So, after 4½ years of riding 'again' and, Lida's first 4½ years riding, we are ready to upgrade, the modern term, and have ordered new motorcycles. But let me regress slightly for a few moments. 30 years ago, Lida came into my life desirous of finding a bicycle riding companion for a short local ride in the Blue Mountains. When she first rang I declined the 'opportunity', but on compromise (for the next 30 years!), ended up meeting this young girl with her bicycle outside my front gate and off we went. That short ride turned into a 30year association which included marriage, Dylan (our 19 year old son), extensive Australian and overseas bicycle tours, and, eventually, motorcycle touring. As bicyclists we sort of perfected our methodology with regard to packing, touring, camping and the many other facets of two wheeled touring. Anyway, after getting Dylan riding on a motor cross motorcycle at age 15, I started riding again after 33 years. To begin I rode a 230 L, but quickly regained my confidence and technique. I attended a Stay Upright course at Eastern Creek which helped but from the moment I started riding again, realized how much I actually loved riding, and, how much I had missed it over all those years. Well, Lida came home one afternoon saying she was booked in to do her Learners course with Stay Upright in Penrith. Eventually Lida got her full license. On the journey to a 'full' license, we had commenced touring again, only this time, on motorcycles. And...what fun. Firstly local trips, then longer trips to surrounding villages and townships and eventually extended trips to other states. Much as we had done with the bicycles all those years ago, we ended up repeating the formula and have been riding 20,000 kms a year and seeing the roads and towns we used to visit by bicycle. Only now...we could get there in a day, or a weekend, or...a few weeks. O.K. Our story now comes up to November 2014 when Lida came to me and said "I'd like to take the motorcycles to Alaska..." After chatting about this for a while I suggested the first thing we needed to do was "get the right bikes". And this brings me to my first statement "we have ordered new motorcycles". Now, we may or may not get to Alaska (a long held dream for both of us), but a BMW 800GS and a BMW 650 GS will have the potential to get us there and if we don't get there, the new motorcycles will take us to the Cape here in Australia, over the Gibb river road which we 'copped out' on 24 years ago due to extreme dust and corrugations and, across Australia via a more central route. So The new motorcycles are ordered and we await delivery. We have a 6 week jaunt planned for May/June when we plan to go west and up through central Queensland to Darwin, then back down the center to Adelaide and back home to Katoomba via Victoria and the great Ocean Road which we traveled by bicycle in 1988 on our Australian journeys. So, we wait now for new motorcycles. Because we were able, we have ordered accessories sufficient to get us under way. We plan on attending Adventure riding courses to help prepare us for dirt travel and to help get us used to the new motorcycles. Will attach a few photos from some of our travels over the past 4 years. Rod

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Lovely story. Ride safe and most of all ENJOY.