through Europe, the Middle East and Africa on a 1955 Royal Enfield Bullet

The plan has been long in hatching and slow in execution. For the last couple of years we have talked about doing this trip but finally, with Sascha finishing studying and me reaching a point in my job where I was happy to have a change of scene, all has come together.

Dammit! Delays galore. Everyone says that in planning a trip such as this preparation takes a lot longer than you expect and they are not wrong... From packing everything up at home and cleaning it up to rent out to sorting out the paperwork and getting the bike in order all has guzzled up precious money and time away....

Here we are in Crete, finally on the road!

After a quick-ish ride down the back roads of France, Italy and Switzerland a ferry has taken us to Greece where the pace has slowed to the way it should be, the sun is shining like it should and all is well with the world.

Finally we are in Turkey and it feels like we are some distance from home. Having only intended to spend a week or so in Greece we ended up being there for five.

Success on getting the Syrian visa has sealed our route for the next couple of months. A brief burst of energy from our previous tortoise pace of travel has seen us arrive in Antakya, the closest Turkish city to the Syrian border. Perhaps causal to this change of pace has been a change in the weather. Hanging around enjoying some winter sun hasn`t really been on the cards for the last couple of weeks and we`ve had a couple of right royal soakings on the bike in recent days.

We've seen a number of high and low points the last month.

Entering Syria the scenery underwent a dramatic change from Turkey. The mountains became hills and the bike was grateful to be pulling us along flat roads after day after day of mountain bashing. The joy of flat roads seemed to provoke machine culture shock and it responded by breaking down. More of this anon....

Another slow ride to bed in our new piston saw us cross the border from Syria to Jordan and arrive in Amman late afternoon. Riding from one capital city to another in one day was pretty stressful and gave plenty of opportunity for map reading arguments. If anyone is wandering whether spending so much time on the road covering unfamiliar territory means a couple has less map-reading related discussions think again. At times it's like Sunday outing after Sunday outing.

Africa at last after four months on the road! Or so we thought when arriving in to Nuweiba in Egypt from Aqaba in Jordan. Apparently not so, the Sinai is still the Middle East. As the cliche goes, it's not a race. Just as well too for us..

We crash, we burn but we make it to Khartoum. A quick travelog of the journey and info for anyone going the same way.Arrived in Khartoum yesterday. After 400kms of desert road and 600kms off road in temperatures up to 50 degrees rarely have we been so happy to arrive somewhere! Not that the journey was so bad, just hard hard work and unrelenting heat. Plus after a week out in the desert the thought of a shower was a very nice one...

More ups and downs. We go to a Sudanese free-party. Sascha communes with baboons and finally we are out of the desert after four months of frying. Ethiopia is quirky and wonderful.Fantastic as Sudan was in many ways, Ethiopia had been looming in front of us drawing us in as moths to the light with its promises of verdant pastures and cool mountain air.

The latest blog entry from Addis Ababa and we muse on issues of street kids, fret over strange rattles from the Bullet and get ready to ride down to Nairobi.Little mileage has passed under the Bullet's wheels since the last blog entry. Just a two day ride since the last entry in Bahir Dar. Despite the little distance Addis is however a world apart. An immediate first impression is that there is a lot more money here than in the provinces.

Riding from Addis to Kenya we experience the rains and parched desert within a couple of days of each other. We sample qat chewing and encounter lots of blokes with big spears.After spending nearly a fortnight in Addis we were happy to leave. Not that it was bad there at all, though the sagging mattresses in our hotel and increased incursions by the bed bugs was beginning to get a bit wearing.

Hippos and ugly birds. A quick jaunt through Tanzania and idleness on the shores of Lake Malawi.The Nairobi broken frame saga made us stay longer than planned. The stay was made comfortable and directions given to the best repair shops by Chris at Jungle Junction, who also allowed me to bodge weld up the errant pannier frames and generally abuse his workshop for free. So we can't really thank him enough for that.

Pop goes the Enfield. An express trip to Johannesburg. New wheels from pedal power to four. 15,000 topless maidens and much time in the workshop.The day we left the shores of Lake Malawi was one of those days. Our first ride on the bike for over three weeks after the dive course and lengthy relax by the Lake and within 50 kilometers we were stopped at the side of the road with a broken throttle cable. No problems we had a spare. Except the spare packed was for the wrong bike. Very clever. Several bodges were attempted to fix the thing but none lasted longer than a few miles.

The Bullet rolls again. And rattles. And smokes. I've become an unpaid bike mechanic and journalist and if I stay any longer I'll be applying for residency in Joburg. About to head up North to say Good Day to Bob in Zim.Quite frankly there's not been a great deal in the way of exciting travel stories since the last instalment. It almost feels as if I've become a Johannesburg resident. But we all want to be remembered so just as I'm about to hit the road again here are a few pictures and a what's been happening and what will hopefully happen in the near future.

Back up in Malawi again. On the way encounters with Rhinos. Another place that looks like Scotland. Zimbabwe proves to be an unexpected highlight. I've made the journey back up to Lilongwe in 7 days of riding with one day relaxing in the middle at Great Zimbabwe.

Sheepy RIP. Two boat trips. Raising awareness in Africa about oil spills.By the standards of the pace we have kept during this trip a huge number of miles have passed beneath the wheels of the Bullet in a very short time since the last entry.

There's been some tough roads since leaving Lilongwe. If I'm honest tougher than expected. I didn't really bite off more than I could chew, just that leaving Lilongwe my appetite wasn't quite that hearty.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!
Visa hassles.

Wedding bells. Into Namibia and heading North. Lots of dirt!Seems strange to think that it is now 2008 and we left home back in 2006. It's now been 14 months, 19 countries and 25,000 odd kms on the bike.

I'd like to say that I am now well into the journey home but I've got as far as Namibia and seem to be held up....

In Angola. The worst and the best roads in Africa. Imagine Cuba if it had just been through 20 odd years of civil war and your close.... But great people and it´s all character building stuff as they say!A 3 day palm blistering marathon ride through Angola and I´m in the capital Luanda. All those `land of contrasts` cliches apply here more than anywhere. It has the worst roads I´ve encountered in Africa and the best. Terrible poverty and incredible wealth.