A Travel Story by Belinda and Patrick Peck
Its time for the Peck camp to hit the road again after 10 months of working hard in Cairns, Australia and saving madly for the next trip!
Africa has been calling Pat for sometime now, so hang onto your seats and off we go!
We are finally in Dubai, where we left off last time! We will pick up Miss Adventure II and head south down through Oman, Yemen, into Ethiopia and south to South Africa. In May we will fly up to Amsterdam to meet Bins Dad to celebrate his 70th birthday in style doing a canal boat cruise to Budapest for 14 days, then...who knows!? Maybe, do another cruise around Europe by boat or bike!
Pat picked up dengue fever while sailing on our friends yacht in the Phillipines last week and is now recuperating and building his strength back up for the next leg of our adventure.
We thank our Dubai hosts Katharine and Shawn McWeeny who invited us to stay in their high rise unit overlooking the famous reclaimed Palm Island and magnificent beaches below them. They escorted us to the nicest and biggest Mosque we have seen yet as well as to incredibly huge shopping centres, but alas we could only look as our panniers were full to exploding. Our other hosts were Dave and Lynne Mollenhauer who graciously stored our precious Miss Adventure II til we returned from Australia and a big thank you to HU member Dave Midwater who also stored our bike for awhile.
Salem from Ethiopia! When we travel we dont do too much research, so when we arrive in a new country we have no expectations and are always amazed with what we see. When we thought of Ethiopia we thought of poverty and starvation. This is certainly true, but the Ethiopians are a very proud, well dressed race (those that can afford to be), extremely friendly and the country is a very safe travel destination. A lot of the village kids were so poor they had tatters of clothes or no clothes at all, whereas the business people in Addis were very fashion conscious!
Sorry this has taken so long, we have been busy dodging storms in Central Africa! When we last posted we were on our way back to Zanzibar to pick up Miss Adventure II from the ship from Oman. We went directly to the shipping agent in Zanzibar and he didnt know anything about our motorbike coming from Oman and it wasnt on the ship that had just arrived!! The agent, Leo Colaca was still not answering his phone or email! After 4 DAYS of pushing we finally found out it was still in Oman and would not get there for ANOTHER 30 DAYS!! We were forced to relax in Zanzibar!
We have made it to South Africa, home of the friendliest people in the world!
Quick update! We are now in Romania with our wonderful friends Csilla and Oli and little Dominik (2 years old) Schul. We have bought 50% share in their Super Tenere and Pat is now putting on a Scottoiler and converting her to Miss Adventure III. We now have a Super Tenere in 3 continents in the world- we are getting close to Pats goal!!
We left our beloved Miss Adventure II tucked up nicely for South Africas winter with our great friends Dries and Erica Van Schalkwyk in Potchefstroom, near Joberg, South Africa.
Peck's going troppo on Zanzibar spice tour!
Loading up Miss Adventure II on ship from Oman to Zanzibar!
Wonderful Ethiopians, such poverty, yet so warm and happy!
Pat on an ATV in Groote Island, Australia
Pat and Murray on hired bikes in the Philipines.
Pat on Miss Adventure II in Oman
Introducing Miss Adventure III that usually resides in Romania! note the flooded Danube River in Hungary in the background.
Brand new Super tenere XT1200Z we took for a test ride in Vienna.
Hanka and Erica riding Miss Adventure III at their place close to Vienna.
This is a list of our luggage- we need ALL of this, we dont leave any out or bring any extra, as there simply will not be any room.
Some of this you will not have, so you will need to buy it from a good outdoor, camping shop. Good stuff is expensive, but will last you a VERY long time and you can use it for lots of other outdoor pursuits.
Super Tenere XT1200Z personal ride review June 23 2010 Vienna, Austria by Patrick Peck
My view of the bike is derived from my years of riding the XTZ 750 since 1990 continually to today over 250,000kms with seven personally owned Super Tenere's. With a 15 year gap between models I have plenty of time to make up my wish list and the new Super Tenere has most of them.
When we wrote last we were just leaving the arms of Csilla and Oli (H/U members in Romania) and taking off for 5 months on a tour of Europe on our half share Super Tenere, fondly named Miss Adventure III. It is now 8,000km later and we have had many wonderful experiences and made many friends for life.
So here we are having fun in South Africa! Very busy, story coming, first photos!
Peck Family travelling together!
The Pecks travel with the Ratays!
Wow, how do we sum up the last 3.5 months in a readable form!? When we last wrote we were leaving Switzerland and following the Alps along the Austrian, Italian, Slovenian border...AWESOME Alpine riding..the best in the world! We also followed the Croatian coast road to Dubrovnik to avoid a huge storm!!! Slowly we cruised back to Romania to deliver our 50% share of Miss Adventure III (the super tenere) to Csilla and Oli. They were anxious parents, not for our return, but for the arrival of their second boy, Erik, who was born a few weeks after we left Romania!
Super Tenere XTZ750 COMPLETELY set up for touring for sale in South Africa
When we last wrote we were leaving South Africa and finally heading for home, Cairns, Australia. We eventually sold Miss Adventure II (our Yamaha XTZ750) and ALL our gear to Chad and www.wilddog.za.net members. If you are riding in South Africa you HAVE to join this group of passionate bikers! We love em..they are awesome! We hopped on the plane home with hand luggage only after 18 months of riding in Africa and Europe with big smiles on our faces.
A big apology to all our diehard motorcycle travelling friends, but we have jumped ship! We are now travelling in Alaska, Canada and USA in a 30 foot Winnebago luxury motorhome and its awesome!
Currently, we are near Anchorage, Alaska. Our rough plan is to drive around Alaska for a few more weeks and then head towards Jasper, then Vancouver 19 Aug when we pick up our neighbour Caleb to travel with for awhile, then south into USA for about 5 months. We will fly back to Australia from Vancouver 4 March 2012.
We have just celebrated 6 months travelling around Canada, Alaska and USA in our wonderful 30 foot RV! Next destination: Baja, Mexico for 2 months and then back into USA early Feb and Vancouver early March...to fly home to Cairns, Australia for a few months.
Belinda, (HU members) John and Jerry Burden and Pat...new joint owners of "Miss Adventure VI" in Canada, USA and Mexico!
