In 2011 I was already retired and my wife, Maria, took voluntary redundancy after a big health scare. So we had time on our hands. What to do? Ride our motorbikes, off-road, around Africa, that’s what!
We flew our bikes to Nairobi and headed up to Lake Turkana. We chickened out of going further north because war erupted, so we cadged a lift across the lake. Just us and our two bikes in a little wooden boat. The captain and his mate baled water non-stop and it took three days to get to Kalokol.
We headed west to Uganda. From there we had multiple adventures in Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania again. We flew home from Dar es Salaam.
This journey took seven months. I was out of action for a couple of weeks, once with malaria and once with a bad crash in Rwanda. Not to be outdone, my wife knocked herself unconscious and broke a few ribs in Malawi, so she took a week off too.
We did not meet one bad person! Africa is filled with diverse and beautiful people and there is breathtaking beauty wherever you look. Time is given freely. Food and stories are shared. People looked after us. We learned to adapt to each day and to slow down!
We’ve both been keen bikers since we can remember and have travelled the length and breadth of Europe many times. In 2023 we circumnavigated Australia for six months on a couple of old 650cc bikes we bought when we arrived in Perth and sold again at the end of the trip.
We’re now planning a big trip around South America.