Suddenly Ireland's almost over

Hard to know where the time has gone. We've been here nearly three weeks and in two days this part of the trip is over and it's off to the IoM for the bike races.

Is been a fantastic trip overall. The usual little trials and tribulations of two people traveling in close company and one big one when we managed to drop the bike whilst Megan was getting on to it. Unfortunately she ended up the bottom of the pile, with me and bike on her and consequently had a very sore and stiff leg and knee for the last two weeks. It's now being better but so slowing her down a bit - but she's taken it amazingly stoicly.

The trip itself has been predominantly a tour of the Irish coast heading clockwise from Rosslare where we landed to our current location of Derry. The only significant inland excursion was in the first few days of the trip, when we visited Glendalough, site of a seat of Irish learning in the 9th to 12th centuries, and more importantly for us the name of the farm in Australia that Megan (who is proudly of Irish descent) grew up on and has (until very recently) been in her family for several generations. A few pictures of Glendalough (including of a circular bell tower that are very typical all over southern Ireland) below.

Catch up photos

Just a few photos. For various reasons I haven't been able to be as organise with either my blogging or photography as I would have liked for this trip. You'll just have to accept that Ireland is an incredibly beautiful country and has wonderful scenery around most corners. The trouble is a lot of its panoramas which really don't photo well. Also whilst we've been reasonably lucky with the weather with only a few really wet days there have been a lot of overcast ones - which has also not helped the photo count.

The trips beginning

Well bike is successfully reassembled, and after a 500k test ride I'm reasonably happy it is running OK and is likely to be able to do a few thousand more over the next few weeks without too much risk of problems. Fingers all crossed as I write that.

More importantly my girlfriend Megan has arrived safely in UK. We spent a few days together in Bath and Swansea so she had a chance to get over jet lag and also to meet my family. In fact she got the full whammy of family in one go as both my sons are currently in the UK as well as my father, brothers and their families.

I have to admit some worry at the start of the trip. I don't normally carry a pillion even at home; here on a fully loaded bike is going to be an interesting learning experience. In also in awe of Megan being brave enough to choose to come on this trip with me, given she's only known me a few weeks.

Getting ready for Ireland

Suddenly late April is here and I'm back in the UK for another motorcycle ride. 

The main purpose of the trip is to rebuild the bike post its theft recovery and then give it an extended ride  to see if it's survived  well enough to do another longer trip later in the year. It's also an excuse for me to cross an item of my bucket list by going to Ireland and then on to the Isle of Man for the TT races.

This trip is also a bit different to the past in that I have a girlfriend and hence passenger with me.

The bikes been stolen!

Title says it all.  Woke up this morning ready to load the bike for the big off.  Repairs all complete nothing else left to do; world is good.  Looked out the window and there is the cover and my tank panniers on the ground complete with a cut chain but no bike; world is suddenly bad.

 I'm now over the shock and doing what I can to get it back - but the odds are long. I've contacted the local press and local radio has put a story on the hourly bulletin (thank you Swansea Sound) and that has led to one sighting in Swansea city centre (the Australian number plate is a give away) so there is some hope.  Also hoping the local evening paper will run the story and photo's tonight.

So if you are in Swansea area please keep a look out for the white, green and blue bike featured in this blog and last seen with an Australian number plate NSW 37.  it is also missing its windscreen as I have picked that up from the road near the house - presumably ripped off as they hot-wired it.

Part 2 starts - re-building the bike.

10th December 2011 I finished my last trip - Vladivostok to the UK - and I remember the mixed feelings of the day.  Elation, I had made it by motorcycle over twenty six thousand kilometres and five months of wonderful experiences, but depression - it was all over.  On that day somewhere in the rain in north Wales I made a pact to myself that it wasn't finished - that it was only the end of part one.  Well part two has now arrived and I've decided to head to north Africa for a couple of months.

To let this happen, and to also to allow for future parts 3, 4 where if all goes well I'll finish looping the world, over the past four months I have completely reorganized my life. I've resigned from my job, sold my family house and generally sorted things so most commitments keeping me in Australia are removed. All this has been helped a bit by both my sons, Jack and Duncan, also now being impacted by the wanderlust bug and being off traveling the world and generally doing their own thing (thanks boys!).

