Two weeks around theHimalayas, followed by 2/3 weeks riding across Australia alone on a Honda 250cc

[fairyplum]

Went on a 2 week tour ...just two of us, me and a stranger!!!.....in the Himalayan foothills in northern India. Fantastic scenery, lots of photos and did write a diary. We used 500cc Royal Enfields. Went up to 4500m and did some of the rally himalaya route. Can expand....
Following that with a trip in Australia. Bought a little non registered bike in Melbourne, rode to Sydney on one permit, got another permit in Sydney and headed to Inverell and then west to Broken Hill via Lightning Ridge, Darling River etc. Will end up otherside of Nullibor desert at Yallingup where my daughter lives. Have to complete by 10th Nov as permit runs out. 250 VTR going well. One old female rider doing okay so far! Can write more and have plenty photos.....

[900Fantrider]

Can write more and have plenty photos.....

Then, yes please!

[sohoeasy]

With winter on the horizon here, and few trips going on. What we need are your words and photo's Mrs.Plum !

[david]

Yes please

[JENKS]

Keep writing, it sounds a fantastic trip, Andrew

[fairyplum]

Okay...more writing and photos required....umm. One part done ie India. Will try and copy and paste below. Photos in dropbox...hope it works. Working from a tab in Broken Hill. Its a silver mining spot. I am in a backpackers spot and apparently at 6.45pm as we talked an explosion went off under the "Tourist Lodge" all in the line of mining here. Happens every night. I didn't particularly notice it...the australian wine had taken hold.....didn't get any last night and had a very boring night in a motel with only one fast food place in town with no alcohol except possibly in one pub frequented by aboriginees that looked so neglected on the outside that one lone female was not brave enough to enter. Instead I took a walk by the Darling River. It is in a very sorry state , way down in its course, and a horrible green colour. Apparently , according to this colourful lot tonight, the colour is all caused by english carp. They have grown, in the seriously un oxigenated waters, to epic size and have caused all the problems!!!! Its not the australian farmers irrigating their cotton crops too much, nor the growing populace using too much water...its english carp!!. Here is one photo. Taken near Lightning Ridge..home of black Opal miners.

[fairyplum]

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Do you really want the diary? Maybe a day or two or more at a time....If it all ends up as one paragraph its not my fault..its the internet...

Friday28th Sept.

It has been awhile since I have written but now I am off on a little trip round northern India followed by Australia where , ostensibly, I am seeing my daughter and new grandson etc but also hope to motorbike in Australia visiting other friends. I booked the flights way back in January and have not had time to concentrate on the detail some of which has changed! The trip in Nepal has now changed to Northern India. Going up the Spiti valley on a Royal Enfield 500cc. I believe there are two of us and a guide but I wait and see. The internal Indian flight from Delhi to Shimla has been cancelled and in spite of my protestations we have to go by car instead of a plane. I wanted to go by motorbike quite naturally! I am not happy about my life in an Indian drivers hands on Indian roads...rather it was my hands on a motorbike. The lady in the office suggested that it was safer to leave Delhi in a car. She was probably amazed to hear that I had already ridden a motorbike in Delhi. It has been very hard work finalising everything back home after very late plum harvest. I had to do an additional spray, cut grass , tidy trees etc many of them additional jobs to the normal end of season. It has been a difficult year plum wise. But I just made it, sitting now at the airport in my motorbike jacket and crash helmet beside me!! Bit of a nightmare plane journey because it was changed and also because I am then heading to Perth. First leg to Mumbai. Then Delhi. First flight 9 hours, arriving about 8 pm our time. Then it gets nasty setting off at about 1am our time...let's not dwell on that.  

