News
News
26. December 2016
Perth
Australia / WA
Merry Christmas
to all our friends around the globe! This year we reached finally Australia. Of course we are celebrating it over here as well and it´s time of recharging our own batteries. All the best for you. See you on the road!!!
30. December 2016
Perth
Australien / WA
Broome and up the Dampier Peninsula...
Hello, you will receive most when you will expect least. That´s what happened back during our break in Broome. The fascinating landscape gave us not much rest.
Every part of the coastline has its own character and whether if you believe it or not,… our time was flying by while doing crab fishing, quad riding, collecting oysters, bike repairing and evaluating beaches. We always wanted to do all the things which "normal" tourists are not doing ...... With the locals Andrea, Peter, Julie, Dai and Billy, we were able to do it for a couple of weeks. We have discovered a piece of Australia, which is hopefully not in every Lonely planet. But, what could have been better than having a small piece of earth, on which you can work undisturbed. Having local people around you, with whom you can exchange your experience, was wonderful. In addition to that they showed us their surrounding which made it truly perfect. Thank you all for that! Tim and Lilly, however, were attracting more and more attention. Once again we dismantled Tim´s carburetor and gifted both bikes new spark plugs and of course we had to do a couple of other things to do. So everything as always. It became than too hot for us up there in the north and the rain was already coming in shorter intervals. Rain Season was on the run! So we headed south. If you find a bigger trace of screws on the way (the normal one already exists since Germany ...) it´s probably ours…. So what happened on the next 3.000km you can read in the next post. We wish you all a great start into the new year!
19. Oktober 2016
Kununurra
Australia / WA
Bullita Stock Route, Goodbye NT
After visiting the Kathrine Gorge (Nitmiluk-Nationalpark) with Edith Falls and surrounding area, we made around Timber Creek a proper off-road tour with full
equipment loaded on Tim + Lilly. During our ride of the Bullita Stock Route in the Gegory National Park we have seen in 3 days exactly no other traveller and got a taste of how lonely it can be in the outback... The 4WD track was quite hard, in addition to the temperatures of more than 40 degrees Celsius and a lot of dried-out rivers. So on the one side we didn´t had any water crossing, but on the other we also found less drinking water. In every creek we saw (caution crocodiles!), we filtered water for our water bags. 10l per person per day we always needed. The last days we have been hanging around the small town Kununurra (already the state Western Australia) and will continue in the next hours on the legendary Gibb River offroad track through the Kimberleys to Broome.
13. November 2016
Broome
Australia / WA
Gibb River Road, Australia / Experiencing the Kimberley adventure
Hi everybody, riding the Gibb River Road into the Kimberleys at this time of the year is already challenging enough for a
motorcycle traveller. Some would just call it "bloody hot“ and not the right season. However, in addition to the Gibb itself, we still wanted to know what the Kimberley myth is all about, by trying to reach the most spectacular remote places. Hundreds of kilometers long detours on corrugated roads deep into the Australian bush, away from the Gibb itself. This is the only way to reach places like the aboriginal rock paintings around King Edwards River crossing, Mitchell Plateau and maybe manage to make it up to the coast. Port Warrender with it´s magnificent view over the Timor Sea and looking a last time back where we were coming from would be absolutely fantastic, we thought. This excursions with it´s hundreds of merciless hardcore extra track kilometers became then the real riding, logistical challenge for us and caused the main wear of our old babies... (see picture: frame cracked of Tim + Lilly). The Gibb itself was not to bad. In addition to the enormous temperatures, at the end of the season much was already closed. Especially the few "roadhouses" and rare possibilities to fill up, caused headaches before we started. Unfortunately, we don´t have an off-road vehicle, which can carry extra fuel for several thousand kilometers and provisions for weeks. That’s why we were in the very beginning, in a weak moment to be honest, uncertain whether we should do this trip during this brutally hot time of the year. At the end of the dry season, temperatures of more than 40 