complete and interesting than Riga, but still not a patch on Tallinn. We manage to find some Lithuanian beer, agree that it is acceptable but need further testing, and so wander on in the rain. We find a great traditional Lithuanian joint in basements and settle there. Food is good, but stodgy (or mine was, at least) but we decided that the beer was good.

By the time we'd finished we had decided that we had seen enough of Vilnius. Tomorrow we're off to Stalin World, a soviet era them park near the Polish border. Sounds dreadfully tasteless, but so are we....

If it is Monday, then....

We must be in Estonia.

It has been a strange day, and at 3.30 is nowhere near over yet. Today we have ridden the amazing distance of 14 miles from Anita and Jussi place. The start was wet, bucketing down, although it quickly passed to oppressive humidity inside the waterproofs. I am typing this in an internet cafe as my phone does not have the internet connection in Estonia. It is an Estonian keyboard, and I cannot find the apostrophe key anywhere. I know that Og is sensitive to this, so please accept my apology in advance.

Fortunately, the opportunity to peel them off was presented half way down the freeway to Helsinki when Ogs bike had a failure to proceed due to an errant crankshaft position sensor. This is a known fault, and we fitted the spare in a few minutes, but that meant that we missed the 10.30 ferry. No matter, they run every 2 hours.

Getting out of Finland was our first real border\customs crossing where they wanted our papers. There was some consternation because my bike is not registered in my name, but we made it. There was more consternation for the same reason on entering Estonia. By the time the customs officer returned withour passports and papers everyone else was long gone. We had been first off the boat, too.

We have booked an apartment in old Tallinn with secure courtyard parking, and the GPS took us directly to it. Unfortunately, we cannot find the person with the keys.... Presently I am sitting in teh shelter of an old well outside the apartment. The rain has eased to heavy, but the thunder is still loud, and Og has gone back to find an internet cafe to try our only means of contacting the apartment people again.

Finally Gelli turned up with the key. The apartment is great, a double bed, a trundle bed, kitchen, newish and nice bathroom, clean, and ground floor overlooking the locked courtyard area. On top of that, we are all of 100m from the old town square, it is a great location. www.ites.ee, Ites Apartments, highly recommended.

Old Tallinn was a great walk in drizzling rain, through cobbled lanes between 18thC and medieval buildings. All very pleasant and quaint. Good views from the top of the walls and around the cathedral, but a puzzlingly large number of souvenir shops in the most unlikely little corners. As I finish this today (Tuesday, 22nd, my 25th Wedding Anniversary) I now know why: Tallinn in on the cruise ship route and positively seethes with tour groups, thousands of them, and that shatters the place. Oh, and we had deep fried pig's ears as a beer snack.

Aurora Borealis

Saturday in Helsinki. Our hosts Anita and Jussi are taking us into some Finnish culture.

We start at the Mannerheim Museum, in the embassy precinct of inner Helsinki. Mannerheim is the founder of modern Finland, the Field Marshall who ran independence from Sweden in the early 20th century and kept it from the Russians in 1945. The museum is his former home, much as he left it when he died. The tour is conducted, with informed and personalised commentary, which reflects the Finn pride in him.

Oops, a correction from Jussi:

Small corrections Oggi. Finland got its independence 1917 withouth a struggle and we separated then from Russia not Sweden. Russia had earlier won a war against Sweden in 1809 and Finland was then attached to Russia. In a civil war 1918-1919 Mannerheim was leading the troups of Whites against Reds.

From there into the country, to Tuusula, the lakeside home to the artistic set of the 1920s and 30s, specifically the homes of the painter Halonen and composer Sibelius, both national icons.

To acknowledge their kindness in looking after us so well we took Anita and Jussi to dinner, after which they took us to the rooftop bar of the "tower hotel". This is about 12 storeys, one of the tallest buildings downtown, with great views.

The outside area was small and crowded. We stood and took in the view, which included a greenish smudge that could have been a smoke plume, save that it was changing shape and growing rapidly; the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights, rarely seen in Helsinki, seldom ever seen in Summer. For ten minutes or so the whole bar crowd oohed and ahhed, and then it was gone; but we saw it!

South to Helsinki, Og's Contribution

Finally I get to add something to the blog other than John's emails to me. Most of the posts below are his as he has GPRS running on his phone so composes emails at night while I wrestle bears. We are now in Helsinki with Anita and Jussi; a big clothes wash, blog update and oil change are due. A quick visit to the Russian border en route, then past a 15km tailback of trucks waiting to clear customs.


