The Count-Down Is Go Houston!

For the last 6 months I have been saying the phrase “I’m gonna ride my bike around the world”! Now I realize that this is not a sentence that usually makes into a dinner party conversation, but it has mine. I have said it so many times to our old tapas bar customers that somewhere along the way it lost currency. As the words formed in my mouth they somehow separated from meaning, kind of like ‘how are you’. We don’t really care how they are doing and if we get a long-winded monologue on Aunty Sally’s cats fungal infection we rarely think to ourselves ‘well, I did ask’. And so it is for me here now.

But something changed for me yesterday, a switch was flicked and I’m almost certain the people sitting around me in the café thought my medication was failing. Surrounded by the hordes of mediocrity and consumerism that is the smell of a sterile Australian shopping centre, there I sat and wrote those exact words in my freshly purchased journal. Then it occurred to me, in 2 weeks I am going to head east and then, should the gods smile upon me, in three years’ time I will return from the west. I have no worldly reason nor desire to purchase anything from the home-maker centre. Nor the clothes shop, the phone shop or the electronics department. In fact if I can't put it in my fuel tank or mouth, I don’t want it. A reduction of needs to Maslows lowest level (food and shelter) while having a foot firmly planted in the highest (self actualization). I’m skipping the crap in the middle that inflates credit cards, suppresses with mortgages and puts ‘image’ on the essential rack. This is freedom, and finally it has dawned upon me. 

So here I am, sitting in an airport lounge using the free wi-fi and making my one cup of over-priced, weak coffee last two hours. We are on our way to Adelaide to say a few goodbyes then back to Brisbane for the final pack and crate the bike for shipping. The countdown is really on now and we couldn’t feel more ready for the adventure!

From the Road…..

DAY ONE, or maybe day half!

What’s the saying, the best laid plans of mice and men…. ? The plan was to show the birds how to catch worms and even a self-induced ‘one wine only’ night was had the day before. However the law is anal. It is fastidious and frustrating and when selling a business and a house it is also necessary to get right when you are about to head around the world.

But a quick backtrack to the early morning spent packing. It should have been a rapid fire, throw it all in the panniers and start the motor gig. But I have lived in this house longer than I have live anywhere apart from my childhood home. I have sweated, bled and swore at its renovations. I have seen a dream come to life to morph a run-down piece of shit into a stunning home that sold within 2 days of being on the market. So when the time came I suppose I took my time knowing that everything I did here would have a level of finality that I hadn’t quite prepared myself for. So it took longer than it should have.

A quick trip to the bank was in order to sort out the mortgage. No I don’t mean a withdrawal at gun-point but the never-ending documents that needed to be signed. Then a chance phone call came in and my plans to depart evaporated like the morning dew that heralded the very hot day ahead. Back to the solicitors office, sign here, triplicate there, email this, call that. Then, suddenly, I was on the road. Wow. To say that the cares and worries melted away like the new rubber from my wheels would be nothing short of romantic. Phone calls kept coming in needing to be addressed. At least I was away!

Skip forward to now, sitting here in some non-descript pub somewhere south from where I started. A day of 38 degrees C and 450kms behind me and I feel great. It’s not the beer talking, a strict limit of two a night currently enforced (getting out of the sleeping bag to pee is simply not worth it, a clear sign I am getting older/wiser/like my dad!). The bike has performed faultlessly. Sitting on around 105-110km/h with plenty in reserve for passing, sounding a beautiful note that only bikers can appreciate and rock solid over the bumps and through the corners even loaded like a fat pig. But the days of trials for the bike are ahead. The corrugated roads, muds pistes, murderous topes, the list goes on. But we are bonding and tonight my shelter is strapped to the handlebars, slowly we are becoming rider and bike, the journey has only just begun.

Until next time…. Mark

Now it's Personal!

Sure, we tell family, we boast to friends and wax lyrical to our old customers. But, well ...... now we are on TV! Now it's REAL! Sure, once you spend $10,000 on a motorbike, another $4000 on the necessary equipment you would be thinking to yourself, "hey, I'm gonna do this". But somewhere deep down there's another voice saying "yea, right, YOU, ride around the world, keep dreamin".

It's the same voice that stops us from uncovering our true dreams and following them.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm as cynical as the next fellow. Don't believe what you read. Propaganda and all that. But now WE are on the idiot box (please don't make any assumptions here) so it MUST be real. While it was playing on the nightly news we had the real estate photographer here doing her thing. And I think she was quite impressed, maybe I heard her call me 'sir' after that but I'm sure Carlie would have a different recollection of things. In the cold light of morning, and once again watching the video, we now call each other 'adventurers', I'm "A1" and Carlie is "A2" - hey, I'm the one doing all the steering.

Thanks Matt from WINTV for doing such a great job. He and Namok have become friends just as we are leaving, it's always the way. I'm sure they will be out there before long on their own adventure.

Until next time ........