October 8, 2024 • 44 mins
Sandy talks about what it takes to ride solo across across Australia on a motorbike, what it means and how she did it.
My favourite quote of the episode is "I think sometimes you can hopefully inspire other people to do just a few crazy things. And you know, that's kind of fun if you're the one inspiring people to do crazy things. And it might just give someone who's always wanted to go for a motorbike ride to say, hey, maybe I could do that."
https://dragginjeans.com https://transport.wa.gov.au/licensing/get-my-licence-to-ride-a-motorcycle.asp
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Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
Welcome to Forrest.Chat, where we talk aboutindividual endeavour in Western Australia.
What it takes, what it means, and how you doit. I'm your host, Paul van der Mey, and in
today's episode we're talking with Sandy De La Mareabout riding a motorcycle alone across the
country. Sandy learnt to ride a motorcycle onthe farm and has been riding motorcycles ever
(00:30):
since. It's one of those things that she's alwaysloved to do. Welcome to Forrest.Chat, Sandy.
Thanks Paul, it's lovely to be here. Great tohave you here, Sandy. Sandy, what on earth
did you do? Well, I love riding motorbikes andhad been across the Nullarbor with a friend,
(00:52):
did a bit of a lap around and then decided oneday that I would just like to do it all by
myself and just jumped on the bike one day,actually with only about a week's preparation.
Phoned a friend in Brisbane, said, hey. I'mcoming for a ride and she's going really by
yourself. Yep. And so I jumped on the bike andfour and a half days later, I was sitting there
(01:12):
having new years eve drinks with her. Right.So you started from Perth? Yes. Started from
Perth. Um, and pretty much just followed themain pipeline out to Kalgoorlie to hang a right
and then a hang a left and you're on the Nullarborfor, you know, for a period of time. And then,
um, Yeah, weaved my way through sort of themiddle line rather than the northern most way
(01:35):
to get across from to the south. Mainly becauseif you go through Broken Hill, there's very
long stretches with nobody around and as a lonefemale rider, you know, sometimes you kind
of just want to avoid areas where you know thatare too remote, have too many animals or are
just a bit dubious. So there's a few littletowns along the way that... you fill you bike
(01:56):
up and you want to have a mate. So we took themiddle road and then just had, you know, an
amazing ride through all these little townsand through the Riverland in South Australia
by the Murray River, um, through Mildura. Soall the oranges growing and then popped out
sort of went up into the high country of thegreat dividing range and then down into like
(02:18):
sunny, very sunny Northern New South Wales.So, uh, yeah, it was great fun. Fantastic.
And what sort of bike were you riding? So Ihad a very large ST 1300. So if you're familiar
with motorbikes, it's the one that the copsalways used to use. And the BMWs of the sort
of touring bikes looks very similar, but it'sa big black beastie with 1300 cc's, a 30 litre
(02:43):
petrol tank, which as we'll discuss later isquite important. It had two panniers on each
side and a big sort of one you could fit a backpackin the back pannier. And so usually I'd take
water in one side of the panniers and chairsand shoes in the other side of the panniers
and then all my clothes in the back pannier.And again for a trip like that people are going,
(03:06):
oh, you know, do you take water? It's like,well, yeah, I do. I can fit a 10 litre bladder
in the one side of the bike, but you just haveto remember when it's full that side's quite
heavy. So yeah. Yeah, it's an extra 10 kiloshanging off the edge of the bike. Yeah, on
one side. Yeah, that's right. And of course,you're talking about balance. And I guess when
you're up to speed, it maybe doesn't have sucha big impact. But certainly handling around
(03:31):
town, if you've got to stop for fuel or anythinglike that would make a big, big difference.
Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, I have actuallyhad a few because the ST 1300 is a very heavy
bike and the most of the weight of the fuelactually sits up above your leg height. So
the tanks are quite high on them relative tosome of the brands of motorbike. So for a female,
(03:53):
I'm almost on my tippy toes on that bike. Andso of course, when you're on your tippy toes
and you've just filled up, you've almost likegot a 30 kilo weight sitting on your lap. So
then you have to be very careful if you're maneuveringaround at slow speed. And I had dropped it
once or twice after filling up, trying to reverseit backwards and, and things like that. So.
(04:13):
when you're by yourself riding across the country,you're very, very aware of the fact that at
any moment, the bike just may have a fainting,fainting spell. And generally there are techniques
that even small ladies can use to pick up verybig bikes, but it's much better if you have
someone who runs over to help you pick it up.So yeah. Which is okay for a servo or something
(04:37):
like that. There's likely other people who'vestopped. Yeah, yeah. And one of my biggest
fears actually across the Nalibore wasn't somuch about being out on a remote road in the
middle of nowhere. It was more about if I getcaught speeding, there's nowhere on the side
of the road where I can safely balance thisbike whilst I hop off and get spoken to by
(04:58):
the cops. So I was always looking at it like,if I ever got pulled over, where would you
stop? Because again, if a female by herselfdrops a bike on the side of the road, it's...
It's not an easy feat to pick up. Yeah. AndI guess in that case, the cops would be there
to give you a hand.
But yeah, and you can always blame it on them.Exactly. Yeah. So not supposed to stop here.
(05:25):
Fantastic. And then, you know, from a clothingperspective, helmet. Yeah. So, um, motorbike
gear, there's some fantastic motorbike gearout there now. So I had a pair of, it was almost
like bulletproof pants, but they were made ofa flexible fabric so that it was comfortable
to sit in for long periods of time. They havea company called Draggin Jeans, spelt draggin
(05:46):
D R A G G I N. Like as if you're dragging alongthe road and they've actually got a woven carbon
fiber, um, knee pad and butt pad and sort ofside of your thigh area of, you know, reinforced
knitted carbon fiber that if you go for a slide,it generally doesn't rip through. So yeah,
(06:07):
fortunately, you never had to test it. You neverwant to test any of that safety gear. Yeah.
In terms of jackets, I always had two jacketswith me because again, across the Nullarbor,
depending on the time of the year, it can eitherbe very hot or very cold or both. So my preferred
jacket is a leather jacket with all the elbowpadding and everything in it. But often if
(06:29):
you rode like this particular ride I did wasin summer I had an air vent jacket that you
could pretty much once you got a tiny bit ofsort of sweat on you it was really lovely and
cooling because it had a lot of airflow in itand all the padding where you needed it but
just a nice pleasant breeze through as you whistledalong the nullarbor. Helmet best thing you
(06:50):
need to if you're going to ride a motorbikeyou have to get a good quality helmet because
it's pretty hard to come back from brain damageif you don't have a good helmet and you do
land on your head one day. And then in mine,special edition, I had like a voice activated
hearing system in there so that I could actuallylisten to music and when riding with friends
could speak to other friends just on a littlesort of radio system that was always handy
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if you're passing something you can call outthat it's clear behind you. Of course riding on
my own, I would just play music nonstop prettymuch and, and have a random track of like 3000
songs that he just play whatever it felt like.Start at the beginning and keep playing. Yeah.
Because you're going to keep riding too. Yep.And then just on that note, I also, and would
(07:37):
highly recommend if anyone wants to ride motorbikesis I had some fitted earplugs made that helped
with hearing only voice or noises that you'dwant to hear, like perhaps a siren. Maybe
you don't want to hear that. And also just helpthe noise cancelling effect for wind noise,
which gets tiring over, you know, 12 or 14 hourday riding, much more pleasant to have just
(08:01):
sort of nice soft music playing in your headthat you can hear clearly. So yeah, without
blast, blast your eardrums out and because vibrationhas a very big impact on your level of fatigue.
Yeah, yeah, it certainly does. Um, on the bikeitself, there, I had a, um, a throttle lock
(08:22):
fitted now in some states of Australia, theyare illegal. So we can't talk too much about
that, but I had a manually operated throttlelock, so you could actually turn it on just
to rest your hand for points where you've sortof, your hand was getting a bit fatigued or
you just needed to rest or change position andit's a bit hard to do that on a motorbike,
one hand's locked onto that throttle, um, thewhole time you're riding. So, yeah, that's
(08:44):
right. And if your hands not on the throttle,normally you'd go down to it's like taking
your foot off the gas in the car. No cruisecontrol. So you have to, yeah, that's the only
option to keep a stable throttle. Yeah, yep.That's exactly right. So yeah. And it was black?
