The sky was a beautiful azure color. The wind was uncharateristically calm at Cape of Good Hope, but the waves were still smiling at us with white caps in the deep blue ocean below. We had reached the end of the road, quite literally: At the parking lot under the Cape Point lighthouse, the road […]
Africa had become normal. Having spent about 3 months on the continent, we no longer bashed an eyelash at trucks in the wrong lane, pick-ups with 25 passengers, burning plastic everywhere, women with firewood balaced on theirs heads, or men with a machete in one hand and a beer in the other. The grotesque had […]
The frenzy had begun. The truck in front of me was breaking. To my right, a shaking semi was trying to overtake me and the rest of the line. In front of him was a metallic blue Honda Civic with the bass thumping through the open windows. Toyota Hilux pick-ups were sprinkled throughout the hundreds […]
[Note: I am aware that I am four translations of posts behind. They will come in due time (two of them are already translated, but not yet posted), but we thought this post was so important that we would post it immediately anyway.] We were riding in the hills above Lake Malawi. The sun was […]
“No! I’m done with this crap! This road is so uneven, and I hate riding on top of a berm so I can’t reach the ground!” It was one of those rare occations where Camilla was truly angry. “Oh, you’re doing fine. Just put it in first gear and keep a steady pace.” Our intercom […]
Was I making a fool of myself? Was I bothering them? Was I just the annoying white person? I had told Andreas, that I would do it. I normally like dancing. But as her dusty hand grabbed mine, I maybe regretted a little bit. No way back. I was now hand in hand with a […]
[Due to a mix of laziness and poor internet, I’m posting this way too late. We have actually been in Kenya for more than a week now, and are preparing our next post. But better late than never.] “Now it broke! It’s not going anymore! Something just broke!” It had been a long day already. […]
The strong halogen light on the dusty white walls was in sharp contrast to the deep black darkness outside. The medical jargon flew through the air. I tried in vain to follow along, as the doctor tried to discuss types of antibiotics with Camilla on his broken English. She sat on a plastic chair at […]
[This post was written yesterday, when we were still in Aswan, but was never put online, due to a lack of internet. Meanwhile, we have made it to Abu Simbel, close to the Sudanese border.] “I agree very much, that is a good philosophy of life,” says Andreas, after he also read and article from […]
It was difficult to hold back a grin, as I was staring out the window of Ahmed’s sparkling white Mitsubishi Lancer with a rally-spoiler and Sia’s latest hit “Chandeliers” at full volume on the stereo. Just two days earlier, I had laughed at the surrealism of driving through the dirty streets of Alexandria in Mahmouds […]
We are walking down the dark, labyrinthine alleyway, as the muezzin sings his call to prayer. The stalls in the walls on both sides are mostly closed, Egypt has a national holiday. Most street lamps are off, but there is just enough light to see where we are going and to avoid stepping on the […]
We looked at each other. “So… Do we just go inside and say that we have to motorcycles we need to get to Africa?” It was the first time any of us had tried to arrange transcontinental shipping, so we were quite out of our comfort zone. I opened the door to Minoan Lines and […]
“Arrrgghh,” yells Andreas, surprised, suddenly aggressive and slightly scared. It’s the last thing I hear, before I face the situation myself. It is Saturday around noon in the Greek mountains. We have entered a dense cloud. They fog is heavy and we can see perhaps 25 meters ahead. It is cold, cold enough for my […]
[This post is stupidly long. We have had a few days with really poor internet, so the words have accumulated over time – break it up in two, if I’m too longwinded…] The smell of burnt plastic lingers in out nostrils, going through Bosnia. I did not consciously know that the smell of Iraq was […]
I’m sitting on at terrace i Croatia. It is 11:02 pm. Hell’s Bells by AC/DC is playing at a mindnumbingly loud level from the neighbor’s garden. We’re staying with Ivan, 31, heavy-metal musician with to recorded albums and many concert tours in Eastern Europe behind him. Tattoos down both arms. We arrived around 6 pm […]
