23 September – 11 October 2012
Shirley: We’re on the road to Buffalo, New York State for the final leg of our tour of the Americas before the massive ride home through Europe and Africa.
The Rainbow Bridge offers us great views of Niagara Falls. They’re very nice but they’re not Iguazu!
Back in the US we take the back roads, heading to Virginia to visit a very good old friend, Ian McDougal. Ian’s lived here for more than 20 years and we haven’t seen each other for a decade or more.
On his advice, we ride through Gettysburg in Pennsylvania on the way. This area must look incredible in the fall, still a few weeks away. Many towns are promoting Flaming Foliage festivals when the trees will be a riot of colour. We pass a turn off to the town of Rixford. We have to check this out. It’s a tiny town, but the ride in is lovely with a canopy of leaves over the road. It will be even more beautiful in a few weeks.
Gettysburg was the scene of a major battle during the American Civil War. Historians say it was a major turning point. It was here that Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg Address. ‘Four score and seven years ago …’
It’s well signposted with storyboards explaining the battle and there are some wonderful monuments in memory of those who lost their lives.
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When we arrive in Washington DC, Ian doesn’t look a day older than when we worked together at a Melbourne television station nearly 30 years ago, yet he’s about to turn 60. He’s still the Aussie boy from Shepparton, yearning the simple life rather than the hurly burley of the US national capital. The accent is still Australian, despite working as a television news cameraman in the heart of US politics. He doesn’t have a bike any more, but he’s still a biker at heart. His wife, Jill, and the boys, Jacob and Matthew, make us feel very welcome. His daughter, Erin, is away at college
If the bottom ever falls out of the television news business Ian would make a terrific tour guide. He dusts off his 1966 Mustang convertible with its very Australian number plate — BRUMBY — and gives us a special tour of DC. Before it even starts a Rastafarian at the petrol station gives Ian advice on the best fuel for the performance motor in his Mustang and bids me farewell with a ‘Peace, sister’.
First stop is Arlington Cemetery to witness the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the burial place of the Kennedys. There are 30 or 40 funerals held here every day; some are for the famous, some are not. We pass one funeral procession, the flag draped coffin being born on a gun carriage led by nine horses. Soldiers in redcoat dress uniforms and a band follow. No matter who you are, your funeral is marked by a 21-gun salute so we can hear gunfire most of the time.
In DC we cram in as much as we can, beginning with the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial. He wanted to be remembered with a simple white box but someone didn’t listen. His monument is built in several stages with water features and life-sized statues, including an impressive one of hungry men queued outside a food charity.
We see the Lincoln Memorial, the Martin Luther King Memorial, the moving memorials to the Korean and Vietnam Wars and a memorial commemorating the marines.
While we’re at the evocative black marble Vietnam War Memorial we watch as young people shake the hands of World War II veterans in wheelchairs. One thing about the Americans — they certainly respect their veterans.
Probably my favourite is the Einstein statue. It’s so big we look like little children sitting on grandpa’s knee!
Brian: On the way back to Virginia Ian takes us to the police memorial. There are more than 19,000 names of police killed on duty engraved on the walls that are guarded by lions, lionesses and cubs. It’s a very sobering experience.
Ian tells us about the September 11 attacks. Jill was working in a city law firm and the three kids were at day care. Trying to flee the city after the plane crashed into the Pentagon the roads were so clogged Jill was forced to abandon her car and took the kids home on the train. During this time Ian was in the Mall with his camera, watching and waiting.
We only get to see one of the Smithsonian museums — the Air and Space museum. We spend more than three hours looking at all manner of aircraft from planes held together with string to spacecraft. It’s a bit of a buzz putting my finger on a piece of moon rock.
Ian gives us an extra special tour the Capitol building, using his press accreditation to take us into the inner sanctum. We walk the corridors of power and take the little train that politicians and their staff take between their offices and the Capitol. There’re plenty of staffers giving private tours. At one point we get talking to one of the police who patrol the corridors. He seems quite a good fellow at first, talking bikes and then things turn a little odd. He starts talking about taking a bullet for visiting dignitaries. We move away when he espouses that his solution to most problems only costs 23 cents — the price of a round of ammunition. Hmmm.
By the end of the day we’re all footsore, but not debilitated enough to miss out on dinner with the family at their favourite Ethiopian restaurant. It’s good practice for our ride through Africa. Shirl will have to lift her game, though. I think she’s using the wrong hand, being a left-hander, to eat her food. I’m pretty sure the left hand is used for the ‘other end’ not for touching the food.
It’s time to move on and I know this farewell is going to be a sad one for Shirl. She and Ian were good friends when they worked together all those years ago and she’s become close to the boys and Jill. Ian seems to have enjoyed his Aussie fix and Jill’s been very patient with all the old times. We’ll both miss them.
Shirley: We take the New Jersey turnpike and head to Hoboken. Filmmaker John Sayles and his partner, Maggie Renzi, good friends of my brother, Alan and his wife Galia have offered us their city home come office for a few days.
