Hi All, our bike is just about ready to be shipped to Sydney ready for 1st of Feb when we will start the 6 month ride back home to North Wales, UK. We have made lots of mods to our bike for the journey as we don’t yet know what kind of roads/tracks/weather/services we will encounter on the way! You can see the mods so far at: 2upfromdownunder on Youtube and if you want to know more, feel free to send us a message.

​One addition we made a few months ago was to fit a Guglatech fuel tank filter to capture any contaminants, including water, before they have a chance to knacker our fuel pump! We can’t really comment how useful it has been yet as we are very fortunate to have access to good quality fuel here but that’s not always going to be the case. The filter is very easy to fit and maintenance consists of taking the filter out and shaking out any water or other rubbish and that’s it. The images show the filter itself before fitting and the other is an example with us filling up from Coke/Oil bottles in Vietnam last year when the local filling station ran out – you can’t fault the entrepreneurial spirit of that shop owner!

When you’re young, your body seems to cope with whatever you throw at it: late night parties, drinking, fast food and snacks, you can take it all in your stride. You might even get away with that as an older rider for a week or two with friends and worry about the aftermath (you’ve put on 5kg in weight!) when you get home, but being away for 6 months presents far more of a challenge! When we set off from Sydney to ride back home to Wales, UK on Feb 1st, we can’t consider ourselves to be on holiday, that will be our reality for half a year, so we are going to have to look after ourselves.

To counteract long days in the saddle, our plan is to do yoga every morning for 30 minutes – this will not only keep us flexible and strong but will hopefully calm our minds before that days adventures. One of our few luxuries will be our Yoga mats!

Food: the temptation is always to eat like you’re on holiday, so sandwiches, chocolate bar and a bag of crisps from the fuel station for lunch and then eat out at night (if that’s available to you) and any thoughts about eating plenty of fruit & veg goes out of the window. Live like that as older riders (60 in our case) and you’ll very quickly know about it!

Medication: can you get 6 months’ worth off your doctor and then get it into all the countries you are passing through? We have been advised that you can't even take prescription medication in your name, or 'over the counter' drugs into some countries! Fortunately we are a relatively healthy team apart from Lobo's back, Richard’s hip and my dodgy knee.
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The upside of being older riders is that we have the time and the opportunity to do something like this.