9^th October Quetta, Pakistan to Karachi, Pakistan

Our escort arrives at 7.00am sharp. Great, but Steven has overslept. We manage to leave at about 7.30. We fuel up and are on our way.

The day starts with temperatures at 12C.

The first 50-60 miles of roads were, in parts shocking. Suddenly the road has completely disappeared. It has been replaced by deep dust with a talc like consistency. As we ride through this dust, visibility is close to zero. At times it is impossible to see your front wheel… stopping is risky. Who or what will crash into you….

The day ends with temperatures that have peaked at 40C. The thermometer on my bike is very accurate. 40C means 40C. This sort of temperature is unbelieveably hot, all your senses feel 40C heat. In the desert humidity levels are very low and you don’t sweat in any conventional sense. The desert stealthily robs you of moisture without your knowledge. This heat diverts and distracts you. Mistakes become more common. After one stop I did not lock my pannier lid down properly. The lid came of at 70mph. A pair of jeans and my carnet flew….. luckily no real damage done…. And Richi who was riding behind me didn’t catch the pannier lid in the face. Martin a lost spare tyre without even realising it. Heat and riding like you stole it….. dangerous!

Minutes before we passed by......

We are very keen to reach Karachi and avoid getting stuck in a remote isolated region. We ride hard and fast hour after hour. We reach the Karachi bypass with 15 minutes of sunlight left. We are unable to locate the hotels that a Pakistani on the Karachi road told us about. We have no choice but to divert into the city centre. Karachi is home to 15,000,000.

2 of the bikes have Pakistan GPS maps. 1½ hours later they have led us close to the The Beach Luxury Hotel….. sounds great doesn’t it.  Those 1 ½ hours were fairly, very, monstrously, horrendous. The GPS maps we have are simple and guided us on the most direct route… probably the shortest… definitely the most chaotic and wild. Jeroen’s bike stops. All our bikes are making strange noises. The last petrol re-fill was obviously with tainted fuel (probably cut with kerosene)

After a further ½ an hour entailing driving the wrong way down some of the busiest roads on earth, getting separated from everyone, and coming close to disaster on numerous occaisions we arrive at the hotel.

Karachi mileometer 23191 (in excess of 430 miles covered today)