The paperwork for shipping the bike from Canada to the UK has arrived here minus the very important Green Card insurance. The company won’t fly the bike without it and they’ll charge us another $50.00 to post a duplicate to Toronto. After a couple of fairly tense phone calls Brian finally sorts it out. You just have to be firm.
We settle into this charming Brownstone just a couple of streets from the Hudson River and its magnificent views of Manhattan. Hoboken, New Jersey is a very hip city with groovy bars and restaurants. There are markets and a good wine shop so I give cooking another bash. I haven’t lost it.
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The one thing we want to visit in New York is Ground Zero. Brian was a policeman when the World Trade Centre was hit. We both watched in horror as people fled the scene, the ones going in to help were the emergency service workers. There‘ve been plenty of times over our years together that I’ve been deeply moved by the danger police, fire fighters and ambos face helping others.
We walk around the monument, looking at the names of the first responders killed here — name after name of fire fighters, police and emergency service workers. Even a man from the Police Academy Video Unit died here.
While we’re walking around we see two young men in wheelchairs with two young women. One man has no legs and is wearing a T shirt with the credo about when in doubt empty the cartridge. The other has no legs and has a prosthetic on one. He has only one arm — and a prosthetic where the other arm was. He has a cartoon type bomb outline on his arm with 9/11 tattooed on it. We presume they’re veterans. They hoist themselves out of their wheelchairs and embrace — oblivious to the interest others are taking in them.
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It feels odd when Maggie and John visit us in their house. They even bring dinner. A highly respected filmmaker, at six-feet-four John towers over his life and business partner, Maggie. She’s a true earth mother, but it’s John who’s made the chocolate cupcakes we have for dessert.
We talk about their film projects and they’re keen to know about where we’ve been and where we’re going. The musician Mason Daring, who writes the scores for John’s films, is a keen biker and they insist on contacting him so we can visit on our way north.
Ian McDougal’s young son, Jacob, told us all about Carlo’s Bake House in Hoboken. Apparently it features in a popular reality TV show and Jacob assures us the cakes are the best in the world. The cupcakes are nowhere near as good as John’s.
Brian: The Green Card insurance arrives just as we’re about to hit the road to visit Mason in Marblehead, Massachusetts just north of Boston.
The weather is closing in so we stop to put on our wets. A white van with blacked out windows stops and the driver checks out the bike. He’s wearing a jacket with ‘Office of Chief Medical Examiner’ embroidered on the pocket. He only chats for a couple of minutes, explaining he’s got ‘one in the back’. He has to take the body to the mortuary rather than chatting to us.
Mason’s an energetic man in his 60s and warm in his welcome. So is Millie, the black Labrador. Mason’s home is at the end of a private laneway, perched on the cliff edge overlooking Salem Sound. It’s a great spot. Dinner is pretty special too, with Shirl getting a Maine lobster. There isn’t a peep out of her as she demolishes it, legs and all.
For breakfast Mason takes us to a local cafe and brings along his own special maple syrup. Shirl just about drowns her French toast in it. We’re both going be like the sides of houses at this rate.
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Back in Washington State we had met Bostonian photographer Michael Warren on the ferry from Seattle to the Olympic Peninsula. He invited us to take part in a special photographic series he’s doing of people and their favourite things. Why not, seeing we’re so close?
Michael has booked a special studio that we can ride into and then onto centre stage. It’s a long, slow process. It takes about 40 minutes to get the lights right for a photo of the two of us in our bike gear. Then it’s time for the bike to take centre stage. It takes more than two hours to get the lighting just right. Then we do a short video interview about why the bike is so important to us. That’s easy. Without the bike we can’t do this trip. ‘The bike’s our home, our transport, it carries our worldly possessions, and it carries trinkets from home, things that are important to us. We’re like little turtles.’
Shirley: It’s fall, the season when the leaves turn. To experience more of it we head into the Green Mountains in Vermont on our way to Canada and our flight to the UK. It’s grey, cold and wet so we don’t see the colours at their best but it’s still a wonderful sight — the reds, oranges, silver.
Rather than putting my reading glasses in my bike pant pocket I put them in my wet weather over jacket. At some stage they’ve speared out and are gone. Luckily I brought a second pair from home or I’d be just about blind.
After a night at Saratoga Springs we head to Buffalo and Niagara Falls again and then Toronto. It’s time to hand over our USA visitor cards. This is the last time we’ll be here on this trip. Riding around the US we’ve loved the sights, the people and their eccentricities, even most of the food. It’s been pretty easy to ride around, in comparison to South and Central America. We’ll be back.
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Tall, thin and effusive Cathy and the more reserved Les are going to look after us until we fly out to Manchester. They’re planning their own overland adventure, probably next year. In the meantime they’re running a motorcycle business near their home in Hamilton, about 45 kilometres from Toronto.
They’re always keen to open up their home to travellers. Nicole, Christian, Jens and Kati all stayed here after leaving South America. Now we’re here.
