Still waiting for Customs & AQIS

Our truck container landed in Brisbane the weekend before last, however it is anyone's guess when we will get it back. Apparently it can take 2-3 weeks just to get it off the docks, and then Customs and AQIS will take a look at it. We have made every effort to clean the vehicle - steam cleaned inside & outside including engine and chassis, anti-bacterial bomb inside, underbody treatment and anti-rust spray - but with it being an offroad vehicle it is very likely that AQIS will want it cleaned again (at our expense).

After AQIS are done with us, we need to get the vehicle checked over by a compliance officer so that we can apply for a compliance plate - this person will say whether the truck is fit for use on Australian roads. I am hoping that none of the modifications will be an issue, but potentially the 1" body lift, water injection system, performance chip and unfinished wiring, may raise eyebrows.

And then... we can get the compulsory third party (CTP) insurance and pay the registration fees to get us rolling again.

If anyone one else needs to go through this, I am happy to have a chat and help/advise if I can. A word of warning though, the actual shipping cost may work out to be only half of the cost of bringing the vehicle over and getting it on the road!

In the meantime the vW's are settling into Australia quite nicely, and loving the warm weather. It is very difficult to imagine it is snowing in Europe when we are putting on hats and sunnies to protect against the sun.

For some reason Jake has decided to call his uncle Marius, uncle monkey!? And my 3yo niece Alecia decided that hence forth I will be Tinker(bell)? See pic of me below.

Last week we spent some time at the botanical gardens in Brisbane, where we saw lots of bearded and water dragons, beautiful spiders, HUGE trees, lots of birds, and even some terrapins. I wish the container would clear customs now as all my camera gear is in the 1st container. Until then we are taking snaps with iPhones.

Over the weekend we celebrated Bridgette's birthday at the beach. We went to a beach where the water is very shallow and doesn't get more than knee deep for at least half a mile - perfect for the children and very warm. Some horses came down for a splash in the sea, and came over to say hello to Jake. There were also loads of kite surfers who were very aware and considerate of the small children around. The manners and friendliness that we experienced on our last trip over was one of the main things that drew me to move Australia.

Yesterday we did some trip shopping to start kitting out the camper trailer. We need everything from bedding to cutlery to washing powder... so we are trying to watch how much we spend. We did allow ourselves one expensive item though...

No matter where we are, and what hardships we will have to endure - sun glaring off the sea, beach sand tickling our toes, birds waking us up early, etc - we will always start the day with a decent cup of coffee :)

Lost Luggage

The airline has found our lost luggage, YAYYY! This is especially great news because out of the 9 bags (yes 9!) that we brought over on the flight, the one that went missing was my "other stuff" bag. Trying to get compensation for everything in this particular bag may have been tricky. I imagined the conversation would have ended something like this, "So let me just recap.. The missing bag contained your toiletries, a few books, a Swiss made grease gun... ...6 months worth of prescription pain killers, and Photoshop in its original packaging. You sure there weren't any golf clubs? A Picasso? No diamond watch?"

Thanks for sorting out the luggage tags Ness ;)

Arrival in Australia

Here I am at 2am and can't sleep (jet lag & heat), so time for an update.

While I don't wish 24 hours on a plane, with a 2yo toddler, on anyone... The journey over to Australia was not too bad in the end, and nobody accidentally got left behind or od'd on tranquillisers. This may be a matter of perspective though, with this observer commenting after three very intense days of wrapping up life in the UK.

We have been welcomed into their home on the outskirts of Brisbane by Marius, Bridgette, Alecia, Liesel and Abbey (my brother, his wife, 2 daughters and their dog). Despite Abbey being the most chilled out dog in Queensland, Jake seems to be quite unsettled at the moment and won't go anywhere near her without freaking out. Hopefully he just needs a bit of time to adjust to not being "home" - just before we left the UK he was walking around the empty house saying ,"all gone, oh no".

