A homecoming, yes, a homecoming. She’s taken me there… and she brought me back again. … and now I’ve brought her home too. On the 12th of October the Adelaide Express arrived in Melbourne after sailing from La Spezzia Italy on the 20th of September.

On the 16th of October the container (in which she had been travelling) was moved from the Port of Melbourne to Hoffman Freight in Newport, and unpacked.

On the 17th of October I visited Australian Customs in Docklands and obtained customs clearance – a surprisingly simple and civilised procedure by comparison with my experiences in other countries.

On the 21st of October I booked in a quarantine inspection with AQIS, fearing the worst and that the Burgie would need to have to be steamcleaned before she would pass quarantine inspection. On the 22nd of October I visited Hoffman freight, and set my eyes upon her for the first time in almost 8 weeks, to meet AQIS, only to find that AQIS had arrived 2 hours earlier and had already approved her for importation.

On the 23rd of October, Loyd and I rented a large trailer and collected the Burgie + crate to take her back to her home.

On that evening and on the subsequent day I removed the walls of the crate, bolted her back together (windscreen, bars, mudguard etc., reconnect battery, removed all my possessions which were still under the seat and in the Givi top box, and installed a new set of rear brake pads and air filter.

On the 25th I gave her a clean and today on the 26th I purchased 10 litres of fuel and filled her up prior to Loyd, Richard, Kimie and I lifting up her front end, bracing her with a hydraulic jack and putting the front wheel back on. By 2pm she was fired up and I slowly rode her out of the crate. I rode her around 30km to my parents and back twice today before changing out her vital fluids tonight. The rear drive oil was chocolate brown - yuk – but other fluids were not too bad. The rear subframe was also due for attention again as the welding I had done in Kazakhstan had not survived the rest of the journey.

This time I opted to remove the subframe completely, instead of doing an "on bike" weld, and took it round to Loyd's for him to show off his newly acquired welding skills.

Ok, so this was the historical tale but what is the real story???? …....

….well, I have to say that I truly enjoy being back in the saddle. Being back home again is great, but…. also a bit of a let down. It is oh, so easy to settle back into the rhythm of ones life, almost as if one never left it. However, I CAN’T do that – it would be WRONG to do that. I have to have something to show for my travels. I don’t mean in a tangible sense, I mean that I have to KNOW and UNDERSTAND what I have learnt, and I have to carry that with me throughout my remaining years. Being back on the Burgie encapsulates, and revives, that sense of exhilaration, and luxurious freedom, of the open road.

On the Burgie I feel once again that the road that stretches out before me has no end, and is mine to ride and live as I choose. She exemplifies to me the true existentialist notion of freedom – be decisive in my actions in the full knowledge of, and taking responsibility for, the consequences my actions. With her back it does make it easier for me to live for tomorrow, as much as today…. and with that I leave you for the moment.

On the road again........ NOT!

Thank you to all readers. I am now back home in Melbourne and today I have returned to my office and daily routine. As you can imagine, it's quite a shock to the system to be back at work and I'm slacking off to update web pages, and the like, instead.

Altogether I travelled over 29,000kms on the Burgie, 7,500kms on the Haobon and another few hundred on the Honda in Vietnam, for a total journey of 37,500kms and 17 countries over a period of 4.5 months. I will now collate all photos and flesh out this blog (which is currently really just a skeleton) such that I properly describe all my experiences. I hope it will be interesting reading for many of you and will inspire some to take your own personal journeys.

The Burgman was crated on Saturday 30th August (at great expense by a local Italian dealer) and is sailing from Genove on the 17th of September. The photo below was one of the last shots I took of the Burgie, parked in the dealers workshop awaiting crating.

It will hopefully arrive around a month later. I will then strip it down, check all mechanicals, have the subframe trued and rewelded, and probably arrange a respray for the plastic panels. Wear items such as the air filter and brake pads are now due for replacement and I was fortunate that they managed to last the complete journey.

Some of you may recall that my biggest mechanical concern was whether I would have further problems with the fuel filter after it started to leak one week prior to departure. I had the filter plastic welded but also elected to purchase a spare and have it shipped independently to Korea. Well, in a classic example of Murphy's law at work, the fuel filter was shipped back to Melbourne, still in its original packing, untouched and unused. I gurarantee that if I hadn't brought it along though, that the original would have started leaking again somewhere in the backblocks of Siberia and I would have been up the creek without a paddle.

.... and in the end....... i'ts not the end at all.

Well I arrived in Palermo - strange city that it is - only to find that I can't actually ship from there directly to Australia. I have been told to head back North to either Roma or Genove.

The situation is exacerbated by the fact that in August the whole of the Italy shuts down for summer vacation (holidays) and then there is also the language problem (no parlo Italiano).

So here I am Roma after another fascinating ride through Southern Italy, this time taking in the volcanoes,

both extant (Etna),

and extinct (Vesuvius)

and the cobblestone streets of Napoli (think Napoli, think very bouncy cobblestones). The street scene below is straight out of one of Sophia Loren's famous '60s movies such as Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow or Marriage Italian Style.

Now I am Roma though, I am still finding it difficult to locate a shipper. If anyone with local knowledge is reading this and can assist me it would be very much appreciated.

LA STRADA (with apologies to Fellini)

Hi all, I'm safe and well and have just arrived in Ancona Italia.

