OverlandSphere
Overland Travel, Expedition & Adventure Information for 4x4, motorcycle and truck overlanders
Right now we’re spending our time in a hotel in Odense, Denmark. We had a little stroll in the city center, it was very busy due to a concert in the towns square, so a lot of drunk kids hanging around. The trip through Germany went ok, we went to one of their beer shops that Scandinavian people like to…
So we set off on Tuesday, it was a very strange feeling but now is time for a few pictures as we’ve been on the road for a couple of days. All in all I can’t believe I’m going to be away from home for so long, it feels like I should be turning around heading home now… Firstly leaving…
Having experienced a sinking Sunday blues feeling nearly every Sunday afternoon for the past 8 years, I think I’ve finally found the cure – not knowing what day of the week it is. Jules keeps trying to teach them to me in French, but having only done a year of it when she was 12, I don’t think the dumb…
It’s a beautiful morning to be back on the road. The sun is still low in the sky but it’s fire is draping the sea-side roads in a rich red that makes us feel lucky to be here. We’re quickly through Nice and riding along the cliffs reveals a beautiful view of Villefranche. We stop for fuel in Monaco and…
Our time at home over the holidays is fantastic. Surprising the families somehow manages to go off without a hitch and along with looks of shock, there are plenty of tears and happiness. Contrary to our firm belief that the seven weeks at home would eventually start to drag, it actually flies by and before we know it we’re back…
The end of our first leg is almost here. We’ve been formulating a plan over the past few weeks to surprise our families in Calgary with a visit over the holidays. It also gives us a chance to wrap-up some paperwork and many of the other odds and sods that need to be managed while we’re away. We’ve picked out…
We know the day’s going to be challenging. When the weather doesn’t cooperate it’s just another thing to factor into what is, by it’s nature, an unpredictable way to see the world. It’s a long day on the road to Villecroze – one of the longest so far in France – but it’s well within what we’ve done in other…
The crisp Loire Valley morning brings with it a morning light that’s very low in the sky. In fact it already feels like evening. We pack our bikes and say our farewells to Ken who’s been our wonderful paint-covered host at Les Frippières. As we’re about to leave, a mail truck pulls up and, with a smile, the driver hands…
BEAUTIFUL BOTANICALS / Image © We Love Motogeo, Ltd. It seems every direction we look we see ancient stone walls being reclaimed by the earth. It’s part of the beauty and charm of the smaller villages here in France, especially during the winter season. Besides the odd town resident sighting, it’s mainly what introduces life and colour into the otherwise…
The sky is far from blue. Instead it’s a beautiful combination of grays and wispy fog banks that stretch over the seemingly endless fields that flank our journey. With Le Mans behind us we’re now very much in the middle of the country and plan to stay here for this days riding. The roads we travel on are far from…
STREET VIEWS / Image © We Love Motogeo, Ltd. The beautiful and very historical streets of Old Le Mans City known to the French as Vieux Mans or Ville du Mans. STREET VIEWS / Image © We Love Motogeo, Ltd. A vintage style teddy bear greets visitors in Old Le Mans, France. Very fitting for the surroundings. STREET…
Arriving in the rain with torrents of water running off of our suits has become our signature move. Our arrival at Relais des Caillères in Saint-Pavace not only converts Pierres kitchen into a muddy swimming-pool, it also heralds the end of the rain. Nita and I look at one another with a look that says “Our timing is awesome.” We…
It was getting harder and harder to get out of bed. We’d been off the bikes for much longer than anticipated and the sun had been shrouded in fog and mist for days. It was getting down right cold, cold to the bone. The thick knitted camping sweater and seven-dollar turtleneck I bought the week before was no longer doing…
I was astounded on first visiting the little boy’s room in Austria to find a toilet basin that appeared to have been installed backwards. Most Europeans are accustomed to a watery sink hole at the rear with a gentle, ergonomic upwards slope towards the rim at the front. However this new and alien specimen has its pool hard at the…