Did I mention that we have arrived during a heat wave? No, this does not just feel like a heat wave coming from the British winter into Australian summer. We have actually arrived into a proper heat wave, with the temp yesterday being 39°C where we are staying at the moment, and 49°C up the road! Yesterday the kids playdo melted. Don't worry, it didn't stop us from making fire and chucking some steak on the braai :)

My brother and I did a recce to a camping store that Bridgette had found out about. I'm sure this is where Santa spends the rest of the year! I could easily spend half our trip budget there, but managed to display great self control and only walked out a few hundred $ lighter - I picked up a few things for the camper (food grade hose, spreader bars, ramps, etc). I'll be back though. Speaking of the camper, I am over the moon with my internet purchase. While my brother did give me feedback on it before I gave the nod, it was a lot of money to hand over without seeing it or having much experience of offroad campers. My research paid off in the end and we have exactly what I was looking for within our budget: a quality used camper with great canvas, that has been looked after and has most of the necessary modifications that I would have made to a brand new unit (eg kitchen unit, internal led lights, marine carpeting, etc).

Now we just chill out until we can get our truck. It should arrive in Brisbane within a few days, but could then take up to 3 weeks to clear customs & quarantine, before we try and register it for use on Aussie roads.

I'm off. Going to try and get some sleep.

Et

Map wishlist

As I mentioned before I have been doing lot of blog and forum reading, not only for advice on the vehicle and equipment, but also for ideas and information on where to go and what to see in Australia.

Each time I read about something/somewhere interesting, I drop a pin on my map (unfortunately, I only figured out how to add notes after I had been doing it for a while). Then when we are on our trip, we can refer to the map as part of our daily and weekly planning.


View Australia Trip - Planning in a larger map

Let me get you up to speed

After we made the decision to explore down under for a year, I spent a lot of time thinking, planning, and reading blogs (I will add links to those that have been more interesting, informative or inspiring). Initially I felt like I had all the time in the world, and there was a lot of planning but not much action. Getting our Australian visa approved injected me with a renewed sense of purpose though, and not only did the planning step up a gear, but I also sprung into action to get us equipped for the trip.

One of the important early decisions was whether to buy a vehicle in the UK and ship it to Australia, or to just buy something in Australia. I could buy a vehicle in the UK straight away, and then spend a lot of time not just preparing it, but also getting to know it so that I could work on it myself. Or I could avoid a lot of administrative hassle and shipping expense by picking something up in Australia, but after arrival in Australia our trip would be delayed until I could kit it out (or paid someone else to do it), adding significant expense. I opted for buying in the UK, and I think it was the correct decision in the end, as I have learnt A LOT in the last 2 years.

As I'm trying to get you up to speed, here are the highlights of what has happened since.

I bought a Landcruiser Colorado, and spent a lot of time working on it, getting it ready for the trip. The main modifications have been to the suspension, electrics, offroad & impact protection, engine performance (mainly aimed at improved fuel economy to offset the added mpg from the other modifications), and rear storage setup.

This was it when I bought it:

And this is it today:

We also bought a Customline Deluxe offroad camper trailer which my brother (Marius) in Brisbane has very kindly collected and looked after for us.

To enter (and remain) in Australia, we applied for a sponsored migrant worker's visa, using a company called Thames Migration. Because I was never certain how long it would take before we would be able to afford to make the move, I was never in a rush to get the visa overnight. This was just as well, as parts of the process felt like they took forever, especially my skills assessment.The whole move was very nearly a non-starter because I couldn't prove the content of my university first year syllabus - the university had restructured several years ago, and then outsourced the document archiving, and not all records made it into the archive... In the end it all came together though, and I can highly recommend the services provided by Thames Migration to anyone that wants to make the move from the UK to Australia.

Then Ness was offered (and accepted) voluntary redundancy at TFL. While we would have moved to Australia without the payout, the payout has allowed us to do the trip that we want to do, in the way that we want to do it. She then went on to do a bit of lucrative contracting at the Money Advice Service, which has also helped quite a bit. As strange as it sounds, we are very fortunate that Ness was offered redundancy.

After being a contractor for nearly 15 years, I accepted the offer of a full time role at Lenovo at the end of 2011 (they were fully aware of our intentions). I knew that this was a risky move, as this is the kind of decision that could stop a trip in its tracks. Especially because Lenovo has turned out to be a great company to be involved in, and I can easily see myself working there again in the future, but this time THE TRIP WILL HAPPEN.

