The Trail and Adventure Motorbike Podcast

How to get to Iceland in a Car or on a Motorcycle Please visit our Podcast here; The Trail and Adventure Motorcycle Podcast Once upon a time there was a ferry. A ferry that could transport you and your motorcycle from the UK to an incredible and magical far away land.  A land known as Iceland.        Actually it was two ferries. The first took you from Aberdeen to the Shetland islands and from there another, having departed from Denmark, picked you up and transported you to Iceland. Sadly all that stopped in 2008 when, for economic reasons no doubt, that particular ferry company decided to no longer stop off to collect passengers at Shetland. Charlie and what's his faces Long Way Round had gone to air in 2004 and it seems that not enough of us had yet realised that a similar two wheeled adventure, albeit one that could be undertaken in a couple of weeks, lay right under our noses on an island connected to the UK by boat. Havi...

Touring Iceland on a Motorcycle Please visit our podcast here; The Trail and Adventure Motorcycle Podcast The warden in the mountain hut at Nyidalur, a refuge at the very centre of this islands vast interior, told me that "Iceland is actually the same size as Ireland". I've been exploring the endless network of unsurfaced roads for ten days now and the comparison seems unlikely. After fifteen hundred miles of volcanic dust, gravel and river crossings I head for the city, the only city. More as a box ticking exercise than anything, I can't leave without seeing Reykjavik. After so much jaw dropping wilderness the urban environment comes as a shock. I find the cities only campsite and already I'm getting a bad feeling and not just because I dislike campsites.  Travelling solo has meant I've met and talked to so many people, indigenous and from afar, but here it's different. Pitching my tent on a patch of land between the f...

Touring Morocco on a Motorcycle Adventure Please visit our podcast here; The Trail and Adventure Motorcycle Podcast This morning we found ourselves doing the conga behind five other tourists led by a very serious policeman. It's sole purpose, to fool the laser controlled security gate on our way to be interviewed and stamped in Tanger port's immigration department. This port is brand new but they have still decided to make people walk 500m across carparks and from building to building for different pieces of paper. It's all done with a stern demeanour and no smiles, yet at the same time there is a definite air of mischief about the proceedings. At least now we have an immigration story to tell. Leaving the port on the new motorway we find children tight rope style walking along the barrier of it's central reservation. Shepherds with twelve sheep and a calf line the embankments and locals, whose walk home has obviously been calved up by six lanes of...

Trail Riding in the Lake District on a New Honda in the Biggest Storm Ever Recorded Please visit our podcast here; The Trail and Adventure Motorbike Podcast A close friend has pointed out to me, quite exasperated and on more than one occasion that "Yes, but not everyone thinks like you!" Of course he's right . If he wasn't we'd all be riding around on motorcycles built  by Mr Soichiro Honda. As with most Hondas I've aquired in the past, I wasn't even aware of the Crf250x model until the day before I bought it. Being of a certain age and state of mind my off road bikes have previously all had air cooled engines and steel frames.  But it had suddenly occurred to me that I'd never owned a contemporary dirt bike. It turns out Honda have been making this particular contemporary dirt bike since 2004 but,for me at least, it's a huge leap forward. Three weeks after taking delivery of it and having still not really ridden the thing...

Trail Riding to Watch the Dakar Rally - Morocco 2007 Please visit our podcast here; The Trail and Adventure Motorbike Podcast It’s been just over a month since my return from Morocco , the Sahara and the Dakar Rally, and I am still finding it hard to believe it really happened, finding it hard to believe what an extra-ordinary, life affirming experience I have just returned from.   Without any shadow of a doubt it was the best week of my motorcycling life.    I have to say motorcycling life just in case anybody from my family reads this.   Obviously it doesn’t compare to my marriage in Las Vegas and honeymoon in Alaska, or the birth of my 3 children.   But you can get married more than once, and have more children can’t you? I have just been reading through the few diary entries I made on my fund raising web-site before I went to Morocco .   Interesting reading; “I am off for the trip of a lifetime.   I will be traveling 1000 miles, of...