We left Bratislava across the Danube. I was excited to cross this great river that has always formed one of history’s most significant borders. Looking across the misty banks, I could picture anxious roman legionnaires at the limits of civilisation, surveying the dark, endless unknown from their walls. As we crossed over the space-age soviet bridge, I imagined we were…
“It was the best of times, it was the würst of times” Daniel Nuth That day we arrived in the city of Brugge in time for lunch and a wander around. The weather was melancholy, the indicators still didn’t work and the wobble we had noticed since replacing our transfer box was worryingly present. On the plus side, the architecture…
It was January 2011, I was 2 years sober on the 17th and was in Colorado talking on the phone with my friend Mandy Miller who was instrumental in getting me into rehab 2 years earlier so I could get clean and sober. I was nearly a year on the road at the time and was chatting with her…
The end product of 3 months of work. Hello and welcome to the final installment of my BMW Duo-Drive Sidecar Conversion. You can read Pt I of the build here, Pt II of the build here, Pt III of the build here, and Pt IV of the build here. Looking through all the pictures I shot and revisiting…
The first 2 weeks of Global Inc Safari were amazing, thanks to our very special friends and family! Our tiki tour to Europe left us with everlasting memories and a strong feeling of wanting to return. We felt at home in Amsterdam, and had the best time exploring with locals as locals! Spain and Ibiza was something else, mainly a…
Well, our boat to Uruguay is not in Le Havre yet, so we’re still hanging around. We’re staying in a small town called Honfleur. For anyone else planning to wait for a Ferry around here, it’s perfect for a camping truck. Just drive to the port / docks, and follow the stream of camping cars over the bridge to the…
For this post, and several more to come, I am going to talk a little bit about my employer, Grand European Tours, and the tours Jim & I have experienced with them. Yes, this is a bit of a deviation from the normal content, but never fear, I’ll still be talking travel! I started with Grand European Tours in 1997…
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…
revors parting words were “Get the king pin sorted”. We wondered how serious it was, but as I was told to grease it ever week till it was sorted, we figured he was telling us how serious it was. My sister Allie found a unimog garage in Northern Italy that could do the job, and we went up to see…
Bryn: So the 16th of July, our launch day, was full of mixed emotions. There were tears of happiness, excitement and sadness. The date had finally arrived for Gem and I to set sails and leave for the adventure of our lives! This has been years of dreaming and planning and we could hardly believe that it had finally arrived!…
The weather here in Holland can change drastically from hour to hour. When I arrived here in Elsendorp in the Netherlands on April 29th, the weather was still a little chilly, in the 40′s at night, up to the 60′s in the daytime. Then as May turned into June the weather got progressively better, temperatures climbing, falsely lulling me into…
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…
Owing to our delayed departure and a pressing need to ‘Rush to Russia’ to maximize our visa validity we motored the first part of Europe- England to Denmark- at quite a pace. Our passports were literally swept from the postman and into our rucksack on Thursday then we hot-footed it down to Dover and watched the white cliffs fade into…
I had not heard of the Super Rally ® before now, but I did know that the H-D clubs are just as big in the EU as they are back in the U.S., if not bigger. I hadn’t planned to go, as is usual with most of my journey so far, but at the last minute I thought well, what…
A chance encounter with a man sitting on a tiny little stool cleaning his Triumph motorcycle on a lazy Sunday afternoon on the Kleine Berg in Eindhoven, a small narrow street with an abundance of cafes and restaurants which gives a very charming and artistic air to it, led to one of those discoveries that many look for, but in…
The Netherlands, in it’s entirety, is often referred to (and inaccurately so) as Holland, whereas North and South Holland are actually only two of it’s twelve provinces. In English the country is called ‘the Netherlands’, while the people are called Dutch. In Dutch the official terms for these are ‘Nederland’ for the country, ‘Nederlanders’ for the people and ‘Nederlands’ for…