Jake (who has just turned 2) is a real happy little chap and has been going to Toad Hall nursery 5 days a week, where he loves the staff, the activities, and especially Mr.Sparkles (who comes to do song and dance once a week)! We do wonder if he will miss them, but hopefully the trip will be full of adventures to keep him interested too.

My mindset regarding the trip has swung back and forth like a giant pendulum, from "we have all the time in the world", to "oh shit, oh shit, how am I ever going to get it all done". More recently its just been "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit". Our move related activity has intensified significantly in the last 3 weeks, which is both very exciting and knackering at the same time. Colleagues at work remind me that I am just about to go on the longest vacation of my life - it helps to be reminded.

With our flights now confirmed for 10 January 2013 we had to ship the Landcruiser asap, and I am relieved to say that today we finally loaded it into a container.

No we haven't given up

The Raid idea that I mentioned last time (4 years ago...) didn't happen either in the end. I was quite disappointed, especially because I had not only spent a lot of time prep'ing the bikes, but I was genuinely starting to get the hang of riding offroad. But sometimes it just isn't the right time. Instead of a big adventure in the Himalayas, we went on several shorter vacations to India, Australia, Tenerife, etc. But the idea of getting out there, outside, into large open spaces... never went away.

In the meantime Ness and I had decided to emigrate to Australia. And start a family - a decision taken so easily in a couple of hours, but turned our lives upside down far more than we ever expected. Before we could say "no more going out", Jake joined us in December 2010.

At some point just before Jake was born a Kiwi friend (Rich) mentioned that he had bought a Landrover to drive back to New Zealand. He even had pictures of his new truck. And a plan that sounded amazing! I was defenseless, and right there we decided to drive to Australia too :)

After Jake was born and the reality of what we wanted to do with a toddler became a little bit more clear (he can make things very clear!), we re-evaluated our plan to drive to Australia. Having had to deal with some family health issues and the NHS... the thought of something similar happening in a non-English speaking country, while being driven by visa entry and exit dates, made us consider what alternatives we had. It didn't take us very long to decide that we would explore Australia instead. It is easily big enough for us to spend a year getting to know it, before deciding where we are going to settle down (more on this later). So we're on plan a.. b.. c.. plan D now.

BTW I still have 2 pretty well prep'd DRZ400's for sale if anyone is interested.

Our first go at off-roading

On Saturday Ness (looking sexy as! in her MX gear), Pete (of Pete's las Americas Trip) and myself popped our greenlaning cherries. We found a relatively easy old roman road near Boxhill to try out - see Boxhill greenlane 1. Well, easy until we got to the first large muddy bog about half a mile into the ride. My sportsbike trained brain identified the potential hazard well in advance, bringing me to a neatly controlled stop well before the waterlogged, bottomless ruts, cris-crossing the clay pit ahead of me. The rapidly waning excitement was being displaced by an equally rapidly rising fear. How am I supposed to get through THAT!? What if I get stuck in a rut? And fall? And get wet? Or MUDDY??? Errr... how am I going to cross the Himalayas??? With my sense of perspective restored, I dived in at the deep end (quite literally) and what do you know, I'm still alive! :) It's been a long time since I've had that feeling of "I can't!" suddenly followed by "I did!" - awesome feeling.

While Ness and I were on DRZ's with appropriate hoops fitted, Pete was on his 950 Adventure which was wearing road shoes. One greenlaning trip with a big mud pit later... and Pete's search for the right DRZ has stepped up a gear. I take my hat off to him for how he rides that bike. While I would have been happy to let him have a go on my DRZ, there was no way that I wanted to embarrass myself on his big KTM.