Brian: The bike is booked out on a flight to Manchester on October 11, my birthday. We’ll be on the same flight. Öhlins have organised for a local suspension expert in Manchester to fit our replacement shocker. Now all I need do is book the ferry to Egypt for the next major leg of our journey.
It’s late, we’ve had a couple of drinks so maybe I’m looking at the wrong website, but I can’t find any ferry from Italy to Egypt. I’ll check again tomorrow.
Shirley: It’s Canadian Thanksgiving and friends have invited us all to a hunting cabin in the wilds. I’m not so sure about this hunting thing, but Cath assures us there’ll be no hunting over Thanksgiving.
The cabin is hidden in the forest, at the end of a long bumpy fire trail. I’m glad we’re in Les’s 4WD and not on the bike. The fall colours are more vibrant here, further north. The cabin looks like something out of a movie, a log cabin with just two rooms, one with a couple of bunk beds and one with a wood stove, tables and some couches. There’s no running water, no electricity and no toilet, other than old drop toilet in the outhouse.
There seems to be a lot of talk about guns, something that makes me feel very uncomfortable. The family are going skeet shooting. I decline an invitation to join them. So do Brian, Cath and Les. We go for a wander, kicking our feet through the autumn leaves. It’s something we don’t see to this extent in Melbourne.
Cath and I spy a chipmunk, a tiny, industrious animal busying himself in the undergrowth and dashing up and down the trees. We try and get him to take food from us, but he’s a little nervous.
After a very uncomfortable night, all bunked down in the tiny cabin, it’s Thanksgiving Sunday. Like the US, turkey is on the menu. The wood fire stove is stoked to cook the bird and all the trimmings. The beers are flowing; even the skeet shooters are drinking.
Someone sets up a can right near the cabin for target practice, in between sips of beer. A teenage boy takes aim at the chipmunk in the tree and hits it. I can’t believe my eyes. Cath is horrified. The boy has to shoot the little chipmunk again to kill it.
Yesterday we were watching this little fellow playing in the leaves and trying to get him to come up to us. No one but us seems concerned by this. What kind of people are these?
We eat the turkey and it’s okay but it’s not a festive occasion. Once we finish dinner we head off back to Toronto, a night earlier than originally planned. The edge has been taken off the weekend for the four of us.
At home I get an email from our house sitter, Sonia, to say our cat Emily is losing weight and she will take her to the vet. That tips me over and I cry myself to sleep. Killing for sport just doesn’t fit with my life.
Brian: The bike’s washed and ready to go to the airport for the flight to Manchester. Cath and Les’s car is off the road so a friend Peter drives Cath in his Mercedes and we follow behind. I’ve run the bike low on fuel and hope there’s enough to get us to the airport. As the kilometres tick by I stress until we turn into the freight terminal. There are limits to how much fuel we can have in the bike to fly it. There’s no way it’s over that limit.
I expect the usual long delays and problems with the paperwork instead I find pleasant and efficient staff who get the paperwork organised in less than half an hour. Unlike Bogota airport there’s a concrete ramp to get the bike into the holding area rather than a bit of board. All I have to do is disconnect the battery and tape up the positive terminal. Simple.
Now the bike’s out of the way, I go online to sort out the ferry from Europe to Egypt. The other night I couldn’t find any listings and it’s the same today. No matter where I try all the ferries have been suspended because of the problems in Syria. This isn’t good. There’s one other thing I can try and that’s a ferry that goes from Turkey to Egypt.
I know there’s a bit of reluctance with Shirl about this leg of the journey but she’s being very positive, pushing me to try other options.
It’s October 10 and the northern winter isn’t that far away. If I can track down the ferry from Turkey it’ll be a rush to get from the UK, across France, Germany, Austria, the old Yugoslavia and Greece. It’s more than 3,500 kilometres but it’s doable. The weather will be turning against us, which is something else we need to consider.
Shirley: It’s Brian’s birthday and we’re flying to the UK for the next leg of our adventure. This whole ferry thing is a worry. He’s determined to get through Africa but it’s looking less and less likely. The Arab Spring seems to causing us a few problems.
We could get into Morocco without a problem but to ride across North Africa isn’t so easy. Since the fall of Gaddafi in 2011 Libya is very difficult to travel through independently. The authorities don’t recommend travelling through Algeria and we’d need to be careful in Tunisia. Riding south from Morocco isn’t an option. The Taliban are very active in western Africa and it would be way too dangerous. Brian’s going to keep on the ferry from Turkey. That may be the option.
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We don’t want Les and Cathy to park and come into the airport with us to avoid the long goodbyes. As it is I cry a little when we say goodbye. So does Cath and even Les has a tear. Saying goodbye is the hardest part of these trips. Cath and I hit it off from the first day we met at the Overland Expo in Arizona in May. Hopefully we’ll see them in Australia one day soon when they’re on their motorcycle trip around the world.
Our trip, so far, has taken us through 19 countries in South, Central and North America — 64,130 kilometres.