A great trip South, with an amazing array of characters. Cabins in camping grounds for 2 nights, one with dancing on Saturdays as well but we missed that. Grilled bangers in the Sami tent for dinner, with a few cleansing ales. Interesting wind vane though.



Nordkapp, straight out blantant exploitation. I expected better from Norway, a country with not only very high taxes but all that oil money. 195 NOK for each person for entry into a theme park with no rides. At least we got to use the pass twice, we went back the next morning to post our postcards from the Northern-most post office with the Northern-most post person in the Northern-most... you get the idea. We were the 2 Northern-most Australians there as well. Stunning countryside.


Stayed with a colleague of Massey's in a summer cottage near Mikelli, fun night especially when we formed the quartet to play music. To our ears it sounded like music anyway, I knew playing the school drums when we marched into class would one day come in useful. No photos from the sauna.

The North

It has been yet another day of what my mate Dave refers to as "Lucky Man Moments", those times when you really appreciate the many and varied circumstances that have come together to allow us to be here. We are very, very lucky blokes.

First night in the "insurance" tent worked well. It's big enough for us to sleep in and has enough extra space for boots, helmets etc.

This morning we did the Alta Museum, built on and around a 6,000 year old rock art site and thus an important place from Og's itinerary. It was a fumbling start. We woke after 8, ambled off at 9, but nothing opens until 10; that's no thing at all, not even the tourist info. One exception is the museum. It opens at 7, which is no use at all if you can't find it. Eventually a smiling parking inspector told us how to get there.

The rock art is impressive, thousands of characters etched into the rock face in shallow relief. Most have been in-filled with red crayon. Whilst the purists, experts, and academics are rightly mortified by this sacrilege, duffers like me appreciate it because without that the markings are so subtle as to be invisible to mere mortals.

After several hours conjecturing on whether the carvings were rich symbols of an organised culture now gone, or doodlings on a sunny day after a big feed of reindeer, we headed North again. The day was quite pleasant, but it was damned cold riding. Climbing out from Alta we rolled onto vast plains, treeless, a moonscape of scrub little more than 18" high, dotted about with grazing reindeer. This is all Sami country, traditional custodians of all things reindeer.

Norwegian roads are all really great, and the ride from Alta via Honnigsvag to Nordkapp is a stunner. A glorious road that follows metres from the sea, sweeping, swooping between stunning ocean views. Cold, see your breath easily. Two long tunnels, one of which runs 6km and under sea to connect with the island of which Nordkapp is the attraction. Yes, I realise that this then makes a lie of the whole Nordkapp as the Northermost point of continental Europe thing, but I don't undertsand either. It does cost 68 kronor toll each way.

We've found a cabin in a camping ground, naturally the Northernmost camping ground in the world, with en suite, heater etc. 550 kronor = $110, but it's very cold outside....

Og has just called me outside. A herd of grazing reindeer have just wandered around the cabin. Quite surreal, until Og pointed out that it's simply the Northern equivalent of roaming kangaroos. Took the edge off it, that did.

Having booked our cabin and dumped some gear, we went to Nordkapp, one of the benchmarks (or waypoints if you're a surveyor) of our journey. Nordkapp is quite brilliant; I have never encountered a ripoff that comes close to it. The ride in is great, more swoops and sweeps, with spectacularly rugged wild coastal scenery until you draw up to the toll booth before Nordkapp proper. 195 kroner ($39) per person, just to get in to park! Outrage, but having come this far we paid it and we're going to recover the value in whinging about it. There's the obligatory cafes, souvenir shop, theatrette etc, but also a huge bar/restaurant/cinema set up facing the viewing window set into the cliff face; for watching the aurora borealis. We hung about in the warmth, stuck a "Moto Guzzi Club of Victoria" sticker on the globe sculpture pedestal, with all of the other bike club stickers, then left.

We also encountered the only other serious touring Guzzi thus far, an Italian couple from Lecco, also on a Cali.

Reindeer steak for tea tonight, sorry Santa.

Tomorrow is all downhill, with the sun in our faces.... to Finland.

Polett til dusj

This is a very important Norwegian phrase, which means "token for the shower", which is what you need in order to get HOT water. Ask me how I learned this? And why is the notice in the shower cubicle itself, where you don't see it until it is just too late to go to the kiosk......