Yes. Big black beastie. So eventually at somepoint, I will be writing a story about the
(09:07):
motorbike because for a motorbike, he had quitea personality. So the motorbike story will
be written from, his name was Bob, which stoodfor Babe On Board. And so Bob will be writing
the story to come out at some point in the future.Oh, fantastic. That'll be something very much
to look forward to. Yeah. That sort of setsthe scene of what you did. That's a big long
(09:30):
ride and you're set up with the right gear andall that sort of thing. What did it take you,
Sandy, to actually do that ride? Well, first,it was great having ridden over there before
or even driven or even if you've flown overthe country. It's like you know how big it
is. Whereas a lot of tourists come to Australiaand they have no idea that it's actually a
(09:54):
several days journey from one side, you know,from Perth across to Sydney or Brisbane. And
in terms of what it takes is you've basicallygot to be happy with traveling. To me, I think
the most exciting thing is I look at my helmetand it's like this little mini window of a
movie screen. So the countryside's always changingand people think it can be boring. And it's
(10:15):
just like, well, no, you've just got to havea great imagination and pretend you're watching
a nonstop movie that goes for all day. So, youknow, part of it's just a bit of fortitude
and another thing that's really helped, particularlyon that journey, because I was only gonna get
across as quick as I could, was doing an Ironman.So I'm a triathlete and trained up and did
(10:37):
the Busselton Ironman, which again is an allday event, took me 13 and a half, just under
13 and a half hours. And it's- Can you justgo through what that Ironman event actually
entails like from a- Yeah, so it's a 3.9 kilometerswim, followed by a 180 kilometer push bike
ride, not a motorbike ride, that would be nice.And then that's followed by a marathon run,
(11:00):
which is 42 Ks. So- And in the scheme of things,the reason a marathon was 42.2 kilometers long,
was that the first person that said to havedone that actually died when they got to the
end of it. Well, yeah, I guess so. They wererunning to take news, wasn't it? Yeah, that's
(11:21):
right. Yeah, to deliver news. This is in likeRoman times or something like that. But that's
the reason it's the distance between two towns,one of them is named Marathon, the runner actually
died. when they got to the end. They deliveredthe message and died. Luckily I didn't know
that before I did Ironman, but I certainlydidn't die at the end. And I think even how
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Ironman itself came about, well there were somecrazy dudes in Hawaii and they said, oh, let's
make this event a super, super long thing andsee if anyone could do it. And they started
off and they went for a, you know, almost 4kswim. It was in miles clearly for Hawaii. And
then they stopped and they had a coffee, hada bit of breakfast and they was like, okay,
(12:03):
let's go for a big bike ride. So off they went.And then when they finished their bike ride,
they came in, had a shower, had lots of food.And they're okay, let's go run a marathon.
So it was a very casual way. It all startedout, but now it's just go as fast as you can
all day without, without tea breaks. Yeah. Well,and it's literally a competition and people
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have clearly strengths in different parts ofthat competition. So. You might have done super
well in the swim, but then got overtaken onthe bike and had to run them down. So that'd
be, yeah. And strange things happen to you whenyou do an event that takes all day. And I'm
sure any ultra marathon runner or anyone who'sdone any kind of endurance event, including
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rallying, you know, if it's something that takesyou all day, sometimes your brain does funny
things or your body does funny things or, youknow, just, weird random things can happen
in the course of a day when you're doing somethingoutside of what your body's used to and 99%
of the time at some point your brain will say,stop this nonsense. And it's overcoming that
mental challenge of like, stop this nonsense,whatever that nonsense is. It could be a random
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sore knee or it could be, I feel faint or I'verun out of energy or surely I can't carry on
because I'm too tired. And if you have that.the mental capacity to say, no, I'm carrying
on. Your body adapts and just goes, oh, they'renot stopping. Okay, I'll come to the party
again. So yeah, that was really great. And howdid that apply to your ride? So the best thing
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about that was A, you know how to suffer andmotorbike riding is generally very pleasurable.
But as most people will tell you, you're holdingonto two handlebars at 110 Ks an hour and you've
got to sit relatively still to keep the bikenice and straight. And so to actually have
the ability to know what it feels like to doan event all day, it gives you strength to
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be able to sit on a motorbike all day, shouldyou choose. Some people wouldn't ride anywhere
near the distance that I like to ride. And infact, my longest day on the bike was 1660 Ks,
not on that particular trip, but I decided toride from the Nullarbor Roadhouse back to Perth
in one sitting, effectively, except for fuelstops. So Ironman training was very appropriate
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for being able to just sit on a bike, even thoughI didn't have to pedal. It's just really good
training for, you know, holding your arms inthe same spot and your legs in the same spot.
And you're doing all the important stuff ofbalancing and regulating speed. Probably not
too many towns on the Nullarbor. Like this,how far is it between places in the Nullarbor?
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So it's a couple of hundred K's. And in thebeginning, I mentioned important thing was
having a motorbike. I prefer with a larger tankso you don't have to stop so often. So in a
30 litre tank that the ST 1300 has I could dointo a headwind maybe 450km and with a tailwind
you could do almost 550km. So it was quite importantto realise what the wind was doing which is
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very important when you're cycling as well andalso where the stops were. And some of the
towns are a couple of hundred kilometres apart.So or not even towns they're just road houses.
So you basically... rock up there, fill up,go to the toilet, eat something, jump back
on and ride to my tank's empty. So were you stoppingat every point or you stopped every second
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point? No, I tried to time it so I was stoppingat about the 400kms mark, which again, a lot
of people just don't want to ride a bike thatlong because 400kms is four hours generally
on the Nullarbor, perhaps a little less sometimes.And again, I'd sort of just time it so I'd
have the least number of fuel stops. But anotherthing I also carried was a hydration backpack
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because you do get very thirsty on a bike andoften you don't realize it. So you end up with
a cracking headache by the end of the day becauseyou've been dehydrated. So generally by the
time I've drunk the contents of my backpack,if I wasn't needing fuel and the bike's thirsty,
I'm busting for a pee. So I prefer to time itso that the toilet stop and the fuel stop ended
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up in the same place. But sometimes you kindof have to, stop twice. So there's a bit of
planning there and you've got a strategy, Iguess, for how you would get across. Yeah.
And also paying attention to the road signs.So even if you're driving there, you kind of,
every, every town that you pass through juston the outskirts is another whopping great
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green sign that tells you all the distancesto the next service stations and the next three
to four to five, sometimes service stations.So you have to stay a little bit alert and
pay attention to your surroundings because Ifyou get that wrong, well, it's a long way to
push a motorbike. And I've been close once ortwice, mainly with headwinds. If it hasn't
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been windy and I've been barreling along, maybejust a touch over the speed limit. Clearly
you're pushing more air. The ST is quite a bigbike. It's got an electric screen that if you
have it set up high, it's obviously more windresistant. And one time the bike was very thirsty
when I stopped. I think I put 29 and a bit litersin. in a 30 litre tank which meant I had probably
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a water bottle full left. Yeah,
you don't want to go any further. No, no andyou're kind of hoping you're going to spot
a caravan down the road so that you can tuckin behind it. Good drafting for fuel economy
is a great tactic. Yeah and again good lifeskills because if you're used to riding a push
bike to train, I mean in an Ironman there'sno drafting but in the cycle leg, if you're
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out training with your mates you can you know,you understand what the power of drafting is,
you use 30% less energy. So similar to a caror a motorbike, anyone following a truck, if
you're in that sweet spot, you can actuallysave a lot of fuel and stop being buffeted
by the wind often too. Yeah, yeah. It's sortof counterintuitive that following the truck
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and. it actually stopping the buffering whenyou would think that it would actually increase.
Certain spots it does buffer you more and yourhead's bobbling around like those little bobble
head toys you used to see in cars. So yeah,if you sit certain spots and certain truck
types too, that depends on how comfortable oruncomfortable you are behind a truck for a
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while. And that was actually something my dadwas really interested in because he's never
been to Australia and he's never traveled thebig, big distances. But He used to drive trucks
and he'd go, oh, you know, what are, how manywheels have they got? What's it like? He's
like, oh, dad, these things are huge. So I workedout just for him one day that I could pass
a 75 meter road train, I think it's 74 is themax they're allowed on the road here. And I
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could do it probably, you know, if I was reallyturning the throttle hard, I could get past
in about 12 seconds, but on all the road signs,you see that they say, cars should allow a
minute and a half, at the worst, to pass a roadtrain. So somewhere between 12 seconds and
a minute and a half is, you know, that's, youkind of need to be aware of all that. And again,
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different trucks have a lot of different buffeting.As you hit the bow wave at the front, you
can, you can literally feel like you're breakingthrough a wall at the front of a truck. So
yeah, it's important to have your wits aboutyou. Yeah, yeah. So you need to know something
about that. And you've got that from experience.Yes, yeah, definitely. And did you talk to
other people who've done that? journey before?It was more about just like, I've driven across
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there, because we love cycling, clearly, I'vedriven across in the car a couple of times.
