Lake Kariba

June 15, 2018 by dinosaur

After 6 consecutive nights of sleeping in a tent in lows of 4 degrees, fully clothed but still freezing I waited for dean to wake up and insisted that the next night I wanted to sleep in a building.

I didn’t really care where in a building, just as long as it was built of bricks.

My wish came true.

We left Livingstone that day after two hours on Skype to Telstra trying to find out why we don’t have any coverage in Africa – it left us with that familiar angry/frustrated/bemused feeling you always feel after dealing with them 😬 and no result yet, made more frustrating by them asking for a phone number to call us back on…’WE DONT HAVE PHONE SERVICE!!! Can you please email the information to us?’

‘sorry we can’t do that, the file is too big’

What the?! Are we really dealing with a first world huge Australian company?!

Anyway, following this we had a long boring uneventful day of riding to arrive in a dusty town for the night.

We did the usual rounds and decided to spend extra money on a room with hot water as opposed to the cheapest with cold only.

We’re clearly still a little rusty and need to remind ourselves of the questions we need to ask:

‘do you have hot water?’

(A very slight, under the breath) ‘yes’

‘really? Do you have hot water?’

Same response.

After we had paid and got to the room I went straight to the shower to check the water and realised the error of my ways. I should have asked:

‘do you have any water?’

The toilet was dripping more water from the cistern than the shower.

Dean said we’d get more hot water if we urinated on each other instead…

We should also remember not to pay before checking these things.

We’ve learnt that when we ask if they have wifi, we then need to then ask if it works.

Oh the joys!

At least the room was clean and warm and I had the best nights sleep in months.

Today we have come to Lake Kariba, a huge man made lake which was recommended to us by our friend Will from Neispruit. There isn’t loads here to do, but it’s a very nice place to stay and really relaxing.

We have a great spot to camp here so decided to cook some food ourselves and went into town to check out the local market. There was loads of fresh produce and we bought some beautiful red tomatoes and some eggs (fresh with chicken shit on them!).

We got back to camp and I went to wash some clothes. When I got back dean ashamedly told me he had accidentally cracked all of the eggs….they were still usable though, only small cracks….

He then stepped on one of the tomatoes…

I reminded him where the eggs were (on the ground in the shade), kind of joking….

5 mins later he stepped on two of the eggs.

🤯

Lucky it’s his birthday tomorrow and I slept in a building last night!

We’re in the tent again tonight (yay!), next to the lake with signs everywhere warning us of crocodiles and hippos – it could be an interesting night!

Hopefully it’s not too cold!

Chobe National Park

June 10, 2018 by dinosaur

We just came back from a short safari in Chobe National Park in Botswana, what an awesome experience! This was organised for us by Raf and Cisca from African and Oriental travel company (orientafricatravel.com) who have been an incredible source of information for us and we highly recommend.

It started out a little ho hum after we were picked up at 6am and transferred to the Botswana side of the border for a boat trip down the Zambezi river. We’re not really people people so all the cameras and american tourists were a little irritating, we did however see a few pods of hippos, like about 100 of them all in one spot which was really cool, no G&T’s on this boat trip though 🙁

After lunch our trip into the park in a 4×4 began, where we were to stay for the next two nights. It was just us and another couple in the truck (with seating for 9), so much nicer!!

We saw so many animals, I’ll let the pics do the talking, but the highlight was finding a female leopard with two cubs, just after she’d killed an impala. The mum was keeping guard while the cubs tore into the impala in a thicket, and eventually emerged still licking the blood from their cute little faces!

mum keeps watch

while the little ones eat

Staying in the park made it all a bit more special as we were able to stay out until after dark when all the animals are more active, and also get up and hit the road super early (yes Sally, at 5:45am!) to see them before they settle down for the heat of the day.

Our camp was really simple, just a few tents in a clearing. There were some strict rules for going to the toilet at night to make sure we weren’t eaten by anything, like going in pairs so one can keep watch… which Sal forgot in her tired state, and then also forgot which direction our tent was in and started walking half asleep into the forest before realising she was lost… All’s well that ends well huh!

