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).
