Tag Archives: motorcycle

Day 17 – Cliffs of Disappointment

We couldn’t wait to leave the campground in Galway. It didn’t feel welcoming at all. Instead, you had to pay for a hot shower and in the morning, we realized you even had to pay to use the campers’ kitchen. That was just a little too much for us. Even so, we met a friendly fellow traveller at breakfast to swap stories with. He’s lived in New Zealand for the last 23 years and he just joined our conversation when Flo was going on about the (Path of) Exile Con in Auckland next year.

deep contemplation

We weren’t too sure what we’d get to do today. Planning wasn’t really in the cards as we didn’t even know where we’d end up sleeping yesterday. But there were plenty of options.

Number 3 had bugged us about wanting to see a castle for a while. We agreed in principle though somehow the time wasn’t right. Dunguaire Castle was on our way today…we didn’t stop. Again, it just didn’t seem right for today. We had just left Galway.

In the end, our first proper stop was my pick: Hazel Mountain Chocolate factory. Flo and I had already agreed on skipping the factory tour. Buying chocolate in a factory outlet is a totally different thing though. When we got there, a tour bus had just pulled in so we swerved a little and sat down in the café before hitting the store. The café was lovely, serving hot drinks and baked goods, full of chocolatey goodness. All of it came in lovely pottery, making the experience extra cute. As you can imagine, I was happy. The kids seemed happy, too.

In the store, the tour was about to start. What had they done all this time? Shopping? Anyhow, the tour guide invited us to come along which was amazingly friendly of her. Flo and I listened for a bit but it is hardly our first chocolate factory tour. So we browsed the wares, turning around whenever something cool turned up in the talk. Number 3 got to smell cocoa beans, Flo got a handful of single origin chocolate to try. When the kids waved at the lady busy with actually making chocolates, she came out and rewarded both of them with chocolate covered marshmallows. A visit can’t be more of a win than this.

the pass into the Buren national park

Flo picked the next point of interest for today: The Burren National park. The Burren are a stony landscape that you can walk through or in our case, drive through. Flo is a fan of limestone so he was particularly looking forward to this part. At a road side car park, we got out to check out if we could walk around for a bit. Per chance, we’d stopped right next to the beginning of seven hiking trails, two of which were marked as easy and loop walks of only about 1.5km. Number 3 picked the white one which we walked in its entirety. We hadn’t actually planned a walk here. Thus, lunch had to be improvised. We had spaghetti leftovers at the roadside with recently bought chocolate for dessert. 😊

The one good view …

County Clare’s big draw are the cliffs of Moher though. The Lonely Planet (which I’ve been reading way more than Flo) already instilled caution in me, given its description of the place. In fact, they turned out to be the cliffs of disappointment. It’s a gigantic tourist attraction, no question. You queue to pay your ticket fee, are ushered to your parking spot, walk with the crowd to the wall separating you from the cliff edge, take a couple of pictures and leave again. Yes, the cliffs are high and yes, they are steep. The experience is almost lost in the crowds. Sliabh Liag was way more atmospheric than this. The best way to see the cliffs of Moher is probably by boat. We just didn’t want to spend that kind of cash on it. It’s not cheap.

From here, our campsite slowly came to mind. We’d booked a site in Doonbeg without electricity (nothing else was available) so the car needed to be charged if we wanted to start early tomorrow morning. The charger in Lahinch was luckily available (after a 10 minute wait), which even gave the kids an excuse to put their feet in the ocean one more time.

The Strand Camping Doonbeg wasn’t used to one night travellers. At least everything was set up to feel much more long term. Still happy that we had a place to sleep, we set up before the rain, had a lovely shower and brought the kids to bed.

I kept threatening to throw them over – they still trust me 😀
It looks so much like the Transalp XL650V, I felt homesick 😀
considered going in, autentic clans castle – too early to stop though
better stop here – chocolatly goodness
deep contemplation
Number 3 learning how its done
milk chocolate or dark?
this is how its done
the pass into the Buren national park
good fun going 80 km/h – ralley feeling
kid colour-matched to track markers 😉
“walk alone!” – ok, go for it, litttle goat
inquisitive mind at work – “mama, mama – a big root!”
over stick and rock
of cause we climed up the one rock …
An otherworldly landscape with the exposed limestone
the kids called out “tunnel”
Here and there, a tuft of grass survives the lime
Goodbye Buren National Park
that crow has seen better days …
The tallest section
The one good view …
Number 3 went wildlife spotting again
Sweet treats to keep ’em going
Do you see a pattern here?
display broken, brightness always on max 😀

Day 5 – Like clockwork

My plan was, to say it mildly, not well liked. It better work like a charm, or I would have gone to the dog house for a very long time. I suggested to add about 50km to the trip to our campground to go back to Germany for our mandatory rapid covid test (needed for entry to Italy). The main reason: 140€ less for the two of us. Germans get their tests for free in Germany. Secondly, it was way less hassle to get an appointment in Konstanz compared to Wil – it is a major border town and has about 10 full-time testing sites to choose from.

