Date: 11-21/05/2017
From/To: Berlin
Distance:–
Road:–

Today is the day… I have to go to the migration department (Auslaenderbehorde) and try to get my six month visa. We organized all requested papers and went to the office. As it turned out, we had all papers. Klaus brought the proof that he is owning the property were we are registered, I brought proof that I’m married to Sigrid and some Bank statement and not even after 3 hours and 180AU$ later, I got the permission to stay for 6 Month in Europa. Success! Then we rushed home and off we went to visit Freya. She organized a cabaret evening in the ‚Bar jeder Vernunft’. The vicinity is an old mirror tent, and it looks like it is from the 1930^th. We were sitting right up front close to the singer, she had a great voice. The evening was entertaining and on the way home, we stopped at a Döner shop and had some Curry Wurst and Döner.

The next day we were invited to Carsten’s Birthday party which c-conveniently for us was at their new house. It was really impressive what Carsten and Gabi did with the old house. There were hardly any original walls left. The whole house was opened up. The most impressive part for me was how they converted the cellar into a marvellous bedroom. Ahh, and they had a sheep in the garden, with a crownJ.

 

 

 

 

 

The next day we finished the bikes and Klaus was test riding the ‘BumbleBee’ J. All appears to be in order. In the evening we went to went to Christina for dinner. It was a nice relaxed evening and Niklas played some piano tunes for us. In fact it was so relaxed that I forgot to take pictures….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next day we moved back to Bodo and Gabi for Gabi’s 60st Birthday. We’d organized some tickets for ‘The One’ a show in the Friedrich Stadt Palast as a surprise for her that worked great!

. The costumes, the music the light effects, the acrobatics and the stage were fantastic! But, as always in these shows we were only allowed to take pictures at the end of the show.

 

 

 

 

 

At night we celebrated Gabi’s birthday at 24:00. Well, I opened a bottle of Champaign, unfortunately the Champaign started its escape and it sprayed all over the room, Bodo and me. So the celebration was delayed until the mess was cleaned up. ‘Luckily’ there are no pictures J

 

The next day we strolled through the city before we were going to a Chinese restaurant which had a buffet too large for us to try everything. However we gave it a good shot J.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to Klaus and Connies, to organize some birthday gifts for Sigrid, we went pre-birthday shopping. The weather was nice so Klaus and Connie decided to join on the Yamaha. The bike must be around 35 years old and still looks amazing.

 

 

We drove to a BMW, where I had pre-ordered some new riding trousers for Sigrid. Connie and Klaus heard that Sigrid’s rain pants were leaking, so they organized some new rain pants for her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today is Sigrid’s Birthday. I was busy organising things and preparing the bikes so I had no time to organize something for Sigrid (lame excuseJ. but Connie organized and decorated a great birthday table for Siggi.

 

 

 

Connie had a great suggestion for Sigrid’s birthday breakfast, the ‘Kings Garden academy’. Here we meet with Freya, Gabi, Robert, Klaus and Conni. It was a very tranquil breakfast.

 

After the breakfast, we said good bye to our friends and went with Klaus and Connie for a walk to Moorlake. The intention was to visit the ‘Pfaueninsel’, a small island nearby. When we arrived at the ferry- guess what-the ferry was out of order for maintenance, just today… So we walked back and had another go at the ‘Koeniglichen Gartenakademie’ for coffee and cake. At night we celebrated with a glass of Champaign at Klaus and Connie’s balcony.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next day was Gabi’s birthday, but she had to work, so we decided to meet at night at a restaurant with a beautiful view. Unfortunately our tires arrived and we had to get them changed today, at least on one bike. So in a rush we went to the tire shop, got the tyres on the yellow bike (BumbleBee) fitted and rushed to Gabi house. Well, rushing was relative, since we hit the rush hour. Stop and go for nearly two hours. Needless to say, we arrived late and Gabi’s father was patiently waiting for us. We hopped in his car and arrived just an hour later L. The view and the food were fantastic; from the portion size I would guess it was a French chef J