The food was simple but quite good, and we sat around the camp fire at night chatting about the amazing things we’d seen in the day before going to bed early and trying not to freeze overnight when the temp got down to around 5 deg just before dawn.

Aside from the Leopards we saw the usual animals, giraffes, elephants, hippos and buffalo, but they were in really big groups in Chobe, and in such an untouched setting it was pretty special.

We were also lucky enough to find 4 lion cubs playing in the grass 🙂

The sunset and sunrise were also phenomenal, especially with all the animals that were around at the time. I cant really do it justice, but the pics come close…

Being with a guide also meant that we learned lots about the park, the animals and their interactions, like how certain animal calls tell you that some predator is around the place. One of our favourite moments was seeing a group of Guinea fowl (a bit like a small chicken) chase a pride of lions out of their territory.

The lions didn’t seem too put out, but the we have new found respect for the Guinea fowl, they’re much braver than we are!

We’re back on the road tomorrow, headed towards South Luwanga National park, which we think might be the last park we visit.

Love to all at home xxoo

Lost GPS…

June 7, 2018 by dinosaur

I just rode away from a park with the gps on a pannier, and only realised a few km down the road where we stopped for lunch.

Shit.

Swearing, I left Sal at the restaurant and rode back to town not really thinking I’d find it, and not even sure where I’d lost it. I asked around the carpark, in a couple of shops I’d been in and eventually gave up and went back to where I’d left Sal about 2km away.

We started brainstorming ideas to get a new one delivered into remote Zambia while eating goat and veg with pap, when an out of breath african guy ran up to the table holding the gps!

“You dropped it in town and I took it because some other people there wanted to keep it, but I thought you might come back, then I saw you again riding past and I shouted and waved but you didn’t see me, so I just kept walking hoping to find you”

We were speechless!

“Thank you so much, you have no idea how important this is for us.”

We gave him ten kwachas for his trouble, which he was pumped with.

Sometimes you get lucky. We like Zambia 😁

Zimbabwe

June 7, 2018 by dinosaur

So we’re in Victoria Falls and have managed to score a super cheap camp site for $14 a night. Everywhere else was $60+ so we were pretty pumped! We are the only ones camping as it’s getting as low as 7 degrees over night but we’ve found sleeping in all our clothes seems to get us through…the things we do to save money!

Saving money on things like accommodation means we have more money to spend on experiences, which is the way we justified booking on to the champagne and sushi sunset cruise last night 😳

This is not the kind of thing we usually do but it was $12 and 14 people difference from the basic sunset cruise.

‘how many people are on the cheaper boat?’

’14’

‘how many on the super luxo one?’

‘0’

‘sold!’

We were the first to be picked up in a bus from our campsite and we proceeded to pick up the other 14 people from their luxury majestic hotels…it was pretty funny to think all those staying in the most expensive hotels in town were doing the cheaper boat and us two doing the luxo boat were staying in a tent!

Once we got to the river we were seperated on to the two boats and were greeted with champagne and snacks and taken to a beautiful old English style boat with leather couches and carpet while the rest had to cram onto a standard boat and had no champagne…they were all looking at us with envy and slight confusion. We were both in our puffer jackets and I had leggings, my trusty camo skirt that’s been around the world twice and motorbike boots on.

It was a really nice experience and we saw hippos, not much else but the sunset was beautiful. There was an open bar so we made the most of that although Dean did a much better job than me with and is suffering the consequences today – he even announced ‘NTD’ with a big grin (night time dean for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him) which was concerning as it was still day time… I don’t think the staff on the boat were used to having Australians on board and were a little shocked when we kept accepting more drinks…they actually stopped asking us so Dean had to go up to the bar for more…we put a good dent in their gin supply..!

We spent the day visiting the falls which I think were really beautiful except the spray/rain from the plunge pool was so heavy we couldn’t really see anything.

We got totally drenched despite having rain jackets on but I was very brave and didn’t try and run away from the rain like I usually do (there was nowhere to run!)

Today we head to Livingstone, Zambia where we plan on doing a safari in Chobe National Park. We have loved our short experience in Zimbabwe. The people are friendly and smiley and we have felt totally safe and welcome everywhere we’ve been.

