Fanny is a former professional volleyball player and played for the Shanghai team that won the China National Championships in 1997.  She graduated from China’s elite Fudan University in Shanghai with a degree at law and is now an “Investigations Manager” with a Swiss Pharmaceutical firm based in Hong Kong.

Fanny was an extremely active member of the sports scene in Shanghai (and now in Hong Kong) and continues to play volleyball for local clubs.

She was Captain of the Shanghai Women’s Gaelic football team that won the “All China Games” in 2010 and was boxing champion at the Shanghai China White Collar competition. She was voted “That’s Shanghai People’s Choice Sport Personality of the year” in 2010 and was jointly awarded (with Rupert) the “Shell Advance Individuals of the Year” Award in 2012.

Prior to 2011 Fanny normally rode a Chinese made bicycle around the streets of Shanghai and the largest motorcycle she had ever ridden was an electric scooter. Now Fanny rides a 1000cc KTM 990 Adventure, arguably one of the greatest and technically advanced adventure motorcycles in the world.

Fanny had never been camping before this expedition either, but has now lived out in the wilds in most of the environments and conditions Planet Earth has to offer, including: deserts; mountains; jungles; Africa bush; the Tibetan Plateau; sea beaches; lakes shores, coastal cliffs; and even inside an active volcano in Italy.

Her adventures are followed by millions of people on her Chinese blogs and also in articles she writes in magazines such as  “Top 4×4” (越玩越野), New Younger (扭秧歌）magazine, Motorcycle magazine (摩托车）and Endurista magazine (Italy).

Drinking tea in Yunnan, China

Drinking coffee in Istanbul, Turkey

Rupert is an experienced adventure motorcyclist and completed several long distance solo expeditions in various parts of the world.

He is a former Metropolitan and Royal Hong Kong Police officer, Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) cadre officer, and corporate investigations & business intelligence leader.

https://youtu.be/fdLHsRPj92s

Rupert was founder of the Hong Kong Paragliding Association and competed as a pilot in the World Championships in Verbier and Kyushu Japan in the mid 1990s. He is an advanced open water diver, long distance hiker, Royal Yacht Association (RYA) keel boat ocean skipper, Chinese linguist and highly experienced in the art of idling.

He is currently the Managing Director of Apollo Advisory Limited (www.apollo-advisory.net), an investigation and business intelligence firm based in Hong Kong and continues to be active with various motorcycle expeditions and global adventures. 

He started “adventure riding” at 16 years old when he rode a Batavus Mark 4S (a Dutch 50 cc moped) along the exotic route from Staffordshire in the Midlands of England to see his grandmother for tea on the south coast of sunny Sussex. A 250 mile journey that took him all day and all night…and it rained pretty much the whole way there and the whole way back.

As well as riding across various parts of Africa on various KTMs, he has ridden an Aprilia 650 Pegasus, Honda Transalp, Kawasaki Versys and a Honda 250 Enduro bike across South East Asia; a 310kph Suzuki GSXR 1300 Hayabusa and a KTM 990 Super Moto across Europe; a Honda Africa Twin and a KTM 690 Enduro across the USA; a KTM 690 Enduro across Australia; and a CF Moto 650 across China and Tibet.

Over the years he has owned several motorcycles, including a Yamaha 1200 VMax; Honda Africa Twin; Suzuki GS750;  Yamaha XS650; Kawasaki ZXR 750; MV Agusta F4, Honda 1000 cc Fireblade; and a Yamaha 1000cc YZF- R1, the latter in his daily attempt, during that time, to get from his beach hut home in the village of Sek O on Hong Kong Island to his office in the business district of Admiralty in under 10 minutes.

Having discovered that working hard and getting shot at in the Royal Hong Kong Police was a counter productive activity, and was more likely to lead to being hauled up for minor infractions their colonial discipline codes, he decided to get a cushy posting riding a Honda CBX 750 police motorcycle everyday. Whilst avoiding actually doing any police work whatsoever, he gained the rare distinction of having received considerably more speeding tickets whilst on duty than he ever issued. In fact, most of time he parked up his police bike outside a Thai restaurant in Sek O and occupied his time more gainfully studying for his criminology degree.

In 2007 and 2009 Rupert rode solo across Africa, and between 2011 to 2012 Rupert and Fanny rode 60,000 kilometers around the world, each on KTM 990 Adventure motorcycles, and later across India, Sri Lanka and most South East Asian countries.

At the same time publicity for their travels  raised awareness and funds for their charities …”Half the Sky” and “Autism Research Trust”

Spooky… how did they know I was coming.    

Problem? No problem. There is always a solution.  In this case bring your own customs official to smooth those border crossings (Sudan)  永不放弃

At home in Arniston, South Africa with his KTM 990 Adventure R