At least 2 years, 4 continents, 1 bike, and a few broken hearts... I make about 1 video blog a week and have been since I embarked on this adventure 3 months ago.


So far I have held out through a typhoon in the Philippines, trained in Martial Arts in China and taken the Trans Mongolian railroad across Russia. Now I am in London where I have bought an F650GS Twin to ride Europe. Since I am on 2 wheels now it is time to start a ride report.


You can see the video blogs so far at www.thegreatgallivant.com - they are on average around 10 minutes in length.

On top of posting the video blogs I am going to put together the ride report here with a bit of written detail on the technical side of things so anyone wanting to do something similar can learn the gritty.

Getting a bike and getting it insured was a pain in the ass. Here is the run down on my experience.

I realized early on, as other have that if you are from outside Europe then it can be very difficult to buy a motorbike in the UK. Buying is the easy part, all you have to do is hand over your cash - insuring the bike is the hard part.

I found as many have and will, that pretty much no insurance companies in the UK will insure a non-UK resident or someone without a UK license. I am lucky and have a British passport through my mother who is British. That only made thing slightly easier. Other people who I spoke to had to get 2 year work visas just to exchange their Australian licenses for British licenses. You don't have a choice and have to exchange the Aussie license for a British one. The DVLA (Department of transport) in Britain is a bureaucratic nightmare. To do this you have to be resident, or at least be able to fake it.

Once I got the license I could get insurance but I needed to also have a copy of my Australian license or my travel insurance wouldn't be valid without one. This meant 'losing' my Aussie license and getting a new one and then miraculously finding the old one.

Once I got here, as expected, getting the bike was easy. Insurance quotes were out of whack. Normally in Australia 3rd party insurance is cheap, but here it isn't 3rd party was 550 GBP that is roughly 900 USD/AUD. Comprehensive was 700 GBP so I went with that given it was only slightly more. Other companies quotes from 1500 GBP to 3000 GBP... I went with eBike as a lot of others have.

__________________
www.thegreatgallivant.com - video blog of my current year long trip around Europe on the F650GS Twin

Just arrived into France on the bike. These Video blogs are about 3 weeks behind at the moment. I have a better camera now and have worked out a better way to edit so everything from now on will be available in 720p HD. This weeks log is all about kitting out the bike, I put on a Stahlkoffer pannier and rack and went to the factory in Birmingham to check it out. They also make bikes and had this awesome pre 60's style trials bike that is almost ENTIRELY made out of titanium!



Check out the exhaust! If you have a cool 15 thousand pounds to drop on a new toy this one could be it.

Other gear on there is the battery hookup for GPS and a AltRider Bash plate.

Anyway, check out the 4 minutes video blog I put together...



In the next log I am heading over to Ireland, here is another 'teaser'



Me in the fat man suit fighting sub zero temperatures around Ireland in the latest European cold spell.

__________________
www.thegreatgallivant.com - video blog of my current year long trip around Europe on the F650GS Twin

Latest video blog from the first of two weeks in Ireland. It is available in 720p.

It was pretty dreary weather while I was making this. The bike performed well but the BMW raingear that I have proved to not keep out all the rain. I can only put it down to the zip. Another thing that I think I need is one of those neck covers that clips into the helmet... that would really help.

__________________
www.thegreatgallivant.com - video blog of my current year long trip around Europe on the F650GS Twin

Here is the latest log from Ireland.

I was really battling with the cold as this was around the same time the cold snap came through Europe.

Dublin has a certain smell and feel, like a mixture of burnt coal, and decomposing rubbish. It is nearly always cloudy and melancolic. Everyone talks big about Galway being the place to go and once the mercury hit 4 degrees I pack up and take the motorway across the country for 3 hours. The hostel I stayed at was 8 euro a night, evidence of Irelands economic woes. 5 yeas prior I paid 30 euro a night in a Dublin hostel and you would have to get stuck into the Guinness to spend that in a day here now. I was shattered from a big weekend and elected to stay in and edit video logs rather than check out the Monday night Galway scene.

No matter how hard I try I can't get up, pack the bike and eat breakfast in the morning in less than an hour. An electric generator had been running on and off all night keeping me awake. The kind of noise that if it were constant your brain could shut out. This was the off and on noise that would wait and then come back just as I was drifting off and pull me from my almost sleep.