Kruger

June 6, 2018 by dinosaur

I guess it’s time to start blogging! With lack of internet and motivation it’s hard to get my head into the space to write but I’ll give it a go!

From Johannesburg we headed straight for Nelspruit, a town near Kruger where we could rent a car. Seeing as we couldn’t ride Betsy through Kruger (as much as we’d love to!) we decided to hire a car and do a ‘self drive’ safari. It’s one of the only parks you can do this in Africa and also the cheapest way.

As we were doing it on the cheap we took our tent and booked a couple of nights in a couple of different sites in the park.

We were pretty excited driving into Kruger and over the two days we saw herds of elephants, giraffe, zebra, impala, wildebeest, buffalo, warthog and antelope.

We also saw rhinos, hippos and the best of all, a lion!

It’s amazing seeing these animals in the wild, I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn’t in a zoo! Prior to going to Kruger we had been told that it was over run with people and whenever you see an animal there will be at least 10 other cars there with you. While this was true at times we were also totally alone on many occasions… we decided to veer off the main road at one point and take a dirt road to our campsite. Whilst travelling at the usual 20/hour looking from side to side I glanced at the road ahead and saw a lion laying in the middle of the road. I was so excited and speechless I just started hitting Dean and pointing.

We both screamed and dean quickly closed our windows. I was hoping to see a lion but having one on the road in front of us with no one else around seemed like a dream! He just layed there watching us, looking around and yawning. So so cool! It was so tempting to lean out the window to take a photo but I couldn’t risk being one of those stupid people you read about… We had no way of getting past him and he seemed pretty content lying there so we just stared and waited. He eventually got up and strode away. We felt so lucky to have experienced that moment totally alone with a lion.

We made it to the camp just as the gates were closing for the night and ended up staying in a round thatched cabin. The next day we set out at 6.30am and drove until 5.30pm😳 We had another private interlude but this time with an elephant. We saw a lone elephant by the side of the road so I pulled over to watch him…. he then started walking straight for us…in hind site it was possibly a dangerous situation which I should have reversed out of but it was too exciting to leave so we stayed there with the windows down staring…as he got closer and closer we got a little nervous as he could have easily crushed the car or nudged us out of the way but luckily he decided to walk past…again, we were totally alone 😁

There was so much amazing wildlife in the park, and we had a fantastic time. We saw more than we expected to see and all up it cost us less than $300. We have a few other safaris pencilled in over the next couple of months so it will be interesting to see the difference of doing it on our own versus being guided.

Feeling very blessed 💕

Into Zimbabwe

June 5, 2018 by dinosaur

Micro blog.

Yesterday we crossed into Zimbabwe, the RSA side of the crossing took ten mins, but the Zimbabwe side was about 4 hours in line, dodging fixers, fighting other people from jumping queue, and trying to keep my sense of humour.

Eventually we were waved through and all was forgotten amidst the smiling friendly people saying hello.

The ride to Bulawayo was pretty flat and a little boring aside from the road stop wherever got our first real taste of African food, overcooked beef, a few slices of tomato and a big lump of pap (cassava) for $1. Mmmmm yummy.

Tonight we should arrive at Vic falls, long day ahead.

Love to all xxoo

Reunited!

May 28, 2018 by dinosaur

Today the three of us came together again 😁

We had one of those rare days where everything just worked…we found a cheap place to stay near the airport (where it didn’t feel we may get mugged), we received Betsy with minimal fuss and a sixteenth of the cost we were expecting and got her together within two hours and she started first time 😁

We spent the evening in our room re organising luggage and getting our gear together whilst streaming triple J. We did our first load of handwashing in the bath and cooked dinner in the room on our camping stove (because apparently it is possible to get mugged at night in this area)

I’ve realised I’ve packed too much, dean has realised how many hair products I’ve tried to hide in the pannier and I need to work out how to manage this issue…I think I’ll just blame stress and jet lag and go to bed and deal with it tomorrow! Hopefully he’ll forget about all of my ‘cremas’ after a good nights sleep 😉 Love xx

A Shaky Start

May 26, 2018 by dinosaur

Laying in bed writing this on my phone with Sal passed out next me, so don’t expect much…

The flight was 32hrs of long, uncomfortable, bored. Most of which was spent next to an overweight old lady who seemed to like leaning against me while she slept. She also really liked bad perfume. Yuck.

