OverlandSphere
Overland Travel, Expedition & Adventure Information for 4x4, motorcycle and truck overlanders
Leaving behind the dust, we were once again back on solid asphalt, riding through open plains dotted with round wooden huts. On one side I could see the mountain range that separates the bitter tension between Ethiopia and Eritrea. On the other side there is rolling mountains and open plains. With Mitchell and Tanya leading, we followed the smooth black …
You always make a rough plan on where you are heading to and what you are seeing. While in Gondar I had laid out a route through the northern areas of Ethiopia, trying to cover most of the historical sites and hopefully driving through some of the beautiful mountain landscapes, a welcome change after being in the desert since Pakistan! Just when I thought I was…
Children peer through the chicken wire mesh walled customs house, watching me eat my ‘Happy Cow’ cheese sandwich, sitting on a wooden plank waiting for the usual one hour Sudanese breakfast break at eleven in the morning to be over, before starting the customs paper work to export my bike out of Sudan. Eventually, I was told to head down…
‘Tomorrow Inshalla’, ‘Tomorrow Inshalla’, ‘Tomorrow Inshalla’, I think I had about five days of tomorrow inshalla. But still nothing was happening, I just walked three kilometres to the port, just to hear them say ‘Tomorrow Inshalla’. Most international ports around the world work seven days a week and some 24 hours depending on how big it is. This tiny port in this…
The drivers of four camper vans and two trucks with their partners plus me, consuming all the chairs and couches, even some had to stand and listen, crammed through the door of Mr Salah’s office on Saturday morning, listening to the news we all dreaded. ‘I’m sorry, but the barge isn’t going this week, its still in Wadi Halfa with…
It’s extremely hot and stuffy down here. I’m standing next to an oversize stone tomb 500 meters below the earth surface and I am starting to feel small and insecure about myself and what I will leave behind when I pass on into the next world. These kings didn’t mess around. They pre-thought everything tiny detail before they died. Valley…
My small petrol tank has been on my mind for many months as I can only travel 220km before I hit reserve. I actually managed to get a slightly larger tank before I left Australia, but for Africa, where the distance between petrol stations is growing, my slightly larger tank isn’t going to work. The Western Desert Highway was my…
At every intersection, one is stopped and asked ‘where am I’m going?’ ‘where have I come from?’, ‘where am I from?’ by the Egyptian army or police. It was getting pretty tire ing but at least I didn’t have to get off my motorcycle and fill in a ripped up registration book like I had too in Pakistan. Despite, the…
Dru was poorly prepared to spend the night in his one man tent. He didn’t have a sleeping mat and he couldn’t even find his sleeping bag and when he finally found it, I took one looked at the tiny thing and said ‘is that it?’ Taking it from his hand I realise it was only a silk sleeping bag…
My front light dimly lights up the road. I hug the rear shoulder of the Dutch campervan ahead to try and get out of the glare of the red tail lights but piggy back on their front lights. We drove down to the ferry terminal, arriving in good time to start the customs procedure. Just like entering Jordan, it was…
Looking about me as I rode into Amman, Jordan’s capital, I realised the reason why I had been stared at constantly for the past 150 kilometre stretch since the border. It suddenly dawned on me as I navigated my way to a hotel that I rode alone amongst the hundreds of cars about me. I almost missed the usually annoying…
This video shows a complete day on the bike from dawn til dusk as we start the day with a puncture, then join our fellow motorcyclists James and Glen and tackle the Canyon del Plato between Trujillo and Huaraz in the Andes. This day was a very memorable day and some of the best riding we have done for a…
Colombia has been relaxing, an adventure, we only probably road 10 days in the month we stayed there and we are now ready for the big ride down to Ushuaia in Tierra Del Fuego/ Argentina. We are currently in the Ecuadorian part of the Amazon jungle, having crossed the Equator. Leaving Bogota we headed south over a magnificent pass between…
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The last few days have been exciting, breathtaking, anxious and now we are safely tucked away in Boutique Hostel Violeta in the Candelaria part of Bogota. Here is a short video which shows Ivanka describing our recent challenges and what happens if you push your tyre changes to the limit! Lesson learnt from our point of view and we won’t…