North Galway

I hit the road and head north with a few tips of roads to take to end up near Sligo. The hostel receptionist told me the story of the Doolough tragedy. During the great Irish famine hundred of people from a town called Louisberg took the walk to Delphi lodge on the rumour of rations only to find there were none. Starving and destitute they returned to Louisberg and many died on the pass on the return. I ride through the valley with this thought in mind stopping at the memorial. The hills rise up from a black lake that winds through the valley. I am almost at Louisberg and th sun pokes through the clouds.


The memorial.

I punch the address for the house I am staying at in Ireland into the GPS. It struggles to find it. Ireland needs to introduce post codes. For 2 hours I wind through small towns to get to Martin and Livas house. A Latvian couple who I found on couchsurfing the night prior. I arrive late at their house to a burning fire and food on the stove. We talk about Latvia, name days - where everyone in Latvia celebrates both their name day and their birthday each year. They give me a fish scale to put in my wallet - a Latvian tradition that is supposed to ensure you good fortune with finances.


Dinner with Liva and Martin

Martin has time in the morning to show me around the local area before headin off to his job at the local milk factory. I am keen to head to Slieve league today and set off. Another cold day but it doesn't seem to affect me, the sun is shining brightly and I think that is what keeps my spirits high.


Martin and I out in the morning exploring

I ride through various small Irish towns, all low set, though a Gaeltacht - an Irish speaking community, and a fishing village with a wicked stench that has hundreds of gulls flying overhead. Irish businesses have a consistency in signage that would have you thinking the entire country only has one signmaker.



The roads get smaller and rougher and I climb up the mountain to Slieve league. It doesn't present it's full glory until you reach the very end of the road. An old Irish couple walk past me while I admire the view.


Slieve League Cliffs

They are speaking Gaelic (or Irish as a lot of them prefer to call it) and break into english to tell me I am lucky to see the cliffs with the sun shining against them. After a few snacks I head for Letterkenny. A stroke of luck and I have more couchsurfers to stay with in Letterkenny. Two French girls...

I roll into Letterkenny and the GPS is sending me in the wrong direction. I pull over and a guy comes up to me straight away. Thick northern accent. "How are ye?", "That's a nice bike, where er ye from?" We chat for ten minutes. He spent a few months riding around the states when he was younger. He doesn't know the street I am looking for so he calls his mate and asks for directions and then tells me how to get where I am going. This is my first impression of Letterkenny.

Claire, meets me in the street and we head back to her house. This is my thid time couchsurfing. Claire and her flatmate Marie are both teaching French in Ireland as a part of a program that will enable them to become teachers down the track. We talk about travel and their impressions of Letterkenny. They are not surprised at the help I got from the locals with directions as they have both had similar experiences.



We down a pub meal. Bangers and mash, which I have to say the Irish are not quite as good at making sausages as the British. One thing they can do is stout and I grab my first of half a dozen Guinness for that night. There is a band playing trad music in the bar and a few more French turn up and pull out Uno and we play cards, listen to trad and sink more s.



In the morning I wake to see frost on everything in letterkenny. My bike is covered in frost and I put it in the sun to defrost. While making breakfast I drop out to the bike to check the air temp. It is hanging at 1 degrees. I only have 2-3 hours on the road today but I can't ride that long in 1c.



Taking a walk through letterkenny I check the roads for black ice. It's mostly clear. My aim is to get to Malin head, the northern most point of Ireland about 80 k's north of Letterkenny. I have to go over a mountain range to get there, that concerns me, the higher in elevation I go the lower the temperature is going to get. I wait until 11am and the temperature gets up to 3 degrees before I hit the road.



The riding is nice, the sun is out, the air is clear. It's a double edged sword - when the clouds are thick they hold the heat in - you get no sun but the temperature is 2-3 degrees warmer. The sun brings out the colour in the landscape but the temperature drops. Despite glazing my visor with anti-fog the helmet fogs up. I have to let the cold air in to clear it out. Each time my lips go even more numb. I alternate between sucking on my top and bottom lips to warm them up. Riding through flat farmland there are birds forraging through crop rows where ice has formed they are trying to find water that hasn't frozen. I am averaging 50mph and can cope with the temperature.