degrees are normal, and during hard offroad activities material are subject to wear about 10 times more than on a comfy asphalt road around the Kimberleys. Afterwards there will usually be a lot of things to repair. We knew all about that from a few years of experience already... But as soon as we were riding, all these thoughts were blown away. Several kilos of spaghetti, rice, tuna found their way in the smallest free corner in our panniers and bags, and made us even more heavy than we already were... On top, sometimes 25 l of water + 20 l of extra petrol were added for 2 people + machines, which didn´t made the off road job much easier... We don´t have a backup car! We really appreciated that our bikes didn´t broke down already before we even left. While driving through the Kimberley's, we realized pretty soon that we are in one of the most secluded and spectacular parts of Australia. WOW! Far away from the lifeline Gibb River Road (where is still a car coming every 1-2 hours), you can certainly wait days, weeks or even months before someone is coming around on one of these remote tracks. Here you are on your own if something bad happen to us. The Kimberleys are almost as large as Germany, but there are only about 40,000 inhabitants resident. Insane! It felt incredibly great, after the huzzle and buzzle in Asia. Since we left Drysdale River Station for 4 days to the magnificent Mitchell plateau until we came back we met…? Exactly! Nobody! Was it worth all these struggles with heat, hard riding, lack of water + fuel, demolishing and bush repairs on the bikes? Oh yeah! Definitely! We were sweating like george bush in baghdad..., but because being out there in the absolutely off season we had everything for ourselves. It was good that we were wearing a motorcycle helmet, otherwise we would have swallowed a lot more flies, cause we often drove slack jawed, amazed, by this beauty through this adventurous area. Here is now a small impression what we were able to explore. even if such a small selection of pictures of a few thousand... and little bit of writing can´t really explain what´s going on out there. If you would like to know more about what happened to us in this region, just come back in a while and hopefully then there will be a detailed report. By the way, at the moment we are recovering well in the former pearl town Broome and we are already planning our next adventure.
06. August 2016
Darwin
Australia / NT
We had an awesome time! Thanks to all of you! We keep on rocking!
11. August 2016
Kupang
Indonesien / Timor
Shipping from Ende (Flores) to Kupang (West Timor)
You see how it looks like, if you have to bring the bikes on the ferry in the typical Losgezogen style and you want to go to Kupang (West Timor) from Ende (Flores)….
We still were really lucky, that we could use the crane of a nearby rice freighter for this insane maneuver, which nearly failed due to the high waves. Lilly nearly ditched in the water and Tim smashed in the captains bridge. Anyone who prefers the less exciting way, with his beloved motorbike, car, truck, etc. please DON`T DO IT IN ENDE and use the easy way with proper RORO facilities in the harbour of Aimere, Larantuka / Flores. There are NO RoRo facilities in Ende port to load the vessel. Of course they told us before, while selling us tickets and showing bikes, there will be „no problem“!
Time Schedule (no guarantee):
-Aimere:(RORO) Wednesday and Saturday at 9 am (24 hours)
-Larantuka: (RORO) Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 12 pm
-Ende: (NO RORO!!!) Normally just Passenger or scooters which have to be lifted by an adventures way on board...: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 2 pm (18 hours) / 355.000 Rupies (per Bike incl. Driver)
That´s it from us for today. We already started cleaning bikes for OZ, over here in Dili / East Timor.
18. August 2016
Dili
East Timor
The door is closed! OZ here we come!
After 9 days!!! of washing, painting, waxing and brushing our bikes and gear (average 12 hours a day) they did a remarkable „cleaning - metamorphosis" and they are now sailing
in a 20 feet container with the bikes of our friends ( Do Austrálie ) on high seas in a container from Dili to Darwin. Cleaning a dirt bike which has been ridden for 3 years on the dirty roads between Istanbul, Delhi and Bangkok and to remove every single particle of dust and oil stain is no fun and the most stupid thing what we did since a long time on our bikes. We hope Australian quarantine inspection service appreciates our work and the country Australia, sorry continent…, is worth the efforts of the night shifts here in East- Timor.
