Two Dundee bikers have set off on a round-the-world trip which will cover 75,000 miles across 100 countries.
Brucie McCandless and Kyla Norrie left Dundee over the weekend and have already made their way to Amsterdam.
Kyla, 21, is also hoping to set a world record during the journey, as the youngest person to circumnavigate the world by motorcycle.
It won’t be around the world in 80 days, however, as they don’t think they’ll be back in Scotland for at least two years.
Now that the journey is under way, Brucie, 27, said it was all feeling very surreal.
“We waited a long time for this day to come, a year in fact. Then when it finally arrived, we are still quite close to home as it’s only day four, so there hasn’t been a huge culture shock quite yet. We are both immensely excited to travel east.”
Their journey will cover most of Europe, including up into Scandinavia, before they cross through Turkey into Asia and across to Japan.
The intrepid travellers will then cross south east Asia and head south to Malaysia and into Australia and New Zealand.
From there, they’ll fly to Alaska and work their way down Canada and the US, before looping round much of South America and crossing to Africa for the home straight up back to Scotland.
Brucie has been biking for around six years, including a six month-long tour across 29 countries in 2011, but Kyla only took up biking around two years ago, and just got her full licence late last summer.
Despite the excitement of the trip, Brucie admitted there would be a few things he’d miss while he was away.
He said: “I will most certainly miss my animals. My beloved dog Sandy and my two possums Puff and Plum. At least with people we can communicate by phone and social media.
“On my last big trip I would have my mum hold the phone to the dog so I could at least shout down the phone and satisfy myself that I was somehow letting him hear my voice. Sandy has since went deaf – maybe I can Skype him.”
Not happy with just taking part in the ride, the pair are also fundraising for two charities in the process – MIND and the Multiple Sclerosis Society.
You can follow their progress on their blog or keep up-to-date on their Facebook page, both of which are called In Which We Ride.