Hitting the mountains the temperature drops below zero. The guage on the bike constantly flashes to make me aware of black ice. I have to slow down at some points as ice crosses the road. I make it over the mountains but I am getting cold. A farmer is out on his tractor and I think that if I get too cold at least I can come back and ask him for help. The social implications run through my head.



18km to Malin head. Roughly 15 minutes to go. My palms are burning on the BMW hand warmers, the back of my hands are numb. My toes are numb.



Black ice has formed across the road.

10km to Malin head. I remeber thinking - I run that distance often - it's not far. Once I am off the bike I will be fine.
Cutting on to smaller roads I am looking for open pubs, anything with a chimney that indicates a fire is burning - looking for options.

The goal is still to get to Malin head. In my head it is still not that bad yet.

Time is taking forever. I need to have a slash. My stomach starts to turn.



Finally i round a bend and can see the parking lot, the ruins of a tower and the ocean breaking against the most northern point of Ireland.



Hopping off the bike there is nobody around. I dump the bladder and consider walking down the hill. It's going to be a 15 minute walk. My bladders nerves stop tugging at my brain and consuming my thoughts. With more capacity to think I become aware of the wind which is blowing a gale around me. The reprieve from the cold I was looking for isn't going to come. I realise I am shivering. Hopping back on the bike my adrenalin kicks in. I start riding back towards the town.

A sign says Malin - 10 k's. I still think I am riding to Derry today - only 50 k's away. Thanks to Claire I have a couch to surf in Derry. Looking for any pub or shop that looks warm I push through. My thoughts are not fluid and I can feel the heart beat in my chest. After what seems like more than 10 k's I reach Malin. It's a small town with a corner store and there are workmen fixing something in the street. I pull up at what looks like a shop pub and fuel stop. Walking inside there is nobody. A woman walks into the store and it is obvious she runs the place. "Do you have rooms?" I am beyond money now. All I can think is I need to get warm, I need a hot shower. She has none but directs me up the road to a B and B.



An older woman answers "Come inside, get out of the cold now..." I must have been blue in the face because she instructed me in front of the fire. Questioning my sanity she throws a couple of logs on the fire, makes me a cup of tea and a sandwhich. Her name is Mary - she is my mother of another brother. Her husband works for the IMF , she is well travelled and we exchange stories as the fire breaths life back into me. Mary runs Malin Village B&B and if you go through you should stay there. She is salt of the earth and I was happy to break my daily budget for just one night stay.

On the road after a square breakfast and headed for Derry or Londonderry, depending on which side of the political fence you sit on. You can usually pick Catholics from Prodistants by how they name this city. I lived in Ireland 2 years prior but never made it to Derry. It is the site of Bloody sunday and a large proportion of the violence during the 'troubles'.


Taping up my helmet to stop the cold air circulating.

Another dead hostel with only 3 other people staying, low season, 10 euro for the night with breakfast. I get instructions on where to go - first place on the list is Rossville street - the site of Bloody Sunday. Rupublican murals and political signage line the street. It would seem like any other street if it were not for this. A hill runs up one side to the city walls, painted with statements requesting the freedom of alleged political prisoners. There is a memorial in the middle of the street. In 1972, 26 republican protestors were shot by the British Army in what has become the most well known event from the troubles.


Political messages on Rossville street.





Mural of a famous image where a wounded republican is carried to safety.







I walk around the city walls to the prodistant side of the city. Foopaths are painted red,white and blue so you don't forget where you are. Fences and security measures remain everywhere as a reminder of what was and to a degree still is. I cross the newly built peace bridge that symbolically connects the prodistant and catholic sides of the river.



More editing and I wake to rain which has brought the temperature up to a level that is easier to bear. Head off to see the
Giants causeway and make my way to Belfast.

Monday 5th Mar -11th Mar - Matera - Cilentro - Amalfi - Naples - Rome



We wake up in Matera and hit the road. We want to get to the Cilentro coast road, suggested by an inmate on ADV to us a few months earlier in planning.

