Maidstone, Kent. England. 18th July 2024

I’d been back in England since early November, and had been busy. I’d got a UK registration number for the Royal Enfield Himalayan. A straight forward process, as it turned out. I’d bought a new bike, a Honda CRF300 Rally. Also a straight forward process. Let’s be honest, spending money isn’t very difficult provided you have it to spend.
A bit less straight forward were all the upgrades I made to get it ready for the tough riding I was planning to do. These bikes have a very poor reputation for the quality of the suspension. That was resolved by a visit to Rally Raid, in Northamptonshire. They’re reckoned to be one of the best companies for this kind of work. They replaced the rear shock with one that was not only much better quality but whose spring strength was matched to the weight I’d be carrying on the bike. The front forks were also upgraded. Expensive, but worth it.

Some work was done to reduce weight, including a titanium exhaust system and a lithium ion battery. I was surprised to find these changes saved 5 Kgs. The other major change was to replace the wheels with a pair of new, smaller ones which had tubeless rims. Staffordshire Wheelworks built the rims onto the new hubs I’d bought in Thailand. Some specialist work was required to seal the spokes against air leakage, carried out by Central Wheels, near Birmingham. The aim here was to make puncture repair very simple and to save the weight and room involved in carrying spare tubes. Smaller wheels also give better handling on the road, where I would be spending most of my time. The original 21” and 18” combination was replaced with 19” and 17”.

A luggage rack was obtained from Outback Mototek and Enduristan panniers were bought to go on it. A few more minor modifications were carried out to make the bike as travel fit as possible. All of my old camping gear was replaced. I wanted lighter gear where possible. Most of it was no longer fit for purpose anyway.
Planning? What’s that then? But at the very least I needed to have a general direction in which to travel. The intention was to head across Germany and Austria to Central Europe. Then to ride down through the Balkans to Bulgaria, Turkey and into Iran. A tour around the Middle East would come next, then a ship across to Africa. Kenya to Cape Town, then north up to Morocco and Europe.

I’d intended to start the journey early in June but various things contrived to prevent that. There was a family celebration taking place in mid July but once that was done I was free to go. A ferry to France awaited me on this bright July morning, followed by an overnight stay in the Belgian town of Ypres. With time to kill before the Last Post ceremony, I wandered along the river bank, past some WW1 related displays. I attended the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate in the evening. Later on there were bands playing on a stage set up in the main square, outside the Cloth Hall. Beer on sale and music to enjoy. A very good start to the trip.

When I travelled this route in 2014 I didn’t bother to explore Luxembourg. There isn’t very much to explore really. But I felt an obligation. So I stopped overnight in the town of Beaufort and had a look at the castle there. Nice, but not notable. I had tried to get into Luxembourg city but the hostel there was full.
I was generally heading towards southern Germany, wanting to visit Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest, at Berchtesgarten. When I was there last time it hadn’t been re-opened following its winter closure. But it was too far to ride in one day and pure chance found me in the German town of Ulm, on a Saturday evening. I managed to find a hostel where Anya, the owner, told me that I’d happened to arrive on a celebratory weekend for the town. Reason enough then, to book in for three nights.
The festival is called Schwormontag, and it’s when the town mayor swears loyalty to the townspeople for another year. There would be a big ceremony outside the Rathouse (city hall) on Sunday and a concert orchestra to entertain the invited guests. Ulm sits on the Danube and there would be raft races and other things taking place on the water.
I went out for some food and as I was walking back I came across a square with a stage set up at one end and tables and benches laid out in front of it. A band was playing and beer was on sale, in 50cl glasses or those big, 1 litre schtein glasses. Just as a I’d got one the band stopped. But another one came on later. They were called Rocksucht, which translates as Rock Addiction. And they were very good indeed.
They’re a cover band, doing rock and heavy metal. Clearly an important band judging by the amount of flim flam that went with their performance. Streamers, confetti and gas flares enhanced the show. Drums, three guitars, a male singer and two female ones. They took turns on the lead vocals. The musicians were excellent. They did three long sets and didn’t finish until 12.30. An absolutely great evening, all the better for being unexpected. At the end of it all I staggered back to the hostel.

A quiet Sunday doing not very much. Monday was all about the ceremony and the fun and games on the river, which I went down to watch. Monday evening brought another band in the same square, supported by a very good Robbie Williams copyist. When I went for a beer I had a laugh with the young woman serving me, about my struggle to say “Ein bier bitte”, which I did well enough anyway, I thought. So that was our joke for the rest of the evening. On the third time we were laughing a lot and she said to me, “You’re the best”. Which was very nice coming from a pretty, young blond.
Funk That Soul, the evening’s band were also excellent, playing a lot of jazz funk, soul and similar. I had another great night but couldn’t help wondering whether I’d be able to keep this level of enjoyment up. I was planning to be away 2-3 years and wasn’t sure I could stand the pace! So much for staid Germans.
When I crossed Germany ten years previously I’d wanted to visit Hitler’s ‘House on the Hill’, known as the Eagle’s nest. I had got to Obersaltzburg, the village up in the mountains, too early in the year. The road up to the house hadn’t been cleared after the winter snow. This time I knew there would be no problems of that kind.