Just having a nice relaxing ride South - so many bikes on the road including many Burgmen of all denominations.

Since my last posting I have travelled through the Czech republic (Prague has the best beer in the world!),

Austria,

Slovakia,

Hungary

and Croatia.

I'm now getting close to my final destination (Palermo Sicily) and am enjoying it so much I feel like turning around and doing it all again. The road gets into your soul (the journey is the destination) and the Burgie has been a faithful companion to me, albeit a bit worn and tired after all I have asked of it.

Soon, alas, it will all come to an end but in the meantime I will try and prolong these final days as long as possible.

The Italians are an interesting people - easily excitable and lively, but also very helpful. My final task will be to get the Burgie safely on board a ship back to Australia. I am not looking forward to this as it is going to be a challenging and onerous activity, and it aso represents the end of my time on the road.

Norwegian Wood - isn't it good.

You will all have read in my previous post about how I fell in love with Norway, but I have left out many of the details of my journey itself, so this is quick attempt to fill in the gaps.

During my very enjoyable stay at Chez Magnus, Magnus arranged for me to make a guest appearance in the local newspaper in Kalix Sweden, see below for details.
http://www.kuriren.nu/nyheter/artikel.aspx?articleid=3983048

Hitting the road I left Kalix to head back to where I had been - Finland - to head North into the Arctic Circle and up to Nordkap. The roads through here are quite smooth, albeit a little damp, and those reindeer warning signs are not put there for nothing. My first experience of a stag with enormous antlers trotting towards me down the centre white line, as if he owned the road, was one of awe and wonder - what a magnificent creature. He was the first of many though, and as I crossed into Lapland and then into Norway proper I saw many more of both sexes.

Stopping to take photos was almost out of the question, however. The mosquitoes in this neck of the woods are plentiful and voracious - apparently that is why the deer come on to the road, to escape the mozzies. Tempted as I was to toss the poor suffering reindeer my can of Aeroguard, I needed it for myself.

I stopped for fuel once I crossed border, paying §3 per litre and enjoying my first $25 service station hamburger (yes, it is true what they say about Norway being the most expensive country in Europe)

Before long though, as I continued North, the winds grew steadily stronger and the night (although it was bright daylight) grew steadily cooler. I finally reached Nordkap, after travelling through 6 tunnels - the longest 7km - and windswept fishing villages, around 12.30am with many other tourists (including 2 Goldwings and a Triumph Sprint) enjoying the view from the clifftop. The wind by this stage was blowing a gale and one of the Goldwing riders needed us to rescue him as his bike was blown sideways and over by one huge gust (think how heavy a Goldwing is folks, and think what wind force is required to achieve that!).

I decided it would be inappropriate to try and erect the tent in that location so headed back 15km South to the lee of cliff face and set up camp around 2.30am (again in broad daylight). That was fine until around 5am when the wind changed direction slightly and I ended up with a flattened tent and a broken fibreglass tent pole to show for my efforts.

By 7.30am I was ready to get back on my way and continue South along the fjords, but first I had 2 or 3 mountain passes to cross. With altitudes up to 1,500 metres and plenty of snow, mist and rain it was truly desolate and bloody cold. Believe it or not though, the conditions may have been hard for me but I passed at least 50 hardy souls on bicycles all heading North into the gale up to Nordkap.

I finally reached Alta, to joke with the two service station attendants about what a miserable summer they were having (I can't believe anyone voluntarily chooses to live in such cities as Alta, Hammerfest and Tromse where for 2 months each year they see no daylight whatsoever!), before continuing down to Narvik where I had a most enjoyable stay in the local Youth Hostel.

Next day I continued further South along magnficinet roads and vistas, taking ferries across fjords, passing the maelstroms near Bodo, and crossing out of the polar circle again, to camp for the night alongside a fjord near Mo I Rana ( I figured camping was the easiest way to keep my costs down). It is here where I believe I caught the dreaded lurgy.

The following day was similar riding alongside fjords and up and down mountains. This part of Norway is only 6km wide at one point and I reached Dovre (the troll capital of Norway) to find all accommodation booked out and having to set up tent again 2 metres from a wonderful fresh flowing river.

After an early start I headed off to Sogndal via the Jostedalsbreen glacier and the magnificent UNESCO listed Geiranger fjord ferry - what magnificent riding.

I have told you about my unpleasant experience en route to Oslo, and from Oslo I was feeling quite under the weather fro the ride down into Sweden and into Malmo where I spent a morning in the local hospital before crossing the bridge into Denmark and Copenhagen. This evening was spent in a beautiful farmhouse hotel in Kosor on the Danish coast and the next day took me to Kiel in journey - a short days ride but added to by 200km of recrossing my tracks endeavouring to find a camera that may have bounced to the road somewhere along a 50 km stretch of freeway.

This evening was spent camped at a Rast Platz alongside the autobahn as all accommodation was booked out in Kiel.

Yesterday I took a short ride to Hamburg and arrived early enough to take the last bed in a backpacker's lodge in St Pauli (a great bohemian location near the Reeperbahn) and today I have arrived in Berlin in an attempt to understand the changes that have occurred since I last rode into this city in October 1977 (and there was a big wall around it :-)).

Tomorrow it's off to Leipzig to visit the Stasi museum and then off to Prague and Budapest to see a little more of Eastern European history.