It's a few hours on the road and the GPS loses us for a bit, we ride along some rougher roads past farmers harvesting, well we can't tell what it is, but something.

We have reached a straight road following the coast and we know it heads to some mountains before it gets more interesting. I have heard that this area has quite the mafia presence. There are a lot of hotels and restaurants abandoned and the ones still running look like they have seen better days. I imagine if you are running a business with the mafia around then you are only hampered by your own success. The more money you make the more they take and this might not be, but could be the reason the local businesses look like they have had the life blood sucked out of them. We get alot of stares on the bike, suggesting this is the route less travelled by tourists.

A little further and I am cleaning the visor every minute as we are riding through a cloud of salty sea spray. We hit the Cilentro coastal road and the spray is gone, we are 100 metres above the water on a road cut out of the side of the cliff, weaving in and out of small towns.

So far we have had very little luck with camping on the Italian leg. Camping either costs us 30 euro for a night at which we balk and decline, given that we can stay in a hostel for that price.

Camping grounds start to appear on the side of the beach but most of them appear closed. We finally see one with an open gate and we go in to investigate. There are no guests there, plenty of caravans that appear to stay there through the winter. They are locked up, covered in tarps, everything is packed away. We manage to find a guy who is working on something and with a bit of mime we explain we want to camp for a night. He calls his boss. 10 euro for the night, good for us. So that is how we ended up with a whole camp site to ourselves for a night.



I decided I wanted to go for a bit of a swim but I only got about knee deep before giving up and we sat and watched the sunset.



Making the most of the only lighting in the place at the toilet block to cook up ravioli on the jet boil.



Rain came through in the night, making it great fun for breaking camp in the morning.



The road gets a little rough, not much money is getting spent on this part of Italy.


Rough translation "Shit road, drive slowly"

As we make our way up the coast to Amalfi we start passing women on the side of the road, quite dressed up. It is the strait road to Salerno and I imagine they are catering to the tourists in Amalfi. A husband says to his wife "Honey, just headed out for some milk, might take a couple of hours..."





Before we know it we are riding Amalfi... the roads are busy and it is the quintessential example of risk taking in Italian driving. Cars skirt round us on blind corners for the sake of saving a minute or two on their journey. I had seen the busses take corners here on the tv back home and so knew what to expect. When you hear the horn blasting you stop on the side of the road and wait. Sometimes I have no idea how they get these busses around the corners but somehow they manage. The traffic is bad but not chaotic, the benefit of coming here on the cusp of spring while it is still fairly cold.


Check out the bus taking the corner.

When the traffic clears out and you get the road to yourself the riding is something else. As far as coastal roads go, this is mecca. I have some great footage that I will put in an upcoming video blog, photos just don't do corners justice.

Agerola is our stop for the night, it is high up on the mountain and we plan to stay there a couple of days at least. We find a good hostel and settle in for the night. I may not have mentioned it yet but I have secured a volunteer job at a horse ranch in Spain. I need a bit of a break from travel for a bit and am keen to put my 2 years of Spanish study to use. The plan is to go back and stay with Nicole for a week and then head down to the Catalonian mountains where I will stay for 4 or 5 months. The plan, at this stage at least, is still a little vague. Things have changed with Nicole but we haven't worked out what we are going to do yet and we have agreed to not have that conversation, at least for now.

We are now two and a half weeks into our 3 week trip. It is almost over but neither of us wants to think about that yet and we take a hike into Amalfi. We are at around 600m above sea level, and we need to walk down to sea level. The hike we have to take is known for its steps, 900 odd steps. Going down steps sounds easy and for the part it seems easy but after about 300 steps you notice that your stabalising muscles in your legs are working overtime to stop your knees from buckling with each step.




Stopping for a rest on the walk down the stairs.



Amalfi is as to be expected, an overpriced tourist trap. Take away everything and you are left with a really beautiful part of the world so you just have to ignore the 20 euro price tag for a pizza and garlic bread and try and enjoy where you are. There is no way we are hiking back up the hill and so we hop on the bus and experience the road from the other side. On the bus you are quite high off the road and you an easily see over the edge of the road barriers. It's a nice change to be able to enjoy the view without worrying about focussing on the road.


