OverlandSphere
Overland Travel, Expedition & Adventure Information for 4x4, motorcycle and truck overlanders
The nerves start setting in about five hours before the ferry is set to depart from Palermo. For an extra €30 the hotel has let us stay in the room until 6pm which allows us some time to try and relax without having to contend with lugging bags around, storing them and hoping everything is returned just as we left…
Our destination for the next five nights is a farm house just south of Modica. The trip should take only a few of hours but the traffic along our route is so heavy and the streets so narrow, that with an hour and a half under our belts we still have three hours to go. It’s the reality of riding…
The next morning we say a long farewell to our host Lucia, who’s parting gifts are a donation to our Lost for Good Project, a sprig from her palm Sunday service for Nita’s bike and a lovely bottle of wine! The sun is high in the sky and we all chat in the warmth – her little pup included. A…
To drive along the Amalfi coast you don’t need a fancy pair of brown leather driving gloves, although a fancy pair of brown driving trousers is a prerequisite. As with other coastal roads in Italy, the beast was a bit out of its depth, sharing the pool with a very nervous driver and even more nervous chief navigator. Occasionally we…
The self-inflicted pain of the morning eases as we ride towards Sant’Agata sui Due Golfi. A quick recovery is needed since the day starts with about twelve tight switchbacks as we descend from Sulmare to the main street in Gaeta. Each turn is pock-marked with holes that bumpers have left behind and a few of the corners require cars to…
When we were in Monaco the beast went on some of the Monaco Grand Prix Circuit, including inside the tunnel. There is no new lap record. There are a few angry Ferrari drivers who were stuck behind us and were unable to get out of second gear and impress the ladies on the yachts as they went passed the Marina.…
We’ve been told that the route south of Rome will begin to show a different kind of Italy from that in the North. It doesn’t take long to see the towns change as we head past Ostia Antica and join the coastal roads heading towards Gaeta. The condition of the asphalt is declining and the first few towns we ride…
We start our day in Orbetello with a small caffè and a moment saying goodbye to our furry friend who’s been calling the space behind Nita’s back and the chair home for the past few days. Rather than heading straight south along the coast, we decide to head inland along some nice looking roads towards Lake Bracciano which will bring…
Spain- a land of arid plains, flamenco, tapas and bullfights. Home to one of our favorite cities, Barcelona, as well as smaller gems like Seville and Granada. What do you envision when you dream of the Iberian Region? For me it’s the astonishing flash of color in a flamenco dancers dress, hillsides covered with white Andalusian villages set amongst the…
It doesn’t take long for the skies to open up and the rain to start falling. Luckily for us the days ride is incredibly short – it’s less than an hour to Livorno - an unexpected stop from Vicopisano – but with a mix of rain and snow we’re happy to have a quick outing today. Originally, we’d set aside…
Ένα 17λεπτο βίντεο από την βόλτα στη Λάρισα στο σπίτι του Θάνου (του μελλοντικού μου συνταξιδιώτη στο γύρο του κόσμου), την Καλαμπάκα και τα Μετέωρα, την προπερασμένη εβδομάδα με αφορμή την 16η πανελλήνια χειμερινή συνάντηση Vespa. A 17 minutes video from the trip we made 2 weeks ago to Larisa where Thanos (the guy that I’m going to make the…
Foram 15 dias de espera até que o barco chegasse com o Troller em Barcelona. Apesar da constante ansiedade em ver o carro estávamos entre amigos e curtindo esta cidade cosmopolitana cheia de vida e belezas arquitetônicas, sem falar é claro da boa culinária. O primeiro documento que recebemos informando sobre a chegada do Troller pedia que realizássemos primeiro a…
It was with a reluctant parting of eyelids and a woollen head that I surfaced. My slumber had been prematurely interrupted by shouted chants and sounds of a ruckus in the street below. I stumbled woodenly to the open window, squinting in the sharp morning sunlight. At length my eyes focussed on the Thessaloniki magistrate’s court not fifty yards away,…
On my bookshelf at home are some old photo albums, from the days when cameras came with film and you got prints of your images. Today I took a look at one of them – It was of a two week ‘family’ holiday without the parents (so that’s me and my sister) to Andalucia in Spain. And stuck in with…
Two things stood out from our brief visit to Albania, the cars on the road and their drivers. I read somewhere that in Albania 80% of cars are Mercedes. Although this seems ridiculous, our experience told us it couldn’t be far from the truth. This is apparently due to a large scale smuggling operation after the government collapsed in the…
