Introductions and Thank-Yous

Terra Firma Date 21/03/2016

Pardon me I have let the euphoria of the moment get in the way of a courteous introduction and Golden Globe–award thank-yous.

I’m travelling with my son Cameron for part of this adventure until we part ways to discover our own destinies. Cameron is in his mid-20s and keen to discover his new chosen path in life, which will be eco-friendly farming using Permaculture methods on an affordable piece of land in Portugal. He will travel to a retreat in the mountains of Portugal, learn skills about eco-friendly living and take the opportunity to see what land may be available for his future. He is riding a 1976 Suzuki TS 185 a sweet trusty little steed, and though a little furtive, it is clear she looks up to my trusty mount although he is much younger.

As for me, my motives are complex and unclear to everyone including myself but I shall try to explain. Perhaps I could start with a phrase coined by a recently acquired acquaintance who is fast taking on the role of my mentor and friend. Martin Wittering has called me “The Shouldn’t Be Traveller” and I confess much of me agrees with him. Firstly, it is fair to say I am not a spring chicken in the fresh flood of youth or quite frankly the summer stream of health. The fact is I’m getting closer to 60 than to 55 these days, and my list of ailments grows rapidly so, starting at the top and working downwards...

An old eye injury requires nightly treatment ointment, otherwise I wake in the morning with a piercing pain as my morning eyelid flutter removes a small part of my eyeballs surface; fortunately being the fastest repairing part of the body it is sorted by lunchtime. A recent allergy test, leaving me with a temporarily swollen red arm, indicated significant allergies to a whole host of natural and unnatural products, requiring daily antihistamine tablets. My heart tired from the life of stress I impose on it requires tablets to reduce my blood pressure morning and night. And those allergy tests indicated the source of my newly acquired asthma, reducing me now to a twice-daily puff of an inhaler, emergency asthma attack pills and ventilator to fill my pockets alongside those other unnecessary necessities of life that now burden the slim line of my hips.

These works cover the top half so starting just below the mid rift line would be my old back injury, leaving a ruptured disc spooning up against my spinal cord when not slept on correctly, so startling to the nerves descending to my thighs, it sends them into a knotted frenzy of a pulsating cramps. This is not only excruciatingly uncomfortable but occasionally occurring in public leaves me embarrassingly writhing on the floor, most noticeably during a local Liberal Democrat meeting—one that preceded the Nick Clegg era, back when Liberal Democrats were both liberal and democratic. The next item of impaired anatomy is fortunately my knee leaving everything between my lower back and this in good working order, unless you consider IBS a condition and not an affliction. The knee is a consequence of a motorcycling accident due to limited experience and a flat footed control neither of which has improved before taking this journey which I suspect is more reason for Martin’s inspired title “The Shouldn’t Be Traveller”.

My motivation, other than to prove an over the hill clapped out machine can still be a world traveller (no, I am not yet talking about the motorbike), have more serious origins. Indeed it is the case that this journey nearly never commenced and was postponed at the last minute for a week, ironically for the same reason that it was inspired. Several years ago I lost a good acquaintance at the young age of 51 from that undiscriminating disease, cancer. This event motivated me to complete several unfulfilled missions in my life, namely to discover unfamiliar places and people on my motorbike and to write that children’s book, long time inside me, bursting to get out. To my total dismay and disbelief, on 1 January this year, my lifelong and closest friend of nearly 50 years informed me he also had this dreaded condition and is currently battling to overcome it. He too is now determined as soon as he is well enough to take his licence so we may travel on the roads of France together and reminisce about the wonderful caravan holidays we took together with our families. It was quite agonising decision as to whether to stay and support him or to travel and inspire him back to good health, but with his blessing I am on the road.

This leads to the book inside me, one of a two teenagers: a bewildered and hesitant hero, Rob, and the feisty firecracker, Jenny. Drawn into a world of mystic and intrigue they understand little about, they commit to each other as they are enlisted to travel the world on a quest to save our planet from catastrophe. I have no claim to make as a great writer but do enjoy telling a story, and for this I need real life experiences. So this is me setting out unsure, uncertain—sometimes outright terrified—but hoping to find great places on the planet, wonderful people connected to the planet and out of the ordinary adventures I can write about.

I have acquired various bike modifications, pieces of kit and clothing that I am trying out, including environmentally friendly BAM bamboo clothing, more of which I shall account for later. Of course what you really want to hear about is my chosen steed the motorbike, which has been unfairly maligned in some quarters. This is a redoubtable Royal Enfield Sixty5 with a cross dressing four stroke 500cc Bullet engine currently masquerading as a two-stroke. It has a tendency to be a little incontinent when put to bed but nothing that Tena or turning off the fuel stopcock won’t cure. A little hesitant on all one cylinder when first started and an inclination to burp and fart throughout the day, in fairness not unlike a lot of us fellas. However with his ego stroked and his rubbers caressed he throbs away happily for hours at a time.

