All photos related to this blog entry can be found at Grant & Julie

This blog entry is written after we have been travelling for a year and in two halves. One from each of us. Blabbering by Jules

It feels as if the Gods have flicked a switch and turned Spring on in fine form. Five days of rain and foggy mist was followed by five days of howling icy wind has suddenly turned into bright clear blue skies and 26 degrees C.

From our terrace we look over the citrus and olive groves of the La Axarquia region of Andalusia. This region is famous since the times of Moorish occupation for its olives and almonds. Standing on the hill overlooking the valley and across Lake Viñuela to the Mediterranean Sea are the remnants of an old castle, crumbled into disrepair with only a section of wall and turrets left standing.

It is here, overlooking this scene, that we sit and take our meals or an afternoon cocktail, listen to the birds busy themselves with their spring chores and the constant cluck and crow of the chickens allowed to roam the avocado trees, we watch the goat herder bring his herd down from pasture and the day fade into evening. The warm weather and gentle afternoon breeze brings with it the sweet heady scent of orange blossom from the trees below our veranda and the promise of summer.

Such idyll surrounds leads to contemplation and reflection of the past year of travel.

We left Cairns on the 13th of March and Australia for England on the 1st of May 2014. We have visited eleven countries and with the bike have traversed approximately 30,000 kilometres.

We have had the opportunity to reunite with many of our friends that we had met on our 2005 – 2008 Americas/African jaunt. To meet these people again has been a true joy and brought us much happiness.

We are so grateful for everyone's hospitality. Hanka, Erik, Mika and Liam for letting us tent in their back yard. Peter who gave us his spare room. Bonny, Mike, Matthew and Duncan put up with us sleeping on their lounge room floor for weeks on end. Kelly who gave us her spare room and showed us round her Edinburgh. Emma, Hamish, Sam and Isla let us sleep in there caravan in their yard for a month. Anne, Fred, Isidore and Malou let us bunkdown in their farmhouse while their family was visiting for the school holidays. Mary, Mattias, Julian, Holgar and Martine welcomed us so warmly and Marcel and Karin opened their home to us for a flying visit. We will treasure these times and they are real highlights of our trip.

New friends we have met and hope will remain with us. Hanging with Tiffany at Lands End was fun. Dinner with Astrid, Sebastian Laura, Lucas and Salma was a memorable evening. Hanging out in Tunisia with Marko and Paola was a blast. A week in Pompeii was made more enjoyable with the company of Chris. Paris would not have been the same if it was not for Pasquale loaning us his spare bedroom and cooking us a feast.

We have been to some of the most iconic symbols of each country we have visited such as Stone Henge in the UK, The Eifel Tower in France, Pompeii in Italy, The Alcazar in Spain and the Tower of Belem in Portugal. That being said we have been to some lesser known and off the beaten track including Ksar Ghillane in Tunisia, Gallipoli in Italy and Lagos in Portugal.

We have had the opportunity to house sit on several occasions which has given us a nice base, the opportunity to catch up on jobs, explore an area and participate in life, plot and scheme the next phase of our journey and meet some great people and their pets. House sitting has helped us to be kind to our budget and allowed us to save for some of the more expensive on the road purchases like heated bike wear and motorcycle parts (tyres etc).

On top of all that I would like to make a special thanks to my sister Rebecca who looks after our paperwork back in Australia. She is a champion and we love her very much and are eternally grateful for the work she does as we swan about.

To our friends and family who have offered support and encouragement - Betty Rose, Weston and Colleen Cook (and everyone else) – thank you.

Europe has been wonderful. It is quite a different way of travelling than we have been used to. I often long for the wide open spaces, natural vastness and solitude of riding in the Americas and wonder why we are here in the built up hubbub of this continent. That being there is so much history and antiquity built into everyday life in Europe that it is an experience on its own.

