Becky and I almost ready to go, the morning of our departure outside her flat in Brixton. we have sold almost everything we own including my hair.

Becky (from Colchester in Essex) was my co-rider on the original trip which went from London to India and onto Australia. Her greatest achievement on Thelma was completing a hellish off-road ride along a dried-up river bed to reach an oasis for swimming in.

We terrified ourselves with a nasty smash into a mountainside on the way to Peshawar which luckily left not much more broken than the windshield, Thelma now looking a bit more gnarly and as for me- with a recent top up on my shorn look we were ready to take on anyone.

Celebrating our achievement in having reached Sydny we took part in the Mardi Gras parade through the city.

Riing the Karakoram Highway through northern Pakistan is nerve-wracking enough anyway, add these huge trucks on the narrow tracks we were following and it becpomes the ultimate game of chicken.

The local Baluchi people seem unaware of the havoc we are about to create in their midst.

Still struggling with tying our headscarves securely so that no hair escapes, Becky has developed quite a chic knot whilst mine still makes me look like an overweight Mother Superior. Wearing full bike leathers underneath the whole outfit does not help matters.

We reached the highest paved international road in the world- the Khunjerab Pass at an altitude of 4,693m, a very chilly place to be and with high altitude headaches thumping away we took a longing look at the route into China and turned back returning to a more civilised altitude. Without a large sum of money and endless patience with the buraeucracy it is almost impossible to take a private vehicle into China.