Los Angeles.

The Journey, the dream, has begun. Of course no-one would expect a trip around the world to get off to a good start – remember Charley Boorman dropping his bike at the start line?

Ziggy has an odometer reading of 47,200kms. With brand new tyres, new fluids, new brake discs and pads, new tail pipe and spark plugs. Valves have been adjusted, alternator belt replaced, fuel actuator and fuel pump cover (two known weaknesses) have been replaced/repaired. A superb BMW eye has looked at the final drive, clutch and everything else in general. Thanks Tor and Donna from Tor Motors!!

If you are a Beemer owner and anywhere near the Sunshine Coast, see if Tor can fit you into his busy schedule and feel your BMW running as it is meant to!! http://www.tormotors.com.au

This is how I relayed my flight from Brisbane to LA on Facebook.

‘Hey hey hey, I'm in LA...and so is Ziggy!! Quite simple really. Travel nineteen hours including five in Nadi airport, Fiji (almost large). Breezed through US customs etc in under an hour, was directed to the wrong place by a taxi driver who put me on a bus. Walked 2 miles...yes MILES...to Qantas Freight. They had the bike...Yay!! I still had to clear customs in an office past where I caught the bus.

One SUPER helpful Qantas guy drove me in the company van to customs, filled out my paperwork, talked the jargon, and in 20 mins it was cleared. Then his bosses didn't want me to work in the workshop because of safety issues. After a few tears (not really) but I told them I had to leave the bike there forever because I don't have a truck. My helper argued for me!

They finally let me uncrate the bike in the warehouse, did I mention it was 14 degrees and raining? All the guy's eyes popped when they saw Ziggy crammed into the box and watched with wonder as she emerged almost total...still have to fit the windscreen.

Excellent! Still have to get to the hotel. Rode out into the now dark streets, pouring with rain, and took the wrong road and it threw me into a huge overpass, over the top of where my hotel was, and towards Long Beach. Through the rain I took the first exit, and after several petrol station stops for directions, pulled up soaked at the hotel.

I had left Brisbane at 11am and was in my LA hotel room at 7pm the same day. Easy, eight hours you may say!! Well thanks to my new found time travel ability it was more around 28 hours. I'm off to bed!!’

There were some more details to that story but I will save that long story for the book!
Crating the bike in Brisbane

I decided to spend four nights in LA to let the jetlag settle and catch up with a fellow HU Hubber, Vincenzo from the LA Community and check out a few of the tourist hotspots.

Three days with jetlag is hardly fair to make an assessment of a place. Although I was brought up in a big city and I can find my way through and around them without much trouble, I’m not really a big city person. I love the buzz of the café strips, the shops and malls, bars and buildings, milling people. But only for a short time.

I have no idea when I’m likely to be here again so I checked out the Hollywood sign, Hollywood Boulevard, Sunset Boulevard, several of the beaches and lots of the highways. I quickly tired of the highways. They are multi-lane and all concrete with very inconvenient joins that cross the lane and cause the front wheel to sometimes grab and pull and jump. The traffic is fast! I had no idea of the speed limit because it was rarely posted but I found myself doing 120km/h and vehicles were zooming past me.

Often it is like playing a video game with my iPhone doubling as a sat nav. There will be three choices and by the time you work out which is the correct one to veer right onto, the split is upon you and many times it’s a split second decision and hope you get it right.

So four nights is really long enough for me in LA. I’m looking forward to getting out into the desert country and up to Joshua Tree. I have considered the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas, but it’s bitterly cold up north at the moment and Vegas has never appealed. So I will head off to Phoenix to catch up with an old friend then continue to Austin, Texas to meet up with even older friends…their not actually older, but I’ve known them for longer if you know what I mean!