Saturday 29th Sept

Quite exhausted. Been travelling for 22 hours with virtually no sleep. Arrived in Simla safely . Guide here to meet us with the bikes. Life in the hands of the Indian driver was exactly as I feared. I met up with John the other rider and the driver at Delhi airport. At first the road was dual carriageway and things were not too bad. Plenty of overtaking, undertaking and weaving though. Still cows wandering, tractors, cycles and small motorbikes all making their way.The driver wanted to talk but his English accent was extreme and very hard to understand. Various stops for food and drink and then the road became normal main, full of traffic with lots of slow lorries. Overtaking became dire, lots of horn blaring and blind bend stuff. Then we left the plain and headed into the Himalayas on a very twisty road with slow lorries, buses and faster cars and motorbikes. Had to watch the road so didn't feel sick and plenty of hary moments. The only saviour is that the speed is low. Lots of horn peeping and squeezing into non existent spaces. We climbed a fair amount and now at about 2000m . Weather was hot on the plain but now pleasant to cool. I am particularly tired as could not sleep whilst in Mumbai airport for 5 hours. Spent the time finding the terminal, getting some money, playing with suitcases in security ( mindnumbing) and reading. Barclay debit card not working , might have to ring them. The car journey had been meant to have lasted 6 hours, it took 10 hours! The last bit took forever in the slow trafficky conditions. It would have been a long journey by bike but I know I would have been happier....especially the last bit.  

Sunday 30th Sept

Nice day dawns. Had done some catching up sleeping but was disturbed in the night by scratching sounds, tiny stones moving and other noises. Gecko in my room? It went on....in my bathroom? Came to the conclusion it was monkeys outside. We had seen quite a lot on the road. Think they are Maqaques. Get introduced to my bike, a 500cc Royal Enfield. One of the modern ones with normal controls, electric start and EIS. Rucksack on back as no back seat to strap it to....big bag in back up van. Road is tarmac, great in places and varied in others. Traffic lessons as the morning goes by but not before we come across a glorious jam caused by the inevitable lorry that had lost an axle on a bend. A bus deciding to overtake the queue and meet the traffic coming the other way did not help. But on our bikes we squiggled through. We began the day at about 2000m, head down to a valley at 850m and then back up to 2000m by the end of the day. Alam the guide leads at a very nice pace and we have some fun food and drink stops with lovely views over steep valleys not unlike Laos. The back up van amazingly keeps up with us; only an Indian driver could have kept up with motorbikes on a road with traffic and bends because only an Indian driver overtakes as if he is a motorbike! We are in the district of Himachal Pradesh. It is between Pakistan and Tibet. Around Simla , where we began the day, there are lots of apple trees and the apple harvest is in full swing. I have a feeling some end up in England..I am sure I have seen boxes of apples with Himachal on the side. Tonight we have reached a place called Saravan. It is off the main road and at the end of a road. It has a great temple and that is what we have come here to look at. Mostly a wooden structure that you had to walk bare foot around. If you then put a little cotton hat on and  locked up your cameras with any leather you were wearing, you could  climb right up and look at some of the shrines which were impressive with lots of silver. The top of the temple had real gold ornamental things on it's roof. Far less tatty then any other Buddhist temple I have seen. The town has some nice old original houses and is off the tourist track. WiFi and ATMs do not exist round here though mobile coverage is good. Tomorrow we head further north east.

  Monday 1st Oct

Wake up to a fight between two creatures in the ceiling of my bedroom. One creature seems to have caught the other...one is wailing... Admire the view and off we go. Sun is shining, it's quite warm even at 1700m. Trundle down the mountain , back to the main road. Not very far to go today but the road surface worsens to dirt much of the time. Bit dusty! Have fun doing photo sessions of rocky overhangs, deep ravines and ourselves. We are now pretty near the Tibet border. Our final road is up but is tarmac on the whole as it is used by the military for patrols. It's not very wide though.... We end up in a luxury campsite. Large tent with bathroom attached, electricity. We are now at 2600m though it's still warm in the nice sun. We have arrived early and so get a guide and get taken off into the hillside across the river, on foot. He takes us to a village. They are restoring their temple which got burnt down in 1998. Cows and calves wander the path; we are befriended by a nice dog who walks with us, we watch  women heave rocks to help build some house walls ; we taste wild peaches...the original peach, it's tiny like an apricot and very good out of which they make alcohol once it has been dried;we see plenty of apple trees...this is the main earner; we see two shops...one is the general store and the other important shop is the sewing lady with her sewing machine; and we admire the turquoise coloured river and wild datura plants. There are large fir trees of some sort on these hillsides, the treeline being some 3500m I guess. Gathering hair from a certain type of goat with silky hair is another industry ...ie for making pashminas. I think we saw some with a flock of sheep on the road. Also get told about the ways with which they get the apple crop down from the mountain. Horses with baskets but also baskets on a kind of wire lift system like cable cars. A lorry then sits where the basket ends up and fills his lorry. They appear to be boxed up all neatly on the field in the final box so no bruising as it travels down the mountain side. Back to camp and then eventually the evening meal served outdoors. By now it's dark and really quite cold so on with lots of clothes. After supper a hot water bottle for the bed is offered, as is a bucket of hot water. The water has been made hot in a large metal tank heated with a wood fire. Wood is expensive here apparently. They are not allowed to chop trees down.... Hence heating their houses through the long  cold winter is very expensive  

