London to Morocco by Motorcycle
Two and half years ago Neil, Sean and I sat in a cafeteria enjoying our first (albeit interesting) experience with Korean food. Surrounded by expats from America, Canada, England and the antipodean nations, we laughed about the tiny milk cartons, challenged each other to eat kimchi and discussed our dreams of riding from London to Morocco on a motorcycle.
The bald-headed boy from Devon (Sean) and the kiwi oaf (Neil) spent almost every opportunity talking about bikes, talking about gear and talking about routes across Africa… and then they were separated. Sean was sent to Chungju and we were sent to Cheongju. A distance of several hours now split the two but thanks to technology and cheap buses they continued to plan their adventure. To be honest, it became a little tiresome and at times I wondered if anything would come of it, even more so when we moved from Korea to London and left Sean behind. But I was wrong.
Since Sean arrived back in the UK a couple of months ago things have been moving along at speed. Neil bought a bike, Sean got his license, Sean bought a bike, Neil bought gear, Sean bought gear, I brought gear….Originally planned as a boys only excursion, I will now be joining them for two of the three weeks, flying into Morocco, touring around and then back to England via Spain.
Last week the final piece of the puzzle arrived – Sean’s registration papers and since then it’s been full steam ahead; buying ferry tickets, mapping out some kind of rough route and booking accommodation. Both boys have been collecting essential items for the trip – everything from allen keys, spanners and saucepans to Vaseline (don’t ask).
The departure date is now locked and loaded – Sunday June 17th. After so much anticipation it’s hard to believe it’s all finally happening. I’ll be posting some more information in the next couple of weeks – bits and bobs about the bikes, the gear and a more detailed itinerary but for now here’s a rough plan of the route all 6,134kms of it!!
If you want to follow the tour updates on Twitter make sure you add @neilandg or follow the hash tag #LONtoMOR
