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The Ultimate Adventure - China!
IF you\'ve ridden the Kiwi Rider 500, chased the gold trails through Central Otago and ridden the BMW Ultimate Safari, no doubt you are looking for that something extra.
And in inimitable Kiwi Rider fashion - we\'ve got it for you!
On June 1, the huge Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in China will start being filled - flooding a huge area. Already the Chinese have relocated no less than one million people (more than the population of Dorkland) who lived above the dam site. As a consequence of the filling of the dam - an astounding piece of engineering - the upper stream water level will rise 5-10 metres daily until the projected high level.
Lots and lots of the well known places along the world famous Yangtze (Yangzi) Gorges will be submerged permanently, and the Gorges will no longer look the same.
This news reached KR HQ just as we were making the first tentative steps toward organising a motorcycle tour from Chongqing into Guizhou Province to ride the Burma Road built in World War II.
But when our Chinese contact, Michael Wu, realised the flooding of the Three Gorges Dam was imminent, he talked us into a last minute biking trip all along the Yangzi Gorges, including the Minor Gorges along its branches. As he said, this was of much more immediate importance than to ride the Burma Road.
\"As the time is so close, I made myself busy reading all the details and worked out a biking itinerary along the Yangzi River, starting from Chongqing and visiting all the out of the way places along the road to the dam site,\" Mr Wu told us. \"The plan incorporates biking and boating (with the bikes with us on the boat) through the most spectacular parts of the Gorges and the Minor Gorges. Also, we might as well penetrate inland to the mysterious Shen-nong-jia virgin forest mountain areas (beautiful places) where there are reportedly some man-like wild animals under investigation by both Chinese and American scientists. The tour will end visiting the construction site of the Dam.\"
Michael Wu, an Australian citizen of Chinese birth, is no stranger to motorcycle touring in China, having organized eight China biking tours, personally leading seven of them.
These went to many remote places of China during 1980s and 1990s. In fact, in 1986 Esdaile went on the very first Michael Wu tour in China, covering 1900 km from Dalian to Hailar in Inner Mongolia - a trip he still raves about.
But according to M. Wu Esq., the Three Gorges Dam ride will eclipse that, with more spectacular scenery, which is why he is billing it as the \"ride of a lifetime.\"
At this stage, Mr. Wu is planing two tours: one from Chongqing to the Dam, with the riders leaving their rental bikes there and flying back to Guangzhou before departing for Sydney, then Auckland.
The second tour party will pick up the bikes at Mao-ping and ride the reverse of the route used by the first group, arriving back in Chongqing before departing for Guangshou, Sydney and Auckland.
The first tour is slated for April 17 to May 3 while the second will run from May 5 to 21.
Both tours will cater for only around 10 riders, so it will be a case of first in first served.
If you have any interest in being part of this trip of a lifetime, best e-mail your expression of interest to Michael Esdaile here at KR between January 29 and February 8. By then he will have a full itinerary and pricing from our man in China.
Contact Esdaile at: Kiwi Rider: and put `THREE GORGES TOUR` in to the Subject Line of your message.
