We have travelled and scubadived across the watery globe since 2000 and we’re photography, videography and travel writing mad!
After fourteen years, it’s definitely time to take those passions and incorporate them within something new and fresh.
Self-sufficient on two motorbikes, we’ll ride onto a container ship and sail with our bikes from Belgium across the boundless voids of the Atlantic to Uruguay, just next door to Argentina. The crossing will take up to four weeks. Making our way down to Ushuaia, the southernmost tip of South America, we will meander all the way up to Alaska; firstly hugging the west coast of South America, and experience as much of Central and North America as we can before embracing Canada and above.
Who knows, if body or budget don’t run out, we could turn left at Alaska and return home via Russia making it a round the world epic journey!
When? We set sail on the freighter ship in February 2014 and plan to travel on the bikes for 12-18 months.
How? We’ve sold our house and the majority of our possessions in order to fund this trip. However, we haven’t been mindlessly reckless; we’ve retained our rental properties, which should provide a small income for food and fuel en route. Whilst we’re without offspring, now homeless and free from the trappings of the everyday grind, what better time to embrace some life-changing adventure. Jason has twenty-five plus years riding experience on me, in fact, before the start of 2012 I’d never ridden anything in my life other than the Big Dipper at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, never mind anything powered by an engine on two wheels. Determined to not hold back, I passed my test July 2012 with the highly professional Shires Motorcycle Training School in Nottingham and since then I’ve squeezed in as much practice as possible.
Big thanks also go to Simon Pavey’s BMW Off Road Skills School in South Wales – without his staff, I’d still be a tentative rider nervous of taking my bike off tarmac. Now I can’t get enough of this addictive endeavour on all manner of terrain.
Why? We’re an ordinary couple holding down regular jobs and we’ve seen from other peoples’ experiences that it’s manageable to embark upon a trip of this magnitude without any support vehicles. Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman helped pave the way, although frankly, they can eat our dust! And as a woman, you don’t have to be a burly bloke to keep pace on a bike. As thrilling modes of transport go, motorbiking has to be one of the ultimate ways to travel, connecting you to the outside world in a way that a car or campervan never quite does.
Our inspiration has to come down to the likes of adventure motorcyclist veterans Austin Vince and Sam Manicom. Austin Vince had conquered the globe numerous times over on two wheels, long before Ewan and Charlie, with no back-up network and the absolute minimum of kit. As did his wife Lois Pryce, who completed her trip on her own! Sam Manicom managed to make riding through Africa look like it should be in everyone’s ‘bucket list’ – another living legend.
Our journey will (hopefully) feature unmissable places on and off road, as well as aerial footage using our quadcopter, a remote controlled aircraft that enables a camera to film as it flies. However, our journey will no doubt feature some hidden surprises, including highs and the lows, plus some of the best biodiversity the world has to offer!
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