I was supposed to go and get my bike back today.

I threw my gear into a back pack and hopped on the train to get to the bus to walk to the hangar where my bike was stored. It started to rain when I walked to the hangar, no big deal - it’s alright to get a bit wet on the ride home.

My bike needed to have customs clearance in order to be released. Of course customs meant walking, then grabbing the bus back to the train and then walking some more to get to the office. By now it was pouring rain. Urgh.

Expecting a stamp and being on my way, it turns out that Agriculture Canada wants to inspect my bike to see if there’s any dirt on it. Dylan and I washed our bikes before we left, but we didn’t get under the fenders and there was mud like this in Ukraine…

The part I got a little frustrated with (so close yet so far) was when she said, “yes, we will have an officer from Agriculture Canada inspect the bike, tomorrow”.

Ack! I’ll have to do this all over again tomorrow. I hope it doesn’t rain!

On a health note, I’m feeling much better and the doctor has cleared my bill of health. The cough is still persisting but only at a small fraction of what I was dealing with on the road.

I wish we could have continued this journey but it was not meant to be. I invested two and a half years of my life and tens of thousands of my hard earned money into this adventure. Looking back i had to learn to ride a motorcycle to do this trip and got my license on Easter Sunday 2006 check out the post here: http://www.heretohere.com/2006/10/17/gearing-up/. I had eye surgery that went horribly wrong so I didn’t have to deal with contact lenses on the road. (post here: http://www.heretohere.com/2007/02/06/laser-eye-surgery/ to going through three bikes before landing on the Buell as the machine to power us around the planet.

I know some people are disappointed that we didn’t make it around the world. I can assure those people that NO ONE is more disappointed about it than me. Dylan and I did our best to make this tour go all the way around the planet, stay safe, stay alive and stay healthy.

At this point I’d like to highlight for those of you who have been following our journey for the past few months, to look back at the past two years of blog posts to see what went into making the Here to Here World Tour happen in the first place. Here is a link to the first of 103 blog posts… http://www.heretohere.com/2006/10/16/and-so-it-begins/

Have a read. I hope you enjoy it. If you do, I encourage you to still make a contribution to Street Kids International.

No hopefully I can get my Buell back tomorrow. I miss it.

We managed to get a flight home yesterday from Frankfurt after sorting shipping of the bikes which will be later this week.

I will update the site with a couple of photo galleries in the next couple of days.

Stay tuned and thanks to everyone for your outstanding support of our adventure.

We are safe in Frankfurt after a day blitzing across Germany on the autobahn. On the autobahn where they post big photos of children apologizing for the reduced speed limits in the construction zone.

I can’t read German, but the idea is something like “we’re really sorry you have to slow down, but it’s only for eight more kilometres.” Every km they post another sign of the kids with the distance remaining in the construction zone.

We went through a 6.3 km tunnel on the way here. Way cool.

I’m continuing to get better and am coughing less and less - more importantly, less intensity in the coughs so I don’t feel like I’m going to hurl or pass out in the process.

So we are waiting for the weekend to get itself over and done before working out our dangerous goods forms, then hopefully dropping the bikes off for shipping on Tuesday. We’ll then make some arrangements to get home from there. We expect with great German efficiency to be home Thursday or so ish.

That’s the report from Frankfurt. Still more to come with more photos once we get home. And yes, Les, I’ll try to put together an interesting slide show!

First up today, a HUGE thank you to everyone for your kind words of support and encouragement. They mean the world to us! This is also my 100th blog post on heretohere.com!

Getting home is proving to be more difficult than we thought. Fortunately I’m feeling a lot better, but the cough is still with me - mostly in the evenings making sleeping more difficult for both of us.

We rode to Kiev only to wait for a couple of hours to get past security to get to talk to someone who could help arrange shipping for the bikes. Our contact at Schenker Logistics in Kiev with whom we spoke with a day earlier, wasn’t at the office despite saying he would be in and everything would be no problem. Ukraine is sort of like that. It’s even an ordeal buying fuel as you have to flash them cash to prove that you have the ability to pay for it before they will turn on the pump to let the employee of the station pump for you.

Anyway, after a number of hours in the cargo area of the Kiev airport and talking with another company, we left. Why? Because they wanted us to build pallets to put the bikes on out of pallets and the stuff they use to wrap bundles of newspapers. Riiiight.