The sun is setting when we get back to the top at Agerola.

Our plan from here is to head further north to Rome where Nicole will fly back to Avignon to get back to her job teaching english. I will head north after that to San Marino, the Ducati museum in Bologna and then slowly make my way back up to Nicole's place in Avignon.

The destination today is Naples, home of Pizza and the supposed mafia capital of Italy. However disaster has struck. I went to plug in my digital camera to charge and the thing stopped working. I take it apart to check for loose wires but everything is miniaturised and I can't tell what is wrong with it. Realistically I know that I have little chance of fixing it but with only the fisheye of the gopro to take photos and footage the attempts to fix the camera are more an attempt at getting past the Kubler-Ross stage of denial. A new camera is out of my budget so most of the photos will stop here, at least until I can find a solution.

The riding today is equally as thrilling as the days before and the further we get away from Amalfi the lighter the traffic gets, meaning I can really lean the bike into the corners.

That afternoon we arrive into Naples. It's rough. Rustic. My street-smart senses can tell it is the sort of place where you need to watch yourself. Traffic is insane, there are no rules, cars are literally weaving into the tram lanes (tram lanes that are isolated by 6 inch high cement gutters mind you) to get ahead in the traffic. "**** off to your own country" or something to that effect is yelled out as I am stopped at a light. It is the first bit of hostility I have come across in Italy but easily ignored. At our hostel we find a safe spot in a hallway to park the bike.

There really isn't that much time for us to explore Naples. At this stage the journeysin teh day are enough for me. Nicole has seen Naples before and we need to get to Rome so Rome it is.

It is our second last day together before Nicole flys back to Avignon. We will only be apart for a few days but have become quite used to eachothers company.

The ride to Rome is all filler. We crank out the ks to get there. As we get into Rome I capture a guy on a GSA giving us the wave.



We have been getting a lot of waves from the local riders, especially when they see the British number plates. I wish I had have brought an Aussie flag or something for the bike. Although sometimes you want to attract less attention.



Another rider flies past us in some of the most reckless riding I have ever seen on the road. He is doing at least 90 in a 50 zone weaving through the traffic. As he passes us he turns around to have a second look at us, whilst turning to overtake another car.

That night we check out the main sites in rome. It's nice but the one thing I see that fully takes my attention is a fully black F800GS with the reverse forks and virtually all the parts exchanged for carbon fibre. Yet I don't have a camera to take a photo.


Trevi fountain by night.

The next morning I say good bye to Nicole. She heads for the bus and I punch in the coordinates for San Marino and Bologna. Heading off solo again for the first time in a month.

__________________
www.thegreatgallivant.com - video blog of my current year long trip around Europe on the F650GS Twin

March 11-20 Rome - San Marino - Bologna - Avignon - Sant Jaume de Llierca



A kiss good bye, a full tank and I am on the road to San Marino. My plan is to spend a few days making it slowly back up to Avignon where I will stay for a week or so before heading down to Spain to start volunteering at the horse ranch. The place is called 'Can Jou' and they are going to feed me and house me for a few months in exhange for about 5 or so hours work per day.

Getting ahead of myself though. It's time to enjoy the moment. Leaving Rome I take a familiar road back through perugia and cross over a path I have been on before. Sunshine, and the warmth of the Italian coloured countryside brings a slow smile to my face. I feel alone, dwelling in the lonliness of an open highway, it is not a bad feeling, not a good feeling, it just is. Accellerating I pass cars and trucks, a fleet of Harleys only to realise that I have to sustain a high speed to keep ahead. My competitive streak finds it hard to go on holiday. Stopping to put on the banana suit I let the Harleys pass me.
I relax into the road and just past Perugia I start to gain elevation. In what is now a familiar process the temperature starts to drop. Stopping the bike I add another layer. Sunday riders flicker past, seemingly warm enough in their one layer of leathers.

Snow still lines the roads and it briefly gets down to 3 degrees. Annoyingly, I still can't shake the paranoia of the cold. Before I can overthink the situation I am decending again, through a beautiful part of Italy.

San Marino really is a case of just going to see what is there. I am intrigued by these small sovereign states and San Marino is the oldest surviving sovereign state in the world, dating back to the 4th centuy AD. It's independence has probably only survived because it has the backing of the pope and the Italians tend to listen to the Vatican.

