The Dom way round: It's been a busy (and expensive) week.

Wednesday, 14 April 2010

It's been a busy (and expensive) week.

It's not fun spending money but I've been doing a lot of it this week. I bought a Hein Gericke motorbiking jacket, a pair of BMW "zippy" biking trousers, and Tracy has been buying some bike gear too. Although she has to get childrens gear as her head and feet ar so small!

Tomorrow I have an appointment at Alt-berg to have a pair of biking/hiking boots made. Expensive but I hope very comfy. It's a little weird shopping for stuff. I've spend a lot on trousers, jacket and boots, but as I expect to live in them for a year they need to be good quality.

I've also, almost bought a bike. Nicole at Motoquest, Anchorage, has emaield me pictures of a BMW 1200GS which looks good to me. I've just tried emailing her back to say I will buy it. But my email bounced back. Should I be worried?

I've also bought a netbook (ASUS 1080) which should arrive this week. And, most importnatly, yesterday ay 9:45 a.m. my passport arrived with my US Visa.

Straight away I got onto the net and tried to book my flight to Alaksa. Annoyingly, the cheaper flight (£620) had gone, so I had to spend £100 more booking two seperate flights. First I booked on the Condor flight from Frankfurt to Anchorage. Then I booked the early morning flight from Heathrow to Frankfurt. I then had a panick as I realised I hadn't left enough time to get from one flight to the other (As I'm going to the US I'll need at least two hours to check in) So I had to phone Lufthansa up and cancel the flight. I then booked a flight from Birmingham to Frankfurt on the saturday and a hotel at Frankfurt airport for the saturday night. Much more sensibe.

So I leave the UK at 18:20 on saturday 24th July.

Today I started to arrnage vaccinations. I've had all the regular ones, but now need Yellow Fever and Rabies. Yellow Fever (certificate) may be necessay for certain places. Rabies I was in two minds about. It costs £100 but i decided I'd rather have it than need it. (I must be getting old - I used tot ravel without even thinking about vaccinations or even insurance.)

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Hello

Hi. My name is Dom and in July 2010 I rode a motorcycle (partly) around the world. I started in Alaska and headed for Panama. It took me 6 months and I covered 21,000 miles. I then shipped my bike from Panama to South Africa. I returned to the UK for February and in March 2011 I flew to South Africa. Starting in Cape Town I took three months (and 9,000 miles) to get to Nairobi.

As well as riding a bike I stopped off and did some voluntary work along the way. In Mexico I worked on a turtle rescue project for two weeks and in Costa Rica at a Sloth Sanctuary for three weeks. In Cape Town I taught for three weeks in a Primary school in a township.

In North America my wife, Tracy, came out for three weeks and also joined me for two months in Central America.

I returned to the UK in June 2011. Although I'd kept a blog (obviously) throughout the trip I honestly had no desire to try to write a book. But that changed. Within days of getting home I started writing. Then in Autumn 2011 I found out about The Ted Simon Foundation and applied to be a Jupiter's Traveller. Unbelievably they accepted me and I starting a whole new, and much more frightening, adventure... Trying to write a book about my trip.

'Gone Riding' was published in November 2013. Signed copies are available direct from me at www.domgiles.co.uk. The book is also on Amazon where you can also get the kindle edition. There is lots more information about my trip and the book on my website where you'll find links to my Facebook page and Twitter account.

I now use this blog to write about my current bike trips. In 2013 we went to Scandinavia for the summer and in 2014 we went to Romania. Summer 2015 was spent solo around the Balkans. In July 2016 I went to Poland, the Baltic and Finland.

In the summer of 2017 we went to Northern Spain and France and in 2018 we went to Ireland.

I sold my bike in January 2019!!!