Home Improvements

517 days on the road – 52500 km.

Time for some home improvements:

• Thanks very much to my mum and my cousin, who helped downsize my camping gear volume. My mum made a little "handle-bar spice-rack" which I'll strap in between the mirrors. And my cousin Jürgen helped to come up with a small-sized cooking solution for my MSR DragonFly.

• Thanks to Danielle, I now got a maskot & second passenger, which will look after me on these so-called 'roads': Mr Sockmonkey.

• Touratech did a free out-of-warranty repair on my tank-bag's zipper, so I can finally close the t

• Icebreaker Australia kindly extended their sponsorship with some more merino wool tops – including a nice '340' series vest which should keep me warm enough in the Southern parts of Patagonia. (I think it just doesn't get any better than merino wool. It worked a treat in Turkmenistan's Karakum desert (50 degrees +) as well as the rather chilly high-altitude plateau the Pamir Mountains / Tajikistan).

• Exped Australia did a warranty replacement on the SynMat I've been using during camping: I had made the mistake of leaving the mat inside my tent during a hot day & one of the seams broke when the air inside the mat expanded.

• Steve from the Camerahospital gave me an fantastic service (with an incredibly quick 1-day turnaround) on my camera gear: a good clean-up on the camera (and replacing around 10 screws that had vibrated loose during the past 18 months of 'gravel-travel') and a repair on my main lens (24-105).

• And finally, I also upgraded & downsized my "electronics bag" and finally found a new cable for my Kensington Power Adapter – the old one had a loose connection since India. (More on that in my FlickR Gallery).

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Transit via Europe

Strangely enough, the cheapest flights from Australia to South America were via Europe.

So I took this as an excuse & opportunity to visit family and friends in Germany and the UK.

It felt good to see some familiar faces – even if it was only for a short while. And the two weeks of 'Hotel Mama' & delicious food put new energy into my tired "traveller's battery" – Thanks a lot for everything, Mum & Dad!!

Then one short week in London, and I was off to Buenos Aires / Argentina on the 4th of November, to take a few weeks of Spanish classes before the motorcycle arrives.

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Australia

Australia... A vast continent with an abundance of beautiful National Parks, and beautifully remote outback tracks (resulting in another broken shock absorber). Saltwater crocodiles, tent-eating ants, pasta-scavenging wallabies, windy riding-days, kangaroo-crocodile pizza and emu pie, ten-people towns and a pedal-powered washing-machine. Gorgeous beaches. Freezing outback-nights, followed by a perfect climate on the Sunshine Coast & a lovely welcome in Brisbane.

After city-hopping in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne (+ some more National Parks), I sent the motorbike on its way to Buenos Aires. Initially this trip should have finished in Australia, but there's still a few bucks left in the travel budget. And in times of global recession I don't think I'd find a job back home anyway, so I might as well keep travelling for a bit longer.

Thanks very much to everyone who's spontaneously put me up for a few nights during my 4 months in Australia – be it friends, people I met en-route, or via couchsurfing! (Particularly Tex, Jenny & crew for introducing me to the local biker's culture, a great week-end and helping me with the head bearings!)

See my FlickR photo-blog (with image captions) for more details: Australia Photo-Gallery

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Here are some examples:

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East Timor – Timor Leste

East Timor... A country still struggling from the aftermaths of Indonesian occupation. One of the world's newest countries, very welcoming people, tais weaving, Portugese heritage and lots of UN presence. Also the place where I needed to prepare & clean the bike for shipping and to meet Australian Quarantine regulations.

Read all about it on my photo-blog (with image captions): East-Timor Photo-Diary

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Here are some samples from my recent photo-blog:

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Indonesia

Indonesia....
5000km of riding, great people, fantastic food, bike-crazy locals, lots of ferries and island-hopping, Orang Utans, Komodo Dragons, active volcanoes, and the world's largest Buddhist Temple (Borobudur).

Read all about it on my photo-blog (with image captions): Indonesia Photo-Diary

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Malaysia & Singapore

One year into this trip, I've come to realize on a number of occasions that I spend too much time on the photographs, and not enough time on keeping this diary/blog section up to date. To allow for more regular updates in the future, and to make things a bit easier for myself, I'm going to change a few things:

All photos I post on FlickR are in chronological order and most of them have a little write-up underneath them anyway. Hence I feel there's no need to double up on the writing: Have a look at my Malaysia Photo Set on FlickR. If you prefer a more convenient way of viewing the images: here's the same in slideshow format.

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A very special thank you for Malaysia and Singapore go to Matt, who kindly took me out for an evening of good food and beverages. And to Sunny and his son Jin Sheng at Sunny Motorcycles in Kuala Lumpur for helping me with the 'big bike service'! Much appreciated, guys :)

Here's a few samples from the Malaysia collection:

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