And you kind of know that, yeah, in the car,you can even tell that there's a, you know,
buffeting goes on if you're sitting in the caror, you know, you can see motorbikes behind
them and they might be a bit wobbly. But it'smore just by observation, you don't sort of
really need to ask everyone, you know, how far'sthe servos because there's a... Big road sign
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out there. Google will tell you how long ittakes. And you should really know how far your
bike can go on the tank of fuel before, beforeyou go. So that's clearly just experience riding
around a bit. So yeah, yeah. So there's a bitof planning that has gone on there. Yeah. Certainly
the first time you go across the Nullarbor,even in a car, it's just like, Oh, you know,
have we got some water in the back and havewe got food in case, you know, we break down
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and you're not up to you've driven it a fewtimes. It's like, huh. What are we even worried
about? What was the one when we went acrossthe Nullarbor, it was sort of like, maybe I
should have put some clear film over the frontof the car because of all the rocks and things
that can get chucked up along the way. Yeah,yeah, definitely. Did you have any issues with
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that sort of thing? Not so much, but one ofthe features of the ST 1300 is its electric
screen. And as a motorbike rider, the last thingyou really want is bugs all over your helmet.
So on the BMW and the ST 1300 Honda, they dohave electric screens that you can move up
and down to both give you comfort behind thescreen, particularly if it's raining. But also
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I used to find I'd ride through thousands ofbugs, especially through the wheat belt. And
some days it'd be like grasshopper season. Sothey'd splat against your motorbike or you
could even ride through a swarm of bees. andit all splat on the screen. And then if it's
an electric screen, you just press a buttonand it goes down and you can see perfectly
clearly. So in a car, you've got to stop andwash the windscreen more often. And again,
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every stop on the motorbike, cleaning the, cleaningyour visor, cleaning the motorbike screen,
and then making sure you've got, you know, anice clear view through it. So you've talked
a little bit about the physical demands of doingthat. And you've talked a bit about the bike
that you used. Is there anything else that youneeded? It took you to do that journey? I think
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just a bit of determination and not to be scaredof things. Because a lot of people, you know,
I'd rock up to a service station and they'dwait for the man to turn up behind me. And
it was just like, oh, you riding with anyone?It's like, no, just myself. Oh, okay. And so
some people would say, oh, that's a bit brave.And I go, well, if you want to get cross country
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and you love riding motorbikes, you don't reallyneed to be particularly brave. You just need
to love what you're doing, you know things kindof worked out. One of the trips on the way,
actually I think it might have been that tripon the way back, I end up riding and stopping
at a service station where a couple of membersof one of the bikie gangs were stopped. And
in general I found they don't really like tohave chit chat with the general public and
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there seemed to be one guy in charge and twoother riders and the one of the riders said
oh we're not allowed to ride in groups and thenI later... realised that no they're not actually
allowed to ride, bikers aren't supposed to ridearound in big groups. I'm not sure if it's
an actual law and that they can be fined fordoing that but certainly it wasn't encouraged
and these three chaps were following the rule.And then the older fellow was sort of looking
(22:54):
at the younger ones as if to say what are youdoing talking to people. And I was commenting
on it because he had a jacket on, like justa denim jacket and he had carabiner clips,
you know the climbing clips, all down the frontand I said, oh that's a good idea, why'd
you put those on for when he goes, oh it's ridingalong the road and all the buttons flew off.
So anyway then the big fella turns around andhe holds his hand up on the horizon and he
(23:19):
goes like this hand with the part and he goes,oh we've got two hours of light, come on boys
let's go and I'm kind of, my brain's tickingover and it's like he put his hand on the horizon
and one palm width was one hour. And so yourfingers are 15 minutes each and two fingers is
half an hour. So I learned off, I think theywere the Gypsy Jokers, about telling the time
(23:44):
on the bike from just holding my hand up tothe horizon It was like wow who'd have thought
I learned something on the Nullarbor from the GypsyJokers. And it's about telling time. So now
it's super useful if you're riding a bike andyou want to know if it's three hours to sunset
It's three hand widths as you look up the skyHow cool is that? You never knew that? Yeah,
that's interesting. Yeah, so it's fascinatingwhat you can kind of have these little experiences
(24:08):
thinking, well, if I was with someone else,they never would have said a word to me. No.
So often traveling, traveling by yourself, differentthings can occur. So yeah. It's exciting as
well. And then I tell everyone, I learned thisfrom these Bikie guys. So yeah, good fun. So
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I think just prepared to be out there. That'sone of the key things you've got to have a
go. If I got to Coolgardie and went, oh, I don'tlike this, you can just turn around and go
home if you really want to. But don't worry.Don't know why you'd do that. Keep some excitement
into life. You've got to have some adventure.Yeah, definitely. So we've heard about what
(24:50):
it takes Sandy to ride across the country onher own on a motorbike. Let's have a break
now. And after the break, we'll have a lookat what it means.
We've had a look at what it takes. Now we'llhave a look at what it means for Sandy to ride
(25:12):
her motorbike on her own across the country.Sandy, what does it mean to you, your family,
or the community that you rode across the country?Well, it's one of those things I think, if
you're, we'll call it brave. I don't particularlysee myself as brave, but if you're brave enough
as a female to go out and do something thata lot of females wouldn't choose to do, You
(25:36):
can set an example and go, Hey, look, I wasfine. I didn't die. I know how to plug a puncture,
but I didn't even get a puncture. You know,I know how to figure out how much fuel my bike
has. And if I can do it, you can do it. Andthat's what I like to be able to tell people
it's like, Hey, I rode a motorbike and I'veridden a motorbike for 16 hours in one day
(25:57):
and I didn't die. And I, and I still love it.And the day I actually did the longest ride
was, was on my birthday. And I couldn't havethought of any better way to spend the day
than just riding all day. And I think sometimesyou can hopefully inspire other people to do
just a few crazy things. And you know, that'skind of fun if you're the one inspiring people
(26:18):
to do crazy things. And it might just give someonewho's always wanted to go for a motorbike ride
to say, hey, maybe I could do that. From a familyperspective, my dad's always been keen, as
I mentioned before, you know, he's always likedmotorbikes and encouraged, you know, and my
oldest sister, she was the first one to buya motorbike and I promptly rode it into the
(26:40):
fence and broke the, broke the brake on it,which was quite devastating for me at the time
and probably for her, but dad's, oh, it's okay,it's fixable. So we've always sort of had bikes
and I think then when your family can see, Ohlook, they're out there, you know, doing crazy
things, riding across that big country, it'ssort of a little, hopefully a little inspiring,
(27:02):
you know, for them. And yeah, particularly forladies to just get out there and have a crack.
Yeah, it sounds like a proud dad moment as well.Yeah, I think so. I think he liked to talk
about, you know, his daughter riding acrossthe country. So yeah, so it's all good fun.
And then you're going over to see a mate. Yeah,so the friend that I was visiting on that particular
(27:23):
trip, she just said, I'm having a bit of a boringyear is like, I was like, well I'll come over! And they
everyone thinks you're crazy for doing thatkind of stuff. That's part of the fun. You
know, we were just talking earlier about quotesabout Helen Keller saying, life is either a
daring adventure or nothing at all. So you mightas well go with the daring adventure. Is anything
(27:46):
else in the meaning space that we could explore?Maybe just, um, I think, uh, for me also, like
I've, I've been interested in writing and aroundthe motorbike, I think sometimes like he certainly
had a personality and we go, well, it's justa thing. It's just an object. But I do think
(28:09):
there is energy in objects. And I think he wasdefinitely an example of like, you'll get to
read about it in my book one day, but I'd hopon the bike and we'd be heading off along the
pipeline. You'd be going, oh, this pipelinething, what's that about? So it'll be almost
like I was having a conversation with him. Andit was just about connection of. I don't even
(28:34):
know if it's a connection of myself to myselfor myself to the bike, that it was just like
you're almost explaining it to a friend or apoint of view. So for me, it's kind of like
having that thing in your life that you reallylove so much and everybody has something that
they really love so much. And sometimes it canbe something like a motorbike or your favorite
(28:55):
pushy or your favorite car or a friend who wasjust loving Porsches and ended up with a Porsche
and all those kinds of things. So it's aboutallowing yourself to have an interaction of
some kind with what we perceive as humans tohave an inanimate object, but it's actually
got a personality. Like, you know, with theday I was nearly running out of fuel, it was
(29:17):
almost like the bike was saying to me, my God,thank God for that. I'm so ready for a beer
and which is, you know, unleaded fuel. Lovely,lovely. Here we go. And on the way back, it
was the the day before I did the big trip wasValentine's Day, which is the day before my
birthday. And it was almost like this littledate with the bike, which is, you know, for
(29:39):
all purposes an inanimate object. It was justlike, wow, we got to spend the whole day together.
