OverlandSphere
Overland Travel, Expedition & Adventure Information for 4x4, motorcycle and truck overlanders
Hello, Our route over the last few days. So after a hectic ride to reach London in time and a further insane week in London, I have at last made some time to keep the blog up to date. So here is the last week in London Town! We woke to a cloudless sky, white snow capped mountains and the…
It was our last day in London. How much could we cram in? Perhaps there was a better way to see more without walking 10 miles. Historically, London was a very busy port and the center of commerce. The River Thames winds its way through the heart of the city, bordering the most important districts and crisscrossed by no…
Our time to see London was running short so we hit the pavement. Turns out walking is perhaps the best way to see many of London’s most famous attractions. Of the hundreds of monuments scattered around the city, the obelisk presented to the British Nation in 1819 by Mohammed Ali, Viceroy of Egypt, is the oldest. Nearby, who could…
The historic town of Godalming in Surrey lays on the banks of the River Wey in a hilly, heavily wooded part southwest of London. First mentioned in the will of King Alfred the Great (849 – 899) it probably existed 200 years before that during Saxon times. In the year 1300, Godalming was granted the right to hold a weekly…
So many museums. So little time. We hopped on the Hop-On-Hop-Off tour bus to save some walking and while we did get a passing glance of some of the thousands of attractions, it was still a challenge to negotiate the masses of tourists doing the same thing. Riding over the famous Tower Bridge, often mistaken for the equally famous London…
High on our list of things to see in London was the famous Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. Recommendations were to get there early. It looked like others had the same idea, like a couple of thousand people. Supposedly, the best location to watch the proceedings is the upper-level of the huge statue honoring Queen Victoria, but we…
Of course we had to see in London. The problem is there is so much history and so many statues and so many buildings and monuments and fountains and museums and beautiful parks; it would take months to see everything. We really had to pick and choose. We did take a tour on one of the double-decker buses. Their advantage…
SCOTLAND 2/6/2013 Ayr A Scottish Loch Who can complain about Scottish weather? Everything else about the place is stunning! Besides we are getting used to the cold and occasional wet –and during the odd sunny breaks the scenery was magnifiscent. After great hospitality extended by Ed and Edna, we headed for Edinburgh. Which was well, Edinburgh? A lovely old city…
There has been no lack of things to do and places to see. We did take a short trip to the historic Naval town of Portsmouth where we stayed with Monika’s distant aunt and toured two of the most important restored British warships. The HMS Victory is a 104-gun first-rate battle ship of the Royal Navy. Launched in 1765, she…
We have crossed the big water and we are now in this strange country called Great Britain. Strange indeed. They do speak English — sort of. The steering wheels on cars are on the wrong side, and if that wasn’t enough to make you nervous, they insist on driving on the bloody wrong side of the road. It feels like…
22nd May 2013 Lake District Cumbria There is a reason England is green. It rains a little from time to time. Particularly in the coldest, wettest Spring since 1979- just to welcome us. Even floods encountered across the roads in Cumbria a few days ago which even Tin Can was not eager to cross as the Floods in Cumbria water…
We arrived in Delsbo at Rebecka’s parents and will be here for the next couple of weeks, working out our route and plans for the next section of the trip. For now here is a lot of pictures.…
I had thought that since Spring is just round the corner (although I’m not so sure having looked at the forecast for this weekend), I should finally write up about the winter bike ride in northern Scandinavia… (Feel free to skip the writing and go straight to the end where there’s a short video Shane put together) Into The Cold……
Leaving Colombia in the circumstances we did ensured we got a good going over in customs, returning to Scotland via Amsterdam, come with me Sir & Madam!!! Everything searched and understandably so, down to breaking open our paracetamol capsules and sniffing the contents, the guy who did the suitcase search had a stronger stomach than me though as our riding…
AURORA BOREALIS The Northern Lights Click here for my recommended musical accompaniment to these images. It only took me three and a half months to finally get up close and personal with my very own display of the oft elusive but absolutely stunning and trippy aurora borealis, or northern lights. People come from all over the world just to catch…