First task has been to reactivate my travel bike. After the last trip it had been left covered in my father's garden in the UK, but about a year ago during a brief work trip that took me to the UK I stripped it down and shipped the engine and frame back to Australia so I could rebuild a very tired engine and reactivate it's lapsed Australian  registration.

With the engine re-built and registration sorted out the bits were shipped back to the UK.

 

 

 

And then with the kindness of my father, whose car was evicted out of his garage to stand outside for a week in some very wintry Welsh weather the bike has been fully re-built and is now running beautifully.

 

 



 

 

My actual departure is about a week away since whilst the engine rebuild appears to have been successful the one part of the bike that hasn't survived the layup is the front brake - a perished hose making performance decidedly dodgy- a new one is due soon which should then make future rides less "interesting".

 

The plan originally was to do a full trans Africa, north to south trip, but a few issues many to do with my under-estimating the time and stress in selling the house and doing all the other preparations has made that difficult to achieve this, so now we have a modified two part plan: part 2A (this trip) should involve:

• A week or so of January 2014 looping parts of the UK to make sure the bike rebuild is truly successful and making sure I have brought all my gear.
• France, Spain (and maybe parts of Portugal) .
• Catching the ferry to Morocco for a bit of unstructured exploring.
• Return to UK late February or early March to layup the bike again for a few months
• Back to Australia for 3-5 months to sort out a few things and save some money
• Then Part 2B - a full trans Africa trip.

Hopefully this blog will be updated regularly during the trip so you'll be able to find out how I get along (the hopefully mainly refers to the fact that I am trying to do all this via a tablet rather than a laptop and it is proving a slightly trying learning experience).

 



All good things come to an end.

Last time I posted I was in middle England just about to start a round of visits to friends in Yorkshire; well that came and went and from there I moved on to North Wales to visit more friends - and then it was but a brief trip down to my final finishing spot at my fathers house in Swansea in South Wales.  Whilst I was looking forward to seeing him, finishing the trip was something I wanted to put off so instead of going directly there I managed to add in one or two extra days of sightseeing in Wales, which is the country I grew up in.  Now memories of Wales in my youth feature recollections of quaint towns and beautiful scenerery, unfortunately too often viewed through a veil of rain.  Well travelling in December brought both elements of those memories back!

[caption id="attachment_766" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Chester - and a brief burst of sunshine!  (And all is not as it seems, whilst Chester has some genuine Tudor timber framed buildings, most, including these, are Victorian pastiches - however it makes for a charming city centre) "][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_767" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="The beachfront promenadeat Rhyl (North Wales).  Damp is the word that comes to mind - once a thriving tourist town. December perhaps wasn't the best time to appreciate its charms."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_768" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Snowdonia National Park - beautiful but again damp (however since snow was scheduled for the next night I considered this a reasonable weather option)"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_770" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Brecon Beacons an area of glorious hills and mountains in mid-wales (and even better the suns out)"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_771" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Swansea Bay and The Mumbles Pier- the scene of most of my childhood. (Swansea has the second highest tidal rise and fall in the world - between 9 and 12 metres; this is low water, at high water all the foreground becomes sea.)"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_775" align="aligncenter" width="360" caption="Christmas dinner - with all the trimmings."][/caption]

Suddenly the trip is all over and its kind of depressing. Its great to see family and friends for Christmas but I've had such independence and such a fantastic time over the last five months and experienced so much friendship from people that it is a flat feeling now that its finished.

The question  always asked at the end of a trip like this is "what have you learnt?" and perhaps more insight-fully (as was done by one of my friends) "what have you learnt about yourself".  Neither are an easy  answer.  To the first I'd say more than anything it has taught me (or more truthfully reminded me of) just how good people are and how friendly and interesting the world is.  It is so easy to get caught up in your day to day to existence to forget this and to believe the world is a frightening place that has to be somehow controlled and corralled.  The reality is so different; the world is out there is waiting to welcome you with open arms and to give far so much more than it takes.  The second question is even harder to answer and I need more time to reflect on it than I have yet given it - but I do know it has reminded me how much I usually set my own limitations when in reality if I just get going there are very few things that can't be achieved.

[caption id="attachment_774" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="The bike - now cleaned, soaked in WD-40, wrapped and parked in my dad's garden. Ready for the next trip? (Alaska to Argentina sounds interesting)"][/caption]