What the hell are we doing in Derbyshire?

Riding... what else!

Peak District meanderings

Leaving London in the morning.

It's 8am at home and 11pm here and we're ready to leave London tomorrow. Heading to Derbyshire to meet up with some UK Ulysses club folk.  I emailed Oz about contacts here who might have a workshop I can plug into. Pretty amazing response to be honest. But they seem a friendly bunch and want to help and it would be great to get their ideas.  Janelle feels a lot more comfortable knowing we have back up.

Otherwise, we're having a great time as long as I stay out of the traffic. It's soul destroying. Really it is. 

The bike is a lot better after a thermostatectomy and (oh no I'd thought I'd never say it) but the heat is too much.  30 deg here is like 40 at home.  Sticky, humid and not fun at all. No one has air conditioning so there's no escape.

Janelle took me to Rock of Ages on the West End tonight.  Pretty amazing to actually be there and doing that kind of thing.

 

Ive been taking a few videos and will try to post some tomorrow.

 

Till then "Dont Stop believin'..." and "Hooray for Boobies"

(look it up)

 

T & J

Kevin's big day out.

Hi everyone. I had a really big day today hanging out with my cool friends Janelle and Terry.

It started when I joined them for a fantastic breakfast at Little Venice Village.  Terry reckons it was the best bought breaky he's ever had.

Then I helped them put the Aussie flag stickers on the bike.  Here's me holding up the windscreen.

Then we all went for a ride to see if the bike is still overheating (yes it is and Terry is taking it back to the guy tomorrow morning to have a new thermostat put it) and to test all the gear packing ability to see how much is going to fall off. And Terry finally worked out how to convince his GPS that they in London (silly GPS) so they wanted to make sure it played nicely with the satellites.


Luckily it did or they might never have found their way back from Georges Pub in Slough.  And what a fun day everyone had, even with an overheating engine.  Here's a photo of me having a little lie down in the tank bag.

And the day ended with a nice bottle of Cab Sav in the amazing rood-deck built by their host Alan.. Very civilized. Did you know that Aussie wine is cheaper here than at home.  Not happy!

So thats all for now.  I hope all my friends back in Oz are keeping well. Terry and Janelle are very worn out after a hard day playing in the amazing sun, (+30 deg today) so they've had an early night.  They promise to write more tomorrow.

So until next time they let me out of the tankbag... stay safe and keep in touch.

Kevin.

We have a motorcycle!

That was the highlight of a very trying day.

Breakfast beside the canal was lovely. Then we caught the train over to get the bike. About an hour and only 1 wrong platform and we arrived at the shop around 11am.

Signed up, a quick check over and off we went... and things kinda went down hill from there.

The stop start London traffic wasn't kind to the poor Blackbird. It had just been serviced and the idle speed was set too high at 1800 RPM. I figured that was sortable so we pushed on.

After about an hour of 100 meters between red lights it started overheating. Very uncool and forcing us 3 stops to allow it to cool. During one of those stops I lost my phone. Near Kings Cross station apparently. Bloody bugger x100.

Oh, and the GPS wasnt working with the new mapping so we were making it up as we went along.

Finally made it here to Paddington, not sure how. They used to call it Dead Reckoning. I think more like blind luck.

And the system I'd devised to mount the GPS doesnt work. Not quite back to square 1 but will need a major revision.

So not the most successful of days all in all.

So off for a London pub dinner and a cold beer. At least the weather is perfect.

Photos... well yes... they're on my phone. Grrrr.

Little Venice is amazing!

When we think houseboats we imagine large barge things floating down the Murray or that you hire from Nelligen.  Houseboats here are so different.
There's a canal, for the most part no wider than a 2 lane road, and lined both sides with long thin boats that are peoples homes, restaurants, taxi's and everything else.  We're told that one is owned by Richard Branson and is where he recorded Tubular Bells, but for the most part, they look like fairly cheap accommodation. The council provides amenity blocks dotted along the way, and I must say, a peaceful 7am walk along the tow path was quite probably the perfect way to start our first normal morning in London Town.

Safe and well in London

Landed at 6.15 London time, 3.15pm yesterday aussie time.
Very tired. Sleep now. Pick up bike tomorrow.
Photos should appear on slideshow on the right.

This is the life

2 days, 20 hours, 26 minutes and counting.

...and even less as you read this.

Everything just got a little bit real now. We've both finished up at work. 2 days of tidying up and a bit of running around and then fly out Sunday afternoon.

It's all just a little bit awesome.

Testing GPS tracking

Click here to open the interactive map

Here's a pic of our little trip this morning.

Introducing Kevin who will be joining us

Thanks to Zara and Ella for discovering his name.