 

 

 

Gabi organized for the next day a beauty treatment for Sigrid as a birthday gift. So we split up, I went back to the tyre shop to get the rear tyre on the red bike changed. During this time, Sigrid went to the beauty treatment. We meet around 6PM close to Kudamm. I was surprised, when a foreign women approached me. Well it took a while before I realised that it was Sigrid J

 

 

 

 

And for Saturday, we planned to go with Gabi to some nurseries to buy some plants/trees. At the end Gabi found some rhododendron and blue berries, they get delivered mid next week. In the evening Gabi organized a gathering at Mathias rowing club.

 

 

 

 

 

The adventure was not finished jet, Gabi organized as well a boat trip at Linum. Germany has many channels which are connected to a huge network. In Linum is the Amtmann channel which is part of the network. Around the channel is a wild life reserve, where birds rest during their winter migration. The boat had an electric motor, so we had during the whole trip no engine noise.

 

 

 

During the trip we got hungry, so we had a nice lunch in the restaurant nearby, had a look at a goat cheese and went to a milk refill station. I thought that is a great invention. The refill station is on the farmer’s property, and you refill your own bottles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the evening Gabi arranged a meeting with Heidi Hetzer. We met Heidi in Australia when she was doing her world trip with Hudo, a 1930 Hudson car. She stayed with us for a couple of days before she continued her journey to Melbourne. We meet at a restaurant called ‘Kaptain’s Kajüe’, it was a picturesque setup at a nice lake (Wannsee). Heidi arrived with her red Opel GT, nice car. This was the last day of partying, well at least in Berlin J

 

 

Date: 6-11/05/2017
From/To: Berlin
Distance:–
Road:–

 

The service on the yellow bike wasn’t done, so we decided to do the usual – change oil and spark plugs and get new brake pads -our self’s. Changing the spark plugs required a bit more work than expected. It looked like we had to dismantle half of the bike J

 

 

 

 

 

In the next couple of days we organized the bike insurance, the registration and organized a visa for myself, since we would like to stay for more than 3 Month in Europa. Now we are officially residing at Connie’s and Klaus’s house. To get mail in Germany to that address our name had to be put onto the letterbox; otherwise the mail would be returned to sender.

Klaus and I successfully entertained the girls, since doing all the paperwork is so boring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To get the bikes complete, we needed some additional parts, which we ordered in the meantime. That included a larger windscreen, bash plate, luggage rack and a top box. All that got delivered and fitted to the bikes.

We needed as well a tent, since we left ours in Australia due to weight restriction on the flight. We talked to Steffi and Julia at Anita’s weddings anniversary and they mentioned they had a spare one. They were even so nice to bring it to Klaus’s house. They had the tent spare after they bought a VW bus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Date: 2-5/05/2017
From/To: Berlin
Distance: 1286km
Road: Highway

After a nice stroll through the city with Bodo, Gabi and Linda, we got picked up by Conni und Klaus. We made a detour to Polo to buy Chain Oil. On this occasion I remembered that I left my raingear in Australia-it was leaking anyway after a while. So we had a look and found something really nice and inconspicuous. Siggi tried the jacket as well

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a nice evening at Klaus and Connie’s Place, with lots of talking and planning. The next day we started our trip to collect the bikes. First Klaus drove us to our first destination, Gottmadingen, close to the Bodensee. It was raining heavily during our drive; I was hoping that the weather will clear up the next day.

In the evening we arrive at Sonja’s and Sebastian’s house, I took the bike for a short spin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we finalised the paper work and I could drive our first bike to the accommodation. This was a great feeling! After month of planning things started to fall in place.

Next day we were aiming for Aachen to pick up my bike. The weather hadn’t cleared up jet, so I had the opportunity to test my new raingear. We made a small detour to Doris for a coffee and picked up our gear we left there. We arrived later this evening, but I was so excited that I forgot to take any pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We booked some accommodation close by. The hotel had a garage were we could park the bikes; unfortunately Klaus had to park the car in the street. For dinner we organised some pizza that night and went to bed.