Tuesday 2nd October

The dog that followed us stayed round camp and went to sleep outside my tent. In the night many dogs barked including him! John, in the next door tent, could also hear another dog close by and he got up and found it with a chain and metal spiky collar on it's neck. He took off the chain and it seems continued to have a fairly sleepless night! The guys this morning told us that there was probably a leopard about and that the villagers put these metal collars on to protect their dogs from the leopards. Our mut/dog hung about till we were about to go and then disappeared. The camp owner has lost 3 dogs to leopards Head up valley first to explore...our guide has not been here before. End up in a very rural village at 3000m. Traditional old people in wonderful clothing and old houses. Must be tough here in the winter entirely cut off...the road is not open then. The road is rough in places with the odd river/stream crossing. My Royal Enfield throbs along with it's low revving 2 cylinder 500cc engine. We meet lorries on bends hanging over the river but all move slowly and with much hooting on the horn all is well...the occasional hold up where lorries meet each other and there is not room. It is a lovely valley and the road hangs from the cliffs above it giving great views and worrying drops from the unguarded edge to the road. We back track to the main road. It too is rough in parts with plenty of dust from the lorries but we are soon off up another valley to Kalpa....it's at 2700m. This time an hotel but as I write the electricity has failed!! Time to find the head torch  

Wednesday 3rd Oct

Mum's birthday. I am writing this in the dark, head torch still in use!! We arrived in this place, Tabo, just before dark. I think the electricity went off as we arrived and then it was dark. We were given a candle! Big problem really is that I cannot charge anything and being the modern traveller that I am I have various things that need charging not least the Garmin edge that is tracking my route. I am getting better at beer drinking as wine has not been in evidence since the first day. Tonights place is at 3200m and is very near the Tibet border. We have had to get an Inner Line Permit to travel here. The hotel is attached go a Buddhist monastery but as it has been dark since we arrived we have yet to get the lie of the land We had to start late as the permit could not be got till 10am. It could not be got the day before because it was a holiday day...reason Ghandi's birth and death anniversary/bank holiday. So we set off about 11am to cover about 150kms. Should be no problem but we have ridden the most spectacular roads hanging on the sides of mountains. Some across scree slopes, some hanging over rivers, some cut out of rock and others where landslides are common. Great tarmac in places and rough in others. Lots of photo stops, occasional traffic jam where the road was inadequate. Wonderful to see India where it is clean, not teeming with people, the air is clean and little traffic. Incredibly high mountains but now in a part that is not green, rather like Morocco but oasis filled with apple trees rather than palms and all so much deeper and higher. This morning we began in a greener part. We have eaten vegetable curries non stop. So far all okay. No one suffering from altitude problems yet...we have been up to 3600m today. Crossed a few little streams, bumped along on very gravelly parts and enjoyed a strip of tarmac that allowed me to get into top gear for the first time in the trip.

[fairyplum]

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More photos

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[jackdaw]

Many thanks for posting. Really enjoyed your diary extracts ans stunning pics.

[boatman]

fantastic stuff there keep it coming as much as you want