And from the bike's perspective, it was like,yeah, we had this great lunch date and we,
you know, we rode a couple of hundred Ks andI got my favorite, you know, 95 fuel instead
of just that boring unleaded stuff that justtastes disgusting. So it's, you know, to me,
that's where there's sort of a bit of soul connectionwith a, with an object. And I know people definitely
(30:03):
have it with animals like dogs and horses. AndI actually believe that, you know, a motorbike
has a personality too. Yeah. So kind of a connection,you know, about that. And I guess also a lot
of people ride motorbikes and there's been,um, can't remember the story, but it was a,
uh, a chap with mental health issues. Had actuallywritten about his motorbike and how riding
(30:27):
it helped him to overcome, you know, mentalhealth issues. And you know, it's just such
a fun thing to do if you enjoy doing it. Somepeople are terrified. So that wouldn't be a
good mental health exercise, but I think, youknow, from a, from a feeling alive point of
view, it's a little bit like a surfer lovingthe waves. And for people who love riding motorbikes,
(30:47):
it's just that, you know, getting enjoymentout of life, just simply by sitting on top
of this big engine and riding off down intothe sunset so to speak, exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Whether there's the connection between you andyourself, as you mentioned, or whether it's
between you and the, and the bike, it givesyou a platform to actually explore that interaction
(31:10):
that you're having. Yeah, yeah. And to recognisethat it's just joy in life that you get from
sharing with perhaps somebody or someone wholoves to ride a motorbike or perhaps just sharing
it with yourself on the bike. So there's a lotof meaning in actually taking yourself away
on the motorbike to cross the country in thiscase for both you, your friends and your family,
(31:38):
which is... Great to hear. Let's have a breaknow, and after the break, we'll talk about
how you do it.
We've had a look at what it means to cross thecountry on a motorbike on your own. Now, let's
(31:58):
talk about how you do it. Sandy, how does someonerecreate what you've done? What would they
do? Well, I guess the first thing is you needboth a motorbike and a license to ride a motorbike.
In Western Australia, it is slightly differentto some of the other states, but over here
and again, I had a licence in New Zealand butI never progressed kind of essentially from
(32:22):
your P's to your full licence. So when I arrivedin Western Australia in my 20s they said, no,
not official, you can't have that part. So itwas like, oh well. So a few years later ended
up getting a motorbike and so I went through,you have to do an online test even if you've
got a car licence. So learners test online,then you're allowed to ride a motorbike. So
(32:43):
you don't have to even know how to ride one.You You can just go out and ride one after
getting your learners, which is an online test.And you have to ride with a shadow here. So
a shadow being you've got to find a mate whohas a full license to ride around with you
and even perhaps to teach you how to ride themotorbike until you feel you're proficient
enough to pass a test. I would highly recommendif someone has never ridden a motorbike, just
(33:07):
go to a riding school and they will teach youeverything you need to know about the way you
sit on the bike. head checks the most importantthing because you need that when you're crossing
intersections. I'm sure everyone's seen YouTubevideos of motorcyclists or scooters being taken
out by cars going through red lights and it'slike as a motorbike rider I feel it's our responsibility.
(33:28):
So when you go to an instructor they teach youabout head checks and if you go to sit your
license and they don't see your helmet physicallymove even though your eyes can see peripheral
vision if they don't see your helmet move inthe direction of the side streets, they will
fail you So it's very important and you realiselater that you need to be looking everywhere,
(33:49):
every intersection I go through, even as a cardriver now, I will look both ways because we
all know that there's crazy idiots out therewho don't see red and don't stop, or they see
red and they do carry on through. So most important,you know, to get the benefit of an instructor
for the first pass and then if you successfullypass your test after, you know, a booking appointment
(34:12):
with the transport department. You can ridearound essentially like a P-Plater. However,
on a motorbike, you're allowed to ride aroundas much as you like, but you can't ride a bike
unless it's learner approved, which used tobe only 250 cc's, so a small motorbike. But
now you can ride up to a 500 or thereaboutscc bike so long as it's, they call it LAMS
(34:35):
approved in Western Australia. So it's a bikethat's not too powerful that you're gonna take
off at the lights and kill yourself on, basically.So you need to do it. And then if you want
to ride across the country, you probably don'twant to do it on a 250. There is a great story
of people who've ridden across on postie bikes,which, you know, top speed, 80 Ks an hour and
they're a 50 cc bike. But I find it's much morecomfortable to ride across on, you know, a
(34:59):
thousand cc's plus. So if you want to do that,you have to go back for your full bike licence,
which involves again, either more lessons orjust another test if you're brave enough to
think that you'll pass without an instructoraround. And again, you can't ride to the test
on your own on a big bike because you're notvalid to ride that bike just yet. So you have
(35:20):
to find a mate who can ride with you who's gotthat class or above when you go for your test.
So you need the bike, you need to be able topass two tests here. In South Australia, I
believe you can just go for a weekend courseover a couple of days and then they set you
free, which I'm not sure that that's the bestidea. I do like the West Australia way where
(35:40):
there's a one year timeframe where you haveto have that, you know, smaller bike and ride
around on that for a year to get used to theidea of people doing crazy things. And yeah,
then pass your test and then go off and grabthe biggest most comfortable bike that you
personally think you can handle and away yougo. I'm sure there's more to it than just the
(36:03):
big comfortable bike because you talked abouthaving panniers and carrying water and all
sorts of stuff. How do you get yourself setup for that? Well, particularly for ladies,
firstly, it's a good thing. Buying a biggerbike, they generally have a higher seat height.
So most bikes, you can go online and it willtell you what your inner leg length to the
(36:24):
ground is likely to be for that bike. So itmight help to measure your own, but most of
the time you go along and sit over the bike.To do a ride with a big, heavily laden bike,
even if it was a trail bike, they're typicallya lot taller bike. As a female you need to
be able to get at least one foot on the groundif it's trail bike but preferably two for a
(36:44):
road bike because you need to be able to balanceall that extra heavy weight. And again just
being aware like you don't have to have panniersyou could put strap a bag on the back which
is perfectly fine but it's much more fun tohave it all sort of decked out and all nice
and comfy and things with their own places andplenty of room for spare tube, repair things
(37:06):
and reaming tools to get that hole in your tyreso that you can get it pumped up again and
I used to carry little canisters like you useon a push bike but they make motorbike sized
ones so I'd have a little pack with about 10of those in just in case. Never had to use them,
touch wood, never will have to. So yeah, a bitof consideration around gear how hot it's going
(37:26):
to be, how cold it's going to be and how longare you going to be riding for because You
might start riding around Australia and decidenever to come back. Or just keep doing laps.
Yeah. And, and loading the bike correctly onceyou've decided, because I think females were
quite famous about taking more stuff than wereally need, particularly if you're going by
yourself, it's like, Oh yeah, I better takethe mini compressor and I better take, you
(37:49):
know, 10, 10 canisters. Whereas if you're ridingwith two of you, well, that means you, if you
took 10 each, you've got 20, you might not need20 on a off chance that you get a flat tire.
And then just a few other bits and pieces. Haveyou got something to clean your screen with?
You know, if there's bugs and you suddenly ridethrough them and it's still a hundred Ks
to the next servo, you want to be able to spraya little bit of detergent on your motorbike
(38:12):
helmet and clean it off. And hydration, importantto think about backpack with water or bottles.
I did ride with a friend once who was hallucinatingat one part of the ride, which we think was
probably just from dehydration. So yeah, soit can affect you quite, quite severely if
you aren't well prepared and don't have somethingas simple as water on you. Right. And then
(38:37):
how did you actually go about, like, where didyou stop? You're riding 10, 12-ish hours a
day. That's not all day. There's a bit of, I'llsay, rest or break time in there. What happened?