 

 

 

 

The next day we aimed to get back to Berlin. First we tried to get some bike insurance, but that did’t work. We were told to get the insurance in Berlin. Below are our two beauties

J

So we hopped onto the bikes and off we went. The weather cleared up and we arrived in Berlin close to midnight, completely buggered but happy.

 

Date: 29-30/05/2017
From-To: Berlin
Distance: —
Road: —

No, I’m not talking about the Australian political party. We were meeting with Sigrid family before we would start to organize the bikes and me my Visa. We used the ICE to get to Berlin. Bodo and Gabi were so nice to pick us up from ‘Ostbahnhof’. On the next day we had a short walk around inner Berlin, trying to get a Currywurst from a famous stall. We forgot that it was Sunday. We kept walking and stumbled across a Beer garden with some stalls.

 

 

 

We had something to eat

and Sigrid gave “Moonshine” a local liquor a go.

We went back to Bodo and Gabi’s flat and checked out possibilities to get to Anita’s and Bernd’s celebration. The location was on the fringe of Berlin, but the public transport is great. So after looking at an public transport app and getting some instructions from Bodo, we were ready to go. Bodo showed us to the train station and we took a picture of the station, so we would know on our way back where to exit the train. So off we went, had a beautiful tour through the outskirts of Berlin. .

 

Anita and Bernd celebrated their 20^th wedding anniversary and invited us last year. When our trip/retirement started to get closer, we thought we would like to attend and celebrate with them together. The location was at the ‘Rübezahl’, a location on Müggelsee, a big lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The setup was fantastic.

 

 

Anita and Bernd spend a lot of attention to details. On each of our place setting we found small chocolate hart with ‘Liebe ist’ sayings, which we remembered from our youth.

Couples married more than 20 years even got an porcelain angel which was very cuteJ.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We really enjoyed to catch up with our family and appreciated the warm hospitality and the generous setup of the celebration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a side note –Sigrid and I tried the whole day to get a currywurst, without success. As we learned now, there is a ‘Midnight Currywurst’ custom at parties in Berlin, that mean that at midnight a currywurst was severed. As you can see, we really enjoyed it. At the end of the night we were ready to take the public transport back, but Dagmar convinced us that it would be better that she would drive us back to Bodo, which she did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next day we visited Gabi’s and Bodo’s Garden where lots of flowers were blooming. It was a beautiful day, but it got cold very early, so we packed up and went back to Gaby and Bobo’s flat.

where we warmed up by coffee and cake.

Date: 25-28/05/2017
From/To: Adelaide – Wiesbaden
Distance:–
Road:–

On the last Day, we had still a long task list to finish. Below are some pictures how I felt with the number of tasks and the time remaining.

 We packed our luggage and put it on a scale. Hmm, no  way that we can take all our stuff with only 30kg luggage  per person. At the end, we sacrificed our tent, repacking  everything, back, forward, back again until we just made it  with 30kg luggage person plus 7Kg hand luggage. Not  sure how we can carry that, don’t worry, we will be fine.

And here an attempt to carry most of the luggage.

 We finished just in time when  the family came to pick us up.  Together we had a fare well  snack with the family at the  airport,

 And off we went, Europa we are coming. The first leg  was to Doha, where we were lucky enough that each of  us would get a 3 seat row, so we could have a good night  sleep. The layover was without any problems and we  arrived in Frankfurt the next morning.

 

 

 

 

 

Now we had to carry that entire luggage to/from the train which was a harder than we thought.

 Doris has organized some  dinner with friends where we  tried  some specialties of the  regions.
 On the next day we had a very  relaxing breakfast , visited  Dieters grave (Sigrids Dad) and  went with Doris and Helga to a    restaurant that served freshly  harvested ‘Asparagus ‘.

Next day we packed up and left for Berlin. This time we left some luggage at Doris’s place; the plan was we would pick it up later when we pass by her house while picking up the bikes.