I learnt 2 important lessons on Saturday:

• 1st - when in doubt give more gas - see mud pit above (thanks Trent/Pete), and
• 2nd - relax, and the bike will sort itself out (I suspect that this one will probably need a couple of first hand illustrative how-not-to's before it becomes second nature)

I'm sure I have plenty more to learn, and I'm looking forward to it :)

Since I last posted I have been looking at what bikes would be best suited to do something like the Raid de Himalaya. The main criteria for selection were:

• it needs to be light enough for novice off-roaders like Ness and I
• it should be suitable for both tar and dirt
• it must cope with extreme altitude changes
• and lastly, it must run happily on whatever fuel will be available in remote Northern India (typically 87 octane with "bits" in it)

To cut a long story short, we now have 2 DRZ400SM's in the garage. The only difference between this supermoto version and the S offroad version is the wheels and forks. The SM has slightly better USD forks off a more recent RM model. It also has 17" inch road wheels so we have bought extra sets of S offroad wheels - 21" inch front and 18" rears that take a wide range of offroad tyres - these wheels bolt straight onto the SM and only need the larger 310mm front disc swapped over. We will be running stock gearing on the front, and most likely 44t (stock SM gearing is 41t) at the back for offroad use. The E (enduro) version of the DRZ runs a 47t at the back, but we would need a longer chain to fit a sprocket that size - not ideal, as we are hoping to be able to easily put the road wheels back on for a bit of back road fun. So 44t seems the best compromise.

Here is my new scooter with its road boots on:



To prepare for our first bit of greenlaning next weekend, I thought that I would fit the offroad wheels to the bikes on Saturday. I was off to a rocky start when I realised that the stainless steel brake disc bolts that I bought online were the wrong size. This was not the end of the world though because I could use the disc bolts off the stock wheels until I can sort out the replacements. The next task was to fit a new tube to the front wheel. Having repaired many bmx punctures in my youth, I set to the task brim full of confidence. I'm not sure how much later, but lets just say more than an hour! and I was looking for a can of high octane and some matches. It was probably the worst time that Ness could have come in and tried to offer some advice... which she quickly realised and promptly exited stage right. A little while later (after I had beaten the wheel into submission and discovered that I must have pinched the tube) I was feeling guilty for snapping at Ness so went inside the house to apologise and found her watching a Youtube tutorial on how to change MX tyres (or in this particular video, tires). Oh how I laughed when he said that if it feels difficult you're doing it wrong... I must have been doing it very, VERY wrong. Then he mentioned lube. The man was a genius!! 30 minutes later I had taken the tyre off, fixed 3 punctures (from pinching the tube with the tyre levers) and fitted the tyre back on again. Lube ROCKS!!! The wheel does still have a puncture... I must have pinched it again, doh! But now I know it won't take me the whole of next weekend to fix it :)

A change to the master plan

The reason it has been so quite lately is because I decided to finish my studies and the house renovations before doing the trip. To do a 6 month trip would most likely require me to quit my job, and I would feel much better about doing that if I knew I could walk back into a similar job again and if we can rent the house out while we are away. I probably have 2 semesters left now - I say probably because one of the last exams may not have tested the best side of my brain (I find out in 2 weeks time), otherwise I would only have had 1 semester to go. The work on the house is also trundling along nicely again - this time next month I'll be taking manly showers instead of girly baths again (any previous lengthy soaks in the tub were purely to soften fingernail grease).

Something else has come up now. Last weekend a bunch of us were camping at the Assen round of the MotoGP (if you haven't been you REALLY should!) and Pete got talking about the Raid de Himalaya (http://www.raid-de-himalaya.com/). And talking, and talking, and talking... ;) Well some of it must have filtered through despite Amsterdam's finest, because by the next morning I couldn't stop thinking about it. The highest bike race in the world! And the guy who won it last year was a bike journo with no previous rallye experience. I'm not looking for a trophy, but if one of my grandchildren (no, Ness isn't pregnant) one day ask me if I ever raced it would be pretty cool to say "No. Except this one race that I did in the Himalayas at 18000ft...". Joking aside, I have been thinking about what my next challenge might be when I finished my studies, and something to do with riding bikes would be perfect!

I've already started reading up about the race and the more I read, the scarier it looks, but strangely also the more attractive it becomes - kind of "if it is really hard it is probably worth doing".

What Wheels? (A long one today)

It's a no brainer that we're doing the trip on bikes, but what kind of bikes is the question!? I've dismissed tourers like HD's, Pans, etc without too much thought. Partially because they aren't any good off-road, but mostly because I wouldn't want my children to find out one day.

