Hi there,

A mate and myself have pledged to get from the UK to Australia to raise money and awareness for the Mines Advisory Group (MAG | Mines Advisory Group) between March 2011 and Sep 2011.

We would like to have a nice balance between tarmac and off-road, and its our own personal goal to make it to Kazakhstan and Mongolia if possible, and then ride down through China to SE Asia, and once in Malaysia ferry hop to East Timor and catch a boat to Darwin, Aus.

When you're looking at a map this all looks rather simple, but we both know what we wanna do is going to be very difficult, maybe even impossible given our time frame.

I'm really looking for some advice / tips of any beautiful roads along the way we can't miss. Any suggestions would be great!

Furthermore, if anyones had any experience riding through China, I'd love to hear about it; not only if its legally possible, but how you dealt with the highways there, I spent some time in Yunnan and found it hard to fathom riding there!

We could really use any help anyone's got to offer, and I sorry if this post is a bit green, I'm trawling the forum now to see what I can find.

cheers,
John

Hi There,

Its very expensive to get the required permits for china when we checked the best we could get was $150US/day. That was because we needed to have a special guide with us throughout the entire section in china.. Due to the costs we decided against it and followed the boarder up from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia and onwards to Japan then we put the bikes on a ferry and sat on the beaches in Sydney before returning to Brisbane to pickup the bikes and continue our trip.

The easy choices are:
Turkey -> Iran -> Pakistan -> India -> Malaysia -> Singapore/Indnonesia -> Australia
Turkey/Ukraine/Belarus/Scandinavia -> Russia -> Kazakhstan -> Krygyzstan -> China -> Pakistan -> India
Russia -> Kazakhstan -> Krygyzstan -> Kazakhstan -> Russia -> Mongolia -> Russia -> Japan -> Australia (very easy)

There are numerous other routes but these seem to be the most popular... The iran route seems to be the most popular by far.. we did the last one in 2009 taking 6 months and had a blast.

Hey,

After much research, and a general acceptance of China being too hard, I'm taking the latter route you suggested, through Russia to Japan or South Korea, and ship the bikes from there to Bangkok, and continue on.

I know the East Timor - Australia route is doable, does anyone know if it costs too much / takes absurdly long as compared to shipping by air?

I'm assuming shipping bikes by sea from Vladivostok is possible? Is the route from Irkutsk to Vladivostok doable in June/July?

And I also read on the forum a transit visa is possible through Turkmenistan.

All these things in mind, looks like a doable route.

Suggestions / comments / criticism appreciated

Hi,

Once you get to South Korea or Japan it can be expensive to get to places.. Korean Airlines have a really good airfreight division which can ship motorcycles (when we checked in mid 2009). On their web page you can see what routes they do.. If you carefully plan the trip so that there are no stop overs on the air freight route you can really save some cash.. Here is the URL Korean Air Cargo - To be a respected leader in the world airline community

On the flip side its _very_ easy to ship via sea from Japan. There is a company Kiwicar which ships from Kawasaki (and other ports) direct to Brisbane and onwards to New Zealand. Their prices are unbeatable and the service is pretty good (at least it was for us). The catch is that if you go via japan its expensive for accommodation etc so what you save in shipping you may end up spending anyway. We really had a great time in Japan and it was a really welcome change from an early winter in eastern Russia.

From Brisbane depending on the season you can ride all over the place very easily but if your travelling from Octoberish -> March its the wet season so riding can be a little damp.. The real risk is Cyclones if your unlucky.

Getting from Bangkok around Asia is pretty easy, Once you get to the Indonesian chain of islands it can become a challenge to get the bikes around but that's all part of the fun Most people tend to go from Bali -> Darwin. There can be some big prices..

If your looking to budget I would expect the total shipping costs from Vladivostok to South Korea, then from there to Say Bangkok, and then from somewhere like Bali to Aus to total around $5000US.. That is based on some pricing that I got in 2008/2009 so it may have gone up or down depending on the demand and GFC.

We ended up spending about $1000US to ship us and two bikes from Vlad -> Fushiki and then another $1000US to get from there to Brisbane... Then we rode around Aus before returning to Sydney,. If you drive a hard bargin and get shipping companies on board with the fact your riding for Charity it maybe something that you can get at a discount rate but it depends on so many things (most of which is luck)...

Hiya John

Well as im now just rich with no jen!! Im planning on leaving around the same time as you next year to start a RTW trip my first aim is to get to australia too. Im looking at this route at the min,

Turkey/Ukraine/Belarus/Scandinavia -> Russia -> Kazakhstan -> Krygyzstan -> China -> Pakistan -> India

I was thinking of going through Iran but seeing as ill be ex military im not too sure on whether this is a good idea but to be honest its probably just me listening to too many people telling me stories!!. maybe we could meet up on the way. Im only down the road in Nuneaton so not far from Warwick and im back most weekends so maybe could meet and share our planning nightmares !! i have only just started and already i can see its going to be rocky road. The charity you are riding for is amazing and the work they do is outstanding i have witnessed this first hand in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Good luck
Rich