We spent an hour in the Joburg airport trying to find missing luggage and a fee free ATM, then had a mild panic attack at the hostel due to getting the exchange rate mixed up, (which was also the reason to spend an hour looking for a fee free atm).

It’s ten rand to one dollar, not three to one. Stupid!!!

We’re still a bit bleary eyed today, which I’m blaming our little atm episode on…

We visited the Apartheid museum this afternoon (you think you have problems!???), but upon leaving realised it’s in a dodgy part of town and we didn’t have phone connection to order an uber… the taxis all looked like a one way ticket to stabbing-ville, so we went looking for wifi.

Long story short, three guys in cahoots somehow convinced us that we could buy a wifi pass at an atm (wtf?), one by one they wandered past and offered to help us, which ended up with Sal snatching the ATM card from me and running off, while one of them insisted that I’d broken the machine and needed to return with the card to fix it… “um… I dont think it’s broken, um… I’m really tired… um… sorry if it is broken…”

Then we did something a little smarter and asked some security guards for help, eventually getting a cab back, and looking up “Jo’burg atm scam” …

Hey that’s exactly what happened to us! WITHDRAW ALL THE MONEY AND CANCEL THE CARD RIGHT NOW!!!!! Done. I’m blaming it on the jetlag.

It’s the old rule, If you’re somewhere dodgy and someone offers to help you for no reason at all, don’t trust them.

I cant see anymore. Need to go to sleep. A LOT of noise coming from outside as the UEFA cup final is on tonight, I think someone just scored…

Goodnight world, we miss you xxoo

The End

May 15, 2018 by dinosaur

(just found this draft after 18 months at home… oops.) Written while in London at the end of our trip in October 2016.

The last few days this has been running through my head

This is the end, beautiful friend
This is the end, my only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end.

So here we are in London, at the end of an amazing journey, getting ready to begin another one at home. The last 14 months have been quite extraordinary, and I feel truly blessed to have had the time, motivation and especially the most amazing travelling partner to have made this trip with, Betsy has been brilliant… and Sal isn’t bad either 😉

As we rode out of Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago, I had a bit of a wow moment with the realisation that this was the last time we’d be aboard Betsy in a foreign country. It was a cold Dutch morning and we were zooming along the icy freeway, but the sun broke through in spots, Betsy was purring and my heated grips were pouring energy into my cold hands.

For a little while it was complete bike Zen and I was king of the world, it was a moment of realisation that left me with a lump in my throat. We were going to arrive in London, in good health, good spirits, and even the bike was still running great. We’d done it.

Life doesnt get much better.

Then we (I!) missed 4 turns in a row on the 6 lane highway and had to make a 20km detour… (I find punching the tank to be quite therapeutic at these times).

Long distance motorcycle travel certainly isn’t for everyone, but I’ve learned that travel is never really rewarding unless it’s hard. If you can put up with the heat (or cold!), the long days battling insane traffic, the filthy rooms (or the tent!), the constant rhythm of arriving and leaving, and a complete lack of any creature comforts, then you can find a world of beautiful chaos filled with colourful foods, friendly people, absurd situations and amazing views.

This past year we’ve been fortunate enough to dive with the majestic manta rays in Indonesia, we’ve visited ancient temples in Cambodia, made fast friends and experienced extraordinary hospitality in all corners of the world. We battled the insane traffic of India and were rewarded with the seldom seen sights and sounds of the subcontinent, not always very nice, but absolutely unforgettable.

We’ve experienced the incredible bravery of the Pakistani military who guarded us from the Taliban as we travelled to China, we ate sheeps ass in Xing Xang, we were frozen solid in the highland grassy mountain passes of Kyrgyzstan but survived to see the most incredible scenery in the world. We spent a week following the Afghan border waving to small curious children and smiling shepherds, we followed the Silk road through the former glory of the blue city of Samarkhand, fought tooth and nail against corrupt police in Turkmenistan, and were befriended by countless people in Iran who showed us kindness that is sadly missing in our world.

