The Elephant's Travels 2007 - 2008

Moving north from Greece into Bulgaria, Mike and Jo find the weather cooler and wetter but discover another interesting country.31 Mar – 6 Apr 08
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A trip to the Bulgarian Black Sea coast does not impress Mike and Jo with the state of development.7 – 9 April 08
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We had planned to spend two days in the Bulgarian centre of Plovdiv, but early on the second day it started raining and kept raining for the next 48 hours. Despite a hotel room slightly smaller than a shoebox, we settled in to watch cable TV, read and wait. We ventured down to the bar only for beer and braved the weather outside only to eat.
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Apart from the changeable spring weather, Mike and Jo find Romania a clean and comfortable place to journey.10 to 19 Apr 08
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Communicating is always a problem but it never interferes with getting fed or finding a bed.Communicating is always a problem for the independent traveller. It is not that the lack of language skills stops the traveller getting fed or finding a bed. Far from it, most of the basic things in life are simple transactions. If you walk into a hotel it is reasonably obvious that you are after a room, a fact that you can confirm with a single word: room, zimmer, camere or whatever.

Romania left the impression of a country struggling to overcome the legacy of Soviet domination.20 – 23 Apr 08
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We ended our track across Romania at the rust-belt town of Hunedoara in the west of Transylvania. We had come there to see Hunyad Castle, a medieval pile started in 1409 with major extensions about 1446, but stayed because there was a good hotel and it seemed like a nice enough little town.
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More dramas with Russian Visas don't dampen Mike and Jo's spirits as they spend a weekend with their daughter Sarah and her husband Mike Green in Budapest.24 April to 3 May 08

We have found that the best way to cross into a new country is to avoid moving straight from the border to the major city. Instead, we select a medium sized place that is within one hour’s ride from the border. We then concentrate on getting into town by mid-day with plenty of time to find accommodation and figure out how things are done in the new society.

After escaping from tourist central in Budapest, Mike and Jo head for the rural south of Hungary5 to 11 May 08

Our arm wrestle over a Russian visa dragged on into another week and consumed more of our days. By Wednesday our plan had solidified and our passports were dispatched back to Canberra with a courier company. This was no cause for celebration, however, as we are still not entirely sure that the Russian Embassy in Australia will give us the visa.

Mike ad Jo get their Russian Visas and soet a serious problem with their computer.19 to 22 May 08

Our son Nick did a great job with the Russian Consul in Canberra and had our passports back with the courier within two days of their arrival in Canberra. With luck we would have them in Budapest by Tuesday 20 May leaving us a full 10 days to cover the 2000km north to the Russian border in Latvia to stay on our schedule.

With some time to spare, Mike and Jo head off to find out about Hungarian public art,12 to 18 May 08

With a week still to fill in while we waited for our Australian passports to go to Canberra and return to Budapest, we decided to look at some specific aspects of Hungarian life.

We have seen a lot of public art during our travels ranging from round-about sculpture to massive, and generally dry, water parks. Some of it has been wonderful, some of it quirky or humorous and much of it banal.

Riding north to Russia with their newly acquired visas, Mike and Jo take a few days to explore the Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.25 to 31 may 08

A few days in St Petersburg allow Mike and Jo to get a feel for the Russian West and to recall what the word expensive means.31 May to 5 June 08

Mike and Jo find a lot to like about MoscowMoscow!

Moscow! What can we say?

Well, quite a lot actually, starting with our stop at the town of Velikiy Novgorod on the way there from St Pete.

Mike and Jo have a bad start to their cross- Russia ride that sets them back two days and 1000 km, but they make some interestng new friends on the way!10 to 12 June 08

We bolted out of Moscow on 10 June having calculated that this was the last day to leave to make a comfortable run to the Mongolian border 6000 km away if we intended to stay on our schedule. We navigated out of the Moscow megopolis with relative ease and headed east towards the industrial town of Nizhniy Novgorod 450 km away. This was to be our first overnight.

5000 km east of Moscow, Mike and Jo draw breath to consider their transit of Siberia.12 to 22 Jun 08

Rain washes away a visit to Lake Baikal, but Mike and Jo manage to service Elephant and fit new tyres before heading to Mongolia.22 June to 29 June 2008

A little civil unrest puts a dampener on a visit to Mongolia.29 June to 4 July 08

Closing up on the Mongolian frontier the day before we crossed allowed us to be second in line when the gates opened. We were feeling confident that we would be through and on our way to Ulaanbaatar in an hour at the most.

Elephant destroys a rear tyre in 200km on the gravel roads between Chita and Khabarovsk.5 July to 11 Jul 08

Chita to Khabarovsk is a distance of 2150km. Not much in this vast land. Of this, a few hundred are a bituminous surface varying from “good”to pot-hole alley. The remainder, about 1800km, is unsealed. To be more technically correct, the “remainder” is under construction. To put that in perspective, that is a construction site stretching from Brisbane to Melbourne. In the land of giants, even the construction sites are epic.

Team Elephant gets into Vladivostok in one piece and starts to plan the next move.13 to 22 Jul 08

The last leg of our 12,000km journey across Russia was a mere 780km of reasonable road between Khabarovsk and Vladivostok. Under other circumstances we would have made the distance a day's run but Elephant's rear tyre had been almost destroyed in the 2000km from Chita to Khabarovsk. Fissures had opened up in the casing and too much more abuse would see it fail. We decided to take a slow, two day trip down and to look for new tyres in Vlad.

OverviewThis is the travel blog of Mike and Jo Hannan. We are an Australian couple from the Gold Coast which is located 1000 km north of Sydney on Australia's east coast.

In August 2007 we boarded a plane in Brisbane with a one-way ticket to London. A few days later we collected our BMW 1150 GS motorcycle from a depot in Wembley, filled the tank with fuel and started to ride. This blog is our story about what happened next as we journeyed through more than 20 countries in Western Europe, North Africa, Eastern Europe, Russia and Asia.

The adventure ends in Korea when Elephant gets packed in a crate to be shipped home.24 July to 4 August 2008

We had an easy week in Vladivostok working out our next move, eating well and catching up with other travelers. It didn't take us long to work out that shipping a bike out of Russia was going to be hard work and that our best bet for a successful departure would be for Team Elephant to all go out together. We decided to catch the Dong Chun Ferry from Zarubino to Sokcho, Korea, on Monday 21 Jul.