Day 105 – 20th July 2014 leave 8.15am altitude 1,100 metres (KKH) Besham – Chilas

As we were about to leave the policemen said ‘which bike am I riding on the back of?’ I said ‘none’ and a few minutes later we rode off leaving him there.

I’m riding the KKH, a dream come true.

After years of reading about other overlanders experiences of riding it I’m doing it myself and I smiled as we started riding and continued smiling for most of the day.

The road was a mixture of averagely poor (complete rubbish in Europe) to complete off road conditions, rocks, sand, potholes and streams to cross, other than one moment when crossing deep sand I nearly dumped the bike I managed well as did the bike. The first 150km were great as we followed the Indus River up the valley, we twisted and turned as the road hugged the mountain and all around were lush high mountains, the last 50km were hard going, the green mountains turned arid and sand and rocks were spilling into the road. There wasn’t any vegetation and the temperature soared to over 100 degrees and I felt like I was back in the desert.

There were only a few moments when the police followed us and on one occasion the pick-up truck was trying so hard to keep up with us his radiator hose burst, I shouldn’t have laughed.

We weren’t sure if we would make it all the way to Gilgit and at 3pm we were all tired so stopped at ‘The Shanrilar Hotel’ in Chilas. A great hotel with views from my bedroom over The Indus River and mountains. We were told later that the killers of the 10 mountain climbers who were killed a year ago in Babusar Pass not far from Chilas were suspected to live in Chilas!

My bike took yet another beating in the harsh roads today.