No, no, the OTHER left…. Biggest Bull Moose I have ever seen. Enormous. Must of been AT LEAST 1200lbs minimum as it walked right out in front of me. Just stood there, snorted, steam rising from it’s massive flared nostrils, and stared right at me. I could see him tense up, like he was getting ready for a charge.…
4 Years in…. I parked my bike by this old fishing trawler in Apalatchicola Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. A passerby stopped to chat with me, mentioned he had a similar model of BMW motorcycle and then asked me if I wanted him to take my picture. At the time I didn’t give much thought to the significance…
Still no real blog post, but do not worry – Here are some more photos from the 3-weeks of biking and camping in northern Sweden, Finland and Norway… Hopefully they speak for themselves. If you haven’t seen the photos of the beautiful landscapes we biked through that I posted last week, they’re here.…
Dear Santa…. Rovaniemi Finlands most notorious, or in this case, well known resident is of course, Santa Claus. But the real story and meaning of how Santa Claus came to be was only brought to my attention recently by the president of Karu MC, Hekki. He prefaced his email with a warning that came along with the information he enclosed…
WARNING!!. This article contains GRAPHIC IMAGES of a Winter Wonderland from Norway and Finland that could be hazardous to your travel plans. Viewer discretion is advised. LAPPLAND, SUOMI. E8 South of Kautokeino, Norway. * Norway, leaving the best for last. Of course it did, wouldn’t you know it. I got some of the best and most spectacular shots of the…
“I should be there in no time, just follow the squiggly blue line”, I mumbled. Only 730 km, easy. Under normal conditions. In any season other than Winter it would be. And without hundreds of twists, turns and mountain passes. Oh, and without riding on an Ice Hockey rink all the way down to Alta. AND without being a photographer…
“It’s All Downhill From Here”. The first time I ever heard the name Nordkapp being mentioned, the very sound of it conjured up images of aShackleton-esque like expedition, scraggy men with beards, in big thick puffy Arctic subzero (sounds better than cold weather) anoraks with fur lined hoods, icicles hanging off the ends of their mustaches, sounds of a dog…
MAGERØYA, NORWAY. The road to Nordkapp, Norway . Dude!!. Where’s my sidecar?. Top of the World. The northernmost part of Europe. Right?. The road to Nordkapp, Norway . Well hold on, not so fast. That’s not technically correct since Nordkapp is on an Island, the island of MAGERØYA in Norway. It’s not part of mainland Europe, but for this…
So I’m getting rather excited and with just the occasional fit of doubt, which may be more aptly described as ‘bricking it’. In only 15 more days I shall be landing in Kiruna in the far north of Sweden to meet up with Shane for a 3 week cycle ride, taking an indirect route, to Tromso in Norway. Just another…
I really didn’t plan it this way you know, timing it so as I ended up at Nordkapp right on New Years Eve like this. But my arrival here at this juncture in my trip does seem kind of fitting for me, since Nordkapp is as far North as a person can travel in Europe in or on a…
Long nights and even longer days. Life in northern Scandinavia, right above the Arctic Circle. But yet I find myself quite content here in this extremely cold, dark but hauntingly beautiful enviornment, I really am enjoying it more than I thought I would. I was going to ride down to Rovaniemi Finland last Thursday to go and pay a visit…
“STILL IN STROMSUND” My first night in Stromsund was spent in a shower. Well, not all night in the shower, but it was my first hot shower in 4 or 5 days, so I relished every last hot water droplet that came out of that shower head and probably stayed under the water for a full hour. I loved every…
STREET VIEWS / Image © We Love Motogeo, Ltd. Love. Chichester, UK. CREATURE COMFORTS / Image © We Love Motogeo, Ltd. Spud the dog at Ypres Castle Inn. Great food, great beer, warmth and Christmas in the air. Rye, UK. CREATURE COMFORTS / Image © We Love Motogeo, Ltd. Spud says… Rye, UK. BEAUTIFUL BOTANICALS / Image …
“GETTING SPIKED in STROMSUND” E45, north of Hammerdal, Sweden, Nov 2012. After my 2 days in an emotional dungeon in Hammerdal and feeling a little bit unnerved, I hit the road on the third morning, determined to push on in a northerly direction.I’m starting to find that these moments, these states of mind that I’m having that seem to be steering…
There are a few new things for us to get used to on the bikes. For instance, driving on the left side of the road, totally new signage and roundabouts. Yes, the dreaded roundabout has been in our heads since we arrived in the UK. In Canada, especially in the west, the roundabout is a fairly new way of regulating…