Invitations are printed!

I woke the other night at 1 am & thought i'd tackle the invites & posters for our launch night. 3 hours later i completed them & had them scrutinized by our marketing 'expert'. Now i have to draw up a guest list & a plan of action as to whom we should send them to. I think i am going to be left with this job! Realisticly we need a 100 guests to make it worthwhile. Now i can honestly say i don't know 100 people so have to rely on friends of friends. The only problem is when we have our next function, whom do we invite? Our friends are going to be sick of supporting us before the 12 months is up! I'm going to have to trawl the streets of Skipton putting leaflets through doors. I'll pass some on to my mum as she has some good 'connections'.

Launch Night

We will be 'launching' our charity campaign at a wine and cheese tasting at the architectural award winning Utopia at Broughton Hall Business Park. on 20 September. it is hoped that the media will be there and we will then announce other events at that time.

Publicity

We now have ha 'publicity manager', Julia, who lives nearby, and having heard all of the spiel has decided we 'need a professional'.

£50,000!

When we decided to undertake this (ad)venture we thought that we needed a target although others disagreed. So, I spoke to the organisers and asked what was the record amount anyone had raises thinking we should aim to beat it. The answer was £50,000 (and still counting), and this was for one person!

In the interests of sanity, Sally and I have decided our joint target is £50,000 which will not beat this individual but is still very, very ambitious. On the other hand, two week in and and 60+ weeks to go and we are at £6,500 (although we have contibuted quite a bit of this ourselves).

Goa

At the end of the journey we relaxed for two days on a beach in Goa and realised that this was not really India and just how far our journey had taken us. We were reminded several times that this was an ‘adventure’ holiday, and it was. It is not for the faint hearted; we learnt a lot about India, and about biking! The acid test is would we go again, and the answer is no, at least not to Goa again, but Kerala or the Himalayas, well that’s another question!

Golf & Sacred Cows

The accommodation varied along with the roads, from five star luxury to cheap hotels via tents, bamboo huts, a dormitory and the beach. One of the stops included a ‘day off’ where we went off on an elephant safari and in the afternoon Sally played a surreal game of golf which included the, by now, regulation sacred cows on the fairways.

The food also varied quite a lot, but lunch was usually a vegetarian thali which consisted of curry, lentils, roti bread, rice, sauces, yoghurt and a dessert for 10-15 rupees (15-20p).

Still India!

We spent most of our time ‘off the beaten track’ and at the regular stops in villages for ‘chai’ quickly became the centre of attention. It was the same en route with bystanders waving and smiling for all they were worth.

The roads varied, some very rough and potholed, some ‘under repair’, and some serious mud (which I managed to fall off in much to the rest of the group’s amusement). There was quite a bit of ‘falling off’ but none of it serious. There was also quite a bit of ‘off road’ biking as a result of being pushed off the road by a truck or bus.

The best way of imagining the style of riding would be to think of Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.

More on India

The fun started on the way from the airport to familiarise ourselves with our motorcycle, the traffic was very busy and chaotic and the minivan we were travelling on was involved in an accident with a motorcycle, it wasn’t serious, but set the tone.

The Royal Enfield’s had a kick start, the gears on the opposite side and upside down, and brakes which, to put it mildly, required more anticipation than on a modern bike. Nevertheless, we got to grips with them and arranged for an early start (6:30) the following day. There were eight holidaymakers, a guide at the front of the convoy, two guides at the rear, and a van with spares, medical equipment and our luggage completed the entourage.

The first day there was a lot of confusion with the controls, which in turn led to a lot of stalling, some of it at very inopportune moments. I managed to stall in very heavy traffic going round a bad accident up a steep mountain pass with an irate bus behind me. The first day also gave us our first experience of a large town with its dogs, pigs, chickens, goats, sheep, motorised rickshaws, sacred cows, bullock carts, trucks, cyclists, buses all seemingly driving at random. The trick is to understand that the horn replaces most of what we would consider to be the ‘rules of the road’. We all survived our first town, and when we stopped shortly afterwards were grinning from ear to ear.

Round India on a bullet!

Whilst we are getting our act together on Enduro Africa '07 here is some background to it. A few years ago my wife, Sally, and I spent two weeks going 1,800k round Southern India on 1950’s pedigree Royal Enfield ‘Bullets’. It’s worth going back a year to understand how we came to be involved in this ‘adventure’! In December 2002 we spent a wonderful three weeks in South Africa, the most enjoyable part of which was when we hired two Harley Davidson’s (a Fat Boy and a Duo Glide, more of that in the weeks to come) and drove along the Garden Route. Thus inspired we looked for something similar for our next holiday, we considered Route 66, and in India also considered the Himalayas, we finally settled for a guided tour starting from Goa and heading east and then south.

..... to be continued!