I always set Google maps to avoid toll roads and motorways. That usually brings nicer riding. And so it proved. Some dual carriageway at first but then onto single lane roads through the forested hills. I’d always been told that filtering through traffic is not allowed in Germany. But some hold ups on the dual carriageway tempted me into it. None of the other drivers gave a negative reaction though. On the single carriageway roads I saw other riders going up the outside of traffic, so I did too.
I’d been in touch with a company that does tours up to the Eagle’s Nest but there weren’t any vacancies. They told me I could go up there on the regular bus anyway. I arrived there at 10.30, with the next bus due at 11.50. The best way to kill time was to visit the Document Centre, which has lots of displays about the history of Obersaltzburg.
There was a temporary exhibition on, all about Albert Speer. He wasn’t executed after the Nuremberg Trials, getting a 20 year sentence instead. He’d managed to convince them that he was basically a bureaucrat just doing his job and had no connection with the activities of the Nazi hierarchy. To some extent he also gave evidence against those who were. This exhibition showed how he was in the thick of it all, being the main architect of the labour camps and releasing funds for the concentration camps. He was Armaments Minister and had access to a huge supply of money. The exhibition had interviews with journalists and film makers who’d uncovered the true story. His excuses for what he did became the fallback attitude of many Germans in denying they were actively involved in Nazism. Fascinating.

The road up to the Eagle’s Nest was very steep and went through several tunnels. But the electric bus quietly and smoothly took me up there. I went into the legendary ‘Golden Lift’, designed to impress visitors. The ‘gold’ was only brass, which didn’t surprise me.
The view from the top was absolutely stunning. It looked out across the mountains into Austria, where Hilter was born. That feature was one of the reasons why he spent so much time at Obersaltzburg as a young man. It was where he wrote Mein Kampf. When he came to power he adopted the village as his retreat. All the villagers were turfed out and their houses adapted for the use of his colleagues. It became a second centre of government.
Having failed to get on a tour I wasn’t able to go inside the house. So I had to satisfy myself with walking up the steep hill to the viewpoints. It was well worth the effort. A sunny day and that great view made it clear why Hitler liked the place so much. In his early years he’d been an artist so it’s easy to understand his appreciation of the area.
But Hitler only came up to the Eagle’s Nest three or four times. It was his girlfriend, Eva Braun, who used to entertain visitors there. Summer parties and picnics were very much her forté. Hitler preferred to be down in the village.
Once back down I went to the Document Centre again and looked at the rest of the displays. They told the story of how Hitler stayed there before the war, and how the Nazis then took over the village, and some of the plans and schemes they drew up during the war. There’s a complex of underground bunkers there too, to protect from bombing raids. But there was only ever one raid, and that was near the end of the war.
I felt that my second visit there had now completed the picture for me and it was time to move on.
My Irish/Aussie friend, Michael, had been in touch. We’d been hoping to meet. He had come from India to Pakistan, then to Iran, and was working his way back to Europe before crossing over to Ireland. He’d found a small apartment for rent in the Austrian city of Linz and we planned to meet there for a few days, just loafing around.
There’s something about cities in this part of Europe that make them very pleasant places in which to spend time. Everything seems so well organised and everywhere looks so neat and tidy. We took a walk round the town centre, enjoying a spot of rain now and then. I was quite taken by the memorial that sits in the main square. It relates to those who died in the plague that swept Europe in the Middle Ages and is very decorative.

After Linz Michael and I enjoyed some very nice riding, through forests and over hills, eventually reaching our target of the Grossglockner Pass. A famous climb up over the mountain of the same name. It reaches a height of over 2,500 metres and was first opened in 1935. It has been very much improved since those days.
It was first proposed in 1924 but wasn’t taken up. But the economic problems of the late 1920s put a different spin on the matter and it became a means of giving employment to over 3,000 people for about 5 years. It was funded by the government with the money coming back by way of a toll. The authorities expected there to be 120,000 vehicles crossing it in the first year. In fact it attracted 360,000. Three times the expected number but also three times the revenue. Very handy!

Although we were there on a Tuesday it was busy. Very busy. And the worse part was all the cyclists. The reason why they caused a problem was that of cars getting past them. Drivers, quite rightly, try to give them plenty of room. The problem is that the road isn’t wide enough to do so in the face of oncoming traffic. But I do admire the effort they expend in getting up to the top. We were, of course, far less affected.
There were hundreds, possibly thousands of bikes making the trip. I was impressed by the consideration shown by car drivers, who would pull over to let us go past. The bends were very varied but the road was as steep as you’d expect a mountain pass to be. It went through the Hohe Tauern National park, giving us great scenery along with marmots to watch.

We stopped a couple of times and the best one was at a viewpoint that overlooked the Pasterze Glacier. I was very impressed by the facilities laid on for two wheel travellers. There was a special bike parking area with free to use lockers where we could store our riding gear. Special treatment indeed. Bikers are definitely not second class citizens here.
We walked out to see the glacier and it was very obvious that it had shrunk, although it still managed to feed a couple of small lakes further down. In fact a friend who knew the area saw my Facebook picture and confirmed that it used to be much bigger. It was here that we watched the amusing antics of the marmots too.
Michael had originally planned for us to part company at this point but he decided to stay with me another day. So we had a lovely day out riding up to some lakes up in the mountains.
The first was Koinbrein-Staumauer, a mountain lake created by damming. It was a lovely milky blue colour, looking great in the sunshine. The road up there was tolled (€17) and had traffic lights near the top. They were justified because the road beyond them was steep and narrow, with several narrow, and cold, tunnels.
We had lunch at the top and I was admiring a modern Triumph Thruxton which had been retro styled to look like an old one. Clip-ons and a Castrol green half fairing made it look the part. The road was a dead end so we went back down and rode to Nockalm Biodiversity Park.

That road up was steep and near the top it turned into a stony track. This provided a good test for the suspension conversion I’d paid so much money for. I’m pleased to say it was worth it as it performed perfectly. Up at the top was another toll booth and we weren’t sure where the track went to from there. So we turned back and headed to our accommodation.
Riding with Michael for a few days had been great but he needed to head to France for his ferry home to Ireland. I needed to carry on eastwards. So the next morning we parted company, with loose plans to meet somewhere in Africa. Let’s hope we can make that happen.