Other than that, the first night of camping has gone very smoothly.

Sweden to Alta

It's been another big day; 900km up the spine of Sweden from Storuman.

This road is intensely boring. It's a bit like the Newell Highway in NSW, 2 lanes, one each way, bumpy, patched surface, through flat country with infrequent near-dead towns and monotonous scenery. Forests of pine and poplar, nothing more than 30' high.

The only thing to break this tedium was the prospect of reindeer. 150kg of lean meat, bone and antler controlled by a very small and dubious brain will do this. Over the course of the day we must have had 8 or so encounters. They stand on the road, fearless of the bikes, and run awkwardly... sometimes away, sometimes along the road, sometimes both!

Along the way we crossed the Arctic Circle. This isn't much more than a sign and a cafe, but we did stop for the obligatory photo.

We have also made 3 border crossings. For a bloke who carefully has all his requisite papers (and there are a lot) in a waterproof bag in his pocket, this was a real disappointment. Slow to 30kph, drive through. No officious guard, no tricky questions. Perhaps that will come later...

The highlight of the day was the descent into Alta, through a spectacular rocky gorge. Unfortunately we descended into an Alta that is chockers in anticipation of a big football carnival, so we're giving our new, Shetland bought, tent a try out.

More from Massey

The ferry arrived in Bergen at 11.00 local time, into perfect sunshine broken by a few fluffy clouds. We'd met a few other riders on the boat; Craig the Glaswegian nervous about how his still new Ducati would fare in Scandinavia and Europe, James the Lav rider, about which nothing more needs be said than he's a Lav rider, and a couple from out of Sydney on their NSW plated BMW. Extra points for that.

We roamed around old Bergen for a while and had coffee. The area is all old herring drying sheds from the 1700s and is world heritage listed. After another coffee with James the Lav we set the sat nav system and followed its directions out of town. Curiously, it took us off the main road (E39) in the suburbs, around and back onto it at a previous junction. Then it wanted us to do the same again. Back to the paper maps and we're away.

Norway is a stunning place, on a sunny day like this it is everything you ever imagined and more. Fjordland. Scenic beyond words, glorious roads, beautifully made....and an 80kph open road speed limit backed up with Victorian style speed policing. Along the E39 it felt like we were at walking pace, particularly after the UK roads where the speed limits are simply ignored. E39 screams to be taken at 120, and was hard work at 80, despite the magnificence of the engineering, the surroundings and the tunnels. Lots of tunnels, from 200m to 5km.

There is a ferry crossing over one fjord. On the ferry we decided to leave the E39 for the 607, a lesser road. What a great call that was. 607 is narrow, winding and stunning. Much of it is narrow, not really wide enough for two cars to pass other than at crawl speed, and even 80kph is ambitious. There are no straight sections, it is all curves. Every curve is blind, and around every one there is a post card worthy view; ocean, boats, villages, trees, lakes reflecting the mountains. One breathtaking view after another, simply amazing. Slarty Bartfast got it right first time.

Finally 607 rejoined E39 and we arrived in Forde, an industrial town. Found a great place to stay, Forde Pensjonat; 650NOK, about $140 for the two of us, about half the rate of anywhere else. Nothing here is cheap.

Against that, we've had one of the most spectacular days of riding possible.

The Shetlands Part A

The ferry crossing from Orkney is not flash, due to the anti-social timing. Departure at 11.30PM means a lot of time to kill without sitting in a pub, and the 7.30AM arrival is before anything opens. At least it was a very calm crossing, which made sleeping on the floor a passable option.

First impression of Shetland, through the morning mist is one of Highland Grey, but after a snooze (thank goodness for an early check in at the pub) the weather had cleared and the sun was struggling through. So we went for a ride.

Shetland is hilly, largely treeless, windwept valleys with cottages dotted about. There is more colour and diversity of architecture than Orkney, and the roads are made for motorcycles. Great surfaces, they dip and wind through spectacular scenery, never far from a wild coast. Many of the roads are strictly single track, just barely the width of a small car, but there isn't much traffic and there are plenty of passing places. There's not much in the way of fuel or food places, and as we came into Voe and saw the pub we decided to stop. This was a good call. The pub was full of Vikings; 10 - 15 men and an assortment of kids. All of the males wore a deep blue velvet smock thing with a deer hide over the top, knee length furry boots, and "Ogri" helmets. These were a steel skull cap with what looked like black feathered chook wings vertically on each side. There were several young girls, too, "Viking Princesses" we learned later, in tailored long dresses of the same blue velvet.

