It’s just a little under a month before the journey begins. Fifteen thousand kilometres to be travelled in 32 days with only four nights off. Lapping Australia anti clockwise from Sydney on the first of May and returning on the third of June.

There are two reasons I am doing this. The first being an opportunity to support a worthy cause, Sydney Children’s hospital via the Steven Walter foundation, and secondly, it was a lifelong dream of mine…for whatever masochistic reason, to ride a motorbike around Australia, two boxes ticked.

There are many challenges ahead, one is to decide how much clothing and equipment one would take, with a limited carrying capacity, although I am pretty fortunate, I have two panniers, one large top bag and a twenty litre leather cylinder. There are support vehicles, management, paramedics and mechanics, some basic spares and a trailer if you have an irreparable breakdown, not expected on the K1600. We won’t be roughing it, we are staying in hotels and motels, all booked and paid for arranged by the Steven Walter foundation management team. There is going to be a big range of bikes from sports to tourers and everything in between.

Speaking of the machine I am riding it’s BMW’s flagship tourer, it is fully equipped with all the modern safety features such as abs, traction control and stability control. There are some luxuries, for a bike, such as sat nav, a comprehensive trip computer, cruise control and phone integration all hooked up via Bluetooth into the BMW system 6 helmet, along with heated handgrips and seats, something one really appreciates when the need arises. Seeing at night is also a pleasure with dynamic xenon headlights that turn into corners and enough LEDs to be noticed even in the daytime.