So, plan B - Frankfurt. Yes, it’s a freaking far way away, however, it features such great things as people who can generally speak English, direct flights home and no police getting bribe money from me - like the radar gun was working and I’d hardly call 2 km over the limit to be reckless driving - which I was accused of. Anyway…

So we booked it for Poland. We made it to the border after getting quite lost in L’viv and riding on the nastiest cobblestone with rail tracks on it. We both bottomed out our suspension a couple of times at least and I thought I was going to bale for sure. There were huge gaps between the stones and in terms of level, I’d say there was a good 8-inch difference at any given point in the road surface height. We held our cool and made it out of there! Oh, that reminds me. The road to Kiev had some potholes too. Dylan looked away from the road for just a split second and found one. He hit it so hard it knocked his GPS right out of its mount. It bounced down the highway and I nearly ran over it. We stopped and I ran back to it and it still works!

We also were involved in the biggest traffic jam either of us had ever seen. Imagine a road that splits into a Y. There is traffic going in either direction on each branch of the Y and there are no controls. It was more than an hour of moving one car length and shutting the bike back down. People started driving on the sidewalks to get by!

Arriving at the border we used our ‘motorcycle rules’ to get in front of the line as much as we could. Well, the first line at least. There were probably four or five different stages of lineup.

What I learned from my time in Ukraine is that if you drive a Mercedes, you are better than everyone else and can treat people that way. It doesn’t quite work that way in Poland though.

Waiting in line there was a very impatient Mercedes in front of us. So impatient that they asked us to walk our motorcycles back so they could get out of the line and try the other line via a bribe to the guards. Well, they lost their space and ended up behind us. Ha!

So then they tried to bribe the people a number of cars in front of us. It worked. The person way in front wouldn’t go and then the Benz pulled in to the front of the line - briefly. The Polish guard saw this and moved him to the side. He’d have to wait like the rest of us. We watched him approach the booth with a fistfull of cash… no dice!

This was a great comedy to tide us over at the border. We were there for six hours trying to get across. We were so tired and had to ride in the dark to find a place to stay. Fortunately one was not far and after a snooze we were on our way again.

Today was a lot of miles and was pretty uneventful. Tomorrow we will enter Germany and perhaps make it to Frankfurt. However, because it’s a weekend, there’s not a lot we can do about getting the bikes home.

That’s all for now. Although the journey East is done, we’ve definitely experienced some of the more crazy things since we turned around!

Again, thank you everyone for your support and encouragement.

We have made the very difficult decision to return to Canada.

I am still feeling like garbage, although today after sleeping most of the day I my throat doesn’t feel like it’s on fire. We have been resting for four days in Kharkiv, Ukraine and are now drastically behind schedule. The riding conditions make it too difficult too make up any time along the way and we are left with only two rest / maintenance days between Kharkiv and Vladivostok in far eastern Russia. It is not possible to continue riding East.

This has been one of the most challenging choices we have made in more than two and a half years of planning and being in this trip. When faced with our options - ride unsafely to make up time, ride until complete exhaustion with two days of rest and to fix the motorcycles should they break, ride to Kiev and make sure we get home safely with the motorcycles, we picked the final option.

Safety has always been our top priority on this trip and we feel that we cannot continue riding east in a safe manner with our current energy level / health, road conditions and schedule. We wish we could chance the circumstance.

We did not want to be faced with this decision. Ever. It hurts to know this dream - in particular riding across Mongolia, is close but painfully out of reach.

While we are feeling defeated, we are also trying to remind ourselves that this was not easy and we accomplished a lot. Looking back we have faced many issues and overcome each one. Perhaps not with grace but bulldog determination.

For me, deciding to do this journey was one of the biggest chances I’ve ever taken. It’s done great things for me. I’m freaking writing this from the far east of Ukraine! I never, ever would have come to Ukraine otherwise - or Poland for that matter. The places we have seen and people we have met have left an indelible mark on me. I am grateful to have made it more than 10,800 kilometres and halfway around the world by motorcycle - something I didn’t even know how to do three years ago.

Our tour partners have supported us every step of the way since each of them came on board. We appreciate all of their help and know that getting behind us also meant taking a chance. We hope that chance has still paid off for them. Our equipment has been fantastic. Our motorcycles have been great, our riding suits have been fantastic, our socks (Techsox www.techsox.com) have been downright amazing at looking after our feet in the hot, the cold and the wet. In particular, our packing systems from Pipestone Travel Store (www.travelstorecalgary.com) are something that Dylan and I have been grateful for every single day. Our luggage has been easy to keep compact, organized and separated.

So what is next?

Tomorrow we will ride back to Kiev, Ukraine and make arrangements to ship the motorcycles and our luggage home. We will then find a flight to western Europe and then connect to a flight home to Calgary.