We will be off to Morocco very soon, so that will be yet another experience. Planning our journey for the following 12 months has been exciting and interesting, there are so many options we need to settle on one direction and go from there. Our plan has been to undertake the traditional 'Overland' route to Australia via Iran, Pakistan, India etc but the Silk Road through the 'Stans’ also seems like an interesting option too, especially as we have been reading about it in a bike magazine of late.

We have some important decision to make and each day a new opportunity arises, guess we just need to make sure we open the door when it knocks.

Notes from Grant

It has been 12 months since leaving Australia and longer since actually being on the road, it feels good and hopefully our plans to ride back to Australia will come to fruition.

We have had a wonderful time all round with visiting Tunisia being the best travel experience and visiting long missed travel friends our emotional highlight.

There have been ups and downs as is usual and we have lost our way far too many times in Europe so with that we have decided to purchase a GPS although we have been using Google maps on the iPad, but without internet connection all the time exact location gets pretty vague. So after years of proudly gloating the fact that we have travelled so extensively without said devices and feigning any attempt to be swayed otherwise Europe has broken us.

We have been most fortunate to have spent the majority of the winter in the south of Europe or in North Africa and even with heated clothing the north would have been difficult on a motorcycle, (something to do with us being tropical bunnies now we suppose).

Along the way we have purchased several new motorcycle items and as well as items we left with here is a short appraisal of such, (we have no sponsorship from anyone so these appraisals are purely our own and for those of you who wish to know what kit we are using).

- RXT DUO TECH HELMETS. Jules had one of these in an earlier model and it proved quite a good unit, particularly as it outlasted a Shoei that was priced at four times as much. For a cheap helmet they are reasonably comfortable with no more wind noise produced than many a more expensive flip up helmet. The flip up action is a little noisy and the latch not so easy to use however not a bad helmet considering how they are being used.

- SCALA RIDER TEAM SET PRO INTERCOM SYSTEM. This system seems quite reliable and durable and not knowing much about the systems was a good entry level item. They are an easy system to use for pillion to rider communication though at highway speeds they are not quite loud enough. That being said being deaf in one ear does not help the cause. They are easy to charge (we have 12volt and utility charging systems) and will hold power for a good two days of riding, that’s about 16 hours. Apart from the highway speed thing the only other complaint that comes to mind is that the microphone arm seems a little loose into the body of the system and hence I have had to strengthen mine with a piece of hose and cable ties so it doesn’t move away from my mouth in strong winds, Julies seems to be better and maybe it is because I have such a loud mouth!

- GERBING HEATED JACKET, GLOVES AND SOCKS (Clarification: These are the Gerbings from Holland NOT from the USA – there is apparently a huge difference – so we found out when contacting the USA regarding an issue). We bought these items in the UK with the fear of succumbing to the almighty European winter hanging over our heads. First of all I will get the main negative out of the way and that is that for the price, (they are expensive) the quality and long term durability of the clothing seems a bit limited. Gerbing put a lifetime warranty on their wiring, which is good however with some stitching breaking away on the jacket and the gloves I’m not sure it matters. This is after less than a year of use. So after that said the items are quite a unique experience. Cruising through the mountains with the temperature around 5 degrees centigrade, everything switched on and it’s like having your on electric blanket. Just great and a real fatigue beater when the weather turns foul. We are true converts to this type of clothing and relish the thought of many cold winter rides anywhere we may be in the world.

- COLLINS AQUA MESH RIDING JACKETS. These jackets were cheap to buy and that said the old saying that you only get what you pay for is true. We purchased said items in Cairns and whilst they have proved very good warm weather units, they are let down by poor ergonomics, they aren’t particularly comfortable, the pockets are ludicrously small and in impractical positions. The water proof zip in liners have never been waterproof, I mean not at all. The zips don’t zip very well in fact several broke before we left Aus. We could have done better and perhaps should have waited and we arrived in Europe. Nevertheless we have overcome some of the deficiencies and they are doing okay. The upside to these jackets is that they are very light and quite compact and what that means is that when the weather does get hideously warm you don’t have jacket liners and such hanging of the bike everywhere. We did research some of the new adventure jackets earlier on and honestly they weigh a ton and would be a difficult storage prospect for two up riding in all sorts of conditions.

