mrdexploer

Hi, have just joined the site and am planning what sounds like a similar trip to yourself. I'm emigrating to New Zealand and am planning to travel overland from the UK via Middle East, India, SE Asia and Aus.

Am looking at getting an 1200 Adv myself and seeing as i live just up the road from yourself in Lymm, I was woundering if you'd like to meet up some time for a general chat.

cheers, John

Hi Red Bull!

This is the real story! I skipped the some parts: Like the native people showing the snakes in the river to the girl I was travelling with while she was in the water before they took her out!

It's the natives who went to catch all my gears down the rider. Otherwise I would have lost everything. I only lost a pair of gloves in the end. I had to really insist to give them some money for their help. I was really surprised to see my ALU box floatting. I was not expecting that. It gave me a smile for a moment.

Taking the bike out of the water was challenging too. When you get closer the coast, it's like "quicksand". You wait 30sec. and your bike sink into the sand at about half wheel. You have no time to loose.

After getting everything out of the water, the engine of the small boat did not work anymore. We waited for a while until another came in our way. It was at the end of the day. The native driving the new boat said I have business to finish right now but after that, let me sleep 2 hours and we will go back to the closest city by night??? During the day we were making slalom between the trees out of the water to make our way and this guy wanted to go back with a small hand flashflight and opening it every 30 sec to see what would be in front of us. This guy was crazy!!! At least he accepted to wait until the next day. But he told me to leave all my gears and bike by the river for the night and we would go sleep in another village a few km away. For no reason I wanted to leave my bike by a river alone so I decided that I would camp there.

Sleeping alone in the jungle by a river was a very interessting experience: All the bugs want to gets inside your tent all night. You hear strange animal noise from the jungle and also hear the water moving like if there are animals fighting all night close to you. And when you see the crocodile at 300meters from your tent the next day, you don't plan another night there!

The next day on the way back, the native was telling me that there are snakes, piranha, crocodile and anaconda in the river. That's great news!!! Back to an hotel, I had not much joy when I opened the engine valve cover and saw rust on my cam chain But hey it seems the diesel cleaing made the job!

I liked this adventure but It is a very expensive story for me. Whenever you put your bike in a small boat, make sure everything important is waterproof. My camera, cd player, passport, book, etc... did not enjoy this trip. Put a plug on your exhaust pipe and block the airfilter box. If your bike does not go for too long underwater it may save some damage. There was not much to do in my case.

Also if you can, ask information to the people around about your destination before going. It was impossible to get where I wanted to go because near the end there was not enough water. So it was lost from the beginning and the guy just robbed me!!! This happened during my second day in Brasil. I wished I was speaking portuguese at that moment.

Have safe boat-motorcycle trip!!!

Patrick

Lipton-

I'd give the Suzuiki V-Strom 650 some consideration. While much lower zoot than the beamers and KTM, it fits the bill: A bike worthy of world touring but still fun to ride around when you get back home. And the price is right of course too.

I have had both a KLR and V-Strom. The KLR, while more dirt worthy, was tiring at highway speeds.

IMHO... although your heart may be saying take the KTM or the big BMW, I agree with these guys who are saying get a smaller, lighter bike. If you're bumbling down a potholed dirt road in the middle of nowhere at 50 KPH and dump the bike, a 650 is a hell of a lot easier to pick up by yourself...

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Bruce Clarke - 2020 Yamaha XV250