For those that are not aware, we have hit the road again.

In November we spent 3 glorious weeks in New Zealand with 21 year old daughter Kate. We hired a 3 berth motorhome and slowly toured the South Island. We had fantastic weather and cooked up some great meals overlooking a river or a beach- free camping. (photos coming)

We then sent Kate back to Australia and we flew to Santiago, Chile. Our South American leg of this trip is for only 2 months, so we decided to rent a Super Tenere for 9 weeks at $60 per day. Roberto Thompson is a HU memnber for Santiago and is also a Super Tenere enthusiast and has 3 Super Teneres he does tours with. He kindly rented us the jewel of his fleet.

It was all very hassle free. We arrived one day and the next day we were riding off on the bike.

Next stop was San Rafael, Argentina to see John and Annette at their finca (orchard). We had a great 3 days with them as usual although Belinda had a bad cold from the long flight.

We then moved on to Viedma (on the east coast of Argentina) for the HU meeting to see Oscar and Luis and their families again after 5 years. We had a great 4 days in Viedma and met lots of amazing motorcycle travellers.

Time to move on again. We are now heading for the Bariloche area, along the edge of the Andes mountains. We will play around the Andes area south of Santiago for the next 7 weeks.

Consider this as your Christmas Card and we wish you all the best for next year. We will update this blog about every 6 weeks. Maybe we will see you on the road, until then, have fun whatever you are doing.

For those of you who are thinking of picking up a motorcycle in South America , this is what wefound:

To ship a bike from overseas , it is relatively expensive for both ways.

To buy a local bike , the cost is at least double or more than most any Western Country. There is no restriction of border crossings if bought in Chile but great restrictions if bought in Argentina.

Rental propositions have no restrictions to enter other countries from Chile or Argentina with daily prices ranging from $48us per day to $140us per day ,depending on the value of the bike .

The cheapest option with the least restrictions is to buy a bike from a tourist, where the bike is registered elsewhere. The price is usually comparable to the country of origin and will have no border crossing restrictions. Roads here can be rough and long so have the bike checked out buy a mechanic. Japanese bikes are dependable and have reasonable access to spare parts.

Customs are happy to swap the entry papers to the new owner as long as someone is willing to take the responsibility of taking the bike out of the country prior to the date previously specified on the paper.

We chose to rent a Super Tenere out of Santiago for $60us per day as our stay is relatively short and the bike is an exact duplicate of our other bike . It is strong enough for two up travel on rough roads and we know the bike inside and out.

Hope this helps with your decision.