The difference between an adventure and an ordeal is Attitude
Bob Bitchin - Biker, Sailor, Author
ROUTE REVISION NUMBER 12, it’s a bit fluid
Lobo & Linda and Richard & Jude are planning to depart Sydney on the 1st February 2024. Our original intention was to ride over the top of Australia and then down the west coast of Aus to Perth but given the high extreme heat and high chance of floods at that time of the year we have decided to take a more direct but scenic southern route to Perth via Adelaide and the great Ocean Road towards Albany and Esperance and up to Perth
Our aim is to arrive in Perth by the end of Feb and prepare the bikes to be airfreighted to either Bali in Indonesia or Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Our preference is to go to Bali and ride up to Sumatra but we are still trying to find a ferry service to take us across to the Malaysian Peninsular. There used to be the "Onion Boat" but that stopped running during covid times. Rumours have been spreading of a new service but they have not been confirmed.
We then plan to ride through Malaysia and Thailand and arrive in Bangkok, somewhere around the first week in April 2024. From there we all travel through northern Thailand and into Laos before meeting up with our Guide and cross the border into China. It is a regulation that we have a full time guide, in their own vehicle, for all of our travel in China and Tibet plus, as I am sure you can imagine, there is a lot of paperwork to complete for ourselves and the bikes.
We were originally planning to follow the route as follows in italics but we have recently been advised that it is unlikely we will be granted permits to travel parts of the G219 due to political reasons, so now we have two options, still ride to Everest base camp and then double back and go a more northern route along the G315 to Kashgar or skip EBC and take the northern G315 route. If we go via EBC it’s about another 6 days ride with some long days. We are still discussing. (We do have a more detailed itinerary for our transit of China and Tibet, see file download below, but the short version is that we will ride through the south west province of Yunnan and then into Tibet, stopping off in the Capital, Lhasa. We then travel west along the G318 and south to visit the northern Himalayan Everest Base Camp. We then continue west along the G219 to Kashgar travelling over many 3000-5000m high passes which will stretch our physical and mental abilities. Temperatures along this section will vary greatly. Early mornings will be in the low single digits (c) with the possibility of snow on the high mountain passes. Other stretches could be 30c. Hopefully it will not be too wet as we are traveling in the dry season.)
Our China guide will drop us off at the Kyrgyzstan border in Torugart, another notorious high mountain pass, then heading north east around Issyk Kul lake and on to Bishkek. Onwards to Osh and cross the border into Tajikistan travelling along the famous Pamir Highway with its breathtaking scenery and challenging roads.
Uzbekistan awaits us next. We were hoping to go to Turkmenistan but visa applications are unreliable and a full time tour guide / escort makes this route not viable. We will therefore continue through the Uzbekistan stopping off at the beautiful cities of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva and crossing into Kazakhstan to catch the ferry from Aktau to Baku in Azerbajan, yet another country that is closed at the moment due to its long standing Covid restrictions, hopefully being lifted in July 2023.
From Azerbaijan we enter Georgia and on through Turkey and Greece. From there we have so many choices we are not sure which route we will go but we will try and seek out some adventurous roads to travel on. Our aim is to be back in the UK around the last week in July 2024
Lobo & Linda and Richard & Jude are planning to depart Sydney on the 1st February 2024. Our original intention was to ride over the top of Australia and then down the west coast of Aus to Perth but given the high extreme heat and high chance of floods at that time of the year we have decided to take a more direct but scenic southern route to Perth via Adelaide and the great Ocean Road towards Albany and Esperance and up to Perth
Our aim is to arrive in Perth by the end of Feb and prepare the bikes to be airfreighted to either Bali in Indonesia or Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Our preference is to go to Bali and ride up to Sumatra but we are still trying to find a ferry service to take us across to the Malaysian Peninsular. There used to be the "Onion Boat" but that stopped running during covid times. Rumours have been spreading of a new service but they have not been confirmed.
We then plan to ride through Malaysia and Thailand and arrive in Bangkok, somewhere around the first week in April 2024. From there we all travel through northern Thailand and into Laos before meeting up with our Guide and cross the border into China. It is a regulation that we have a full time guide, in their own vehicle, for all of our travel in China and Tibet plus, as I am sure you can imagine, there is a lot of paperwork to complete for ourselves and the bikes.
We were originally planning to follow the route as follows in italics but we have recently been advised that it is unlikely we will be granted permits to travel parts of the G219 due to political reasons, so now we have two options, still ride to Everest base camp and then double back and go a more northern route along the G315 to Kashgar or skip EBC and take the northern G315 route. If we go via EBC it’s about another 6 days ride with some long days. We are still discussing. (We do have a more detailed itinerary for our transit of China and Tibet, see file download below, but the short version is that we will ride through the south west province of Yunnan and then into Tibet, stopping off in the Capital, Lhasa. We then travel west along the G318 and south to visit the northern Himalayan Everest Base Camp. We then continue west along the G219 to Kashgar travelling over many 3000-5000m high passes which will stretch our physical and mental abilities. Temperatures along this section will vary greatly. Early mornings will be in the low single digits (c) with the possibility of snow on the high mountain passes. Other stretches could be 30c. Hopefully it will not be too wet as we are traveling in the dry season.)
Our China guide will drop us off at the Kyrgyzstan border in Torugart, another notorious high mountain pass, then heading north east around Issyk Kul lake and on to Bishkek. Onwards to Osh and cross the border into Tajikistan travelling along the famous Pamir Highway with its breathtaking scenery and challenging roads.
Uzbekistan awaits us next. We were hoping to go to Turkmenistan but visa applications are unreliable and a full time tour guide / escort makes this route not viable. We will therefore continue through the Uzbekistan stopping off at the beautiful cities of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva and crossing into Kazakhstan to catch the ferry from Aktau to Baku in Azerbajan, yet another country that is closed at the moment due to its long standing Covid restrictions, hopefully being lifted in July 2023.
From Azerbaijan we enter Georgia and on through Turkey and Greece. From there we have so many choices we are not sure which route we will go but we will try and seek out some adventurous roads to travel on. Our aim is to be back in the UK around the last week in July 2024
ride_across_itinerary_2024.pdf | |
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