In Weggis in Switzerland, we had a warm welcome by Daphne and Fredy. Fredy is a photographer and very well-traveled. He has an amazing number of stories, which he can’t stop himself from telling. I am the third generation in my family to know him. In 1974, he and two other guys knocked the door […]
As we were on our path to leave Denmark, I felt a strange mix of emotions. I had obviously long considered what it would be like to finally set off on the big trip, but – as I sort of expected – it was nothing like I expected. We had left our place in Aalborg […]
Now it’s just about time to go! I have waited for 4 years to write this post, but in reality, there is not much to write. It’s only now the exciting stuff begins. Two weeks ago, we got home from 5 wonderful weeks in the US, and since then, we have spent our time on […]
In an attempt to make Camilla (and me, I must admit) ready for a marathon-trip through Africa, we ride as much as we can during the spring holiday-weekends. After a couple of extremely cold trips during the past two months, the warmth of early summer had finally reached Denmark, and we set forth on a […]
I’m at my computer, listening to Norah Jones. The rain is pitter-pattering on the roof, it’s slowly getting darker outside, and Camilla is sitting on the couch, reading – wait, what?! Wasn’t Andreas supposed to be in Africa now? And who is Camilla? And why is it raining in late April? All right, let’s back […]
I originally wrote this post in June, but have not gotten around to post it until now, 3 months later. I’m sorry, but at least here it is 🙂 I’m sitting in a Boeing 747 on my way to Korea, the engines are humming loudly, and I’m caught in the no-man’s land of time which […]
The story about the end of our Nordkapp-trip has been long under way, but all of a sudden we found ourselves back in the real world, with lots of other things to take care of, and Acrux-blogging was put on the backburner for a while. It also did not help that we were both pretty […]
As beautiful as the scenery at Nordkapp and as thrilling as the feeling of getting there, deeper impressions were left on me by a handful of lonely bicyclers we passed. The roads endless up there, swaying through cold, dark tunnels, the weather’s wet jaw bid thighs, shoulders and face, and hubs for rest were fifties […]
We were riding in a cloud. It was not quite raining, but everything was wet and cold, and droplets of water formed constantly on my visor. Visibility was not bad, but the horizon disappered in a grey mist. To our left and right was an uncountable number of lakes with single-rock-islands peeking above the surface, […]
Headache came first. I ascribed it to dehydration, or a delayed dizziness from the ferry to Helsinki, or heavy neck tensions from carrying the weight of the helmet and pushing it against the wind many hours a day, or maybe the ongoing noise inside the helmet during those same hours. Then the next morning came […]
“When a some point your ignition fails … you should know that there is a bearing in you final drive which will give up after about 800.000 km … Well, it turns out that the gear box on an ’85 has differently angled gears than on the ’81, you have 15 degrees, I have 17.5.” […]
We left Arkadiusz and Slupsk a little before 10 am Saturday morning, knowing that this would be the longest day so far. The destination was Miroslavas in Lithuania, some 550 km away, where we would meet my good friend Renata. The GPS siad we would arrive at 6:30, but it was not going to be […]
“Oooouuuuhhhhh” an older man laughed at us when we stood in underpants at a gas station near Rostock in Germany. The wife in the passenger seat of the car seemed to not really know where to look. We were for the second time on the day of departure from Herning in Denmark stuffing the water […]
We are in the late European summer, I’m just home from San Diego and there’s about a year till the Acrux Expedition really gets underway. No time could be better to take a little test-trip before it all culminates. For a long time – almost as long as we’ve been taling about this project – […]
My butt hurt and my throttle hand was numb. My ears were ringing and I could barely see the road for dead bugs on my helmet. I had just come home from 11 hours on the road. I blasted 611 km through the Danish landscapes yesterday. I had two goals: Thise Mejeriet in Thise, a Danish […]