Having suitably fortified themselves in the pub, and eaten all of the fish pies, they headed off for the local agricultural show. So we followed. Our Vikings formed up with two other groups wearing different uniforms and marched as a column of 30 or 40 up to a low wooden platform. The princesses stood on that, the Vikings circled around them. They sang a stirring Viking anthem, had 3 cheers for something, 3 cheers for something else, then 3 cheers for the beer tent before retiring to it.

The rest of the show could have been an Australian country show, without cows or cattle. Sheep dog trials were good, all border collies and not a kelpie to be seen.

From Voe we ran a circuit of the North, and back to Lerwick. There aren't that many eating options in Lerwick on a Sunday night. We wound up listening to Shetland music in the Douglas Arms, with dinner in the paper from "The Happy Haddock". And beer....



Monday we headed South to Sumburgh, and to catch up with friends Liz & Ronnie. It's 25 miles, a speccy road with fantastic coastal views, culminating at Sumburgh airport where the road crosses the runway. For each aircraft movement a bloke comes out and closes a boom gate on each side.
Cups of tea and some local guidance and we're off to Sumburgh Head. Not only the Southernmost tip, an attractive lighthouse, spectacular scenery etc, it is also a Puffin colony and Og wants to see Puffins. So we did. Back to Lerwick for tea in one of the three Indian restaurants, then down to the ferry for a 8.30 sailing. Again it's a calm night coming up, so we're hoping for three out of three peaceful crossings.

Orkney Images

Some images from the Orkneys. The top is the Broch of Gurness (Iron Age), the other two are Skara Brae, a neolithic village on the coast. And a very nice beach, but no wettie so no swim.

A Highland Ride

Saturday, Kirkwall in the Orkneys. Killing time waiting for the midnight boat to the Shetlands, time to update the blog. While Massey was at his meeting at the airport in Dundee, I posted the useless bits of the tent back to St Albans. Sooo..., do we get a proper one or take our chances? Overnighted with friends of massey's at memsie, near Fraserburgh. James makes trailers, really big chilled ones, at 38 per week. Then a beautiful ride through the highlands via Altnaharra - stunning scenery. Overnighted at Bettyhill pub, then the 8.45 ferry to Stromness. Standing stones, winding roads, and eventually found a bed. Holidays and weddings, the place is full.

Collected my bike with it's new clutch promptly at 0930. An hour back to Hayling Island, packed, loaded and headed off at 1100. A quick visit in Ealing and I found Og at St Albans at 2.00PM. Finally we got away at 4.00.

Naturally we had to pose the departure video, bold adventurers heading into the unknown. Returned to collect the camera, and it was then that Og's charge light started to flicker. Soon it was steady on.

Somewhere North of Stevenage we stopped for fuel and a can of WD40. Gave the relays and fuses a liberal application, but to no effect. So we rang Mike the Oracle at Moto Corsa. He laughed a hollow laugh of disbelief; the voltage regulator had fried itself. So on Mike's advice we headed due West towards Baines Racing at Silverstone, the nearest likely stockist.

Near Milton Keynes we stopped before Og's battery died completely, in a dodgy sales rep motel. Next morning we left Og's bike at the motel, found Baines, bought the regulator and returned. Naturally it is different to the original, but at least we had wiring diagrams for both the unit and the bike. By 10.30 we were going again. Still only 40 miles from St Albans, but headed in the right direction.

The original plan had been a Tuesday departure, so we were now basically back to plan. A 90MPH blast up the M1 and M6 motorways, object Dundee was before us. As a Victorian used to an obsessive speed camera regime, this was a splendidly naughty thing to do.

Over lunch in a motorway caff we were both a bit relieved that the adventure had finally started. Og asked an innocent question; "Where is the other kidney belt?" Hmmm. This would be the kidney belt that I had delivered, along with the other cigarette light socket and loom, and (critically) the fly for the tent, in the previous week. Houston, we have a problem...

We made Dundee by about 6.30, found a nice little pub on the ouskirts and settled for the night. The kitchen was closed, it was raining steaqdily, so we had very good Indian takeaway delivered. In the morning I have an appointment at the airport, and Og is going shopping.

