Its been 12 months of planning. Meeting every 2 weeks for a coffee & discussion on where, how & when to do an overseas bike adventure.Background
The original plan was to do a trip through southern and east Africa linking up with a group from Te Awamutu Bible Chapel that were going to be in Zambia helping with a building project for a mission school in Jan '08.

January is the rainy season in Africa hence not a great time to be getting out of our comfort zone on a bike.

We then agreed to knock Australia off first. Not wanting to underestimate doing a lap of the main island but we have been calling it the warm up. We figured it was close, being just across the ditch from NZ. The launguage was almost the same. It was a 1st world country and parts shouldn't be too hard to find. Who are we?
The original party was Henk "& the bean stalk " van Halem and Colin Jackson. Henk and Colin have been riding road bikes together for a few years (Henk - Triumph Sprint 955 and Colin - Honda VFR800) mainly interested in challenging rides e.g. Rusty Nuts Grand Challenge - 1000miles in 24 hours & Rusty Nuts Southern Cross - covers the western, northern, eastern and southern most points of NZ in 4 days.

VFR Max, another VFR rider was keen to join us until he picked up a Handbrake (girlfriend) and priorities changed.

Mike "Snowman" Cosgrove joined the group having just completed climbing significant peaks on 7 continents and was looking for a different adventure. Mike rides one of those Bandity things.

Robin "fertility consultant" Boom heard about our plans and was keen to join us to fulfill a long held ambition of riding a bike around Oz. Robin rides a HD Street Bob and several older bikes - BSA etc. Just in case you were wondering Robin isn't actually a Gynecologist but a soil fertility and animal health consultant.

Planning
Planning for this ride has been helped hugely by the HU website and HU community. The HU mini meeting that Henk & Colin rode down to at Arthur's Pass in Feb this year was truly inspirational.

Meeting Ian Coates (RTW on Africa Twin since 1999) and having Ian stay with Colin for 4 months was also a huge inspiration.

Bikes
After considering all the options of hiring, buyback, taking our road bikes from NZ, and purchasing bikes either in NZ or Oz we came up with the following. Henk & Mike bought ex rental '04 Honda 650 Transalps in Sydney. Colin ordered a new '08 Honda 700 Transalp due in Feb. Delays on delivery forced Colin to cancel the 700 Transalp order and buy a '03 Transalp from a dealer near Sydney. Robin is the real deal Harley Boy to the core and is flying his '07 Street Bob to Sydney.