I always felt it was unfair to those people at an award ceremony whose endeavours have elevated their chosen artist to that of nominee to go unrewarded when their star or starlet fails to win; therefore, in the certainty that I never receive an award, I shall take the opportunity to thank those people now. There are various people who have supplied me with work, parts and advice for which I’m grateful: Hitchcock’s, Crooks Suzuki, AW Motorcycle Parts, SCR Racing, Dave Wood Racing. But four people stand out and need a special thank you. Firstly my mate Dave, who kindly offered me the use of his man shed for a few days and in the end loyally turned out every evening after work and one day at the weekend for nearly 2 weeks to help with my planned transformations on the Enfield. My thanks to Glenn with his endless assistance on my wide-ranging computer problems, and despite his horrendous workload, he found time to rig up my own bike charging system for all my communications and filming equipment. Then as previously mentioned Martin Wittering of Torque Racing was a massive help and support, with his endless well of knowledge regarding overland biking, his technical input and practical advice when I was struggling with the hard way to do things. Most of all, when I had my doubts, Martin’s encouragement—with comments like “anyone can do this David, even you”—kept me on the right track. Lastly, the person with no technical knowledge, no understanding of motorbikes and a mild scorn for my idea is of course, my wife. For every person that has a wacky crazy idea to fulfil, there is a grounded, sensible, and hard-working person behind them, which is in this instance my wife.

Our Heavily Laden Departure

The harbour lights reflect across the water while I sit on the ferry and reflect on a classic start to this journey. It was perfect homely beginning with my good friend David and my nephew Darrell joining me and my eldest son as we traversed those quintessential country lanes on the start of our long journey. After such a hectic and draining few weeks of preparation, I wasn’t sure I would even stay awake until we got to the ferry. Fortunately, courtesy of my daughter’s super-sized steaming hot bath, I refreshed myself with an icy cold shower just before clambering aboard my steely mount, no doubt Serena only meant only to use all the hot water to alert me to washing facilities that lay ahead.

So there was my family attentively waiting to see us off, my patient and ever supportive wife with a wave in the driveway as we went down our small gravel lane, turning into the village high street where my other two sons, Taylor and Lucas, stood ready with their cameras poised to record the moment we roared past with the cheerio wave. We were off. The Wellford House lay behind the open road ahead of us.

But in the back of my mind, a nagging feeling—an image wouldn’t leave me, an image of Taylor's camera on the kitchen table as I passed it on the way out. This sat uncomfortably with the image of Taylor holding a camera as I passed him in the High Street until I realised it was my camera, the only instrument required to record the whole journey. There then followed the necessary frantic gesticulations with me trying to relay this epiphany to my son Cameron, over the din of our motorcycles at 50 miles and hour. I lurched into a side road to head home, leaving my son totally confused. A heavily laden motorcycle has the momentum to carry on in a straight line without obligation to your mission to return home, so an abrupt turn is bound to be alarming to others.

Half parked on the road and half in the verge, my helmet blinkering me to the ferraw of angry motorists going about their sane, ordinary lives, I heard those immortal word cut through the mayhem: “Dad! Dad!”, Turning my stiff arthritic neck, there appeared my son, camera in hand having chased me down the road in his 1.2 Peugot, an easy match for the steely cart horse that was my ride.

With the balance of my universe restored, I pulled onto the main road once more only to be overtaken by my wife in the family people-carrier, waving me down with another forgotten piece of equipment. I feel certain that this is a standard departure procedure for world travellers.

So now our friends on their bikes gave us a cheery wave as they turned back to allow us to continue our quest without their presence, but with their immense moral support. My son and I were left alone with the road and our machines, free to plot our uninterrupted journey to the ferry—interrupted only by regular stops to refill my son’s TS185 petrol tank, which carries him a wholesome 60 miles at a time, and to empty my biological tank, designed in these stressful moments only to carry me no more than 60 miles at a time. My frugal mount makes 90 miles to a gallon of petrol but has an irritating habit of burning a pint of oil to the same 90 miles. No matter, I shall pretend it is a two stroke machine and fill it accordingly.

Our first pit stop was only partially successful, as Tesco’s filling station replenished my son’s needs but early Sunday closing thwarted my own. Unrelieved, we entered the mayhem of the M25 on a Sunday evening with its regular speed restrictions down to 60 then 50, coincidentally matching our top speed and denying the other fleet-footed motorists their amusement in passing our two heavily laden motorcycles struggling to attain even the speed restrictions. Not that we didn’t benefit from the same wry smiles as we weaved through their stationary vehicles further down the road until the signs lit up again that unobtainable open speed limit.

It was a glorious first evening of spring, and though mostly overcast, it was a clear focused twilight with the sun casting a delightful warm rose red edge to the skies fading light. As we pressed on with the evening descending into night, it became apparent that my cosy headlight glimmer decided it would not flare into a piercing headlight to illuminate the way ahead but instead stay as a more relaxing sidelight, regardless of how frantically I toggled the switch. Fortunately, it was about the same point that I realised my son’s rear tail light had fused into that incandescent red glow, which can only be brought on by tail light and brake light stuck permanently in the on position. 

We continued, with my son forging the path and with me holding on to the blinding glare of his taillight to act as my unfaltering red headlight. Unfaltering until he stomps on the brake, and the light goes out, plunging me into the inky black of the road and an unseen stationary motorcycle dead ahead. Or when he puts his indicators on, which has the effect of turning a taillight into a pulsating epileptic initiator. Even heavily laden motorcycles have their light quirks.

For now, I can close my eyes to rest for the first time in several weeks leaving me with that image of the day: an incandescent red glow. Even with the temporary blindspot burnt into my eyeballs, I can still see a whole world lying ahead, across the handlebars.