Category General

Apr 14 2017

A day in the lives of the 2slowspeeds

We wake up at 4am in Montreal – probably due to a mixture of being on UK time zone and excitement at starting our trip. We get to Air Canada Cargo by 7.30, hand over our Air Way Bill and I hear ‘encore un qui est allé à Toronto’ – another one that’s gone to Toronto!! Our bikes are not the only shipment yesterday that was sent to Toronto instead of Montreal! No wonder we never saw them be loaded as we were waiting to board our plane.

Little did we know then…

Maybe if Air Canada used more conventional airport codes like MON or TOR instead of YUL and YYZ we thought, they may not make such mistakes, repeatedly apparently!!! How about Air Canada send us to Toronto, we will pick them up from there as Toronto was on our way anyway. Sounds easy. But the little challenge is that the computer system shows the bikes being received in Toronto, and nothing else. Where are they now? It seems London hasn’t done anything to rebook them to get to Montreal. And the planes from Toronto to Montreal are not capable of taking the special motorcycle pallets. Are they on the truck over?? Some of the cargo is listed as being loaded onto a truck to Montreal but no mention of the bikes. “You can go and get breakfast while we investigate this says” one employee says cheerfully. Well, not only did we have breakfast at the hotel but we have no wheels to drive anywhere. So here we are – perfect opportunity for me to start our Day 1 report!!!

Within 1 hour of arriving at Canada Air Cargo, we find out what happenned:

The front cargo mechanism on our plane failed so half the cargo didn’t make the flight and they put this cargo including our bikes on the Toronto plane which was sitting next to ours at Heathrow and leaving one hour before us. Air Canada Cargo have an automated system which automatically rebooks such cargo to its original destination. Very clever. But the system failed. They were not rebooked back to Montreal.

We ask whether Air Canada will fly us or at least give us cheap tickets to fly to Toronto rather than us spending a day in Montreal for our bikes to get to us. They have never been ask anything like that but agree to go off and try. Not only are the passenger and cargo branches two different organisations, it is good Friday – no one is around for them to talk too. We quickly check the cost of flights – prohibitive – we are not spending $700 to get to Toronto! In the meantime the air cargo guys have put their thinking caps on for us: maybe they can extend our original tickets from London to Montreal to go to Toronto?! We wait…

The service manager Michel offers to take us to a local coffee shop. While there he get confirmation we have been booked onto the noon flight to Toronto. He is profusely apologetic and thanks us for making his job easier by being calm and patient about the whole situation. After our Delhi customs experience, this is nothing for us. He drives us back to the passenger terminal for our flight. We only need to collect our ticketless boarding pass.

Air Canada ticketless boarding passes

An hour’s flight and we are quickly in a taxi to Air Canada Cargo at Toronto airport. The service clerk is aware of our bikes and immediately refers us to the Cargo manager Jalal as they have a problem with the keys. A problem with the keys?!?! Yes, they are in Montreal and won’t get here until 3.30pm. The automatic forwarding system worked for the keys!! We never got to find out why the keys didn’t stay with the bikes! They will be on a flight arriving from Montreal at 3.30pm.

While we wait for the keys, let’s get the bikes processed by customs so that we can get on our way as soon as the keys arrive. Another little issue to be sorted out: the airway bill has the bikes arriving in Montreal so that is where they should clear customs. The manager gets back onto the phone to a few people. It appears the customs officials cannot clear goods whose airway bill states are to be cleared in another entry port. More calls are made.

More thinking caps are put on and our very helpful Toronto cargo guys come up with a solution. New paperwork is produced with Toronto as the destination. A couple of trips between the air cargo warehouse and customs buildings, reminiscent of our Delhi saga but with hardly any other people around, and we have the bikes officially stamped into the country!!!!

Toronto air cargo customs and warehouses

In perfect timing, the keys are delivered to the warehouse just as we get back there. Time to ride our bikes out of the warehouse.

