hoboworld.to

After leaving our last campsite in Austria just near the boarder we crossed yet another beautiful mountain pass and came to our into our 7th country on our route… Italy.. Wow what a remarkable difference between Italy and Austria.

The roads and towns in Austria all seemed so picture postcard perfect. As soon as we arrived in Italy there was a difference in the quality of the road surface, the towns all seemed to be a little more run-down.. Although it had more character and the mountiain passes that we had gone over in Austria all seemed small by comparison.. We call it practise mountain passes for what was to come. After about an hour and a half of riding we got to our planned destination.. The start of the Stelvio Pass what an amazing mecca for motorcyclists and car enthuthiests.

The road was so busy being a German bank holiday that it was almost a traffic Jam going up and to a lesser extent down the other side. Being so busy it was creating some very dangerous situations where crazy German bikers would overtake going around the inside of the many hairpins on the wrong side of the road with clearly no visibility of what was coming. Absolutely stupid moves by not one but many tens of riders. I was shocked at some of the idiots riding up the moutainand what they would do to get passed people going slightly slower. It has to be said that it was just the start of what would become the norm in the Italian Alps.. Stupid motorcyclists going wayy to fast on the wrong side of the road around blind corners.. And they say the Germans are “smart”.. ha ha ha.. I call it survival of the fitest.

After a long day riding we completed only about 170km but in that time we did 6 very amazing mountain passes the biggest of which was Stelvio. However the others seemed to be much better.

The top of one had at least 3 meters of snow still on the ground at 2600+ meters above sea level. The glaciers that we saw up there really amazed Heather and I. The big problem we discovered about these mountain passes was that the concentration required to go up and down was immense. Let alone the physical side where we have to wrestle the bikes with all the luggage up and down. It really took it out of us.. While crossing one more mountain pass we saw a nice little area that we could camp in the forest. It was a nice little spot at around 1800 meters above sea level.. The mosquito problem was immense but that just meant we had an early night so we could rise early and do yet more mountain passes. The alps has been a real highlight for us so far on this trip. Having been several times before, but never on motorcycles its really come into its own. I would highly recommend anyone with a motorcycle to ride the alps. Its roads and scenery keep the mind going at 110% the entire time.

Another major shock to the system was that the tunnels down the southern side of Stelvio don’t have lights on and have close to hair pin corners in them. Which is very dangerous especially with cars and other motorcyclists going the other direction.. Not to mention wearing sun glasses.. Its crazy.. but then that’s what this adventure is all about.. living to tell the tale.

We stayed a day in Luxembourg to get some stuff sorted… Here are some photos of the City.

And the old town centre.

After the initial GPS problems that plaged us until Luxembourg (Thanks to Ed for making the maps available) we managed to actually get somewhere… that somewhere was Champagne in France. It was great riding via Verdun to see the war memorials and where the trenches had been in World War One. We also played Where’s Heather..

One thing that has been a constant on this trip so far has been the excellent roads with beautiful scenery to keep it from becoming boring. So far we have done just over 900 miles/1450 kilometres. After spending the night with Natalie and her Family we tried to leave.. but it just was not heathers day… Her bikes battery was flat and we couldn’t push start it.. After multiple attempts in the pouring rain we ended up borrowing Natalie’s jumper leads to start the bike… One problem.. where the hell is the battery.. Luckily after starting to take the bike apart we found a place where the genius BMW engineers put a positive connection.. now we only had to find a good enough negative ground. After a few attempts we found one that worked perfectly and “Sparkie” came to life.