I will have to continue this post as our only remaining Wallace has gone missing. He was last seen bartering with a wizened old man over the purchase of some antiquated padlocks. The price was settled at a bag of gold coin and Bas’ immortal soul. Bas certainly has an eye for a bargain. So with Bas otherwise engaged in…
If there is such a thing as simplicity in life, I have yet to find it. I had lamented over how previous life was filled to bursting with work, emails, social commitments, an over-stretched fleet of interests and ambitious future plans. “On this great journey we can live day to day, we can read books and write and develop new…
‘You’ll pretty much just need your flip flops and board shorts Guy’… This was the advice given to me from my brother, Sebastian, prior to joining the three intrepid doctors for the first several months of the trip through Europe and Turkey. For some reason these words have echoed in my mind, in between the shivers and teeth jitters, during…
It took us five months and 25,000 kilometres to reach South-Africa. We travelled through some rough terrain, had our share of setbacks and met some very interesting people. In this three-part series we will take you back to some highlights of this journey, while we prepare for ‘the long way up’ along Africa’s west coast. ‘The start of our journey’…
Lunch consisted of an apple consumed whilst waiting for our new insurance papers, as the ten day old cheese from Kars, which had formed part of the original menu, had grown too many new life forms. Had I scraped them all off, there would have been very little left to consume. I was also a little worried about importing some…
Bryn: Rolling off the Ferry, we decided to head straight to Athens, but we took the scenic route along the coast instead of the long boring motorway. It was an amazing drive! The beaches are beautiful, so we stopped every now and then for a quick dip. The temperature was still very high between 36 – 38 degrees. After about…
Position: 41° 03’ 06” North 28° 59’21” (Istanbul) Distance from Sydney: 15,080km “Magda gone”. It was the text message that I had hoped I would never send. It was midnight, in Istanbul, and I was sending the text message to Andres as I stood on the empty street looking at where I’d left Magda parked 5 hours earlier. I felt…
As kids, our family holidays always involved driving. Escaping the Tasmanian winter, we would tow the pop-top camper van, and later the trailerable yacht to the warm climate of Queensland. Dad would nearly always drive, and mum would navigate. Navigating the cities was an experience I will never forget, and I’m sure has been repeated in millions of cars the…
So what have 2 Do Africa been upto? … To start with the thing we seemed to be doing the most on this trip is unpacking, re packing, and then packing again however I think we now have everything where we need it and don’t have to take out box after box just to make a sandwich! We headed down…
During the planning of the trip, Greece had always been part of the plan. Neither of us had been there, and I’ve always been a fan of beaches/islands/very-large-cocktails. However as the euro-zone crisis unfolded we kept a close eye on developments. Mass protests, multiple elections, and even the real risk of an uncontrolled exit from the Euro meant we were…
Position: 37° 57′ 56″ N, 23° 43′ 46″ E. Athens. Distance from Sydney: 15,448 km One of my favourite quotes (which I remind Andres of often, mostly when something is going wrong) is “If everything went exactly as planned, where would the adventure be”. I like this quote as it presents a nice attitude to the unexpected. As we travelled…
I don’t know whether it is just me, but borders have always made me uneasy (and not just the squiggly ones you did on your school project in primary school, though they made me uneasy too, all that strictness and hemming in no doubt). But even returning to home with nothing to declare I would feel nervous and naughty walking…
Position: 43 30′ 10″ north, 16 26′ 53″ east Distance from Sydney: 16,221 km Travelling does strange things to the passage of time (no, no, this isn’t an elaborate excuse around why it’s been two weeks before an update from the road). Travel speeds time, but at the same time compresses. We’ve been travelling two weeks now, and on the…
And so, we left Spain to travel through France to get to Italy for Lynda and Igor’s wedding on the 7th of July. We stopped off in St. Tropez to meet up with Lynn and Aiden Hanley and their 2 kids where we had a chance to sample some great food, and chill with them for a couple of…
Well, with the little wimpers of my ould mate Damo who came to Spain for a visit. Damo was the guy who showed up to our house on the Monday of the week we were due to leave to help out for a few hours, and managed to leave on the Friday. I think we owed him a bit of…