As for this website and blog, the journey is not over just yet. I will continue to write about this adventure and post additional photos that I have not had the opportunity to so far. Please stay tuned for more!

I also encourage people who have not yet made a donation through our website to Street Kids International to do so. Although we haven’t made it all the way around the world, there are kids on the street all over the world that can benefit from the work of Street Kids International. Please help if you can with any amount - you can click HERE or on the donate now button on the right of most pages.

We are off now to reorganize our luggage to pare down what we will be shipping home and then will get more rest. Tomorrow will be a very early morning as we will try to get out of Kharkiv before traffic and make good progress back to Kiev.

Stay tuned for more updates.

We have arrived in Kharkiv, Ukraine. This was the most difficult ride so far.

I do not know what god we angered on the way into town, but the skies opened up on us like nobody’s business. I swear it was raining medium sized farm animals. Combine that with the ‘friendly’ Ukraine traffic, no known destination, wet cobblestone and no decent road drainage and it was a heck of a time. We ended up following a nice taxi driver (Roma) helped with the hotel, food, finding a bank to pay for the hotel and more. Thank you Roma!

…and in the hotel lobby a man just walked by carrying an uzi assult rifle. Good times.

We didn’t plan on staying in Kharkiv for more than one day, however, I am not doing very well health wise at this point. The cough I mentioned in a previous post is getting worse and I am stopping several times a day while riding to get rid of the stuff that has built up in my lungs. Sorry for saying it that way, but it’s the least graphic way I could explain it. I’ve never had a cough like this in my life. It’s hit me since before Berlin and has gotten progressively worse. I have been coughing so hard in my helmet that it has been affecting my riding - not to mention making a mess of my helmet. I am completely exhausted. I know Dylan is spent as well because he’s been looking out for me as well as himself through the riding conditions I just mentioned.

We have spent much of the day discussing the trip and if we can continue on to Russia. We will talk about it more (more like me nodding or shaking my head because I can’t talk much without going into a massively painful coughing fit) and will keep people posted. Our schedule was tight to begin with and this may put us over the edge. I want to continue but simply don’t know if it is possible with my health and our schedule.

What I would give for a pack of industrial strength Halls coughdrops and sleep. The stuff they have here tastes like turnips or something gross like that.

We will keep you posted.

We have arrived in Ukraine!

We were expected a difficult border crossing and got the exact opposite. First we moved up to the front of the line due to our bikes. The line was a couple of Kms long with trucks, although the car line was much shorter.

You must get out of Poland before getting into Ukraine. That’s where we met Jack, the friendly border guard in Poland. He will leave another comment like he did in the last blog post I bet! It was great to have a friendly reception.

Then we entered the Ukrainian side and had a decently warm welcome there too. The border guards were mostly women in camo… with full makeup on and one even had high heels. It was a mind bender for sure.
At the passort window the woman was very nice and friendly.

Earlier that day we did a bit of media work with our friends from the Ecco walkathon - they are big partners of Street Kids International in Poland with the proceeds of their walkathon going to Street Kids International. We met Kasia and representatives from Ecco as well as some members of the media. This is a photo of us with Kasia!

We rode across about half of Ukraine today and are in Kiev. It’s been a real culture shock as we are faced with the contrast between men on horsedrawn carts hauling hay to $300,000 luxury cars blowing past us on the road.

Speaking of on the road, the Buells have a pretty big drawback - heat. The exhaust comes out onto our right legs. We ceramicoated it before we left, but the heat was so severe on our legs today that we both have sustained burns to our skin from it on the inside of our right thighs - even though we are wearing the right safety pants.

In other riding news, I’ve had a fairly significant sore throat and cough since just before Berlin, and so Dylan has been leading the past few days. It’s a lot of work and takes energy out of him too and I really appreciate his leading while my head isn’t in the game as much as I’d like it to be.

The important update is that we are entering areas without simple to access Internet soon as we book it for the Russian border tomorrow. Updates will be somewhat less frequent, although I will attempt to continue writing and therefore have more detailed posts once they do make it online.

So, that’s it for now… keep posted to the progress map to see where we are each day. We will continue to ride!!!

We met yesterday with a representative of the Fountation for Poland - the organization that has partnered with Street Kids International here in Poland.