The taxi that Mariana had arranged to take me to the airport was waiting for me when I stepped out of the gates at Patio Suizo… It had taken a very stern look from me to stop her explaining that I could take a train… Naturally, the driver did not speak a word of English, [...]…
Late yesterday evening, I was sitting in my room, banging away at my keyboard, when I heard a voice outside that had last spoken to me in Amsterdam, in August last year…!! I walked outside, to see my good friend Michel Jongens, who looked a little worse for wear…!! He had just ridden in from [...]…
My dislike for the world’s subway systems, continues to grow…. Ever since I hopped on a train to take a 30 minute ride to a friend’s house south of Paris, and ended up spending three hours on a high speed Inter City Express, and a cold night on a platform in Antwerp, Belgium, trains and [...]…
After a 13 hour flight from a cool and cloudy Auckland, I arrived in sweltering Santiago at midday, having taken off at 4.20 pm…!! Immigration was a breeze, and after securing my arrival stamp that gives me a 90 day stay in Chile, I collected the bag I had checked in, and waltzed out of [...]…
I was sweating, but it wasn’t because I was wearing a pair of woollen socks given to me by a friend’s mother, motorcycle socks, thick thermal-ish tights from Turkey, pants, knee protectors, motorcycle pants, motorcycle boots, a bra, merino top, merino jersey, one pink jacket given to me in Iran, amour jacket, black water/wind proof jacket, motorcycle jacket and the…
Hyder, Salmon Glacier in British Colombia. Nick and Ivanka take a break on route up the long trek to Salmon Glacier. A long gravel road, bears on route – with some of the most spectacular scenery we have seen so far on the trip. Quite a challenging narrow road with steep drops to one side, then of course the odd…
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12.12.2011 Trip to the Everest Base Camp, Day 1 Nagarkot We get up early, but need to pack all the stuff we had on our rooms back on the bikes. Everything takes ages. We ask for the bill and it takes the staff half an hour to get it ready. We also need to change money and I need to…
Syria has become a bigger issue as the days slipped past. I hung around Pakistan in the hope it would have blown over by the time I reached Syria but that hasn’t been the case. It just seems to keep on escalating to the point that civil war is predicted. Now, if Syria was located anywhere else in the world…
The sun is setting, where should I camp? Come on Danielle, I have about 15 more minutes before the sun hits the horizon. I need to find a good spot before then. But this is crazy, it’s only 3:30 in the afternoon! What the hell am I going to do after I pitch my tent, it’s not like I have…
13.12.2011 Nagarkot to Charikot We get up at 05:30 a.m to be in time for the sunrise. The night was cold, just 7,5°C in our room in Nagarkot at 2200m altitude. Nope, there is no heating over here! Our room has a balcony towards East and we get rewarded by a beautiful sunrise over the mountain range, which we enjoy…
Looking out the window on the fourth floor of Tararom’s family house , I could barely see the remains of Sanandaj poking out from underneath the grey, stormy clouds. Boy, this was going to be a cold, wet ride. Susan tried to encourage me to stay another day longer, but I was trying to keep a couple of days up my…
To completely contradict the start of my Iranian visit, it ended it on such a high note, with a family in Sanadaj. Sanadaj is in the heart of Kurdistan, Iran, where the traditions, clothing and culture were entirely different to the rest of Iran. People had told me Tehran was pretty liberal, but here in Sanadaj I hardly saw a woman…
06.12.2011 Harry’s arrival in Kathmandu About a year ago, Harry contacted me via e-mail. At this time he had some questions about my equipment. We stayed in contact and exchanged some e-mails, as he planned an overland trip from Innsbruck, Austria to South Africa. He couldn’t pass the border from Turkey to Syria and decided to chance his route to…
11.12.2011 Service (Odometer: 48.000km) Today is a big day. We will do a service for our BMW R1200GS bike, including changing the engine-, drive shaft- and gearbox oil and adjust the valves. Back at “Autoland” http://www.autoland.com.np we find Total 5W40, a fully synthetic oil which is specified for temperatures as low as -25°C. We buy 12 liter of that expensive…