Previous Adventures

Our first big trip! Two up on a little Kawasaki Z200 we rode from home to tour the French Riviere.

Highs: First ride in a foreign country; great food; Paris

Lows: Small bike was prone to punctures; Being broke in Paris.

Two up on a Honda CX500 in the West of Ireland.

Highs: First time in the West of Ireland; Seeing more of our home country.

Lows: The trip was too short!

Two up on our trusty CX500 through England, France, Switzerland & Italy

Highs: First time in big mountains - the Alps; First Glacier; Climbing the Leaning Tower of Pisa; The Ancient glories of Rome.

Lows: This was the last big trip the CX did. It was wrote off in a big smash up in 1985.

Two up on a Kawasaki GT750 to go to see our friend Holger in Badbergen, North Germany

Highs: Staying with Holger's Mum & Dad - great cooking!; Splendid medieval cities in Belgium & Holland

Lows: Finding out the GT750 had major engine defects - it burned oil like a 2-stroke & we got rid of it shortly after this trip.

Two up on a Kawasaki GT550 riding down through England, Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Algieria & Tunisia. We took a ferry back to France & then back home - all in 6 weeks.

Highs: Our first big adventure; Our first fund raiser for Action MS - a Multiple Sclerosis charity; Morocco - our favourite country (until this trip); Experiencing the Arab way of life; Travelling during Ramadan; Dining with the Algerian Police!

Lows: Haunted Hotel in Algeria (ghosts in the night turned out to be cats in the kitchen!); Coming home - the utter depression of riding back into Belfast knowing it was all over :-(

I held on to the GT550 whilst Maggie now had Kawasaki GPz305 riding down through England, France, Germany, Italy into Yugoslavia for a 4 week trip down the Adriatic Coast.

Highs: Venice; Dubrovnik; Plitvic Lakes; The road to Cetinje (motorcycling heaven!) - A winding road that climbs higher and higher into the mountains overlooking the Gulf of Kotor, south of Dubrovnik. Breathtaking drop-away views that make you sit back and take your time. A road to be savoured. At the end we got to race a Boeing 737 on take-off as the road runs alongside a local airport.

Lows: The clutch basket falling off the GPz outside Venice; Seeing the effects of Communism first hand (& Yugoslavia was supposed to be one of its success stories at that time); Getting stoned by gypsies on the road to Cetinje.

After Yugoslavia, we traded the two Kawasakis in for a GL1200 Goldwing & moved to England. Our first trip was this tour of the Battle of the Bulge sites in the Ardennes.

Highs: Touring on the Goldwing - big bike with weather protection & music!; Wrecked tanks everywhere.

Lows: We wanna go further!

We visited the Belgian Treffen at Aalst & later the German Treffen down in the Black Forest.

Highs: Holger's wedding in Germany; The Rheinfall at Schaffhausen; Riding in the Schwartzwald; Good crowds at the Treffens.

Lows: Too many Gold Wing Treffens (same crowd different venue week-in / week-out); Seeing perfectly good touring bikes done up like dog's dinners by chromosexual owners.

We flew the Wing from London to Vancouver & then rode to Toronto via the Grand Canyon. 6,000 miles in 4 weeks.

Highs: Where do I start? Yellowstone; The Canyons (Bryce, Grand & Zion); Riding a Big Bike on Big Roads in the USA; Gracelands; The Blue Ridge Parkway (one of the best bike roads in the world); Touring the battlefields at Yorktown & Gettysburg; Niagara Falls; Great people; ridiculously cheap petrol!

Lows: Worst food in the world; Psycho phone call in our motel room at 3:30 am in Bristol, Virginia (now would he burst through the door with a knife, a gun or would it be an axe - and why didn't we notice the room was actually the stage set from Psycho?).

We took the Wing down through France across the north coast of Spain, down into Portugal and quickly back into Spain & home over the Pyrenees.

Highs: Cognac ice cream in France; Hiking in the Picos de Europa Mountains (Spain); The walled city of Avila (with over 100 turrets); The Pyrenees

Lows: Portugal - worst place we've ever been on the bike - nearly killed 3 times in a 24 hour period due to maniac drivers; Seeing lots of accidents on Portugese roads; Cutting short the trip in Portugal after only 4 days; Not speaking Spanish

A short 2 week break down to the Cevennes.

Highs: Escaping to a very remote, rural part of France; Cuisine; Gorges du Tarn

Lows: Having to go back to work at the end of it!

A ride up to Cape Wrath - the most North Westerly tip of the British Isles.

Highs: Unexpectedly great weather in Scotland; Long summer nights

Lows: Not enough time - wanted to go on to see the Western Isles!

We took the Wing down to Marseille and then by ferry to Ajaccio for a tour around the beautiful island of Corsica.

Highs: One of the most stunning motorcycle destinations anywhere; Filitosa (we both experienced one of the most uplifting feelings of happiness at this ancient burial site); Corsican wine:-)

Lows: Maggie was suposed to ride her own bike - a brand new Yamaha Virago but it had trashed its starter motor gears the week before the trip and the engine was full of metal filings so we went 2-up at the last minute.

We spent these years living and working in Munich & Noordwijk (Holland) and took advantage to see as much of the surrounding countries as possible on te Wing and the now repaired XV535 Virago.

Highs: Gross Glockner Pass (Austria) - Scary switchbacks through chocolate-box alpine scenery complete with glaciers; Lake Garda (Italy); Garmisch Area (near Munich).

Lows: Having to tear myself away from all these great roads to go into work!

Maggie organised a 2 week tour of California on a Harley Road King to celebrate my 40th birthday.

Highs: Palm Springs; Las Vegas; Death Valley; a little mountain town called Kernville in the Sierra Nevada; Posing as a bad-ass biker on the Harley.

Lows: The Harley - 6 months old, 3 oil leaks, bits falling off it - it was a bundle of junk; Going deaf due to the Road King's straight through pipes.