29. August 2016
Darwin
Australia / NT
Touchdown in Australien!
We landed a week ago, by plane, gently on the red continent. Gently in a double meaning. While we are waiting for Tim and Lilly, our two motorcycles, which are somewhere in a 20
feet container on the ocean, we are enjoying as well our landing at our host David, where we stuff ourselves with the complete sortiment of the local Woolworth and Coles. Yummi!
We did some first steps in our new environment around Darwin and are already dreaming of future outback tracks by bike. A new, laid-back, western world that makes us curios... We are looking forward to having a great time!
Impressionen of 2016
01. August 2016
Labuhanbajo
Indonesien/Flores
Bali - Where are more temples than homes...
Quite a long time since an update cause we were not in the right mood, didn't find the right time or just had other excuses to post some major update here. Nevertheless
a lot of things happened in the meanwhile. BTW: The freedom to decide what you really like to do is a wonderful gift.
Beside bike repairs and maintenance, family visit from Germany, climbing one of the highest mountain in Indonesia, recieving OZ visa, ... trillions of other stuff come along our way.
We will continue now with Bali where we more or less shot around 5.000 pictures!!! So a few of them we still want to share with our appreciated followers here on FB, to show you at least an overview.
Bali is mostly hinduistic, is defently the most crowded westernized place in Indonesia, which makes it a little bit boring from the adventoures motorcycle side, but still worth to go there if you are looking for a decent holiday time with family and you want to have the highest standard in Indonesia in general. So did we. What we like so far in Indo so far, is the fact that there is so much cultural change and level of development between all these islands, which makes it so exciting and easy as well to hop by ferry from one to the other and look for other opportunities...
So we are on Flores already. Australia is not that far any more...
03. August 2016
Atambua
Indonesien/Timor
Can you imagine to see some real dragons or to go diving with huge turtles and mantas?
Yes, it is possible and we are still flashed by our world of animals we found in the Komodo national park
with the next islands on our long journey. We grab the chance and took some days off from riding and explored the variety of nature. Not so many words to say this time (-; Let pictures talk today. Only one thing: We definitely should encourage our efforts to protect the planet!
See you down there!
01. August 2016
Kupang
Indonesien/Timor
Lombok, Sumbawa - New islands, new game...
One step further with Indonesian island hopping, like a pearl necklace, to the east. After Bali again a cultural change. With Lombok again
predominantly muslimic. Indonesia with its over 17000 !!! Islands (if you count every major sandbar…), over 250 languages and 300 nations can remain permanently exciting by variety. Often you notice already by different human behavior a few dozen curves later that probably on this place another clan or community is living, when you jump from the bike and soak up the atmosphere. The further east you go, the less touristic the island will get. Unlike Bali, tourism is on Lombok fortunately not yet that advanced. Here we spent however so many weeks and it happened so much that you could easily bring a further fine novel of „The Twins at St. Clare’s“ with the essence to paper. The news addicted typical Facebook users, however, would surely soon get tired of these lengthy debauchery and will lose interest pretty soon if it has not already clicked away at this point...Therefore we quickly switch to "the next island" please!
On Sumbawa, however, apart from the main road from west to east, nothing is going on. That´s not to bad to be honest. Less to type for the author… Surfing in the south - west can perhaps still be seen as a secret spot, but in the back country everything is pretty basic. Maybe that´s why we did a large extra loop there. Back to wild camping and resting with sunset after the 1354th right turn. (-: A piece of land next to the road. Hiding behind some bushes and in the morning warbled from sleep by the tinkling of some cows and a distant mosque gave us back the overlander freedom, which we missed on the more crowded islands in Indonesia!
What we nearly missed and why this text unfortunatelly again becomes longer ...
