News from Jupiter
From My Notebooks In 1976: Leaving Kata
September 29, 2024
[I forgot to mention that a few weeks ago I dinged my scooter (and myself) doing a silly thing on a hill in the village. We met a concrete wall, at very slow speed. It was enough to loosen the left mirror, scratch the screen, and hit a nerve somewhere in my left hip. I was persuaded, against my will, to get an X-ray. The […]
From My Notebooks In 1976: Thailand
September 22, 2024
[Everything in these notebooks is, of course, personal, but some of what I wrote is so intimate and revealing that I was tempted to edit it out. I have resisted the temptation because the introspection that plays out inside the helmet on a solitary journey is a valuable part of the experience. My thoughts and judgements were necessarily fleeting and not what I might think […]
From My Notebooks In 1976: Down and Almost Out in Penang
September 15, 2024
[In last week’s transcription from my notes, I left you while trying to raise my spirits by riding around the island of Penang. On one of the beaches I met a young German, recently graduated, who was trying to make his mind up whether to study medicine. For some reason he seemed to think my opinion was valuable but there was immediate sympathy between us. […]
Gieboldehausen, Go For It, and My Notebooks from 1976: After Kuala Lumpur
September 8, 2024
Hi everybody, I’m back. Since the last instalment of my notes from the seventies I have been to a German biker meeting, in Gieboldehausen in the north of Germany. It’s quite a long way from where I live, so I made it a voyage of discovery, staying overnight in Brioude and Besançon on the way there, and in Strasbourg on the way back. I had […]
From My Notebooks In 1976: Along the Coast of Malaysia
August 4, 2024
Those last days together were sweet and cruel. We agreed to part when we got to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. We are moving very slowly, but it is now only two days away. The weather is mild and humid and we continue along the coast. Sunday May 2nd – To Malacca Wake up feeling sick, but no headache. Can’t get going till […]
From My Notebooks In 1976: Singapore and Kukup
July 21, 2024
Having left Perth on the Kota Bali after six months in Australia, I am now in Singapore. Still with Carol, but we have agreed to separate in Malaysia. I have decided to lighten my load. Let me remind you that I have transcribed these notes exactly as I wrote them at the time. Sometimes I surprise myself. April 27th Make up a parcel for England. […]
From My Notebooks In 1976: Leaving Australia and the Passage to Singapore
July 14, 2024
Perth, Mid-April Before leaving the country I wrote this rather harsh assessment: Australian life does seem to have a dreamlike quality. Life seems to pass in a daze, as though one were just going through the motions. People do work, but never show the effect of it, and this underlying assumption of imperturbability seems to run through even their most drunken or excited moments. There […]
From My Notebooks In 1976: The Last Leg To Perth
June 23, 2024
Here’s a picture of Gurney’s hole in the ground that I wrote about last week – where he had his orchard. Thursday, April 8th To Norseman. Exchanged thoughts while riding. Carol was on a “bummer” about something she’d written home and wished she hadn’t. I was figuring out distillation plants from sea water using solar energy or burning slash from the bush. Much attracted […]
From My Notebooks In 1976: Crossing the Nullarbor
June 16, 2024
We left Ceduna, and André’s garage, on April 6th to take the road across the Nullarbor plain. Strangely there is almost nothing in my diary about this part of the journey, although after almost fifty years some of it is vividly memorable, so I will abandon the normal format of this series and just describe it as I remember it. The next township of any […]
How I Became a Jolly Good Fellow
June 9, 2024
Just like most bikers who have travelled any distance in the last forty years or so I have been well aware of the existence of Touratech. When I first saw some of their products back in the early nineties – tank bags, boxes, countless clever devices – it was with a very strange and confused mixture of emotions, part admiration, part envy, part regret and […]