Test centre in a dancehall …

The kids were a bit over eager and were up an hour ahead of schedule, but overall the morning went according to plan. Nothing was left, that we could tell, and the heartfelt goodbyes were made easier by knowing that we will see each other again fairly soon. I did forget my car key fob in my other pants, but we only lost 15 minutes.

And so, in time for our 10.27am test appointment we rolled into the car park in Konstanz. It was all pretty orderly, so within 15 minutes we were out again with an electronic results form to be delivered within 20 minutes. I was even able to add a bonus stop to remedy a previous fail on my part: MediaMarkt had both a generic charger for Nina’s laptop to replace the one I forgot in Germany for just 27€ and a cheap usb hard drive replacement since ours died the previous night after 10 years of hard travel.

Next up DM (a kind of drug store, minus the real pharmaceuticals) – I also forgot to take any charger for our three identical electric toothbrushes. Good thing Phoebe still needed one, since they come with a charger. Better still, DM also offers printing on demand, so we could commit our fresh (negative) rapid tests down to paper – just in case. I must admit, time has crept up on us a bit, so at 11.20 am already, we also stocked up on some sandwiches for lunch in the car.

[Nina: It was here that I made the colossal mistake of letting Number 3 ride on a coin-operated train for ONE SINGLE COIN while waiting on Flo to finish all his tasks. Such a huge mistake. Though, at the time I thought Number 3 was really good as he got off the toy train without any complaints.]

Train of doom

The eating part was fine, but 10 minutes into the actual 229km drive to our campsite we realised we forgot to check on the Agent of Entropy. The diaper was, of course, full. Alright, another brief pit stop in some sort of quiet office park. Diaper changed, consolatory feed given … just in time for Number 3 to announce he would definitively and 100% certainly need another potty break.  In the car, to the supermarket and the kid rushed inside … and it turned out it was a lie, since he was expecting another coin-operated toy train thingy ride after the business was done. Nina was not amused … 30 minutes for 3 km.

But that was our last hiccup … almost. Next stop was a rest stop with a few fast chargers for Puru Hiko. She was doing excellent, anyways. But then, 9 km before the exit, Number 3 decided it was time to play around and pull the emergency eject (i.e. the door lever going 110km/h on the motorway). Car started a panic inducing beep, wind rushed, Nina half jumped and pulled the door mostly shut again. I know, I could have set the child lock on the door – but this way, he has learned his lesson for life, I am quite sure of it …

Fast charging was uneventful – I mean, this is Switzerland after all. The toilets were clean enough I almost wouldn’t hesitate dining off them. Complete with coin-operated Heidi animatronics … that kind of thing. I restrained myself from buying a 10€ plant based whopper (try it though, really good … just not in Switzerland).

This left us well prepared for the last leg of the trip – 2 hours for 113 km. We did have to come up to 2114m to go over the Splügen Pass, after all. This was SO MUCH FUN! At least for me – the other three got rather motionsick, with the Agent of Entropy actually giving in on our way down from the saddle. Nina and I realised that we had done this exact same pass on the motorcycle before, roughly 10 years ago and coming from the other direction. That was then our second long-distance trip on the bike – or in other words, 70.000 km ago. Something to chew on 😀

And up top, for the money shot …

Driving an EV on this road is second only to our bike, I would say. Blue George was fun because it was so nimble, and I think the electric version with only 2 passengers would be even cooler than our fully loaded 3 ton family car, just for that go-cart feel. But the sheer amount of torque without any interruptions for gear changes makes going uphill in an EV just a smile-fest. And going down, recuperation takes a huge amount of load off the breaks, so that you can be quite aggressive without risking break damage.

