San Francisco, USA

After a few long days driving we made it down to San Francisco. We got held up on the way because I left our iPod on the side of a highway, we drove back for hours to get it, only to find someone had got there before us. I wasn't too popular that day. On the way we saw two large Elk in the forest at the side of the road, waiting to cross the road. We stopped in awe and watched them cross the road and graze in the grass, with their gigantic fur covered antlers they held themselves with such pride and dignity. After eating up miles and miles on the road we finally made it to San Francisco and spent hours trying to find a reasonable motel. Crossing over the Golden Gate Bridge made for a triumphant entrance into the city. Now we are busy showing the bike, we fly out in one week, will today be the day we say goodbye to the bike?

There is a hollow kind of sadness as we face the end of the trip. We realise that we are reaching the point where nothing more can be added to the trip and nothing can be taken away from it, no new experiences can add or subtract, soon the journey will have come to an end. Thinking about returning home is confusing, you think about the incredible decadence of our lives at home and it seems that we are so lucky to be able to work and make a living, without being crushed by poverty, unemployment or boredom. You feel that it is a simple thing but also a great privilege. On the other hand it seems that our lives are so impoverished in other ways, it seems we retreat to our rich lonely castles at the end of the day and that our wealth creates a distance between us. All through central america we sat in town squares in the evenings and watched the children playing and the old people sitting together and laughing. They embraced us too in their warmth, in their community, we automatically felt at home. You can't help but wonder what it is we have lost touch with.

I'm sure these ramblings are familiar to all travelers returning home after a long journey and I guess travel teaches you time and again that there are different ways of living, that things can change and that there are more possibilities than you had previously imagined.

Portland, Mount Hood, USA

We took the smooth ferry from Vancouver Island to Port Angeles in Washington state and began our drive south. USA our final destination. In Washington state we camped a night in the cold, and sat by the orange glow of a small camp fire Alex built. The next day we made it to Portland where we stayed with Shane and Amy, a lovely couple we met in Mexico, who generously opened their doors to a couple of rough, weary travelers like us. We then headed for Mount Hood to see a 'real' mountain and some snow. There were thick blankets of snow all around the Timberline Lodge where we stayed. After spending one night we kind of got snowed in, the roads were covered with snow and ice and the visibility was basically nil, not really tempting conditions for getting back on the bike. It was incredible to see snow after months in tropical heat.

We took a swim in the heated outdoor pool while it was snowing, we could see giant pine trees covered in snow when we looked up. We made a snow man and snow angels, but that was the extent of our snow sports. We looked at the skiers and snow boarders with envy but there were no classes on in the 'summer' season so we had to be content to watch. The lodge was a really historic place built in the art deco period and all the furnishings were in keeping with the period. We found out the lodge was built right on the edge of an active volcano that was well overdue for an eruption. The crater of the volcano was facing the hotel, it was sad to think the lodge could one day be destroyed.

Eventually the weather cleared and we headed off the mountain and back to Portland. Time was ticking and we were feeling the pressure, we had to make it down to LA and sell our bike in just days? Will we make it?

Vancouver Island, Canada

Finally the bike arrived and we took off, we took a long drive up north from Vancouver and got a brief taste of the snow capped mountain ranges that form the Rockies. We then headed back down south and took a ferry over to Vancouver Island. We were so keen to make tracks we headed straight down the highway until we met another motorbiking couple at the traffic lights who stopped had a coffee with us and encouraged us to get off the beaten track and see some of the island. It has been amazing to me to be a part of the motorcycling community, there is an automatic camaraderie. The highway wasn't all that pretty so we decided to take their suggestion. We made our way to a small town called Port Renfrew and the drive was beautiful, still lakes and tall pine wood trees, the temperature was rapidly dropping though and we were turning numb. Eventually we arrived and found a comfortable place to stay for the night, we had planned on camping but it was just too cold. The next day we headed for the ferry terminal to catch a boat to the US and complete the final border crossing of the whole trip!

On our way to the ferry we drove through miles of dark pine wood forests and were amazed to see a black bear at the side of the road, he was gorgeous and looked so cuddly with his big black furry feet. He was peeking at us from behind a tree at the side of the road. We waited and eventually he came out and casually sauntered across the road and walked along looking for berries by the side of the road. We had been told that the black bears eat berries not people so we weren't too fearful for our safety. We were quietly thrilled. Further along we also saw a graceful deer in the forest, she looked at us and gently silently walked away, she seemed to vanish magically into the forest. Deer have always been my favourite animal but I have had to love them from afar as there are no deer in Australia! This was the Canada we had been hoping for.

Vancouver, Canada

After twenty hours in transit from Panama we arrived in Vancouver around midnight with no place to stay. We had booked a cheap hotel but then when we called them between flights to check if we could check in at midnight, they kindly informed us that they could not keep the reception open and that we would lose our deposit and be charged for the night anyway. Welcome to Canada! We were sleep deprived zombies when we got there and Alex found an information counter and called a dozen hotels only to find that they were all booked out. Luckily we found the last room in a local hotel that was about ten times out of our tight budget, oh well, at least we didn't sleep in the airport. We slept off our jetlag and made our way into Vancouver city the next day. It was exciting to be in Vancouver city and it was incredibly beautiful. Everything seemed so shiny, polished and pristine. It seemed they must have had an army of cleaners scrubbing the city from head to toe everyday. The air was cool crisp and clean which was a welcome change after Central America. We found a hotel in downtown Vancouver in the worst possible part of town, and we were warned repeatedly not to stay there. After living in Darlinghurst in Sydney a few "colourful" locals wasn't going to scare us too much. We were in for a scare..........Of all the cities we have traveled to we have never seen such an extreme problem with drug addiction. There were hundreds and hundreds of disheveled sunken faced desperate looking people. On the streets around 95% of the people you saw appeared to be homeless, drug addicted or mentally ill. It was in complete contrast to the shiny perfection of the main downtown area. The rest of Vancouver looked like an artists impression, idealised, perfect, clean almost sterile.

After all our experiences in Central America, always hearing about the drug trade it was shocking to see this end point and the human damage associated with this "industry". Ironically we had travelled in some incredibly poor regions but the country where we had been asked for money most often was Canada, how could this be in the midst of such wealth?

We were waiting in Canada for the bike for days, it seemed to have been put on a stand by basis, which is not what we paid for, so we were hanging around Vancouver a lot longer than we wanted to and we were bursting to get out and explore the mountains and get out of the city.