Planning Update – Mid December 2011

Wow, so time’s flying now! In 3 months time I’ll be cycling out of Barcelona, heading towards France. It’s easy to say, but when I actually contemplate on what that means- in terms of how close it is till I leave, and the actual act of cycling for two years, it can wake you up in cold sweats! (The cold sweats have only happened once so far!)
So, onto the update!

Route:
The biggest news, is that I’ve hit a rather major hitch with my route across Eurasia. The plan was to take trains from London-Moscow-Beijing on the Trans-Mongolian railway. Unfortunately Russia is a difficult enough place to get a visa for at the best of times, but it’s even more difficult when you’re travelling before going there!

The options I have are to:

• – apply from NZ before I leave (but then I need to enter Russia within 90 days- not an option),
• – apply from Europe (but I need to have been legally resident in the country I’m applying from for 3 months beforehand- again, not a goer), or finally-
• – I could post my passport back from the UK to the Russian Consulate (and hope they don’t ask for a face-to-face interview).

The last option is what Al Humphreys did when he rode around the world for 4 years, but I don’t think I’m trusting enough of the postal service to do it. You should really check out Al’s website and read his great books, the website is here.

Anyway, this effectively cut out Russia from my itinerary, so I’m currently looking at other options. It’s a bit of a bummer in way, because it means the trip won’t be only via the surface of the earth without using air transport. In some ways it could increase my enjoyment- when I found out that I couldn’t really take my bike on the train I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to ride through Mongolia. It’s somewhere I’ve wanted to go for years, and especially since reading kiwi Ian Robinson’s book Ganstara. So now I’m looking at this as an opportunity- to fly from London to Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Then I could either start riding south straight through the Gobi, or ride through the northern part of Mongolia for a few weeks before either riding south or catching the train to China. This may mean I’d then keep riding south all the way through China, and miss out Korea and Japan, but I’m undecided on this. In some ways it would be awesome to ride all the way from Mongolia to Singapore.

From what I’ve read on other blogs (like Bikeabout), the Gobi’s obviously quite a big challenge, so I might have to play that by ear a bit. But the idea of riding around the area NW of Ulan Bator really excites me. Another interesting site about riding in Mongolia (although a little more adventurous that what I’m planning on my touring bike) is Tom’s Bike Trip.

So, other than the Russia problems, the other major route news is that there’s apparently a ship back on the SE Asia-Perth, Australia route. This is great news for me, and I’m really hoping it stays on the route for another 18 months so I can take it when I need it! It runs from Kuala Lumpur, via Singapore to Freemantle, so I’ll look to get on in KL, because it’s a cheaper place to hang around for it. I’m still hoping to cross over to Sumatra and also see Singapore (especially after seeing Mark’s ride recent/current ride through there here), but I’ll head up to KL for the ship.

Gear:

I purchased a GoPro Hero2, which is pretty exciting! I took it for a trial ride last weekend, and here are the results:

Straight video on my helmet:

Timelapse from a photo every 2 seconds:

It still needs a bit of work- I think the 2 second interval leaves too much of a gap between shots, so in future I’ll decrease that. The downside is that the smallest sized images are 5MP, which means you fill up the memory cards pretty quickly!

It’s going to be a lot of fun though- working out interesting places to mount it on the bike. I also think that videos give a great perspective on travel that still’s can’t. I need to find some decent editing software- I used to use Premiere Pro, so stepping down to iMovie is quite a shock! But I don’t want to fork out a whole heap of coin for some software..

I’m definitely going to get a Kindle before I go, but I still haven’t decided which model to get. The new Touch models aren’t available outside the US yet, and I don’t know if I can justify the 3G models. As useful as it would be to have it, I wonder if it’s better to either find somewhere with wifi, or get  a local sim card around the place and tether it via my cellphone.

Logistics:

Most of the stuff with the trip is sorted now- it’s mainly tidy-up stuff. I still have to sort out my travel insurance and get my last round of vaccinations and some meds for the road, but that’s about it. There’s a lot of wrap-up stuff in NZ- applying for a new passport and a new drivers licence before I go. Then of course there’s handing over all my work to other people. Sorting, packing up and/or throwing out all my possessions has started (as I’ll take a heap home at Xmas), and I’m finding it quite satisfying- I’m quite a hoarder, so this is a good prompt to seriously get rid of stuff I don’t need anymore. I’m still trying to find somewhere to store my bed and books in Wellington, but I’m sure something will come up. I think putting the books in storage will be cheaper than shipping them to Invercargill seeing as they’re so heavy, and I’m starting to collect quite a library!