What we need is something that can do distance on tar with relative ease, as well as being able to carry us on gravel/sandy roads and perhaps through the odd stream or over a grassy plain. I doubt if we'll be going off-piste, so no need to restrict our choice to feather weight crossers.

Because both Ness and I love riding, we will be doing the trip on 2 bikes. Ask anyone who knows anything about overland bike trips and they will say that you should take the same make/models if you can - this way we have less spares to carry between us and only 1 bike that we (I!?) have to know how to fix.

Those of you that know Ness, already know that she is not built to kick start Boeings, or pick up dropped 1200GS's with 50kgs of luggage... (and despite appearances I'm not built to pick up GS's either). Therefore the bike's weight needs to be considered.

Both of us are just under the 1.7m mark (not sure what that is in old speak). We both have a fair bit of road riding experience (20+ years between us) which would make it easier for us to ride tall bikes, than someone who has just passed their test. However, neither of us has much off-road experience, and neither of us has had to paddle around on a fully loaded overland bike in muddy monsoon conditions. So seat height (and width) needs to be considered too.

Another key decider that comes up more than once is, FI or carbs? There are still a few die hard, old school riders out there who will tell you that carbs are the only way to go on a trip like this because "they are simple and don't go wrong". When was the last time that one of your mates had the FI pack in? OK, times up. I'm not really concerned by the reliability of FI. I'm a little concerned whether modern FI will run smoothly on 3rd world leaded fuel though, but having spoken to a few people about this I don't think that it will be problem for where we are going. Leaded fuel can be a problem on certain bikes fitted with lambda sensors though. What clinches the deal for FI is the fact that we plan on riding on the highest road in the world, and I can't be bothered re-jetting 2 bikes half way up the Himalayas (and half way down again). Most FI should be able to compensate for the altitude enough to get us over the top.

The more that I learn about what bikes to take, the more obvious it becomes that we want 2 modern, middle weight trailies. My final 3 to choose from are:

• Suzuki 650 V-Strom - An excellent road bike, that can easily cope with our off-road demands. It's proven fuel-injected v-twin motor is probably the best of all the bikes that I am looking at, but its a bit of a porker (almost 200kg) and the seat is very tall (and wide). They have cast wheels that should be upto the job despite what more off-road oriented riders say, but I'm not sure if this might make puncture repairs more difficult..? Dunno.
  
• Predictably the BMW 650 GS - Especially the Dakar models tick almost all the boxes. They have the best fuel consumption of the 3, which gives them a decent range. New they are not cheap though, and even low mileage 2nd hand examples will cost at least as much as the other 2 can be bought new for. Then compared to low mileage examples of the other 2... well you could kit the others out with the difference. There have been lots of reliability complaints on the older models so they are out. I'm not a complete idiot with a manual and a set of spanners, but I'm no bush mechanic either.
  
• Yamaha XT660R - I've owned the supermoto X version of this bike before, and it was a hoot to ride. Ironically, after having owned several late model, litre sportsbikes (including the last one that could do 110mph in first gear!) I got the first points on my license on the XTX with a top speed of 100mph - go figure. The XT's are the cheapest of the lot and also the lightest. They have an excellent heritage with reliablity not coming into question very often. The biggest complaint with this bike is the low speed, low gear surging caused by the poorly setup FI. The front suspension on these also need a bit of work, but nothing major. The other thing that may be a problem is the ridiculously small tank at only 15L, but there are solutions.
  

Because of the Wee-Strom's height and weight, this is the first bike that was dropped from the list. If we aren't comfortable and in control of our bikes, especially Ness, both of us won't enjoy the trip.

Taking 6 months out of our working, mortgage-paying lives is going to be expensive business, so we need to look at cheaper options. The BMW's are not an economical choice, so they are also dropped from the list.

That leaves the XTR, our steed of choice for the trip. Ness is comfortable on them, I have experience of them, and I've seen them sell for as little as £3500 new, or £2600 with less than 1k miles on (probably due to the surging). They have been around long enough that we will have a choice of accesories to kit them out with, and the surging issue can easily be sorted out.


So now we know where we are going, when we are going, and what we are riding there :)