So irrelevant the island for the rest of the world in nowadays might be, Sumbawa had already an incredible effect on the entire planet in the past! We wanted to take a deeper look when we were already in the area. The volcano Tambora in the northwest broke out around 2 centuries ago. Entire humanity was affected in April of 1815 by it. Crop failures and global famine, triggered by the massive ash eruptions and a global darkened atmosphere, were the result. As "The Year Without a Summer", it became famous. Only because of this island and the damn volcano on it wheat prices skyrocketed in Baden-Wurtemberg / Germany and thousands of people starved to death.
The energy which was released during the eruption was approximately up to 170.000 Hiroshima bombs!!! Probably all the people on the island got killed in short time, as well as a lot on the east coast of Lombok. The explosion must have been so enormous, that in Jakarta, 1.200 kilometers away, they sent battleship for lookout, because of they thought there was an attack.
But not everything was running as smooth as silk for us in that time. No! Tim's rear brake pad holder crumbled to pieces and the left pad fall out. No good feeling with a 300 kg heavy packed motorcycle on a hilly curved track with only about 50 % brake force. For the next 100 km our DIY wire solution in the middle of nowhere worked. Then we found a workshop beside the road who was able to weld aluminum. From an aluminum waste part we just cut one piece and then the fine art of plastic motorbike surgery started done by the 20 year old chief physician welding himself on the component. Copy and Paste. Like the chinese do it. Xeroxed from Lilly's intact rear brake… But after finishing a few kilometers later Tim's tube at the rear tire was flat. Again repairing. On the day we managed only insignificant distance. Just before dark we met a desperate local Vespa driver with engine trouble and managed to push him 10 km to the nearest village with a mechanic. A real "pushbike" so to speak ...
Otherwise, the old great XT's purring currently like tamed siamcats on a cat show.
So we will continue with rock'n'roll on the road
Best regards from the Losgezogen Crew
Coco & Olli
19. Mai 2016
Kuta
Indonesien/Lombok
Tim's birthday at rumbling Mount Bromo and too much other things!
Lombok. Meanwhile, we resurfaced from our family prescribed vacation. HELLO and WELCOME BACK! Left the cocktail, BINTANG, deckchair, pool - luxury behind us and
slowly wake up again, due to the lack of air condition decadence, into the sweltering, hot overlander reality, in this part of the world.
We remember a lot of stories on these last 2 islands (Java, Bali) in the last 4 weeks. So much, that it's hard to squeeze everything adequate, tiny, FB a like. So we will start with Java, the most populated island of Indonesia. This teeming anthill, laid with the the opening of the ramp, after our 24 hour java sea odysse, in front of us. At 5 o’clock in the morning, we rolled our motorbikes in Semarang/Java off the Kalimantan RoRo rats vessel and drove quickly, still in the dark, out of the city. With the first rays of sunshine, we saw a lot of activity in the fields and lakes. Rice, fish, sugar cane and coffee ...... and so much more can probably be harvested or catched here. Traffic increased tremendously and soon the progress slowed down due to the daily traffic gridlock. HELP!!! Nevertheless we managed to visit the huge temple complex Brobodur and were celebrated Tim's 100,000 km speedometer birthday party, with the rumbling of the volcano Bromo, while tenting next to the crater. A rare birthday song. What also happened on this hustle and bustle Island..., can be found in our next Java article, but only if we survive our first surf attemps in the next days and weeks.^^
26. April 2016
Indonesien/Java
Bikers dream in Kalimantan / Indonesia
Kalimantan…. The name itself has always been exotic and transported the feeling of being really „far a away“. Since some days we have left Kalimantan/Borneo in a 22 hour
ferry trip from Kumai to Java. We are keeping in mind: unexpected, unproblematic land border between malaysia-indonesia, equator crossing, the moste selfie crazy country? (oh yes, we have been with motorbike to India before…), lot of new adventures, interesting stories, encounters with people and a nearly 5.000 km fantastic journey on the 3rd biggest island in the world!
