It's only one week to go, one week and the greatest adventure of my life will start. On Sunday the 7th August 2011 early in the morning my good old bike will be packed and I will leave my lovely hometown Sydney, not seeing this beautiful city for a whole entire year.

The plan is to first ride across Australia from Sydney to Perth, 4000km away. When I say 'we' I mean my humble little Suzuki DR650 and myself because for this first leg of the journey it's only gonna be the two of us. From Perth we will fly across the Indian Ocean to Johannesburg, South Africa. And then keep heading north towards Westafrica and Morocco. Catching a ferry from there will see us arriving in Gibraltar and will start the final leg of the journey to Germany. Finally we will arrive in the small town of Schoenheide in Germany, the place where I grew up and which most of my family still calls home. But at this stage Germany still seems a world away, much too far to worry about. For now.

Somehow our story will remind you of the famous tales of Don Quichote and his fearless horse Rosinante. A very able horse ridden by a rather clueless hero through the most incredible of adventures.
The 'hero' in our story would be me. A 1977 German born Australian who, until last year, has never ridden a motorbike. So the term 'clueless' fits perfectly. My own 'Rosinante' stood by me on the big adventure of me learning to ride motorbikes. And she is the one who paid the price, being dropped many times in sand and dirt and dust by her swearing rider. She's the one teaching me the secrets of her kind while bits and pieces of her spread out across the footpath in Sydney during various 'improvement' surgeries. She was always there and never complained and we properly checked each other out on a 3700km team bonding tour through the Australian outback and became good friends there and then. By now we are a proven team for almost 10000km worth of good times together. I am a very happy man to have her by my side for our first ever adventure trip.

But back to the real topic here – the journey. Once we made it to the other side of Australia we will both fly across the Indian Ocean to get the adventure really started. My old best friend Martin will be eagerly waiting for our arrival in Johannesburg. He will be there on his Honda Africa Twin. And we all will then travel together through Africa. Back to the old home country, back all the way to Germany. Passing through Central and West Africa on the way and meeting as many people as we can.

At this stage I would be incredibly nervous if I hadn't had the support of the Horizons Unlimited community. You guys gave me lots of great advice and patiently answered all my questions . So here I am, still nervous but ready to go. On a second thought – still incredibly nervous actually.

Provided there is an internet connection where we are going this thread will tell our story in text and pictures live from the road. So stay tuned and wish us luck and see if this newbie on his bike can make it through Australia and Africa and Europe!

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no risk - no fun