We drank Prosecco in Prosecco, Valpolicella in Valpoolicella, Soave in Soave, Barolo in Barolo, Rioja in Rioja, and Bordeaux in Bordeaux!!

We slept in bamboo huts on the beach with million dollar views, $10 price tags and free bed bugs, we ate in roadside stalls where filthy shoeless children wash the plates in polluted river water, but they serve the best dahl and samosas you will ever find, we saw horses run wild in fairy tale landscapes and drank fermented mares milk from a pig’s carcass. Our hands and feet were frozen more times than I remember, and our eyes stung from the salt in the sweat pouring down our brows as we took in views of places and landscapes that will remain etched in our memories forever.

It’s been beautiful, it’s been horrible, it’s been brilliant, hard, fun, extraordinary, boring, frustrating, filthy, dusty, freezing, hot, non-stop adventure! It’s been EPIC.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning…

Friends family and laughter

October 7, 2016 by dinosaur

It’s Sally here (sorry mum 😉) writing what will probably be my last blog post 😢

We’ve finally made it to our destination in Essex, England where we’ve been spending time with my lovely family and getting Betsy ready for take off!

Prior to getting to England we spent some time in Holland which we absolutely loved ☺️

After the night we spent in a tree house we rode to Amsterdam to see our friend Deborah whom we met on the border of Cambodia and Laos during a stand off with some dodgy customs officers which in retrospect we are very happy happened!

A coffee break to escape the rain

As we were staying at Deb’s flat in Amsterdam we needed to get Betsy in an elevator so we could store her in the underground bicycle parking area… Maybe not something you are ‘supposed’ to do and certainly not a situation Betsy has been in before but we made it work (just) despite a few odd looks from other residents. Everyone in Holland is super cool though so we usually just got encouraging smiles 😊

Once we were inside Deb’s flat, armed with wine, snacks and Jenga she told us that she was giving us her apartment for as long as we wanted it and was going to stay with a friend. This was so incredibly kind of her but we felt bad making her sleep elsewhere, besides, we wanted to hang out with her… We’ve had enough alone time!!

‘Stay here with us Deb!’ I said ‘I’ve had enough Dean time and he’s had enough Sally time’

We tried not to look to desperate for different company 😉

Due to her having to work she spent the first night with a friend and the rest of the weekend we hung out riding bikes, drinking, dancing and playing Jenga… It was lots of fun and so nice to see a different, more local side of Amsterdam.

Biking in the rain Amsterdam style

Dean and Deb

I was a little scared of the Dean + booze + bicycle combination after our ‘incidents’ in Italy but he managed to keep it together and it was me that got very drunk and went tumbling off the back of a bike on to the road…. Apparently I rolled and jumped straight up and back on the bike so no blood or bruises and police were avoided (unlike the ‘incidents’ in Italy…). The guy riding the bike I fell off of wasn’t so impressed with my gymnastics and told me I wasn’t allowed to ride with him again. I didn’t blame him even though I thought I was managing quite well!

The begginings of another Jenga game

The beginnings of a big night!

We sadly left Deb’s place and rode to Bruges in Belgium which is a cute medieval town where we spent the night walking around trying the local beers and feeling a little sad that it was our last night on the road but also happy to be getting ready for the trip home.

Bruges

We made our way to Calais the next day with plenty of time up our sleeves for the ferry to England. We’d heard about ‘The jungle’ which is what they’ve named the refugee camp there and heard there may be delays.

We rode past ‘The jungle’ which was a pretty sad sight and the smell of burning rubbish reminded us of India. It makes everything so much more real when you see the reality that these people live in everyday surrounded by barbed wire.

‘The Jungle’ surrounded by barbed wire

Calais was dead so we had no delays, in fact we got an earlier boat. This allowed us time to have lunch in an English pub before heading to Essex and spending the evening laughing, talking and eating pizza with my lovely aunt, cousins and their respective partners ❤️

Dean cleaning the bike…

The last two days have been spent cleaning every millimetre of Betsy and all that she contains ready for Australian quarantine. She is now sparkly and shiny and all we have to do now is pray for no rain on Monday when we take her 150km to Surrey to the freight company who are putting her on a plane to Melbourne…. hopefully, fingers crossed, in time to meet us!