 gone and played at the first part of his quest, travelling from Belfast, South Africa to Belfast, back to Northern Ireland in the spring, and he plans to visit all the Belfast in North America, all 19 of them. And Sean Driesdale is a retired doctor, and let's see if we get Sean on the line here. Sean, can you hear? I can, yes. Good man, Sean, thanks so much for taking the time to speak to us today. So 24 Belfasts in the world. Tell me, what started all this? Well, there's actually more than 24. There's 24 in North America and Canada. There's three in South Africa. There's one in Australia, one in New Zealand, and one in Jamaica. And do you plan to get around them all? So, well, that's the plan. Now, mind you, they're not all, some of them appear to be just dots on the map. So part of the trick is part of the plan is just to go and see what's there, how it got there, what's the story behind it, you know, and just the sort of, you know, to do that. So I might get there and find, when I ask people where Belfast is, they'll look at me and say, where? Especially with your accent. You're lost. But you know, it's about the journey. It's about the journey. And you're doing it on a motorbike from the 1970s? I will, it started back in 1982 when I came across Belfast down in South Africa. And I was a lot younger then and sort of thought to myself, one day I'm going to ride from Belfast to Belfast. And that was something I talked about for, you know, a number of years as time went on. But life sort of interfered with the best plans. And eventually I decided, you know, I better do this sooner. I'm not going to be in any fit state to do it. So just after retiring, I rebuilt my motorbike and and rode from Belfast and said, well, road from Zimbabwe down to Belfast, and then from Belfast back up to Belfast. Tell me, Sean, there must be a lot of logistics, you know, accommodation stuff. That must be an absolute nightmare for you to get to get. I mean, you're going to the States now coming up. Are you to do all the ones in the States on Canada? Must be a lot of logistics. There are a lot of organization. Well, I mean, the logistics hinge around, you know, transport and visas and stuff more than anything else. Experience has taught me not to plan in detail, because a plan never lasts longer than the next morning when you get up, you know, you're on the road and something happens, and that's that plan gone by. So you just got to sort of work out bits and pieces about visas if you're talking about ferries. But the point about doing a trip like this without without a set timeframe is it doesn't really matter if you get stuck somewhere for a couple of days, or as in some cases coming up through Africa for a couple of weeks, because you don't really have a deadline. And so it works. It works both ways that sometimes you tend to just roll along and not actually get anywhere. And you suddenly realize, hey, you know, I haven't moved in the last week, I better start making a bit of progress here. So you make it up as you go along and you never know. I mean, to be honest, I'm more worried about going to the States than I was about riding up through whatever it was 19 African countries, because I've not really been to the States before. So in Africa, I was always sure I could find somewhere to stay or, you know, make a plan to do something. But America is going to be another story. During your travels in Africa, was there a crisis points that I'm stuck here and the bikes not going or I've run out of food or I don't know where to stay as there's bound to be somewhere along the line that that has happened. Well, there are several hiccups when I had to get the bike put in the back of a once in the back of a truck and once a trucker some long distance truckers took pity on me and when I couldn't get the bike started after a bit of a spill, they they picked the bike up strapped to the back of their truck and took me down to the next but the only real problem I had was was related to an electrical fault and it was it was due to improperly connected wiring and a new part that I had fitted but I found that and then this electronic replacement part and the bike was original basically original apart from these two electronic parts that I had fitted and transistor and one of them blew up when I was in Northwest Sudan and none of the none of the little electronic shops in this town had the right they could fix it they told me but they didn't have the right little part so I had to sit there for 10 days 11 days waiting for the part to come from Germany and tell me what about language I'm just thinking you mentioned Sudan there and I'm thinking what about language are you multilingual? I wish I'm not too bad at French I can get I can get by in French I hope about two or three words in German otherwise it's it's English but coming up East that was one of the benefits of East Africa coming up the East Coast that you know they're all ex-English colonies so most of the way Tanzania Kenya Uganda and even Ethiopia Sudan then it started to get a bit difficult and but by and large you know most people spoke English or you could find someone who spoke English or you know a little bit of English enough to sort of point at something and say I need this or point to a picture or something and tell me what type of bike is this 1970s bike what about this is Kawasaki or Honda what is it no no it's a Honda CB750 very good it's the old four-cylinder inline 750 that was first first came out in 1969 and this model is 1972 and I've owned it since 1978 excellent and tell me this Sean are you recording this for a book or are you recording it full and wise to make and I think it would make a great movie you know the the adventures of who would you get to play me do well you're not you're not unlike uh Falcons or Bruce Willis from what I can see that's very that's very flattering well I kept a blog I did a blog on the on the Africa trip and uh I'm planning I'm planning to do the same thing and and maybe somebody introduced me to Instagram not that long ago so I maybe use Instagram and the blog I mean I can't I had a blog on the on a website you know Belfast to Belfast by bike very original sort of title um and and I obviously still have the you know the the the the the posts that I made although the site currently isn't up and just working on on renewing it now and have you come across on your travels I'm sure you have because I know I know from personal experience that there's there's other places in the world called Sturban there's other places called Derry there's other places called London Derry apart from the obvious ones that we know have you come across any other familiar I know there's quite a lot of London's all over the world as well have you come across any other familiar names actually back in 1982 and we when we came across the town called Belfast we also came up a town called Drysdale the chances not far away it was just it was like you know 10 or 20 kilometers away from Belfast but yeah I mean if you look at the states there's a lot of towns there called Dublin um and I believe I heard on the radio the other day that there's actually a place in the states um called London Derry yeah and about five kilometers up the road there's another place called Derry because they were all there together and apparently they fell I think so they had one called London Derry you're making that up that would never happen so what's next I mean there's a lot of you know so what's next Sean so what were you speaking to me from at the moment you're not in Belfast well I hate to say you're in Belfast at the moment no no I'm in France I'm in little village called San Ferreo which is in the old in southwest France excellent so so what what's the next this is the what we're away today we're on the 29th of January so what's what's next for Sean Drysdale what were you planning well I booked my flight last week so 15th of April I'm flying from Dublin over to Halifax and hopefully my bike will be there to meet me and we go from there and see see what happens and well what's the timescale you're fairly open with with with schedules and stuff like that well the timescale sort of set by the weather a bit because as you can imagine Canada and gets a bit cold in the winter and the other end of the trip is in Washington state which is also in the north that's in the northwest so it gets a bit cold there as well in the winter so somebody said to me a guy who lives in Canada how it was online with and he recommended end of April even beginning of May to start and I'm thinking about six months will take me then through to you know October and I should get it done I mean it's not this is going to sound a bit silly it's not that far actually it's only about 10,000 kilometers six months to cover 10,000 kilometers isn't that isn't too strenuous um so I sort of have planning on about six months give or take and we'll see how it goes I know this might sound solid but you know you can go from bar fast to bar fast use now don't ring just in all round the Donald you don't have to do what you're doing which one would do the rest of the time Sean I want to wish you all the very very best and thank you so much for taking time out I know the time difference thanks you very well and I want to say safe journey as well there you go that's Sean Drysdale there he's traveling from bar fast to bar fast to bar fast and