Fortunately for them, most had chosen to ride the much lighter and more mobile BMW F650GS. The gathering of willing students, all male, mostly middle-aged and wearing suitably musty leathers, looked on incredulously. I stand up, drenched, annoyed and with an urge to give my motorcycle a hefty kick. Instead, I gather my thoughts and energies for my next task - lifting the thing up. All 495lb of it."How to pick the bike up is the first thing we teach you on this course," said my instructor, Jonty, earlier that day, as he laid his R1200GS in the mud. He made it look so easy.Back in Wales, after spending 10 minutes scraping a small trench with my foot I manage to make enough room to free my leg.

I watched in awe as Pavey, a Dakar rally racer, pirouetted the bike over various obstacles. This was my first time on a motorcycle over 1,000cc, and its power, durability and superior handling were obvious even to an amateur like me."This is a superb motor-cycle," said Simon Pavey, the 38-year-old Australian who founded the Brecon Beacons course. Perched on top of my R1200GS Adventure, BMW's latest addition to their fleet of go-anywhere motorcycles, I felt invulnerable. I swear, cuss and spit.One week earlier, things had been very different. I had been riding the dry, gritty trails of Aras, just outside Valencia in Spain. As I try to wrench my foot clear I realise it is stuck behind a foot peg. If only it was as simple as that today; I am pinned under almost a quarter of a ton of R1200GS BMW motorcycle in a puddle of filthy brown water. This is my first morning at BMW's Off Road Skills Course, at the training centre on the edge of the Brecon Beacons in South Wales used by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman to prepare for their Long Way Round global motorcycle esca-pade.

The trail has descended into an endless slick of wet mud, huge, slippery rocks and large ponds of dirty water My clothes, boots and gloves are sodden I am cold and miserable Then, I fall Normally, a slip in such conditions is a minor irritant You get slightly mucky and your pride hurts. It is definitely not my day. Thick swirls of incessant rain are being blasted into my face by howling, storm-force winds. Book by 18 July.Prices correct at time of going to press and are per person based on two sharing, unless stated Subject to availability. £1,525 Seasons in Style (01244 202000; seasonsinstyle.co .uk) is offering a seven-night room-only break at the five-star Mandarin Oriental, Miami, including BA return flights and transfers Valid until 30 September. £874 Fly-drive in California's Napa Valley with British Airways Holidays (0870 243 3407; baholidays ) Includes return flights and seven days' car hire Stay at the four-star River Terrace Inn from £71 a night Valid for July. £629 Planet Holidays (0870 066 0909; planet-holidays.co.uk) offers a one-week half-board break at the Palm Beach Hotel & Bungalows in Cyprus Offer valid until end of June.

£399 Cruise the Med on a four-night break on the MSC Opera with MSC Cruises (0870 850 4883; msccruises .co.uk) Departs 29 June. It currently draws about one million tourists a year, but estimates suggest that over the next few years visitor numbers could swell to as many as five million a year.. £189 The German Travel Centre (020-8429 2900; german-travel-uk ) has two-night breaks to cities including Stuttgart, Berlin and Cologne during June. £196 Spend three nights at Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parcs (01271 870343; woolacombe ) in a fully equipped mobile home for the National Sandcastle Championships Price for family of four self-catering Begins 23 June. Instead, the political settlement in Cambodia merely opened the gate to an army of rampaging tourists. The celebrated temple complex, built in the 10th century, is not the only ancient monument to be suffering under an onslaught of visitors, but it is one of the more vulnerable.