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Its 2014

Hi everyone.

Welcome to my Arctic Ride 2014 blog. In May and June of THIS YEAR I will be riding my motorbike solo, 6,000 miles from my hometown of Whitley Bay in the North of England to Nordkapp, Norway deep inside the Arctic Circle.

Wow its been a month since my last blog (that's not like me) but I've been a busy chappy alongside the usual festivities of December. I hope that all my readers/followers have had a great Christmas and New Year and got everything you were hoping for! Also hears to 2014... have a great year.

So whats been going on that you have been too busy to blog I hear you say? Well I had a non motorbike related holiday visited some new places around Europe with my wife Kirsty which has occupied most of my time. I did want to a blog while I was away but lack of WiFi mixed with fun things to do halted this. I know I must be more disciplined when I'm away on my trip to the Arctic.

Protecting the Empire at Budapest Castle, Hungary
I'm always keen to visiting new places and with having so many low cost airlines around these days there is no excuse to no visit all the amazing places Europe has to offer. And you can guess I'm not that fussed about it being cold (good job as I'm visiting the Arctic).

Waiting for the train at Bratislava Station, Slovakia
Over the past few years I've slowly been ticking off the bigger and closer places in Europe to I'm having to go further a field. This winter Kirsty and I decided we would do a multi-centre holiday and a sort of mini InterRail visiting 3 of the best cities in Europe Budapest, Bratislava, and Vienna in Hungary, Slovakia, and Austria respectively. All 3 were great cities and I would fully recommend a visit. However if you are on a budget I'd stay clear of Vienna as its very expensive compared to the other two.

Johann Strauss statue in Vienna, Austria
So I've come back from my holiday and the joys of Christmas and New Year to see that I have a lot of work and a very long 'to do' list waiting for me for Arctic Ride 2014. But its all good and I'm more that up to the challenge to really make this trip a success.

Filming with MPH Studios in September 2013
One of the key items I am focusing on in the next week or so is doing research into how I can make the documentary film aspect of my trip a success, or at least interesting for people to watch. Now I'm no camera man but I'm doing to be watching plenty of documentaries, reading up on tips, and leaning on my buddies from MPH Studios, who filmed, directed, and produced my promo video (click here to view), to give me some advice.

That's all for this week folks.

Ride safe and happy new year!

Gordon


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