JFerg

Moto Corsa Save The Day.
Sunday, the day we'd planned to transit North, and I'm making a blog entry. We'd brought the departure forward from Tuesday in the hope of fewer trucks and other traffic on the motorways. Everything had gone well; Og's bike was ready and we had the paperwork in order.

Last Thursday afternoon I had been returning to London from the Midlands when I noticed a little clutch slip under hard accelleration. It wasn't too bad, and could be ridden around, but not something you want to start a 15,000 mile ride with. So after dropping Og at Steves and collecting his bike, I went down to Moto Corsa at Three Cross in Dorset. Despite arriving at 3.00 o'clock on Friday afternoon with the "and I'm just about to go on holiday" story, they were happy to launch into it.

Mike's analysis was gear oil on the plate, probably due to a failed clutch pushrod seal, so the back end came off. The thrust bearing fell out in John's hands, having collapsed; problem found. New bits, reassemble. Test ride suggests that a bit of provocation will burn off the remaining oil, probably, but also reveals an exhaust leak from the right port; the stud has sheared off. So I book in for 1.00 o'clock on Saturday to get that fixed, plus give the fuel injection a once over.

The old stud was drilled out and a new one fitted. Mike had all but finished tweaking the injection when he noticed a rotating rattle on engine shut down. We have a major problem; a clutch plate has sheared off the centre. Better here than Latvia is my first thought!

By now it was approaching 3 o'clock on Saturday afternoon. Anyone else would have said "Sorry mate, come back on Thursday", but Mike's response was quite the opposite. There were two of them there, it was late so there'd be no interuptions, he had some plates for his personal bike, so they should have it done by about seven. They sent me away on the shop hack, with a promise that they'd call me.

I paced the floor like a pregnant father for a couple of hours, and knowing that it would take me an hour to get there I weakened and called them at six. They would have the bike together by about seven, but not final checked. Mike offered to come in Sunday afternoon (apologising that he had a personal committment in the morning!) but we agreed that Monday morning would be fine.

So we'll start a day late, no big deal; but without the great service delivered unflinchingly by Mike and John at Moto Corsa, we'd be grounded for a week.
Mass.

Og's bike attracts interest!

One of the problems with cyberspace, is you put something like this up then (previous comment deleted, there are children reading) some not nice person sends spam.

Ya just gotta wonder what these pathetic bottom feeding individuals get off on, but they are a good advertisment for capital punishment.

Please accept our apologies for the spam. At the moment it is from Anonymous (other posts have the sender's real nick). Don't follow the links, it is just on-line gambling and loans to cover your losses.

Please don't give these wankers any joy at all.

The 'fun' begins

Tuesday, 18 July.

I've arrived in the Uk, the advance party. I have business to do, but also being on the spot makes the last minute details of bike preparation that much easier.

The English "registration" system is way different to what we're used to. It's critical to get our paperwork right because we're going to go through several non-Eu countries. While the Eu is no fuss at all and papers won't even be checked, this only makes the non-Eu countries more paranoid. This is a big claim for some of them, where paranoia is the way of life.

My bike is no great drama, because it is already here, taxed, insured etc by it's co-owner, my mate Dave. However.... my name does not actually appear on any of the paperwork except the insurance policy, where I am listed as an authorised user. In order to get through the borders I need to have a formal and acceptable authorisation from Dave. At least that's something that we can concoct here.

Og's bike is another story. Not difficult per se, but an adventure into new terminology.

First you need a log book to identify the "keeper". You need this whether the bike goes or not, whether it is used or not. The "keeper" must have a UK address, so Og is now the registered keeper at a friend's address in London. First point done.

Second, you need to get an "MoT", which equates roughly with an Australian roadworthy, save that here it is an annual £23 requirement. The dealer Og bought from has done this, and I have it.

Thirdly, you need proof that the thing is insured. Ring up, pay with a card, should be no problem. However, to get the bike "taxed", that is legal for road use, you need to present your logbook, current MoT certificate and proof of insurance to the Post Office, and doubtless pay even more money before you're ready to roll.

This is the tricky bit. Sure, pay your insurance by card over the phone, but the receipt, the policy certificate etc comes by mail. Fortunately the UK mail system is pretty sharp, but you've still got to allow a couple of days until the paper arrives. Once presented and paid you're legal in the Uk and Eu, but the paperwork from the DVLA (Dept of Vehicle Licencing A-something) takes another week to arrive, and we'll need that to get into non-Eu countries.