Streak and Storm waiting for us at Toronto Air Canada Cargo

We cannot thank Michel, Jalal and their teams enough for all they did for us. Unbelievable!!

It is now 4.30pm. The air is crisp and skies are deep blue. Do we check into a hotel nearby and get a good night’s sleep or do we get going? We could be Niagara Falls by 6pm. Guess what we decided to do…

Toronto – we are good to go!!!

A gorgeous day in Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls

At Niagara Falls


What a day: Montreal in the morning and Niagara Falls by the evening! We hadn’t even planned on going there – we had seen them from the air and were content with that. But what a sight they are and what a buzz to be here after such a day of surprises. What a fantastic day in the lives of the 2slowspeeds.

Thank you to those of you who humoured us with the caption challenge. You are all winners!!

– Anne

Apr 11 2017

Preparing for the road

Medical dramas behind us, we can focus on preparing for our departure to Canada on the 13th. This last week has seen us re-united with Streak and Storm in their winter retreat and us ride them up to North Oxford Garage for their preparation for travel. The BMW Motorrad service department led by Matt have been wonderful in dealing with our various ‘needs’ as Streak and Storm were prepared for a RTW journey. We cannot thank Matt enough for helping us with getting Anne’s bike fully fit again. Matt you are a legend!

Matt from BMW Motorrad at North Oxford with a rejuvinated Streak and Storm

We were reminded that we need to be more vigilant in our inspections as ‘Streak’, Anne’s bike, was found to have dirty brown dishwater for coolant. We have no idea how this happened as the coolant system of the BMW F700GS is pressurised and we have not touched it. A mystery. As I was smugly standing back thinking my bike ‘Storm’ was fine, it was pointed out that ‘Storm’ had suffered overheating to the point where the surface coating of the side of the radiator had blistered off! I never got a dashboard warning! Note to selves, check bikes more carefully in future. Luckily neither problem appears to have caused any damage to the engines, which were examined carefully during the valve clearance check.

Fortuitously, it was found that the tyres, chains and sprockets on both ‘Streak’ and ‘Storm’ appear to have enough life remaining to see us across the USA and Canada. We will now replace them in Vancouver before departing for Asia. This should see us through back to Europe on the second set. An earlier replacement would have increased the chance of a remote location change, not our preferred option!

Packing has proved more challenging than I thought, with everything we used last time stored with the bikes, it should have been a breeze. However when we travelled in 2014/5 we had an endless summer as our hemisphere moves synced with the seasons. We are now starting mid April in Montreal, possibly heading to Alaska, so a little warmer clothing is required to be packed, although looking at the temperature, we may be wearing it all at once! We have also noticed the visible wear on panniers and other items that we will need to watch on the journey, which is starting almost three years since the beginning of our first adventure. We and the bikes are a little bit older, greyer and more frayed around the edges.

This reminded me that three years ago, this blog started as a way of communicating with friends and family when we decided to undertake our first long distance motorcycle journey from London down to Singapore. This was meant to be a one off for the duration of our 2014/5 RTW trip. Our desire to travel again in 2016 both on motorbike and in a 4×4 saw the blog revived, recording our experiences travelling in Spain and Southern Africa. Now, as we undertake preparations for our next adventure, I realised that the “2slowspeeds” blog not only celebrated its third birthday, but saw its 250th entry posted around the same time! Who would have thought, especially with my limited English grammar and both our limited motorcycling skills?

Since we left home in Brisbane, we have also enjoyed the opportunity to spend quality time with both family and friends between our bike servicing, visa applications and packing. While we were unable to see everyone in our time here, we enjoyed catching up but we are now ready to go. Panniers and bikes loaded, we leave from Hampshire heading towards Heathrow. We will overnight near Heathrow and deliver ‘Streak’ and ‘Storm’ to Air Canada tomorrow for customs processing so they can join us on the same flight on Thursday 13th to Montreal.

No more planning, we are off. What adventures await?


