We really wish we had camped more. Not only is it cheaper, but for us it is more fun. We struggled to be in the right places at the right times though. At the end of the day there wasn't always a convenient campsite nearby, and a motel was the more realistic option. We originally budgeted for doing motels every other day, but had secretly hoped to be doing motels every 4th or even 5th day to tie in with...
There is a fair bit of paperwork and cost involved in moving a bike between countries. Here is a list and description of all the paperwork we had fill in to ship our Groms from New Zealand to the USA and back. EPA Waiver - Foreign registered bikes are allowed to be temporarily imported into the USA for up to a year provided they have a little letter from the EPA saying its OK. Basically you send the EPA a nice...
Our biggest expense on the trip. Most people would fly to the US and buy a bike in the States and either sell it at the end or put it in storage until their next trip. This works well if you have extra time or a buddy in the US to help check out Craigslist ads. We didn't want to have to do this on our first big trip. Our bikes had a bunch of extra mods and farkles and we...
We started off trying to record everything even fuel consumption, but after a couple of days, that went out the window and it was just easier making a note of food and accommodation costs rounded off to the nearest Dollar. We may have missed a few items here and there, but it mostly matches up with the bank account balance. For fuel, we just estimated based on 45km/litre and 3.4 USD per gallon average. Our initial record keeping indicated we were...
The bits in the East People often poo poo the eastern part of the TAT and the MABDR, complaining that it is too tame and boring. We really enjoyed it. Yes, spending a lot of time in the trees with no views can get a little tiresome, but we liked the fact that it was a good mix of back roads, hard packed forest roads, and lots of little towns. It made for a fairly varied ride experience, and it was...
Yippeee!Our little buddies are finally home! We picked them up this week from the shipping agents depot where they have cleared all their customs inspections including being fumigated for stink bugs and other nasty cooties they may have caught in America. The bikes started right up after reconnecting their battery and Simon had to take his for a quick ride up and down the street. Huge grin on his face when he got back. Its good to have them home...
After the weekend abusing our motel room we had all our gear clean and ready for New Zealand's bio security officers...
Woohooo!!!!! We made it. We are elated, knackered, sad, happy and relieved all at the same time. The tent fly this morning was covered in ash, which goes to show how much of it must be in the air around these parts. We took our time packing up knowing it was the last time packing our saddle bags. It was a weird feeling getting on the Groms this morning knowing it was going to be our last day on the Trail. We...
Up early to get on the road. After packing everything up we had a gear malfunction. After Sim had posted that our headsets had done great so far, his one up and died completely. Luckily we had a spare. Unluckily, it was buried somewhere under his seat, so he had to pull everything off to get to it. Amazingly enough the spare headset had a full charge and paired immediately after all this time sitting there :) The short bit of...
Crater Lake was beautiful. Bonus, the lady park ranger knew our bikes were Groms :) Tomorrow we will be back on the TAT. It looks like only 2 more days till we make Port Orford. Quite a bit of the trail looks to be off pavement and includes a particularly gnarly climb somewhere between Tiller and Azalea. Should be interesting. Not sure where we will end up tomorrow night. Not a lot of camping or motel options. We may just have...