Happy Sunday! Weekly blog time… How has your week been? Feeling good? Had some nice food? Kept up with my One Hour Outside challenge (which you can read about here if you’ve not got involved yet)?
Lock Down Version 2
How are you feeling about our second national lock down here in England? Have you got plans to “do something” with your month staying at home, or are you intending on doing nothing but putting your feet up and watching whatever takes your fancy on the telly box? Remember back earlier in the year when we had this the first time and I wrote this post about toxic positivity… might be worth a re-read of that right about now. Let’s not fall into those traps again, hey?!
Having said that, I do have a couple of things I want to achieve in the next few weeks. One is (finally) paint the bathroom. Our chosen paint has arrived, a nice creamy dark blue, and it’s not a massive job, probably one weekend, so I should reasonably expect to get that done. Maybe next weekend. The other thing on my list is to do a fair amount of writing; I’m way behind on the blog posts I’ve promised myself and other people I’d write, and so I want to get a handful of those done and published in the next few weeks. Other than that, getting One Hour Outside every day, and work, of course, I’m all about the relaxing this month!
I’m not sure I believe that we’ll be let out of lock down on 2 December, but I’m trying not to think about that too much for now. At least this time we are not quite as restricted as back in March, we can go outside as much as we like, and there are not queues at the supermarkets this time around. Here’s hoping this lock down works and we can get some semblance of normality in time for Christmas and New Year.
On Motorcycle Adventure Travel
Long Way Up
We have finally started watching Long Way Up, the documentary that follows Ewan McGreggor and Charlie Boorman’s motorcycle adventure from Patagonia to LA.
I admit we played the waiting game with this one a bit, wanting to save some pennies and not have to subscribe to Apple TV for any longer than needed. The first episode of the series is free to watch for all, and then there is a seven day free trial, and so we have waited until now to start watching so that we can binge it in one week, watching the final episode when it is released on Friday (13 November).
I really enjoyed the two previous Long Way series’, and definitely appreciate what Charlie and Ewan have done for making motorcycle adventure a bit more mainstream. As a female biker who loves road trips it feels very important that motorcycling is seen as less about tight fitting leather, silly speeds, and even gangs, and much more about a normal way to travel. Yes, they have millions of pounds to spend, full back up crew, and the support of some huge sponsors, but I’m definitely in the camp that they are still having an adventure and enjoy following along with that.
In this case I am super interested in how the electric Harleys will fair, and as you already know from previous blogs, I have already fallen in love with the Rivian pick-up truck and would probably have ordered one if they were being sold here in the UK! I am hoping that there will be some long term benefits of this trip for the places the Long Way Up crew visited, not least because they installed electric charging points on their route…!
“Real Life” Motorcycle Adventure Travel
If you are looking for a more “real-life” motorcycle adventure from Patagonia, you should check out Itchy Boots’ second series of travel vlogs. I’m not getting into a discussion here about whether her adventure was “better” than Ewan and Charlie’s, I’ve commented on adventure being whatever you make of it many times before and it’s not my point today. But the two series certainly demonstrate that overland adventures by motorbike can come in all shapes and sizes.
Here’s Itchy Boots’ season two play list, in which she visits some of the same places that Ewan and Charlie visit in their trip >>
And if that whets your appetite and you want more, here are a couple of other motorcycle adventure travel YouTube channels I think you should check out:
- Two Wheels Big Life are travelling full-time on motorcycles over in the USA, having sold everything to explore their home country.
- As the Magpie Flies is releasing videos of her huge road trip to ride from West to East (and pack), and has a lovely desire to encourage people to “do the thing”.
- Wild She Goes does all kind of travel, but is currently releasing videos of a motorcycle trip nicknamed “The Short Way Down”.
I honestly don’t know how they do it. I’m sure that filming and editing on the road is hard enough when you’re a vanlifer, but when riding motorcycles there is a whole different level of added complication thanks to the nature of being on a bike rather than in a car. We did try ourselves when we did our ten-week road trip in North America back in 2016, much more for our own memories than anyone else’s enjoyment, and so we know it’s not easy to produce something that looks anything other than, well, homemade!
Adventure Dreaming
Anyway, I digress. What Long Way Up, and Itchy Boots, have very successfully done, together, is put Patagonia right back on my travel bucket list. My dream motorcycle trip has always been a slow and winding route between North Cape Norway to South Cape South Africa. But last night I dreamt about getting to the end of that trip and shipping the bikes from there over to Argentina to do the from the bottom to the top in the Americas. Oh dear.
As always, my road trip dreams are a bit far-fetched in many ways, but while I’m here in the UK, on weekend one of our second national lock down, watching other people go on adventures gives me that little bit of escape that keeps me thinking big. Having a massive travel bucket list is no bad thing, I just pray that times and circumstances allow me to get back to planning rather than just dreaming in the not-too-distant future.
While I’ve got you, and linked with the topic of adventure dreaming, I’ve got of the Great British Outdoors scratch maps from Maps International to give away to one of my Splodz Blogz Readers. Head to this post to find out how to enter.
As always, I would really love to hear from you in the comments below. This week, why not tell me where you would love to ride a motorcycle in your dream world…
Use this link to read all my weekly blogs.
Come on by next Sunday evening for the next weekly blog in the series.
I’d love to see you over on Instagram some time. Give me a follow @Splodz and comment on my latest photograph to let me know you have accepted the invitation from my weekly blog. See you there!