POLAND: July2006
Dzien dobry from Poland!
Since we 'talked' to you last we have travelled many miles and met many wonderful people, mainly Horizons Unlimited community members that have done some amazing motorcycle trips around the world- what a great family the HU members are!
We met Pam and Andrew Rorke in Vienna and walked all over, saw it all in one day and then drove to a lovely pension on the Danube River Valley. Back to see Angelique Hochlahner in Rottenmann who took us trekking up the biggest mountain in the area- 2.5 hours to an Austrian means 2.5 hours up and 2.5 hours down!! Be careful of those crazy Austrians, especially the women motorcycle riders!!
Exhausted we travelled west towards Ralf and Caroline Kobler, who we met in Cairns as they had dinner at our house one night 5 years ago and told us about their trip, this was before we started this travelling thing!! We had a great time catching up with them and Pat intensified his search for an immaculate Super Tenere to ship home.
Next stop was Switzerland to see our good friends Damaris and Mika Khun, who we have met up in many places around the world as part of his 6.5 year world tour by Yamaha XT 600. We had a great time checking out the Swiss Alps and even went bumming down the Bern river. We also caught up with Annamarie Minchau who is now living near Lucern and had a great night with her. We loved Switzerland, but it was very expensive, luckily we knew lots of people to stay with there.
Germany to buy a Super tenere was our next priority and we bought the first one we saw there, after all this time looking!! It is in immaculate condition, the same colour as Miss Adventure II, with only 20,000km and it was a good buy (of course) at E2,800. We bought the bike near Stuttgart and it was smooth sailing thanks to the amazing help of Kerstin Gackle and Volkner Aldinger, other travelling bikers! The bike is now (hopefully) on its way back to Australia where it will be our reserve bike when this one is too tired! After a great week with Kirsten and Volker, we were there for the last 2 world cup games and had a dinner party every night, it was time to hit the road again. Kirsten commented to a work mate that Belinda had kicked her out of her kitchen and she was going to miss all the Thai food!!
We then checked out Nuremberg, which is a really pretty German town and saw a few Hitler museums there, then over to Czech Republic. First stop was gorgeous Cesky Kumlov "one of the most picturesque towns in Europe", with its stunning castle and cobblestone streets and the white water river winding around it. Of course, we did a 1/2 day canoeing trip and stayed upright until the last big rapid!!
Karlstejn Castle and Prague were next on the rough agenda and we had an exhausting day in Prague as a heat wave hit Europe and it was around 35 deg C!!
Now we are near Katowice in Poland staying with Jo, rEkiny and Chris after visting Wroclaw and Krakow. Man, do these people have some energy, it has been non stop since we arrived. Yesterday we went rock climbing, abseiling and caving and in the evening we did a presentation to their local motorbike club (which was great fun.)
We are now half way though this trip and finally starting to head south east back towards Turkey and Greece, where we will store the motorbike in November. We are having the time of our lives and we hope all of your dreams are coming true, too.