We have been so busy that we seem to have had little time to think. This morning as I headed for breakfast, I felt the first stirrings of excitement. The adventure is underway…..

– Anthony

Apr 4 2017

A wrinkle in the road….

Pickup time for our very first activity in London, the collection of the Mongolian visas is fast approaching and here I am lying on a bed in the busy A & E (Accident and Emergency) department of the Charing Cross hospital with a cannula in my right arm and a nasal tampon that seems about half a metre long up my left nostril! Our first wrinkle in this RTW adventure, so how did we get here?

My wake up call came early this morning, four a.m. to be precise. The feeling of warm blood running down one’s face works as a wake up call for me. Nose bleeds are something I have not experienced for many, many years, so this is a surprise. A little judicious nose squeezing and I was able to stop this one and the three subsequent nosebleeds before we left the hotel room looking like a murder crime scene without the body. I wonder if the cleaners called the police just in case. We travelled to the Mongolian Embassy in Knightsbridge where the day slowly degenerated following another nosebleed outside the visa section and I painted a nice vivid red pattern on the pavement but did stop the bleeding. Time to do something about this so off to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital A&E department, since this was the closest. A nice walk past Earls Court on a sunny London day. We did stop at a GP’s office to be told that a single visit would cost £120, about AUD$200!, keep walking..

As this was likely to be a lengthy process, as all A&E visits are, Anne carried on to her mother’s, and I would stay in London to collect the passports, with visas, at 4pm. An hour or so after seeing the triage nurse, I get to see an A&E registrar (doctor). It turns out that I am at the wrong hospital for my type of problem, not only are there now multiple capability levels of Hospital A&E in the U.K. but hospitals now specialise and ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) is handled at Charing Cross Hospital, which is nowhere near Charing Cross. The doctor at Chelsea and Westminster tells me they do not even have the equipment, a special camera, to look up my nose. It pays to check in advance, if you can, which hospitals have your injury/illness speciality. I am advised to try a special nasal antiseptic cream, but if the nose bleeds start again, go to Charing Cross A&E.

All is looking Ok, across the road to the pharmacy for the cream and I start to think about lunch, then whoosh….., it’s back on again and does not want to stop . Damm. Into a London black cab and off to Charing Cross A&E. In the cab we discussed the damage Uber is doing to the London transportation system, more on that in an another blog entry.

At Charing Cross A&E, I think I got priority due to dripping blood in various places – note to self, always carry some red cake colouring to get up the queue. Past the triage nurse and I am in the examination cubicle. Blood pressure taken, again, a cannula into the arm, and blood is drawn for testing. All very efficient. I then get introduced to a ‘nasal tampon’, which I had never heard of, advised to close my eyes and on the count of three..Ouch!!! This why, as a child, you should not put pencils up your nose.

Social media not at it’s best


8cm long, not funny.


Not comfortable, but it does stop the blood flow. It’s now about 2:30pm and I have visas to collect at 4pm, the clock is ticking. By 3:30pm, still waiting, I realise that I will not be collecting the visas today. Here we are on the first day of our journey and we are a heading for a day behind already. No wonder we are called the “2slowspeeds”.

My treatment cubicle in A&E is needed so I am ushered into a new waiting room adjacent to the A&E waiting room to wait for an ENT specialist to see me. I feel like I have come full circle waiting with others and as we swap stories, I find that we have all been taken care of, but there are long waiting periods with no contact or information that people find frustrating. As the hours tick by I hope that I can get out to catch a train to the hotel at a reasonable hour. As no one wants to miss their slot, meals are missed and patients get cranky. How does one bridge the information void between busy staff and waiting patients. If there was an easy answer, a solution would have been developed.

After a couple of hours, I am called in to see the ENT specialist. Now I imagine a quick examination, a possible cauterisation and I will be on my way. Errr NO… I am being admitted to stay overnight as the ‘nasal tampon’ needs to stay in place for 24 hours and it and I need to remain in the hospital! Definitely not what I was expecting. Due to OH&S, I am wheeled in a chair through a labyrinth of corridors to the far side of the hospital. Will I be able find my way back again?