Not a wind is moving and the trees are precisely chiseled silhouettes against the darkening sky. The last orange rays of the sun are highlighting the very sparse clouds in the distance, but for all intents and purposes it is dark. The neighboring campsite, some 100 yards away is inhabited by a handful of guys […]
A couple of weekends ago I finally finished putting the front of Bob back together. Since then I drove about 1500 km in sweat-breaking heat, strong winds and pouring rain. On the road I managed to run out of fuel twice. The motorcycle has a small tap handle where you can block the fuel […]
In hindsight, Indian Pass Road was probably a bad idea. It began to occur to me after five to seven miles in foot deep, loose gravel on the bottom on a dry riverbed. It really hit home, when I found myself at a crossroads. There was no sign to lead me either way, and my […]
The weather was bad when I took the bus home to Aalborg from Herning Monday morning. I didn’t mind that much because, mildly speaking, Bob is not ready to go. The plan before the weekend was to put the front end back on there. Instead I took off the front fender, the windscreen and the […]
My motorcycle, Bob in case you forgot him, was checked twice for drivability. He’s “average” on paper, like any other used motorcycle car out there on the street. I changed oils, filters, battery, spark plugs, some cables, some nuts and bolts, adjusted the valves, fixed some flickering of the blink and back lights, took off […]
“Excuse me, have you seen the lost horse?” “Sorry?” My mind was not quite prepared for more than the customary “hi, how’s it going” greeting from other hikers on the trail. “Have you seen the lost horse,” the 5-year old kid with round, blue-framed glasses repeated, somewhat impatient. “Oh, yeah, The Lost Horse Mine is […]
[I write this post with special dedication to the people who kindly offered me places to sleep when I planned the original trip. The original plan was to drive all the way to Barcelona on my newly-acquired motorcycle but, in short, stupid paper work stopped me from doing that. So last minute I decided to […]
Anders just spent 5 months in Chicago as part of his PhD. A happy coincidence was that he was ending his stay by attending a conference in San Diego. We met up and of course had to take a road trip. We investigated whether it was feasible for him to rent a bike so we […]
I am currently in the US, and if there’s a place in this world that was made for motorcycles, this is it. Before I went here, I considered whether I should buy a bike over here, and as the date of departure closed in the answer became clear: Yes! Not only does the US work […]
As part of my PhD, I have returned to San Diego to do research in pedestrian detection and intelligent cars. I’ll be here for six months, and apart from work I plan to spend some time practicing off road biking, but more on that in a later post. I will also exploit my chance to […]
Our journey became realistic once we made a budget. Very rough back-of-the-napkin calculations told us that we would be able to save enough money during our PhDs but the hunch was not solidified until the budget came together about a year ago. Our particular trip takes about 35,000 EUR, 50,000 USD or 260.000 DKK, details below (all […]
I met my motorcycle for the first time this Christmas holiday and had a couple of nights to get it started and inspect its condition. This is a 1985-BMW R80G/S with a couple hundred kilometers more than 100.000 (most from before ‘97) on the odometer. It’s a classic motorcycle produced from 1980-87 and, since then, […]
All tales start by establishing the characters, and one of the most important ones in this tale is Amelia, my motorcycle. More on the name towards the end. Amelia is a BMW G650 Xchallenge from 2007, which I bought used with 7500 km on the odometer by the end of July, 2013. I rarely buy […]
It didn’t take long after deciding to do the adventure, before we had a rough draft of a route. Since then, it has gone through numerous changes and refinements, but the basic principle is simple: We leave home heading south, and when we hit Cape Town, ship the bikes to Australia and head home. How […]
Welcome to the blog of The Acrux Expedition. What is this? In about two years, we – Anders and Andreas – are done with our PhDs and it’ll be time for an adventure. Thus, we plan do ride around the world on motorcycles. This is the blog where you can follow our journey. The project […]