No, not you Grizzly, that'll never happen. š
I'd done most of the work on this blog earlier in the year but Grizzly suggested I wait until after we returned from the Spain trip, before I launched this one. I took his point, that it may be blog overload, given that I was also launching my excellent adventures one too.
I was a bit surprised when Grizzly suggested that we do consecutive years this time, as we usually try to do something every other year. I guess now he has had his hip done, he wants to get his leg over as much as possible. Age might also be an influencing factor, though I doubt he'd admit that. Anyway, I'm retired, so packing up Ginny and spending a month on the road again, is fine by me.
"Where shall we go" I asked. Grizzly gave me a handful of cities he would like to visit and I took it from there, adding a few of my own and gradually building up to what the itinerary is today, by adding the places of interest. Grizzly is a great companion, in so much, as he is just happy to be riding his bike (albeit slowly), so I build in the 'entertainment' along the way and he just rides from point to point. I've never once heard him say, a stop I'd built in was shite or a waste of time. It's usually the opposite and he says how much he's enjoyed something. That's good for me to know, as it is his holiday too and not just about visiting places Woody wants to go to. There's usually plenty of things to photograph, which as a keen and very talented photographer, I might add, serves to keep Grizzly happy.
You can see from the route map where we are heading. Out through France, Belgium, Holland and into Germany. From Germany we zigzag through Poland, Czech Republic (Czechia), Slovakia, Austria, Hungary and down into Croatia. The original plan, was to include Bosnia-Herzegovina, before Croatia but for reasons I'm not entirely sure of, our insurance companies do not cover us to ride there. I read things about being able to buy insurance at the border but we discussed it, agreed we didn't fancy that idea and decided to re-route. We'll do a bit of Croatian island hopping instead.
Split in Croatia will be our southern most point on the tour. From there, we head for home, via Slovenia, Italy, Austria again, a tiny country with a long name, Switzerland and finally back through France.
If you want to take a virtual back seat on this trip, then you know what to do. Either sign up for email updates or bookmark the blog page and check in each day. So long as there's wifi/4G and juice in my phone, then I'll be posting every day. It's all a very long way off though. My next solo trip is just 2 weeks away. You'll be able to follow that on my excellent adventures blog.
https://ndtea.blogspot.com
That's all for now.
Tuesday, 3 September 2019
Monday, 2 September 2019
Official Launch
Welcome everybody to the official launch of the Wild Hogs 2020 tour, The Blink and You'll Miss It Tour.
Why call it that, I hear you ask. A few possible names went through my mind but I thought they might give the game away, about where we are going to visit and what we are going to see, so I thought I'd come up with something pretty obscure, which although it will require some explanation, won't really spoil any of the 'surprises' along the way.
So here's the explanation. During our trip, we shall pass through 14 countries. One of those countries is so tiny, that we shall only be riding through it for about 5 miles, hence, blink and you'll miss it. In less time than it takes Grizzly, a.k.a. Dick for this tour, to fill up the Shadslow's mozzie bladder sized fuel tank, we shall ride from one border, to the other! At least we'll have insurance cover for those 5 miles though, something we wouldn't have, if I'd stuck to the original plan to ride through Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The tour will last 31 days, the same as this year's Whespana tour and will be undertaken at the same time, i.e. June/July. Hopefully, we'll be blessed with similar weather as this year but given where we are going, I'm prepared to bet now that it rains at least once!
The blog contains all the usual links (not all of them working yet), so my regular readers will find it all too familiar. As always, sign up for email updates, if you want to follow the journey and don't forget to acknowledge (i.e. subscribe) the email that you get as a result. No subscribe, no blog emails. Simples!
That'll do for now.
Why call it that, I hear you ask. A few possible names went through my mind but I thought they might give the game away, about where we are going to visit and what we are going to see, so I thought I'd come up with something pretty obscure, which although it will require some explanation, won't really spoil any of the 'surprises' along the way.
So here's the explanation. During our trip, we shall pass through 14 countries. One of those countries is so tiny, that we shall only be riding through it for about 5 miles, hence, blink and you'll miss it. In less time than it takes Grizzly, a.k.a. Dick for this tour, to fill up the Shadslow's mozzie bladder sized fuel tank, we shall ride from one border, to the other! At least we'll have insurance cover for those 5 miles though, something we wouldn't have, if I'd stuck to the original plan to ride through Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The tour will last 31 days, the same as this year's Whespana tour and will be undertaken at the same time, i.e. June/July. Hopefully, we'll be blessed with similar weather as this year but given where we are going, I'm prepared to bet now that it rains at least once!
The blog contains all the usual links (not all of them working yet), so my regular readers will find it all too familiar. As always, sign up for email updates, if you want to follow the journey and don't forget to acknowledge (i.e. subscribe) the email that you get as a result. No subscribe, no blog emails. Simples!
That'll do for now.
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