San Marino sits atop a mountain, overlooking its subjects, surrounded by snow capped peaks. The city itself seems very touristy - my litmus test for this has become the 'torture museum', if you see one of these in the city you are visiting, leave quickly, they are up there with the living statues, Madame Tussauds and portrait artists for useless tourist traps that only take away from the culture of a place.



The entry to San Marino translated means - Welcome to the ancient land of the free.

Next stop Bologna. I roll in with a couple of hours sunshine up my sleeve. The only hostel is booked out so I have to camp, fully aware that it will get down below 0 during the night. I check the opening times of the Ducati museum, my reason for being in Bologna. Gutted. It is closed on Mondays. Churning the possibilities in my mind I know that I don't want to wait it out until Tuesday. This is an area I will definitely come back to and so I reluctantly put the museum back on the shelf for now.

It is at that point that I start flirting with the idea of getting back to Avignon in one day. 720k's away and 11 hours without using toll roads. If I only use toll roads for about 200 k's I can do it in 9 hours, theoretically. I text Nicole, "Going to have a crack at getting back to Avignon tomorrow, Ducati closed Mondays, xo", "Don't push yourself, take it easy, stop in Genoa for the night if you need to, text me as you go, xo". Resolved to reach Avignon the next day I stock up on food at the supermarket. Once I set my mind on getting somewhere, it takes a lot to stop me.

Two girls who are hiking are camped next to me in a Vango Helium, the same tent I have back home, a common link, a conversation starter. Scottish girls, used to the cold, they only have a couple of layers each and are planning to hike over the same mountains I came through to reach San Marino.

The reason the hostel was booked out becomes apparent at about 9pm when heavy metal music starts to pound away. Switching on the bike I check the temperature, 5 degrees and dropping. All my layers go on after a hot shower and I head to bed inside 2 sleeping bags. Earplugs are no match for the heavy metal bass and I struggle to sleep sometime after 12 only to wake up a few hours later, sweating in all my layers. 7am I am up, it's just over 2 degrees. Hard-boiled eggs and porridge will keep me going through the cold. Tent packed, on the road at 8am, temperature hovering at 4.5 degrees, just above my comfort threshold.

A few k's down the road it gets down to 1.5 degrees. It is my constant battle. I know it will be over 10 degrees by lunchtime but if I stop to wait I wont make it to Avignon today. Another hour and the temperature should be up to a bearable point. I bite my lip and push on, it's grim, my thoughts run in circles, slowed by the cold and constantly thinking about it. My purple elephant.

3 degrees flirts with 3.5, flickering back and forth, becoming 3.5 flirting with 4 every new number on the dial triggers a release of seratonin. Somehow my endorphin system has become tied to the thermometer. How did I let it get like this. In the words of Ewan McGregor - I thought I was made of tougher stuff than this.

I know, you get it, it's cold, I don't like, lets move on. I just feel the need to talk about how it affects me and affects the ride. For all the winter months and even some of spring it dominated my planning.



Cold fades into warmth and reaching the start of the apennines I opt to take the scenic route. Snow starts to thicken on the sides of the road but I am twisting the throttle through the curves following snow melt rivers.



I stop for a bit of a dance for an upcoming video blog and to eat a banana in the banana suit. The road is flowing with ease and I descend into Genoa kept up for a solid half an hour to wait for a cycling race to pass on the road I am riding.


Waiting for the cyclists to pass... Already looking a bit tired.


At least it is now warming up and that gives me enough time to get the banana suit off.

At Genoa I turn off the avoid tolls function on the GPS and start attacking the auto-route. I get a solid 200 k's out of the way bringing me into France. Now I just have to cross the haute-alps to get back to Avignon.



I am running low on fuel and headed into the mountains out of Nice. The fuel light is on and the computer tells me I have about 18 miles left. I punch in the next fuel stop on the GPS. Down to 10 miles to go I reach an abandoned fuel stop with only the rusted remnants of fuel pumps reaching to the sky from a pile of concrete. I punch in the next fuel stop in the GPS, a little less confident of what I will find. Without a fuel stop behind me for 30 odd k's there is only going forward. I reach the next fuel stop with 2 miles to go only to find a 24 hour pump that only accepts credit cards.