What an eye-opening experience to say the least. I have to say that Poland has some of the most complex street kid issues I have ever come across. I am running out of Internet access shortly, but just wanted to mention that it was wonderful to meet Dorota from the Foundation and know that they are helping so many (38 if I recall correctly) street kid-oriented organizations in Poland through programming and grants. Wow. The good thing to hear from them is that they are taking the programming of Street Kids International and making it fit their rather unique situation in Poland - they are using SKI’s “Street Business” program, but modifying it to fit Polish laws - for example, kids must be in school and are limited to work only two hours per day. The Polish situation is a real challenge for youth and for youth workers. I don’t envy them, but we can help.

The issue of kids on the street is one we face in Calgary. It’s one we face in Toronto. It’s in the UK, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Poland. It is everywhere we have been so far and it is a global issue that can really benefit from the good work that Street Kids International are doing. Please consider a donation to them as your money will go toward helping kids make the right choices to improve their lives. Our children represent our future - in Calgary, Toronto, the UK, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Poland and beyond.

Speaking of beyond, we are just about to do some media interviews with the newspapers in Warsaw, and then we are off toward the border of Ukraine, where we’ve heard it can take many hours to get across, mainly due to traffic. Wish us luck, check out the Warsaw photo gallery and keep the comments coming - especially if you have spotted us on the road somewhere and have one of our cards. We’d love to hear from you!

We have arrived safely in Polksa, aka Poland.

I write that we have arrived safely, because it feels like an accomplishment.

Yesterday we rode from Berlin to Warsaw - about 625 kms. Now, you’ve heard about us riding longer days before, but nothing like what this really was.

That brings me to the first topic - the EU.

Poland is working hard to really participate in the European Union and it shows. After some dodgy riding just after getting into Poland, we ended up on a beautiful autostrada. Again, going 140 kph and we were standing still compared to most traffic. We past three or four tolls - that’s how they are paying for the road. Not a bad idea in my books to have the users pay. For all intents and purposes, it was like we were in Western Europe.

Then Eastern Europe arrived as the autostrada ended and we rode on a local highway. I use the term highway loosely. It’s single lane each way, filled with trucks and everyone wants past everyone else.

Never before have we had to dodge oncoming traffic like we did yesterday. Since we are only bikes and don’t take up much space, the whole road is for driving on. So oncoming cars, trucks, whatever, would overtake while we were in the lane. You’d better be paying attention or it’s going to hurt.

But, here’s where it gets tricky. Since we are only bikes and don’t take up much space, the cars BEHIND us would pass us as well with vehicles oncoming. You’d better be paying attention or it’s going to hurt. It was like riding in a strange video game where you normally would have three lives, but in this case, we only have one each. When it got dark and we pushed on to get to Warsaw, it was difficult to see as well. My visor had some serious glare on it and our headlights, as powerful as they are, are a real annoyance to other drivers on the road. Dylan got cut off by the biggest man in the littlest car ever. Picture Andre the Giant in a VW Polo - a vehicle the side of a Toyota Yaris.

The landscape has changed - become more harsh and less green. We can feel a definite resiliency about the people here. They have lived harder lives than we have. They get knocked down and get right back up again.

Our main goal in Warsaw is to meet with a Street Kids International partner as this is the location of one of their projects. Due to our revised schedule we announced a couple of blog posts ago, we might not be able to make it happen and that would be a true disappointment for me. A major reason for this trip is to see people, how they live and help give hope and choice to kids in areas where there are more difficult circumstances than we generally face at home.

If you are reading and have yet to pledge to Street Kids International, I encourage you - whatever amount you choose - to donate and help kids in places like here in Poland. You can donate using a credit card from the home page. Just click on the “donate now” button.

We are nearly at $10,000. Help us reach that amount by the end of the week!!

UPDATE: Two new photo galleries and a video have been added!

To start, and apologz for the poor spelling todaz. I am in the hotel lobbz in Berlin and some of the letters are in their German location, not their English ones.

We spent the daz zesterdaz sightseeing in Berlin. What an amaying citz with a rich historz of conflict and now peace. We visited some of the major sites and went up into the huge TV tower in the centre of town to check out Berlin from high up above. There is a significant, but lessening contrast between east and west Berlin. The East is mostlz rectangular buildings and the east has more diversitz in their architecture. Itäs changing fast though as there is construction everzwhere.

It was a great daz and beautiful outside. We rode nearlz 7000km to get to Berlin from Amsterdam and it was a crayz ride! We would go 140 kph and there were doyens and dozens of cars that would pass us like we were standing still. Crazy!!!!

Todaz we are off to Poland and hopefullz to visit a Street Kids International project tomorrow. Warsaw is more than 850 kms awaz from here, so it will be in a couple of dazs that we meet up with them.

Thatäs the short of it for now!