On April 6th 2005 we set off from England on our 1150GS and began our trip back to Australia via Europe, the Middle East and Asia. We´re doing our best to live the dream.

For the six months prior we have been flat out planning: studying maps which cover our walls; debating trip plans - "will it be too cold then?","isn't there a war going on there?", "will they let the bike through?", "but aren't there French people in France?"; filling in copious amounts of forms;spending hours on the net; and due to the red tape and boring bits, at times almost forgetting the actual travel and experiencing other cultures part of it all. It's a 9 month adventure but at times the preparation was really hard work and we resorted to burying our heads in the sand.

At the end of the day though its all about discovering new places and experiencing new things. The real excitement will be at the border crossings, travelling through Russia, the Baltic states, the Middle East and India. Although we are certainly not the first people to travel these countries by bike, many of the areas we are going to are without things that we take for granted in the western world. Things like motorways, McDonalds and decent hotels are what we have come to expect travelling in the UK but hopefully our travels will be better without such comforts.

We have a list of countries we'd like to visit (basically everywhere!) but with limited time and constant change in foreign affairs which rule out certain areas our plan is never set in stone. We have a proposed route but even as we travel this will change and for us it's this unknown which makes things even more exciting.