13. April 2016
Kuching
Malaysia/Borneo
Borneo - Off the beaten track
What means jungle? How does it feel to be a part of it? We wanted to know how living feels over there. We started to work as workawayers in the rainforest for a while and helped to build an ecological homestay.
The owners have the goal to preserve at least some hundred hectares from the logging- or the even more worse palm oil industry. Running water, electricity, internet or mobile phone. Everything is not accessible. Totally off-road …. More and more unthinkable in our time?... Yes, but these last white spots on earth still exist, where people live alone with the nature and the surrounding animals, off the civilization. Eco tourism could be the only form of pressure in their hands to save this area from total destruction in the future.
In addition to our construction worker job we experienced this virgin forest, which is quite often pretty loud, unpredictable (don´t mess with King Cobras!….(-;), but wonderful. If we were sitting outside in sweat, already in the early morning, listening to the singing birds, watching the monkeys swinging through the trees and hand sized butterflies flying by, then we knew why we have taken all these privations. The time seems to stand still. Near the ocean in the mangroves we ecountered the shy proboscis monkeys, with their fat bellies and big noses which only exist on this island.
Now we turn with our own old, wild horses south in a new country. Indonesia/Kalimantan. We are looking forward to new adventures.
8!!! new passport stamps to visit the $$$ sultanate of Brunei
We have spent valuable sides of our passport, to visit Brunei during our east-west crossing of Borneo. Trying to meet the Sultan and knocked on the gate of his
02. April 2016
Kuching
Malaysia/Borneo
palace in the boring, oil rich, midget country (twice the size of Luxembourg). Unfortunately, he didn´t opened. )-: Enough oil is still gushing from all the on- and offshore drill holes run by Shell. Not as much as before, so that the Sultan managed now to be only the second richest man in the world.
But he took really big other efforts to do so... and you won´t believe it. Since decades he is spending billions!!! of € on luxury goods. Examples?! His private car fleet with over 1.800 luxury cars (over 350 Ferraris) already cost 4.5 billion €, plus 8 private jets, several gigantic yachts, ..., e.t.c. He also permanently let run the escalators in his 1.700 room palace. If it help´s to ged rid of that money....
So we learned again that everybody in the world seems to have his own personal challenges….
We have our own. In the near future we trying to cross the border to Kalimantan / Indonesia.
Greetings from Kuching
(Nord-Borneo/Sarawak/ Malaysia)
Welcome to Borneo! Welcome to the Jungle!
Over the past 10 days, there was quite a big change. Singapore <-> Borneo. Skyscraper with time capsules to sleep vs. tents in the jungle.
Already on the runway in the plane
03.März 2016
Sandakan
Malaysia/Borneo
at Kota Kinabalu airport we received the message from the company: The ship is already unloading! Where are you guys? Can you ride your bikes off? Ever since the morning we seemed to have at least on this day the perfect "just in time timing" (-; (see last report...). We had expected the bikes earliest to arrive the next day. But hey, great if it works faster! „We will rush to you!" was our reply. At the KK port everything worked in "no time" until we got our bikes back! Didn`t expext this. Biker freedom instead of "backpacker movement straitjacket" we were happy.
In the last days we already rode almost 1,000 kilometers on the Sabah Loop and people are just great so far. Because no foreigners with 2 or 4 wheelers seems to show up here at all and that`s why joy seems to be always pretty large. There is laughter, helping hands .... always with a good dose of curiosity and respect. We are looking forward to the next kilometers! Borneo is awesome!
Greetings from Sandakan
Two nights in Singapore.
Tim and Lilly were cruising on the chinese sea towards Borneo and ourselves? We used the time, beside Malakka, to visit Singapore. For a few days we were ordinary backpackers again.