What do you need? So most of the time it wasjust stopping at servos, particularly because
the part on the Nullarbor is, you know, that'sall there is out there, is, you know, I said
(38:59):
probably five famous service stations. You caneven play golf all the way across a hole at
each of the service stations. Once you get throughthe Nullarbor part and into South Australia,
depending on which way you go, you know, there'sa lot more regular towns, except perhaps the
Broken Hill direction. And in the other smalltowns, it was always plenty of places to look
for to have a break. But generally I'll justride till I needed fuel or need or was really
(39:24):
hungry, which, you know, more likely to needto go to the toilet, stop somewhere and, you
know, have a little break that way and wanderaround. And the other thing I found is riding
a motorbike versus driving a car. In a car,you sit there and you're just sitting pretty
still the whole time, whether you're drivingor a passenger and you can't just stand up
(39:45):
and you can't just do a few yoga moves now ona motorbike. You can. So I had music, as I
mentioned, in my helmet. So I'd just bop along,and sometimes I'd stand right up, stand riding
up like you do on a trail bike, and just bopaway to the music for a bit, so you're stretching
your legs, and occasionally, because I do yoga,I'll put one leg out as far back on the bike
as I could, and sort of ride along like halfa praying mantis and stretch out a bit. And
(40:10):
yeah, as long as you've got two hands and twofeet on the bike at all times, that's the road
rules. Yeah, so it was kind of it's easier ina way than a car because you're not sitting
like dead stock still. So you've got the opportunityto move and stretch and as I mentioned the
throttle locks before you can take that poorold right hand off the throttle for a short
(40:30):
period of time if you need to just like havea stretch or get some more water or scratch
an itch or things like that. So yeah. Doyou do any other things in the way of letting
people know where you are or anything like that?Yeah, generally I try to. I'm probably less
good at it than my partner Dan is when we goin the car. He's very good at letting his brother
(40:53):
know if we're going to remote places. For thatparticular trip, my friend was expecting me
in roughly four days time so I think if I didn'tturn up she might have called someone or got
a bit worried. But yeah, usually you let a coupleof people know if you're going to do something
like that and sometimes I'll arrange a friendand say, look, can I just check in here with
(41:13):
you at the end of each evening? Oh, yep, I'mhere. No worries. Just to say, yep, I made
it and I'm safe. And yeah. And back to thatwas for me, most of the time, I'd just stop
at road houses or motels if there were motelsavailable. Again, some people camp on motorbikes,
but you need an extra chair and a tent and cookingthings and all that extra stuff if you're gonna
(41:37):
camp. Whereas I find particularly like thattime of the year was hot. And there's nothing
nicer than just being able to get into a motelroom and just take off all your gear, your
motorbike gets heavy. It's, it's not flexible.So you just want to throw it off as quick as
you can, and then maybe hop in the shower andjust hang out. So, um, yeah, that was always
a good part of like stopping for the day. Ifyou could find a nice motel or at the worst,
(42:00):
a cheap roadhouse. Yeah. Somewhere you can justleave the gear for a bit. you know, relax.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think these days,like there when I rode across was a few years
ago. These days, you probably want to call aheadfor at least for the Nullarbor part, because
the road houses are extremely busy. And there'sso many truck drivers that some of them don't
(42:23):
want to sleep in their trucks. So they'll they'll,you know, sleep at the road houses and book
motel rooms there. And again, so many more peopletraveling in four wheel drives with campers
that go, Oh, we've just been in the bush forfive days straight, let's stop in at the roadhouse.
And so therefore you just on a motorbike, it'smore important that you have a room rather
than just chancing it in the car. Worst is goingto happen. You can just sleep in the car. So,
(42:46):
yeah. So that's really just a plan ahead. Soyeah. Yeah. I think if you were doing it for
the first time, you'd probably want to justcheck, just check that you can get a bed for
the night. Check and be sure you'll be sleepingin the gutter, so to speak. Yeah. Or else knocking
on someone's door. Huh? Hi. Have you got a sparebed in this room? Haven't had to resort to
(43:07):
that. Oh, thank you very much, Sandy, for beingon Forrest.Chat. It's been great having you
here. Yeah, thanks, Paul. It's been fun to havea chat. Our Forrest.Chat listeners wish you
all the best with your future endeavors. Thankyou very much and watch out for the book when
it comes out. Absolutely. You've been listeningto Forrest.Chat, where we talk about individual
(43:29):
endeavor in Western Australia, what it takes,what it means and how you do it. I'm your host,
Paul van der Mey. And in today's episode, wetalked with Sandy De La Mare about riding across
the country on a motorbike. Remember, thereare three ways to get involved with Forrest.Chat.
Share the domain Forrest.Chat with your friendsand family and people you meet. Listen to the
(43:52):
episodes at Forrest.Chat slash episodes. Bookan advert at Forrest.Chat slash advert. I'm
looking forward to being with you for the nextepisode. Until then, enjoy making it happen.
Welcome to Forrest.Chat, where we talk aboutindividual endeavour in Western Australia.
What it takes, what it means, and how you doit. I'm your host, Paul van der Mey, and in
today's episode we're talking with Sandy De La Mareabout riding a motorcycle alone across the
country. Sandy learnt to ride a motorcycle onthe farm and has been riding motorcycles ever
(00:30):
since. It's one of those things that she's alwaysloved to do. Welcome to Forrest.Chat, Sandy.
Thanks Paul, it's lovely to be here. Great tohave you here, Sandy. Sandy, what on earth
did you do? Well, I love riding motorbikes andhad been across the Nullarbor with a friend,
(00:52):
did a bit of a lap around and then decided oneday that I would just like to do it all by
myself and just jumped on the bike one day,actually with only about a week's preparation.
Phoned a friend in Brisbane, said, hey. I'mcoming for a ride and she's going really by
yourself. Yep. And so I jumped on the bike andfour and a half days later, I was sitting there
(01:12):
having new years eve drinks with her. Right.So you started from Perth? Yes. Started from
Perth. Um, and pretty much just followed themain pipeline out to Kalgoorlie to hang a right
and then a hang a left and you're on the Nullarborfor, you know, for a period of time. And then,
um, Yeah, weaved my way through sort of themiddle line rather than the northern most way
(01:35):
to get across from to the south. Mainly becauseif you go through Broken Hill, there's very
long stretches with nobody around and as a lonefemale rider, you know, sometimes you kind
of just want to avoid areas where you know thatare too remote, have too many animals or are
just a bit dubious. So there's a few littletowns along the way that... you fill you bike
(01:56):
up and you want to have a mate. So we took themiddle road and then just had, you know, an
amazing ride through all these little townsand through the Riverland in South Australia
by the Murray River, um, through Mildura. Soall the oranges growing and then popped out
sort of went up into the high country of thegreat dividing range and then down into like
(02:18):
sunny, very sunny Northern New South Wales.So, uh, yeah, it was great fun. Fantastic.
And what sort of bike were you riding? So Ihad a very large ST 1300. So if you're familiar
with motorbikes, it's the one that the copsalways used to use. And the BMWs of the sort
of touring bikes looks very similar, but it'sa big black beastie with 1300 cc's, a 30 litre
(02:43):
petrol tank, which as we'll discuss later isquite important. It had two panniers on each
side and a big sort of one you could fit a backpackin the back pannier. And so usually I'd take
water in one side of the panniers and chairsand shoes in the other side of the panniers
and then all my clothes in the back pannier.And again for a trip like that people are going,
(03:06):
oh, you know, do you take water? It's like,well, yeah, I do. I can fit a 10 litre bladder
in the one side of the bike, but you just haveto remember when it's full that side's quite
heavy. So yeah. Yeah, it's an extra 10 kiloshanging off the edge of the bike. Yeah, on
one side. Yeah, that's right. And of course,you're talking about balance. And I guess when
you're up to speed, it maybe doesn't have sucha big impact. But certainly handling around
(03:31):
town, if you've got to stop for fuel or anythinglike that would make a big, big difference.
Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, I have actuallyhad a few because the ST 1300 is a very heavy
bike and the most of the weight of the fuelactually sits up above your leg height. So
the tanks are quite high on them relative tosome of the brands of motorbike. So for a female,
(03:53):
I'm almost on my tippy toes on that bike. Andso of course, when you're on your tippy toes
and you've just filled up, you've almost likegot a 30 kilo weight sitting on your lap. So
then you have to be very careful if you're maneuveringaround at slow speed. And I had dropped it
once or twice after filling up, trying to reverseit backwards and, and things like that. So.
(04:13):
when you're by yourself riding across the country,you're very, very aware of the fact that at
any moment, the bike just may have a fainting,fainting spell. And generally there are techniques
that even small ladies can use to pick up verybig bikes, but it's much better if you have
someone who runs over to help you pick it up.So yeah. Which is okay for a servo or something
(04:37):
like that. There's likely other people who'vestopped. Yeah, yeah. And one of my biggest
fears actually across the Nalibore wasn't somuch about being out on a remote road in the
middle of nowhere. It was more about if I getcaught speeding, there's nowhere on the side
of the road where I can safely balance thisbike whilst I hop off and get spoken to by
(04:58):
the cops. So I was always looking at it like,if I ever got pulled over, where would you
stop? Because again, if a female by herselfdrops a bike on the side of the road, it's...
It's not an easy feat to pick up. Yeah. AndI guess in that case, the cops would be there
to give you a hand.
But yeah, and you can always blame it on them.Exactly. Yeah. So not supposed to stop here.
(05:25):
Fantastic. And then, you know, from a clothingperspective, helmet. Yeah. So, um, motorbike
gear, there's some fantastic motorbike gearout there now. So I had a pair of, it was almost
like bulletproof pants, but they were made ofa flexible fabric so that it was comfortable
to sit in for long periods of time. They havea company called Draggin Jeans, spelt draggin
(05:46):
D R A G G I N. Like as if you're dragging alongthe road and they've actually got a woven carbon
fiber, um, knee pad and butt pad and sort ofside of your thigh area of, you know, reinforced
knitted carbon fiber that if you go for a slide,it generally doesn't rip through. So yeah,
(06:07):
fortunately, you never had to test it. You neverwant to test any of that safety gear. Yeah.