Hospitals are serious places. They are not here for my amusement.


The next morning the nurses draw blood for the third time. I am sure if they see a cannula in the arm, they just draw blood as a matter of course. The ENT specialist too visits, removes the ‘nasal tampon’: it’s as much fun coming out as it was going in. A quick camera scan and some cauterisation and I am on the way to the Russian visa processing centre. My 24 hour detour is over and we are only 2 hours behind schedule, we are back on track. My thanks to all in the NHS that made this possible.

– Anthony

Mar 30 2017

“As one door closes another opens”

“As one door door closes another opens”. A phrase used by my paternal grandmother from time to time to help one deal with the challenges that life throws in our direction. I am using it in a more literal sense: we have closed the front door of our home for the last time as we get into the Uber, not taxi anymore, and head off on another adventure.

The phrase also sums up well, in my mind, the change that occurs when we depart from home base and take those first steps on our journey. Up until now, we have absorbed vast quantities of information from various sources as we strategised, organised and planned the trip We now move from the planning phase to the execution phase and this is a key step that some find difficult to undertake. Anne read recently of a group that planned for 10 years for a round Europe trip!

While there may be a series of logical reasons for undertaking such lengthy planning, in our experience one needs to understand that it will never be possible to develop the perfect plan. One can always refine and improve, early drafts can benefit from revisions brought about through greater or better knowledge, but at some point, one has to say “let the adventure begin” or it will remain just a theoretical exercise. One just tries to get the balance right.

In our case we have no visas as we depart – all this will take place on the road as our route and timing mean that we were too early to apply for Russian and Mongolian visas in Australia. We need to undertake this task in London. An example of forced post departure planning.

Leaving home for an extended period, one has to consider home security. Before departing I came up with a few planned security enhancements for our home. Firstly, we have installed intelligent lightbulbs. I recently had to get a replacement bulb and found that during our time away, they seem to have invented light emitting diode (LED) bulbs replacing the CFC ones we currently had. I knew nothing about them – shows the sheltered life I have led on the road. I also found you can get the Phillips Hue bulb system which can be programmed to come on a specific times in the evening to give the appearance the home is occupied. The system also has an Apple iOS interface, which means I can now talk to our light bulbs via Siri on the iPhone. This has led to me wandering the home saying “bedroom on 50%” with Siri turning the bulb on accordingly. Sad but true. Internet rumour suggests these LED bulbs could last up to 25 years. Have I brought my last lightbulb?

Second line of defence was to be old iPhones used as camera sensors, connected to the internet via a clever app, but the concern we both had was old phone batteries connected for months on end to the mains power. Seen too many Samsung YouTube videos so that was a non starter. Last line of defence was to be a bucket of scorpions scattered throughout the house, unfortunately I learnt at the last minute they can live without food or water for 12 months, not six months as I thought, which would have been perfect for our seven month planned absence. Anne forcefully opposed that one, so do not touch the lid of that bucket that I left somewhere around the back of our home as I could not get rid of them before departure.

Enough ramblings, you readers want adventure. We are off, an uneventful ride to the airport to start 24 hours of travel ahead on Etihad via Abu Dhabi. I am still amazed by this form of travel which whisks us from one side of the plant to the other, a journey that took us six months overland. Two flights later, we are in Europe, greeted by un-seasonably warm weather.

We had been debating the packing of (town) gloves in the hours before departure, now left behind as we have sunshine and a balmy, by European standards, weather – so unexpected. We are very lucky.

Anne indicated a desire to undertake some off-road riding, which I thought was commendable so early in the trip. I wanted to wait until we had Streak and Storm out of storage but Anne wanted to grab the throttle and get started. However I am not sure she is taking things seriously, this is not what I envisaged …

Anne starts her off road practice

So here we are, visa and bike process to start next week after the jet-lag has worn off, we will keep you posted.

– Anthony