29.Februar 2016
Sandakan
Malaysia/Borneo
Here everything was glittering, sparkling, clean and quite expensive .... Great modern architecture, but a whole hotel/guesthouse room for us to sleep in town...? Way too expensive! We prefered to divide the space with 20 other snorers who laied packed in a so called time capsule (a kind of sleeping tube). Still 20€ for 2 Pax per night! It was the cheapest way, but still cost us twice as much as an average travel accommodation normally would be in South-East-Asia! Beside visiting the metropolis we did a spare parts marathon which was also good to see the city from the untouristic side... (-; We needed some new tires (Mitas E07) and a new battery for Maya. It´s one of the best places in SE Asia to get special parts.
Let´s move on… to Borneo!
Chinese Year of the Monkey has launched, when we left Penang as planned. We said always: „We will leave in the New Year“, but which calendar we lay as the basis for that sentence, was never mentioned before „wink“-Emoticon
Isn´t it great, if you're able to choose in any occasion the cultural calendar (western vs. chinese) out of the
20.Februrary 2016
Malacca
Malaysia
pocket, which fits best for you? Chinese new year, which started more than a month later than ours was though quite handy for us ....
We are now for the first time on our journey at the point, where we definitely have to cross the sea, if we want to go further south. We needed a valid new stamped Carnet, a visa extension and a visa for Indonesia, a trusted shipping agency and so on .... Crossing oceans with a vehicle means always a lot of work, preparation and money.
But with the beginning of the new (chinese) (-; year, we had all the documents together and we were able to go.
Until the shipment date, we spent time with other overlanders in and around Kuala Lumpur. Great to met so many of you new or again who are all the time as well out there!
So at the moment Tim and Lilly sailing somewhere in the south chinese sea, heading towards the third largest island in the world and we will follow them in the upcoming days. Keep fingers crossed, that they arrive in Borneo with the RORO shipping safely!
Greetings from Malacca
07.January 2016
Penang
Malaysia
Hopefully 2016 is off to a good start for all of you!!! We just found in the depths of the web this article about our trip in the magazine "Auto Nepal“. They had stopped us back then only by the help of the police for an interview. Who could ever refuse? (-;
जर्मनीदेखि नेपालसम्म
गत माघ २४ गते टोयोटाको कोरोल्ला कारको टेस्ट ड्राइभको क्रममा काठमाडौंदेखि बनेपा जादै थियौ । सडकमा दुई वटा हेभी बाइक देखिए । हामीलाई चासो लाग्यो । अलि फरक देखिने बाइक भए भने जसको पनि त्यस्ता बाइकमा आखा जादो रहेछ । पछिल्लो भागमा ठुलै ब्याग जस्तो देखिने ती बाइक धनीहरु नेपाली होइनन् जस्तो लाग्यो । बाटोमा मौका मिल्यो भने उनीहरुस“ग भेटेर कुरा गर्ने सल्लाह ग¥यौ ।
बनेपा भन्दा अलि यता रहेको पम्पमा उनीहरुले पेट्रोल भरे । हामी चाहिं बनेपाको प्रहरी चौकी नजिकै उभिएर उनीहरुलाई पर्खिन थाल्यौ । प्रहरीलाई पनि यसको वारेमा बतायौं र उनीहरुलाई रोक्नका लागि अनुरोध ग¥यौ । केही समयमै ती बाइक धनी आइपुगे । हामीले उनीहरुलाई आफ्नो परिचय दियौं र नेपालको एउटा प्रतिष्ठित पत्रिका भएको र उनीहरुको कार्य हाम्रै क्षेत्रसित सम्बन्धित भएकाले केही कुराकानीका लागि अनुरोध ग¥यौ । उनीहरुले यसमा आफ्नो स्वीकृति जनाए । ......
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Countrys visited in 2016:
Pictures of 2016:
News 2016....
Asking yourself where we are right now? Then you are here at the right place!
15.06.2015
Varanasi - Riechen, Schmecken, Hören und Sehen einmal anders - inmitten des heiligen Wahnsinns
14.08.2014
Pakistan ein Land der Extreme, zwischen grandioser Hochzeit, Zollchaos und [...]
....... to discover the world!!
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