In terms of jackets, I always had two jacketswith me because again, across the Nullarbor,
depending on the time of the year, it can eitherbe very hot or very cold or both. So my preferred
jacket is a leather jacket with all the elbowpadding and everything in it. But often if
(06:29):
you rode like this particular ride I did wasin summer I had an air vent jacket that you
could pretty much once you got a tiny bit ofsort of sweat on you it was really lovely and
cooling because it had a lot of airflow in itand all the padding where you needed it but
just a nice pleasant breeze through as you whistledalong the nullarbor. Helmet best thing you
(06:50):
need to if you're going to ride a motorbikeyou have to get a good quality helmet because
it's pretty hard to come back from brain damageif you don't have a good helmet and you do
land on your head one day. And then in mine,special edition, I had like a voice activated
hearing system in there so that I could actuallylisten to music and when riding with friends
could speak to other friends just on a littlesort of radio system that was always handy
(07:15):
if you're passing something you can call outthat it's clear behind you. Of course riding on
my own, I would just play music nonstop prettymuch and, and have a random track of like 3000
songs that he just play whatever it felt like.Start at the beginning and keep playing. Yeah.
Because you're going to keep riding too. Yep.And then just on that note, I also, and would
(07:37):
highly recommend if anyone wants to ride motorbikesis I had some fitted earplugs made that helped
with hearing only voice or noises that you'dwant to hear, like perhaps a siren. Maybe
you don't want to hear that. And also just helpthe noise cancelling effect for wind noise,
which gets tiring over, you know, 12 or 14 hourday riding, much more pleasant to have just
(08:01):
sort of nice soft music playing in your headthat you can hear clearly. So yeah, without
blast, blast your eardrums out and because vibrationhas a very big impact on your level of fatigue.
Yeah, yeah, it certainly does. Um, on the bikeitself, there, I had a, um, a throttle lock
(08:22):
fitted now in some states of Australia, theyare illegal. So we can't talk too much about
that, but I had a manually operated throttlelock, so you could actually turn it on just
to rest your hand for points where you've sortof, your hand was getting a bit fatigued or
you just needed to rest or change position andit's a bit hard to do that on a motorbike,
one hand's locked onto that throttle, um, thewhole time you're riding. So, yeah, that's
(08:44):
right. And if your hands not on the throttle,normally you'd go down to it's like taking
your foot off the gas in the car. No cruisecontrol. So you have to, yeah, that's the only
option to keep a stable throttle. Yeah, yep.That's exactly right. So yeah. And it was black?
Yes. Big black beastie. So eventually at somepoint, I will be writing a story about the
(09:07):
motorbike because for a motorbike, he had quitea personality. So the motorbike story will
be written from, his name was Bob, which stoodfor Babe On Board. And so Bob will be writing
the story to come out at some point in the future.Oh, fantastic. That'll be something very much
to look forward to. Yeah. That sort of setsthe scene of what you did. That's a big long
(09:30):
ride and you're set up with the right gear andall that sort of thing. What did it take you,
Sandy, to actually do that ride? Well, first,it was great having ridden over there before
or even driven or even if you've flown overthe country. It's like you know how big it
is. Whereas a lot of tourists come to Australiaand they have no idea that it's actually a
(09:54):
several days journey from one side, you know,from Perth across to Sydney or Brisbane. And
in terms of what it takes is you've basicallygot to be happy with traveling. To me, I think
the most exciting thing is I look at my helmetand it's like this little mini window of a
movie screen. So the countryside's always changingand people think it can be boring. And it's
(10:15):
just like, well, no, you've just got to havea great imagination and pretend you're watching
a nonstop movie that goes for all day. So, youknow, part of it's just a bit of fortitude
and another thing that's really helped, particularlyon that journey, because I was only gonna get
across as quick as I could, was doing an Ironman.So I'm a triathlete and trained up and did
(10:37):
the Busselton Ironman, which again is an allday event, took me 13 and a half, just under
13 and a half hours. And it's- Can you justgo through what that Ironman event actually
entails like from a- Yeah, so it's a 3.9 kilometerswim, followed by a 180 kilometer push bike
ride, not a motorbike ride, that would be nice.And then that's followed by a marathon run,
(11:00):
which is 42 Ks. So- And in the scheme of things,the reason a marathon was 42.2 kilometers long,
was that the first person that said to havedone that actually died when they got to the
end of it. Well, yeah, I guess so. They wererunning to take news, wasn't it? Yeah, that's
(11:21):
right. Yeah, to deliver news. This is in likeRoman times or something like that. But that's
the reason it's the distance between two towns,one of them is named Marathon, the runner actually
died. when they got to the end. They deliveredthe message and died. Luckily I didn't know
that before I did Ironman, but I certainlydidn't die at the end. And I think even how
(11:42):
Ironman itself came about, well there were somecrazy dudes in Hawaii and they said, oh, let's
make this event a super, super long thing andsee if anyone could do it. And they started
off and they went for a, you know, almost 4kswim. It was in miles clearly for Hawaii. And
then they stopped and they had a coffee, hada bit of breakfast and they was like, okay,
(12:03):
let's go for a big bike ride. So off they went.And then when they finished their bike ride,
they came in, had a shower, had lots of food.And they're okay, let's go run a marathon.
So it was a very casual way. It all startedout, but now it's just go as fast as you can
all day without, without tea breaks. Yeah. Well,and it's literally a competition and people
(12:23):
have clearly strengths in different parts ofthat competition. So. You might have done super
well in the swim, but then got overtaken onthe bike and had to run them down. So that'd
be, yeah. And strange things happen to you whenyou do an event that takes all day. And I'm
sure any ultra marathon runner or anyone who'sdone any kind of endurance event, including
(12:44):
rallying, you know, if it's something that takesyou all day, sometimes your brain does funny
things or your body does funny things or, youknow, just, weird random things can happen
in the course of a day when you're doing somethingoutside of what your body's used to and 99%
of the time at some point your brain will say,stop this nonsense. And it's overcoming that
mental challenge of like, stop this nonsense,whatever that nonsense is. It could be a random
(13:09):
sore knee or it could be, I feel faint or I'verun out of energy or surely I can't carry on
because I'm too tired. And if you have that.the mental capacity to say, no, I'm carrying
on. Your body adapts and just goes, oh, they'renot stopping. Okay, I'll come to the party
again. So yeah, that was really great. And howdid that apply to your ride? So the best thing
(13:33):
about that was A, you know how to suffer andmotorbike riding is generally very pleasurable.
But as most people will tell you, you're holdingonto two handlebars at 110 Ks an hour and you've
got to sit relatively still to keep the bikenice and straight. And so to actually have
the ability to know what it feels like to doan event all day, it gives you strength to
(13:55):
be able to sit on a motorbike all day, shouldyou choose. Some people wouldn't ride anywhere
near the distance that I like to ride. And infact, my longest day on the bike was 1660 Ks,
not on that particular trip, but I decided toride from the Nullarbor Roadhouse back to Perth
in one sitting, effectively, except for fuelstops. So Ironman training was very appropriate
(14:17):
for being able to just sit on a bike, even thoughI didn't have to pedal. It's just really good
training for, you know, holding your arms inthe same spot and your legs in the same spot.
And you're doing all the important stuff ofbalancing and regulating speed. Probably not
too many towns on the Nullarbor. Like this,how far is it between places in the Nullarbor?
(14:40):
So it's a couple of hundred K's. And in thebeginning, I mentioned important thing was
having a motorbike. I prefer with a larger tankso you don't have to stop so often. So in a
30 litre tank that the ST 1300 has I could dointo a headwind maybe 450km and with a tailwind
you could do almost 550km. So it was quite importantto realise what the wind was doing which is
(15:03):
very important when you're cycling as well andalso where the stops were. And some of the
towns are a couple of hundred kilometres apart.So or not even towns they're just road houses.
So you basically... rock up there, fill up,go to the toilet, eat something, jump back
on and ride to my tank's empty. So were you stoppingat every point or you stopped every second
(15:24):
point? No, I tried to time it so I was stoppingat about the 400kms mark, which again, a lot
of people just don't want to ride a bike thatlong because 400kms is four hours generally
on the Nullarbor, perhaps a little less sometimes.And again, I'd sort of just time it so I'd
have the least number of fuel stops. But anotherthing I also carried was a hydration backpack
(15:49):
because you do get very thirsty on a bike andoften you don't realize it. So you end up with
a cracking headache by the end of the day becauseyou've been dehydrated. So generally by the
time I've drunk the contents of my backpack,if I wasn't needing fuel and the bike's thirsty,
I'm busting for a pee. So I prefer to time itso that the toilet stop and the fuel stop ended
(16:10):
up in the same place. But sometimes you kindof have to, stop twice. So there's a bit of
planning there and you've got a strategy, Iguess, for how you would get across. Yeah.