Luckily, the first of these is Estonia, immediately preceded by Helsinki where we both have contacts and plan on spendinga few days. If the DVLA papers don't reach Og's UK address in time, then they can be forwarded to friends in Helsinki....

The fun begins!
Mass (JFerg)

The Progress So Far...

This is the plan so far, sorry it can't be pasted in the nice format from Excel. Basically it is a 'day', 'from' and 'to', where the 'to' is the planned overnight destination.

Og is in the process of trying to get the paperwork and insurances done for his Cali, the UK system is far from simple or efficient or logical.


Trip Details

Date From To/overnight
Wednesday, 2 August 2006 London to north somewhere, possibly Dundee
Thursday, 3 August 2006 Dundee to Altnaharra
Friday, 4 August 2006 Altnaharra/Scrabster to Kirkwall, Orkneys
Saturday, 5 August 2006 Kirkwall Ferry to Lerwick
Sunday, 6 August 2006 Lerwick
Monday, 7 August 2006 Lerwick Ferry to Bergen
Tuesday, 8 August 2006 Bergen to Forde, Norway
Wednesday, 9 August 2006 Forde to Trondheim
Thursday, 10 August 2006 Trondheim to Sorsele, Sweden
Friday, 11 August 2006 Sorsele to Palojoensuu Finland
Saturday, 12 August 2006 Palojoensuu to Alta (rock art)
Sunday, 13 August 2006 Alta to Lakeslv via Nordkapp
Monday, 14 August 2006 Lakeslv to Kemijarvi Finland
Tuesday, 15 August 2006 Kemijarvi to Kuopio
Wednesday, 16 August 2006 Kuopio to Helsinki
Thursday, 17 August 2006 Helsinki
Friday, 18 August 2006 Helsinki
Saturday, 19 August 2006 Helsinki
Sunday, 20 August 2006 Helsinki
Monday, 21 August 2006 Helsinki to Tallinin
Tuesday, 22 August 2006 Tallinin
Wednesday, 23 August 2006 Tallinin to Riga
Thursday, 24 August 2006 Riga Vilnius
Friday, 25 August 2006 Vilnius to near Warsaw Poland
Saturday, 26 August 2006 near Warsaw to Krakow
Sunday, 27 August 2006 Krakow to Prague
Monday, 28 August 2006 Prague
Tuesday, 29 August 2006 Prague to Vienna
Wednesday, 30 August 2006 Vienna
Thursday, 31 August 2006 Vienna to Rijeka Croatia
Friday, 1 September 2006 Rijeka to Dubrovnik
Saturday, 2 September 2006 Dubrovnik
Sunday, 3 September 2006 Dubrovnik to near Sofia, Bulgaria
Monday, 4 September 2006 near Sofia to Istanbul, Turkey
Tuesday, 5 September 2006 Istanbul
Wednesday, 6 September 2006 Istanbul to Canakale and Troy
Thursday, 7 September 2006 Canakale to Kavala via Gallipoli
Friday, 8 September 2006 Kavala to Thessaloniki, Greece
Saturday, 9 September 2006 Thessaloniki
Sunday, 10 September 2006 Thessaloniki to Igoumenista
Monday, 11 September 2006 Igoumenista then Ferry to Venice
Tuesday, 12 September 2006 Venice to Rome
Wednesday, 13 September 2006 Rome
Thursday, 14 September 2006 Rome
Friday, 15 September 2006 Rome
Saturday, 16 September 2006 Rome to Umbria villa
Sunday, 17 September 2006 Umbria villa
Monday, 18 September 2006 Umbria villa
Tuesday, 19 September 2006 Umbria villa
Wednesday, 20 September 2006 Umbria villa
Thursday, 21 September 2006 Umbria villa
Friday, 22 September 2006 Umbria villa
Saturday, 23 September 2006 Umbria to Venice
Sunday, 24 September 2006 Venice
Monday, 25 September 2006 Venice to Bologna
Tuesday, 26 September 2006 Bologne to Rome
Wednesday, 27 September 2006 Rome
Thursday, 28 September 2006 Rome
Friday, 29 September 2006 Rome
Saturday, 30 September 2006 Rome
Sunday, 1 October 2006 Rome to Como+/-
Monday, 2 October 2006 Guzzi Museum Mandelo di Lario
Tuesday, 3 October 2006 Mandelo to Airolo,
Wednesday, 4 October 2006 Airolo to Bormio
Thursday, 5 October 2006 Bormio to Ampezzo
Friday, 6 October 2006 Ampezzo to Innsbruck
Saturday, 7 October 2006 Innsbruck to Nurburgring (vroom!)
Sunday, 8 October 2006 Nurburgring to somewhere in France
Monday, 9 October 2006 France - Calais to London/The South

Not many sleeps to go now!