Now that we had two running bikes it was time to set off for Germany…. If only it was that simple.. Thanks to our wonderful friend the weather.. we managed to ride about 150km before the weather was soo poor that we ended up wild camping in the Forest near Flirey on the D958

After a very wet night we managed to ride out on the very muddy tracks.. The weather had not much improved and the days riding was slow and steady to Freiberg in Germany. This lead us to our second ferry crossing. From France in to Germany!.. Totally unexpected but a welcome break for the 30 second journey. One big problem with this section of the trip was that there are no petrol stations which accept UK mastercards or maestro.. A really nice “surprise”.. on the up side at least it shows that the R1200GS can do over 400 miles on 32.5 litres of fuel if you ride like a sissy… riding behind heather makes that pretty easy.. te he he

Having stayed at the http://freiburg-camping.de/ camping site right near the centre of town. Highly recommended except that its so expensive.. 21euro for two people.. for a dam tent!!! dam I feel like scrooge.. We got over it fast enough as soon as we hit one of the beer halls in town for some great beers and quality German food. If your in the area and are interested here it is Martins Brau erste freiburger gasthausbrauerei Http://www.mbfr.de

So here we are.. day three of our trip. After an initial rush to Dover, where we missed our original ferry.. YES great start.. and by only 5 minute. We ended up being moved to the 2:30 ferry thankfully.. Arriving in France we rode for around 2 hours to the nights accommodation covering just over 200miles on day one. The relief to finally be on our way is immense.

Day two.. or should I say the first full day of our Holiday. No more rushing around preparing, no more farewell drinks, no more alcohol.. whoo hooooo.. detox.. 10 pints down to 0.. feeling it now.. grumpy mode has set in.. withdrawal from the booze I say.. or maybe its just the pent up frustration of months of planning and frustration with visas not working out as easily as we had hoped. I guess that IS the adventure.. the rest of the trip should be a “walk in the park”… Heathers still not realised that I am just here to annoy her.. ahh feel the freedom of being on Holidays.. 6-7 months of nobody elses company.. ha ha ha.. she’s looking over my shoulder saying she would not be surprised. Ha ha ha more fool her te he he.. anyway enough about us.. lets talk about the trip..

The GPS crashed..

giving us completely bogus directions in a huge 120km loop.. nothing like technology to really let the trip down. So far its been a complete nightmare using the GPS despite using it several hundred times in the past it must start speaking french as soon as it crosses the channel. All I have say about this is f.garmin.. fill in the dot with whatever suits!! As I am sure many people have heard me say in the past.. Its blasphemy to call support.. Its a sign of a shit product.. oops oh well that must be Garmin. Its caused me to break my cardinal rule of not using support. At least we had some humour on route.. Heather had a bus load of boys mooned her as the bus drove past.. she had a little giggle. ha ha ha.. got to love being a kid… could not imagine having a group of oldies going past mooning.. that would be seriously twisted…. At least it livens up the motorway miles.. that and the gps asking us to do u turns at 130km/hour when you can’t. Heather also managed to show off her ultimate Skills.. while pulling over to take some photos of a really sweet panorama she dropped her bike.. of course what most people do is to stop and pickup the bike.. not our trusty heather.. she takes the photos while leaving her bike smashed against the gutter.. At least we get blessed with a few really helpful Belgian teenagers who helped pickup the bike so we didn’t have to take all the luggage off.. the only casualty was her left mirror.. RIP mirror. At least she got some good photos to make it all worth while.. Having read that people in Belgium are not helpful we have been completely surprised by how helpful they have always been with us.. maybe its because they know we are stupid!!! (or not english)

Day three started with some amazing riding around in yet more circles thanks to our trusty gps.. I know fool me once fool on you.. fool me twice fool on me.. at least the scenery was beautiful on route with some amazing flowing roads with some of the most amazing forest to resivour roads I’ve ever ridden with huge panoramas of the country side. After finally getting completely lost we ended up being helped by a really nice Belgian guy who gave us access to the internet in his house to print out good old google maps directions.. yes we are on our way again to Russia we come.. with some love on top in a liberal dosing..

Score Board..

	Heather	James
Wobblies	2	6
Wrong Directions	1	90
Winging	2	5
PMS	0	1
Stacks	1	0
Problems with O2	0	16

Mrs Lamb: I would like to add that James has had more wobblies and to put icing on cake he stepped on bubble gum, I almost laughed as you could imagine add on top of his frustration.