And also paying attention to the road signs.So even if you're driving there, you kind of,
every, every town that you pass through juston the outskirts is another whopping great
(16:30):
green sign that tells you all the distancesto the next service stations and the next three
to four to five, sometimes service stations.So you have to stay a little bit alert and
pay attention to your surroundings because Ifyou get that wrong, well, it's a long way to
push a motorbike. And I've been close once ortwice, mainly with headwinds. If it hasn't
(16:51):
been windy and I've been barreling along, maybejust a touch over the speed limit. Clearly
you're pushing more air. The ST is quite a bigbike. It's got an electric screen that if you
have it set up high, it's obviously more windresistant. And one time the bike was very thirsty
when I stopped. I think I put 29 and a bit litersin. in a 30 litre tank which meant I had probably
(17:16):
a water bottle full left. Yeah,
you don't want to go any further. No, no andyou're kind of hoping you're going to spot
a caravan down the road so that you can tuckin behind it. Good drafting for fuel economy
is a great tactic. Yeah and again good lifeskills because if you're used to riding a push
bike to train, I mean in an Ironman there'sno drafting but in the cycle leg, if you're
(17:41):
out training with your mates you can you know,you understand what the power of drafting is,
you use 30% less energy. So similar to a caror a motorbike, anyone following a truck, if
you're in that sweet spot, you can actuallysave a lot of fuel and stop being buffeted
by the wind often too. Yeah, yeah. It's sortof counterintuitive that following the truck
(18:01):
and. it actually stopping the buffering whenyou would think that it would actually increase.
Certain spots it does buffer you more and yourhead's bobbling around like those little bobble
head toys you used to see in cars. So yeah,if you sit certain spots and certain truck
types too, that depends on how comfortable oruncomfortable you are behind a truck for a
(18:22):
while. And that was actually something my dadwas really interested in because he's never
been to Australia and he's never traveled thebig, big distances. But He used to drive trucks
and he'd go, oh, you know, what are, how manywheels have they got? What's it like? He's
like, oh, dad, these things are huge. So I workedout just for him one day that I could pass
a 75 meter road train, I think it's 74 is themax they're allowed on the road here. And I
(18:47):
could do it probably, you know, if I was reallyturning the throttle hard, I could get past
in about 12 seconds, but on all the road signs,you see that they say, cars should allow a
minute and a half, at the worst, to pass a roadtrain. So somewhere between 12 seconds and
a minute and a half is, you know, that's, youkind of need to be aware of all that. And again,
(19:10):
different trucks have a lot of different buffeting.As you hit the bow wave at the front, you
can, you can literally feel like you're breakingthrough a wall at the front of a truck. So
yeah, it's important to have your wits aboutyou. Yeah, yeah. So you need to know something
about that. And you've got that from experience.Yes, yeah, definitely. And did you talk to
other people who've done that? journey before?It was more about just like, I've driven across
(19:36):
there, because we love cycling, clearly, I'vedriven across in the car a couple of times.
And you kind of know that, yeah, in the car,you can even tell that there's a, you know,
buffeting goes on if you're sitting in the caror, you know, you can see motorbikes behind
them and they might be a bit wobbly. But it'smore just by observation, you don't sort of
really need to ask everyone, you know, how far'sthe servos because there's a... Big road sign
(19:59):
out there. Google will tell you how long ittakes. And you should really know how far your
bike can go on the tank of fuel before, beforeyou go. So that's clearly just experience riding
around a bit. So yeah, yeah. So there's a bitof planning that has gone on there. Yeah. Certainly
the first time you go across the Nullarbor,even in a car, it's just like, Oh, you know,
have we got some water in the back and havewe got food in case, you know, we break down
(20:21):
and you're not up to you've driven it a fewtimes. It's like, huh. What are we even worried
about? What was the one when we went acrossthe Nullarbor, it was sort of like, maybe I
should have put some clear film over the frontof the car because of all the rocks and things
that can get chucked up along the way. Yeah,yeah, definitely. Did you have any issues with
(20:41):
that sort of thing? Not so much, but one ofthe features of the ST 1300 is its electric
screen. And as a motorbike rider, the last thingyou really want is bugs all over your helmet.
So on the BMW and the ST 1300 Honda, they dohave electric screens that you can move up
and down to both give you comfort behind thescreen, particularly if it's raining. But also
(21:03):
I used to find I'd ride through thousands ofbugs, especially through the wheat belt. And
some days it'd be like grasshopper season. Sothey'd splat against your motorbike or you
could even ride through a swarm of bees. andit all splat on the screen. And then if it's
an electric screen, you just press a buttonand it goes down and you can see perfectly
clearly. So in a car, you've got to stop andwash the windscreen more often. And again,
(21:24):
every stop on the motorbike, cleaning the, cleaningyour visor, cleaning the motorbike screen,
and then making sure you've got, you know, anice clear view through it. So you've talked
a little bit about the physical demands of doingthat. And you've talked a bit about the bike
that you used. Is there anything else that youneeded? It took you to do that journey? I think
(21:45):
just a bit of determination and not to be scaredof things. Because a lot of people, you know,
I'd rock up to a service station and they'dwait for the man to turn up behind me. And
it was just like, oh, you riding with anyone?It's like, no, just myself. Oh, okay. And so
some people would say, oh, that's a bit brave.And I go, well, if you want to get cross country
(22:07):
and you love riding motorbikes, you don't reallyneed to be particularly brave. You just need
to love what you're doing, you know things kindof worked out. One of the trips on the way,
actually I think it might have been that tripon the way back, I end up riding and stopping
at a service station where a couple of membersof one of the bikie gangs were stopped. And
in general I found they don't really like tohave chit chat with the general public and
(22:29):
there seemed to be one guy in charge and twoother riders and the one of the riders said
oh we're not allowed to ride in groups and thenI later... realised that no they're not actually
allowed to ride, bikers aren't supposed to ridearound in big groups. I'm not sure if it's
an actual law and that they can be fined fordoing that but certainly it wasn't encouraged
and these three chaps were following the rule.And then the older fellow was sort of looking
(22:54):
at the younger ones as if to say what are youdoing talking to people. And I was commenting
on it because he had a jacket on, like justa denim jacket and he had carabiner clips,
you know the climbing clips, all down the frontand I said, oh that's a good idea, why'd
you put those on for when he goes, oh it's ridingalong the road and all the buttons flew off.
So anyway then the big fella turns around andhe holds his hand up on the horizon and he
(23:19):
goes like this hand with the part and he goes,oh we've got two hours of light, come on boys
let's go and I'm kind of, my brain's tickingover and it's like he put his hand on the horizon
and one palm width was one hour. And so yourfingers are 15 minutes each and two fingers is
half an hour. So I learned off, I think theywere the Gypsy Jokers, about telling the time
(23:44):
on the bike from just holding my hand up tothe horizon It was like wow who'd have thought
I learned something on the Nullarbor from the GypsyJokers. And it's about telling time. So now
it's super useful if you're riding a bike andyou want to know if it's three hours to sunset
It's three hand widths as you look up the skyHow cool is that? You never knew that? Yeah,
that's interesting. Yeah, so it's fascinatingwhat you can kind of have these little experiences
(24:08):
thinking, well, if I was with someone else,they never would have said a word to me. No.
So often traveling, traveling by yourself, differentthings can occur. So yeah. It's exciting as
well. And then I tell everyone, I learned thisfrom these Bikie guys. So yeah, good fun. So
(24:29):
I think just prepared to be out there. That'sone of the key things you've got to have a
go. If I got to Coolgardie and went, oh, I don'tlike this, you can just turn around and go
home if you really want to. But don't worry.Don't know why you'd do that. Keep some excitement
into life. You've got to have some adventure.Yeah, definitely. So we've heard about what
(24:50):
it takes Sandy to ride across the country onher own on a motorbike. Let's have a break
now. And after the break, we'll have a lookat what it means.