The others disagreed a bit – so with three white-faced passengers, we turned into a great and friendly campsite in a stunning location deep down in the Mera valley. The place is called after the adjacent waterfall: Acquafraggio. And even though we had our fill of waterfalls, this one is a real stunner, visible from the campground. We had absolutely no hesitation locking in a 3 night stay – quite unusual for us in most places.

Time to let it sink in – we are here. We are travelling. On the road again, at last!

  • Goodbye – Christine first, as she had an appointment. Her wee one got confused 😀
  • Test centre in a dancehall …
  • Train of doom
  • Border crossing number 3
  • So much joy …
  • … that fountains bring him
  • fine swiss motorways
  • travel mood was pretty good most of the time
  • Mountains, Nina, aountains!
  • That is some prime charging infrastructure
  • Nana!
  • “Papa, there is a Linus door!”
  • St Bernardo
  • Whee … up and up and up the hill
  • turn left … turn right …
  • … wheeee…
  • Visibility could be better in our blue brick
  • And up top, for the money shot …
  • “I want snowballs” … “Papa, my hands are so cold!”
  • more apropriate clothing
  • AoE is quite cold … just for a photo.
  • Bella Italia!
  • turn left … turn right …
  • the pass just opened recently
  • There is alway one crazier …
  • ok, now face first 1400m downhill
  • The aptly named Aquafraggio
  • Great spot, great pitches.
  • and we collapsed straight into dinner
  • and a reward for the sea-sick among us
  • look at her waddeling!
  • Even some time left to blog …

Day 157 – Cool head(s)

Back on Lombok we got a tip from Oliver about a particular bike shop in Kuala Lumpur that was supposed to be extremely friendly to overlanders. Since it has been more than 8000 km since Rocinante’s last service in Darwin, I was intend to find out for myself. I have not been disappointed!

bless you, you are amazing!

bless you, you are amazing!

I showed up and hesitantly asked if I could work on my bike in their workshop and maybe have some help with the more difficult bits later on. Within 15 minutes, I got a work space cleared for me by lead mechanic Jing Sheng and his two fellows. Everyone was extremely helpful and I got started at stripping down Rocinante according to the manual on my phone.

The entire shop is just amazing. They have all the cool imported parts that an adventure rider could ever want and the workshop is just something else. All day, riders were coming and going. Some to get their bike worked on, some just for a chat. People are allowed in the workshop and you constantly meet interesting people. The shop was filled to equal parts with adventure bikes (mostly shiny 1200GSs) and performance bikes. Plus, everyone really knows what they are talking about.

My mission for the day was to prepare the bike to get the clearance of the valves checked and, if need be, adjusted. Last time I payed 400 € for the procedure, so I was determined to do as much as possible myself this time around. The issue here for my bike is not the actual procedure, that is really straight forward, but getting to the things in the first place. To reach the eight valves to check, the cylinder head cover needs to come off. Which, for my bike means digging through 4 1/2 layers of stuff. That is what I paid for last time, but it is also relatively easy to do, just laborious. It is also a good opportunity to check all the parts removed for wear or damage.

Almost there ... faring, tank, air box and throttle body are off ...

Almost there … faring, tank, air box and throttle body are off …

It took me 5 hours to get to the point where the cylinder head covers were ready to come off and another hour of cussing, wiggling and loosening extra parts to get this done. It may be because the collective consensus was not to follow the workshop manual and take the whole exhaust off as well to get a heat shield out of the way (not before I broke one of the rusted exhaust shells, though). Still the rear cylinder head cover was so tightly wedged in under the frame that we had to rotate the crank manually half way through to get the rocker arms out of the way. Jing Sheng told me that it was worse on the older V-twins and you had to tilt the entire engine slightly for a routine maintenance job.

There they are. They were only off by .025 mm, and only the intake valves.

There they are. They were only off by .025 mm, and only the intake valves.

In the end I even got to do the adjustment myself, with confidence inducing guidance from Jing Sheng. The guys are just amazing. I learned more about my bike in one day than ever before in Germany.

Even though it was late and I should come home for dinner, I got encouraged to re-assemble and test the same night. I did manage to put enough of it back together to get Rocinante started smoothly and get back to Mont Kiara before everyone everyone else had to starve. I even got a quick shower to get most of the grease off me 🙂 In the mean time, Nina gave me an update on her progress regarding our list, which included finally getting her boots to a cobbler for re-soling.

That night we went to a wonderful northern Indian restaurant. I must say, the food is one thing for sure I am looking forward to going to India.