- PROOF ULTIMATE WEATHER PROTECTION WET JACKETS. The only reason we bought these in Austria was because the Collins waterproof liners weren’t and it was raining buckets and we were soaked to the skin. They were not expensive and with bright yellow stripe decoration and excellent waterproofing are proving quite adequate for the job. They are well made and durable and we would buy them again given the need.

- MOTODRY WET PANTS. Very comfortable plastic woven pants that are well made and not expensive, and like all plastic clothing like being in a sauna as soon as the weather warms.

- ENGELBERT STRAUSE WORK BOOTS purchased in Germany, we bought these because there is very little out there in the way of practical motorcycle boots that you can use for hiking and general footwear. Okay if you are solo with plenty of room on the bike but not when carrying a pillion you need multifunctional everything otherwise pull a trailer, not something I’m keen on. Anyway they are proving to be good solid waterproof items with adequate ankle protection and excellent comfort in most riding conditions, we like them! Also they are great for walking in. We have trooped about all day over all sorts of terrain in comfort.

- IRWIN WORK SAFETY BACK BRACE, we bought these in Australia from a hardware store and after removing all the excess straps and braces the remaining elasticised belts make excellent kidney/back supports that appear so far to be lasting better than the motorcycling equivalent that are more expensive and not as comfortable. They give excellent back support and warmth and rarely do we find ourselves with aching backs even after the longest of rides.

- 2010 DL 1000 SUZUKI VSTROM Everything that can be said by myself (on a personal level anyway), has been reported at length, probably ad nauseum, in previous blog so I won’t bore anyone except that we still love the thing and it just seems to do everything reasonably well at a reasonable price. You cannot buy them new anymore but the new 2014 V-STROM 1000 ABS is a complete update from the old model looks terribly appealing. Well I’m learning as we go more and more about our V-Strom so here is a small story that will make our time together easier.

The bike had been missing and running poorly at low revs for some time. Grant knew the issue was the throttle valves were now out of synchronisation. We needed some vacuum gauges and Bernadette drove us into the local town of Iznajar for a cursory find of the post office, hospital, cemetery (we must have looked rough) and motorcycle mechanic.

After walking about the incredibly steep streets of the town we visited the mechanic. With the best Spanish we could muster we eventually made it clear that the throttle valves needed adjusting. Because it was just before Christmas and he was very busy the mechanic could not attend to Crumpet before the middle of January.

We asked if it was possible to borrow his gauges to check and adjust the throttle valves out on the foot path. His reply was that he was happy to loan us the gauges but we could not do the work outside his shop. Something to do with the town inspectors fining the business! In many Latin American Countries it was almost standard practice to work on the motorcycle on a footpath or hotel car-park or reception or any convenient place for that matter. Well this was not Latin America and rules are rules and not being able to procure the instrument for another four weeks over the Christmas break Grant decided to come up with an alternative way of doing said job, though we were very appreciative of the offer.

Grant had pieced together a type of gauge viewed on the inter-web in Australia to do the same job on Piggy. It required a piece of clear plastic tube the same diameter as the vacuum nipples of the throttle bodies filled partially with two stroke oil and mounted on a board. By setting the level of the fluid at the same distance from each throttle valve you are able to run the motor at idle and correct the synchronisation according to whether the fluid rose or fell, eventually having the fluid level on the gauge at the correct idle speed.

It sounds complicated however it is dead simple and it has proved partially successful at doing the job except that the fluid rose and fell alarmingly at the slightest throttle adjustment. Grant concluded that perhaps a larger diameter tube would be less responsive to adjustment and therefore easier to work with found what turned out what to be just the right size of tube at the Ferreteria (hardware store) and purchased a small amount of two stroke oil put together the device and with Jules help performed the job on Crumpet. It worked really well and the bike is running like new again.