Simple, really.

13 weeks of leave was due. I needed to go for a ride. A rough plan was conceived. I mentioned it to Og, and he decided to join in. My very dear wife, Robyn, as ever sharply astute, saw the mid-life crisis coming. She generously agreed to look after my house, kids and dog for the modest price of a couple of weeks in Italy. I am an exceptionally lucky bloke. Heather rolled her eyes at the fait accompli.

We had a kitchen-table meeting where a map of Europe was spread out. On it we marked places we knew of and wanted to visit, places where we had business connections, and places where we knew people. Then we joined the dots, and the route was established. It was as simple as that. The girls would meet us in Rome for some sight-seeing, followed by a villa in Umbria for a week.

In a couple of hours of web-browsing we had determined that everywhere we wanted to go we could do easily, without the need for pre-arranged visas. The exception was Russia, so we dropped St. Petersburg off the itinerary. A bit more internet research confirmed that the ferries we’d hoped for did in fact run, and that the critical one was from Lerwick in Scotland’s Shetland Islands to Bergen in Norway, which only ran once per week.

Secondhand bikes are cheap in the UK, particularly compared with similar bikes here in Oz. I have a ’97 model injected Moto Guzzi California on a time share basis with my mate Dave who lives near Southampton. It cost us £2500 (A$6,000) a few years ago, with full touring gear and (at the time) only 5,000 miles on the clock. It is an unfortunately tragic shade of safety vest fluorescent yellow-green, though. Through the internet, Og found a ’97 carb model California, with full Givi touring gear, done only 12,000 miles, in two tasteful shades of red, with a dealer in Southampton for £2900 ($7,000). Dave inspected it, passed it, Og bought it, the dealer will mind it until we get there, then service it. He’ll also take it back at the end, buy back to be negotiated. Too easy, and all by email and credit card.

Actual route details, road conditions, border crossing issues etc and some remarkably good specific information also exist on the web. Finding them amongst the chaff and rubbish is a challenge, but if you prowl for long enough you turn up reports and accounts from people who’ve ridden those places in the last year. www.advrider.com/forums took a long while to find, but has a pile of relevant information

So this is what the plan looks like, roughly. Massively subject to change at any coffee-driven whim.
JFerg (aka Massey)

Ah, the brotherhood of motorcycling. I (Og) have been riding a borrowed Cali around the Mornington Peninsula for the weekend, getting used to the cruiser style riding position. My legs are still too long, my shins bang against the cylinder heads. I had to remove the bottom faring off the V65SP that I have in Melbourne so that I would fit on that too. But I suppose I will get used to it during the first 1000km or five. (I also have a road registered restored BSA Bantam D1. The Cali is a little different.)

I am putting the schedule up soon so that the people we are visiting can get some idea when we are arriving so they can stock up on good wine, and warn their neighbours.

Things are progressing. The Cali is garaged awaiting Og's arrival in the UK, a car is booked for when friends and family arrive to share the villa in Italy, there's only 2 weeks of lecturing to go! The Australian budget still managed to shaft Universities, somebody should tell John Howard's 'aussie battlers' not to blow their $12 per week tax cut on a box of smokes, but to invest it so their kids have some chance of ever paying their University fees. How can such a bunch of wankers not have enough balls to invest in the next 20 years in our country? Ha, politics. Good time to go for a long bike ride.

To all those frinds who have recieved emails, we will be posting our detailed itinerary soon. Then we see how close the reality gets.

This is the bike!

Well folks, today I organised to buy the red Moto Guzzi California from Steve's Motorcycles, with the on-line help of Steve. So the picture above is now Og's bike for the trip! Steve will garage it for me until I arrive in the UK, a very helpful bloke. So much so that you should check out his other bikes for sale!

http://www.steves-motorcycles.co.uk/moto-guzzi/1100_california/1100_california.html

Massey's Moto Guzzi Californian in Scotland. So I should really get the same so they have friends. Still, the Guzzi Norge...

Yeah but, yeah but, yeah but, for 3000 Quid I could get the Italian version of an American bike. That's what Massey has, so we could be twins.