So I should mention at this point that I loathe credit cards and as such, don't have one, opting to use a visa debit card for online transactions and only taking cash out on a debit card. The next fuel stop in the GPS is 20 k's away and I doubt I will make it. A smart move would be to wait for a while until someone turns up, hand them the cash and get them to put it on their credit card. Instead I cross my fingers, roll the dice, and hope that there is a fuel stop in the next town about 8 k's away. As I ride I am being ever so gentle on the revs to get as much distance out of the tank as possible. The computer hits zero and now I have no indication of how much further I can get. It feels like I am riding on borrowed time. Little do I know how miniscule this problem will be in comparison to the problems that await in the months to come.
Rolling into the town I see a fuel station, it's open, you ripper! Fuel for the bike, gatorade for me.

"Bonjourno!"

The attendant gives me a funny look.

Ah, France, "Bonjour!"

She gets an over enthusiastic "Merci!" I am just glad to have fuel.

I promise myself that I won't let the fuel get that low again, a promise I have made before. Lesson learnt that the fuel stops on the GPS map are by far out of date.

It's the homeward stretch to Avignon now, about 250k's of twisties and country roads. It's about 4 in the afternoon and I have been on the road for 8 hour with little more than a couple of 5 minute breaks.

When we came through this area weeks before everything was covered in snow. Now it has melted and the landscape is entirely unrecognisable to me. I hate to say, without the snow, it has lost a bit of the magic. I focus on pushing into the turns. Without Nicole on the bike I can really carve my way through the mountains. Pushing the bike, twisting the throttle, punching the brakes. Of course I am not the only thing on the road and often get stuck behind cars, slowing me down. I have a resolve to reach a destination and an adrenalin gland that might as well be hard wired to the throttle.

We slow into a town, 50kph and I see my opportunity to overtake. Dialling up a good 80k's I cross double lines to overtake the car. In only 3 weeks I have already started to ignore the rules, as the saying goes 'When in Rome...' but I wasn't in Rome anymore and the Gendarmerie are standing at the end of the road. They motion to me to pull over.

Shit. The adrenalin injectors in my stomach fire and my heart rate kicks into a higher gear. This is the first time that I have been pulled over by an official on my entire trip. I have only heard bad things about the "Gendarmerie". My insurance paperwork, my license - everything is going to be put to the test. The French cop asks for my papers. I get them out. He looks them over. Looks over at me and smiles.

"Slow down on the turns."

Hands me back my paperwork.

Poker face. You can't look happy in this situation. I pack the bike up while he pulls over the Kawasaki I passed minutes earlier.



Steadily I make my way back to avignon, passing the same scenery from three weeks prior like watching a video cassette rewind. Fighting through the weariness I join a cavelcade of local French riders headed home from their Sunday ride. None of them seem to take much notice of the GB plates as I join their ranks and let them set the pace. Riders peel off the main road, leaving the group to their respective destinations as the sun dips behind the horizon in front of us. Slowly the group thins out until it is just me again.

I pull the bike into a it's secure spot below Nicoles apartment. Exhausted and red-eyed I kill the engine but my body still hums with the vibration of 11 hours on the road. Nicole smells of shampoo. Her eyes are fresh from sleep. I hold her and squeeze her tight. She has dinner cooked and Chevre waiting for me in the fridge, the French goats cheese I didn't realise was my favourite until now. Eating quickly I collapse into bed where I stay until the next morning.


Rue Paul Sain - Nicoles street.


You have to have your name on the door here in France or they won't deliver your mail.

One week is all I had to soak up a bit more of Avignon and spend some time with Nicole. It was her Birthday on the Friday and so I of course had to stay until then. Her sister and her boyfriend were also travelling through France and so they stopped by for Nicoles birthday. Cashflow was a bit of an issue for me at the time and to be honest I am not a very good present giver. I didn't want to buy some half-assed present for the sake of 'buying a present' so I painted her a card and just doted on her all day by making breakfast and dinner, cleaning the house and trying to make her day flow as best as possible.

