Everywhere Virtually

All great adventure motorcyclists have periods when their bikes are off the road, their bikes are incapacitated or they’re incapacitated. In my case the recession clipped my wings adventure motorcycling wings for a while. I’m far from being unlucky though because I happen to be residing in one of Europe’s best countries for motorcycling in general. Austria.

While the CB500 won’t win prizes for comfort it is a handy tool for short jaunts into scenery as seen above which is 35 minutes from my base. In the meantime I ponder which route to take next. I’ve pondered this in past posts. I start to wonder if I will just retire to road riding then something happens that reinvigorates my passion for adventure motorcycling.

On a recent flight back from Greece my plane flew over the Balkans. I know this region well now after last years ride through Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Greece and FYROM. I have studied Google Earth, Google Maps and paper maps. I have observed the land from sea level and from high mountain passes. So when flying above I was delighted to see places and features I recognised.

In the photo above you have lake Ohrid in the foreground and lake Prespa over the ridge in the centre of the photo. Ridge is probably too tame a word. Mountain is more like it.. Myself, Walter and Marcin navigated the snow up there back in march 2009. With those lakes as reference I knew Albania was below and I snapped away at interesting features. Aircraft windows facing into sunlight with their inherent reflections, ice crystals and scratches are never the best medium to photograph through but it was enough for my research purposes.

This is Parku Kombëtar dajt resevoir in Albania

What caught my eye though was a region of mountains that straddled southern Albania and Northern Greece. On last years Sibex ride when I exited the Albanian border into Greece I was too far to the East to see the most dramatic portion of this range of mountains but I certainly saw them from 35,000ft. They are the mountains of the Pindus range in the Northern Epirus region. What I had photographed here is the Vikos Gorge which according to the Guinness Book of Records is the deepest gorge in the world in proportion to its width!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikos-Aoos_National_Park

The Pindus (also Pindos or Pindhos) (Greek: Πίνδος) mountain range is located in northern Greece and southern Albania. It is roughly 160 km long, with a maximum elevation of 2637 m (Mount Smolikas). Because it runs along the border of Thessaly and Epirus, the Pindus range is often called the "spine of Greece". The mountain range stretches from near the Greek-Albanian borders in Northern Epirus, entering the Epirus periphery and Macedonia region in northern Greece down to the north of the Peloponnese. (source:Wikipedia)

Returning to my original thoughts of having a “little pause in adventuring” and watching other adventures take place it is important to remember that even being still and not riding is part of future adventures. the byline on my website is “The adventure begins in your head” and certainly on that sunny Monday morning over Greece and the Balkans the seed for another adventure was sewn.

Wherever you are at in your adventure planning take strength from the fact that one day it will happen and savour the planning, the browsing of flickr, panoramio and trawling over countless maps. It’s all part of the journey and makes limbo almost fun.