Singapore to Amsterdam - raising money for spinal cord injury research

Read all about our trip on our blog site: https://singaporetoamsterdamcatwalk.wordpress.com/

Flying high above the world on a flight from New Zealand to Holland I was struck by the sheer size of the world and how we hop from city to city bypassing such vast spaces in-between.

It came to me suddenly, how many experiences I was missing between destinations! How about I ride my motorbike from Singapore to Amsterdam? Ahh, but the idea turned out to be the easy part. What followed was a frantic year of preparation. Firstly I had to convince my wife (surprisingly enthusiastic for me to be somewhere else for 4 months). Then things started falling into place when a good friend Kent Gilmore decided to join me on the adventure. We were now two middle-aged men, with no previous experience in mechanics, medicine or travel-ling long distances on motorbikes.The only thing going for us was a “can do” attitude (brought on by a lack of knowledge) and enthusiasm for trying something new. You could call this the ultimate midlife crisis.

We decided our route will take us through; Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, China, Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Austria, Germany and our final destination will be The Netherlands. The whole trip will take us through 19 countries and will cover approx. 20,000 kilometres.

We needed every minute of the next year to plan everything. Though we had the start and finish, Singapore and Amsterdam clear in our minds, slowly the tools we’d need for our epic trip became clearer through discussions with people, blogs, etc

We researched the most suitable transport for such a trip and ended up with a basic Suzuki DR650. Not the most comfortable bike, but with a great history of reliability and relatively easy to fix on the road. We trialled the bikes off the beaten track in New Zealand and learnt the basics of mechanics in order to fix them if (or rather when!) something goes wrong. We added all the extra bits and pieces people on youtube said are a must.

The paperwork for the bikes and visas for some of the countries is problematic and it requires us to be in certain countries at certain dates. This means that if the bike is delayed in a port or there is a major breakdown or if one of us gets sick this would jeopardise the entire trip. Let the complexities begin!!

There are so many things to think about - availability of petrol in certain countries, different climates, spare parts we need to carry, the different currencies we need to bring along, navigation, tents, bedding and the list goes on. All carried on a bike. And on our backs!

Motivation to involve CatWalk in our adventure came when I met David Pretorius and heard about his daughter Holly who is wheelchair bound after a spinal injury. When I was a teenager I had a severe spinal injury which required surgery. I have been fortunate enough to have made a complete recovery, but so easily I could have ended up in the wheelchair too. My friend with whom I am riding is a police officer has also seen enough traffic injuries to be moved by the life-changing severity of accidents. If we can make our dream more meaningful, it will add to the personal satisfaction of just challenging ourselves.

If you would like to be part of our adventure and help CatWalk it will make it all so much more worthwhile. All donations will go to The CatWalk Spinal Cord Injury Research Trust - more information can be found at www.catwalk.org.nz.