The week went quickly. I spent the days editing blogs and trying to come up with a solution to not having a camera. My mother in England had an insurance policy on the camera I was filming on. I don't know if I mentioned it yet but I had swapped her for her camera with the one I had been using earlier. Theirs filmed HD in much better colour and mine was better suited to what she wanted to do, take photos. So I sent it back to them in the post to try and get a new one on warranty. Fingers crossed.

Unfortunately this means there is a huge gap in footage, I only have the gopro, and so I will share a few photos here that Nicole took around Avignon to give you a bit of an idea of the feel of the place.





In the Centre of Avignon



The Pont Du Gard, a bridge that goes to nowhere.



Relaxing at a picnic in the park with the locals.

So it's only a few days until I leave and it's about time to have the 'conversation'. Up until now my plan has been to spend about 6 months in Spain working and volunteering followed by a whirlwind tour of Europe before shipping the bike to South America. Nicole was due to finish her English teaching placement at the end of April and was free to travel after that. After long discussion we agreed that Nicole would come and meet me in Spain at the end of April and volunteer or work wherever I am at the end of April. We will then hang around in Spain until after June at some point and then ride around Spain/France/Belgium and up to the Netherlands. Three of our friends are coming over from Australia and are going to meet us in the Netherlands, hire a car and come with us around Germany/Czech/Austria. At that point we will then head to Eastern Europe for a couple of months before shipping the bike to South America. That will give us a few outs in case we get sick of each other.

The day to leave came up very quickly and being a work day, Nicole had to leave early in the morning.

So Nicole went to teach at the school while I packed the bike and got ready to ride to Can Jou. It is a 5 or so hour journey if you don't take the Autoroute and I get on the road some time after 10, stopping in at Nicoles school to say good bye one last time. At this stage we don't expect to see eachother until the end of April, 6 weeks away.

The sun is shining. It's the sun of early spring the casts a slightly yellow tinge on the landscape.



Back home in my office cubicle I had one particular fantasy. I am in the desert, alone, somewhere in the US, Arizona maybe, on a deserted highway, on a bike, the type of which is unimportant. The sun is shining through my visor. It's not too hot, just warm like a friendly hug. I feel excited and I feel free. I have the means to go wherever I want but I am in that one place, not because I have to be, but because I choose to be. I don't know where I am going in the fantasy but I am in transit. Between destinations. The important part in the fantasy is not where I am going but that I am going.

It is a rare and fleeting state, but in that ride to Can Jou in the North of Spain, with the sun shining on me I feel like I am living the fantasy. My transit takes me through the rustic parts of France to the border with Spain. Two years of Spanish classes under my belt and I am keen to put it to use. That being said I have made the decision to volunteer in Catalunya so I can be closer to Nicole and well, I like the idea of riding and working with horses in the mountains.



I head up the Pyrennees and cross the border into Spain. I start recognising a lot of the words on the signs. They may be in Catalan but with my basic Spanish I can still catch the jist of what they say. I will later find out that due to the laws in France this place just past the border is a hot spot for prostitution. Women in short, short shorts line the roads, texting on their phones, waiting for someone to pull over.



Mountains loom in the distance where I will spend the next three months.



Rolling into Sant Jaume de Llierca, the small town at the foot of the mountain on which Can Jou sits. I follow the winding road for about 10 k's up and up. Finally I reach a sign 'Can Jou' A massive rural inn sits on top of the hill with small cottages peppered around it. The Inn looks out to the South and behind it the view takes in the snow capped Pyrennees. Horses are standing around in fields cut out on the mountain side. Crisp, fresh air. The place seems deserted. I can hear a radio in the distance. Following the sound down to a set of stables I find a girl working on the horses. One lone dread lock hanging down the side of her face and a dew piercings... typical Catalan looking. She introduces her in a thick French accent, "You must be Jackson, the new volunteer, I am Cammie.. welcome to Can Jou." I get the traditional 'Besos', kisses on each cheek. Cammie shows me my room in a small wooden prefab house and explains the daily routine to me.

I take the afternoon to settle in before I start my first day working in the stables.

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www.thegreatgallivant.com - video blog of my current year long trip around Europe on the F650GS Twin