We've had a look at what it takes. Now we'llhave a look at what it means for Sandy to ride
(25:12):
her motorbike on her own across the country.Sandy, what does it mean to you, your family,
or the community that you rode across the country?Well, it's one of those things I think, if
you're, we'll call it brave. I don't particularlysee myself as brave, but if you're brave enough
as a female to go out and do something thata lot of females wouldn't choose to do, You
(25:36):
can set an example and go, Hey, look, I wasfine. I didn't die. I know how to plug a puncture,
but I didn't even get a puncture. You know,I know how to figure out how much fuel my bike
has. And if I can do it, you can do it. Andthat's what I like to be able to tell people
it's like, Hey, I rode a motorbike and I'veridden a motorbike for 16 hours in one day
(25:57):
and I didn't die. And I, and I still love it.And the day I actually did the longest ride
was, was on my birthday. And I couldn't havethought of any better way to spend the day
than just riding all day. And I think sometimesyou can hopefully inspire other people to do
just a few crazy things. And you know, that'skind of fun if you're the one inspiring people
(26:18):
to do crazy things. And it might just give someonewho's always wanted to go for a motorbike ride
to say, hey, maybe I could do that. From a familyperspective, my dad's always been keen, as
I mentioned before, you know, he's always likedmotorbikes and encouraged, you know, and my
oldest sister, she was the first one to buya motorbike and I promptly rode it into the
(26:40):
fence and broke the, broke the brake on it,which was quite devastating for me at the time
and probably for her, but dad's, oh, it's okay,it's fixable. So we've always sort of had bikes
and I think then when your family can see, Ohlook, they're out there, you know, doing crazy
things, riding across that big country, it'ssort of a little, hopefully a little inspiring,
(27:02):
you know, for them. And yeah, particularly forladies to just get out there and have a crack.
Yeah, it sounds like a proud dad moment as well.Yeah, I think so. I think he liked to talk
about, you know, his daughter riding acrossthe country. So yeah, so it's all good fun.
And then you're going over to see a mate. Yeah,so the friend that I was visiting on that particular
(27:23):
trip, she just said, I'm having a bit of a boringyear is like, I was like, well I'll come over! And they
everyone thinks you're crazy for doing thatkind of stuff. That's part of the fun. You
know, we were just talking earlier about quotesabout Helen Keller saying, life is either a
daring adventure or nothing at all. So you mightas well go with the daring adventure. Is anything
(27:46):
else in the meaning space that we could explore?Maybe just, um, I think, uh, for me also, like
I've, I've been interested in writing and aroundthe motorbike, I think sometimes like he certainly
had a personality and we go, well, it's justa thing. It's just an object. But I do think
(28:09):
there is energy in objects. And I think he wasdefinitely an example of like, you'll get to
read about it in my book one day, but I'd hopon the bike and we'd be heading off along the
pipeline. You'd be going, oh, this pipelinething, what's that about? So it'll be almost
like I was having a conversation with him. Andit was just about connection of. I don't even
(28:34):
know if it's a connection of myself to myselfor myself to the bike, that it was just like
you're almost explaining it to a friend or apoint of view. So for me, it's kind of like
having that thing in your life that you reallylove so much and everybody has something that
they really love so much. And sometimes it canbe something like a motorbike or your favorite
(28:55):
pushy or your favorite car or a friend who wasjust loving Porsches and ended up with a Porsche
and all those kinds of things. So it's aboutallowing yourself to have an interaction of
some kind with what we perceive as humans tohave an inanimate object, but it's actually
got a personality. Like, you know, with theday I was nearly running out of fuel, it was
(29:17):
almost like the bike was saying to me, my God,thank God for that. I'm so ready for a beer
and which is, you know, unleaded fuel. Lovely,lovely. Here we go. And on the way back, it
was the the day before I did the big trip wasValentine's Day, which is the day before my
birthday. And it was almost like this littledate with the bike, which is, you know, for
(29:39):
all purposes an inanimate object. It was justlike, wow, we got to spend the whole day together.
And from the bike's perspective, it was like,yeah, we had this great lunch date and we,
you know, we rode a couple of hundred Ks andI got my favorite, you know, 95 fuel instead
of just that boring unleaded stuff that justtastes disgusting. So it's, you know, to me,
that's where there's sort of a bit of soul connectionwith a, with an object. And I know people definitely
(30:03):
have it with animals like dogs and horses. AndI actually believe that, you know, a motorbike
has a personality too. Yeah. So kind of a connection,you know, about that. And I guess also a lot
of people ride motorbikes and there's been,um, can't remember the story, but it was a,
uh, a chap with mental health issues. Had actuallywritten about his motorbike and how riding
(30:27):
it helped him to overcome, you know, mentalhealth issues. And you know, it's just such
a fun thing to do if you enjoy doing it. Somepeople are terrified. So that wouldn't be a
good mental health exercise, but I think, youknow, from a, from a feeling alive point of
view, it's a little bit like a surfer lovingthe waves. And for people who love riding motorbikes,
(30:47):
it's just that, you know, getting enjoymentout of life, just simply by sitting on top
of this big engine and riding off down intothe sunset so to speak, exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Whether there's the connection between you andyourself, as you mentioned, or whether it's
between you and the, and the bike, it givesyou a platform to actually explore that interaction
(31:10):
that you're having. Yeah, yeah. And to recognisethat it's just joy in life that you get from
sharing with perhaps somebody or someone wholoves to ride a motorbike or perhaps just sharing
it with yourself on the bike. So there's a lotof meaning in actually taking yourself away
on the motorbike to cross the country in thiscase for both you, your friends and your family,
(31:38):
which is... Great to hear. Let's have a breaknow, and after the break, we'll talk about
how you do it.
We've had a look at what it means to cross thecountry on a motorbike on your own. Now, let's
(31:58):
talk about how you do it. Sandy, how does someonerecreate what you've done? What would they
do? Well, I guess the first thing is you needboth a motorbike and a license to ride a motorbike.
In Western Australia, it is slightly differentto some of the other states, but over here
and again, I had a licence in New Zealand butI never progressed kind of essentially from
(32:22):
your P's to your full licence. So when I arrivedin Western Australia in my 20s they said, no,
not official, you can't have that part. So itwas like, oh well. So a few years later ended
up getting a motorbike and so I went through,you have to do an online test even if you've
got a car licence. So learners test online,then you're allowed to ride a motorbike. So
(32:43):
you don't have to even know how to ride one.You You can just go out and ride one after
getting your learners, which is an online test.And you have to ride with a shadow here. So
a shadow being you've got to find a mate whohas a full license to ride around with you
and even perhaps to teach you how to ride themotorbike until you feel you're proficient
enough to pass a test. I would highly recommendif someone has never ridden a motorbike, just
(33:07):
go to a riding school and they will teach youeverything you need to know about the way you
sit on the bike. head checks the most importantthing because you need that when you're crossing
intersections. I'm sure everyone's seen YouTubevideos of motorcyclists or scooters being taken
out by cars going through red lights and it'slike as a motorbike rider I feel it's our responsibility.
(33:28):
So when you go to an instructor they teach youabout head checks and if you go to sit your
license and they don't see your helmet physicallymove even though your eyes can see peripheral
vision if they don't see your helmet move inthe direction of the side streets, they will
fail you So it's very important and you realiselater that you need to be looking everywhere,
(33:49):
every intersection I go through, even as a cardriver now, I will look both ways because we
all know that there's crazy idiots out therewho don't see red and don't stop, or they see
red and they do carry on through. So most important,you know, to get the benefit of an instructor
for the first pass and then if you successfullypass your test after, you know, a booking appointment
(34:12):
with the transport department. You can ridearound essentially like a P-Plater. However,
on a motorbike, you're allowed to ride aroundas much as you like, but you can't ride a bike
unless it's learner approved, which used tobe only 250 cc's, so a small motorbike. But
now you can ride up to a 500 or thereaboutscc bike so long as it's, they call it LAMS
(34:35):
approved in Western Australia. So it's a bikethat's not too powerful that you're gonna take
off at the lights and kill yourself on, basically.So you need to do it. And then if you want
to ride across the country, you probably don'twant to do it on a 250. There is a great story
of people who've ridden across on postie bikes,which, you know, top speed, 80 Ks an hour and
they're a 50 cc bike. But I find it's much morecomfortable to ride across on, you know, a
(34:59):
thousand cc's plus. So if you want to do that,you have to go back for your full bike licence,
which involves again, either more lessons orjust another test if you're brave enough to
think that you'll pass without an instructoraround. And again, you can't ride to the test
on your own on a big bike because you're notvalid to ride that bike just yet. So you have
(35:20):
to find a mate who can ride with you who's gotthat class or above when you go for your test.
So you need the bike, you need to be able topass two tests here. In South Australia, I
believe you can just go for a weekend courseover a couple of days and then they set you
free, which I'm not sure that that's the bestidea. I do like the West Australia way where
(35:40):
there's a one year timeframe where you haveto have that, you know, smaller bike and ride
around on that for a year to get used to theidea of people doing crazy things. And yeah,
then pass your test and then go off and grabthe biggest most comfortable bike that you
personally think you can handle and away yougo. I'm sure there's more to it than just the
(36:03):
big comfortable bike because you talked abouthaving panniers and carrying water and all
sorts of stuff. How do you get yourself setup for that? Well, particularly for ladies,
firstly, it's a good thing. Buying a biggerbike, they generally have a higher seat height.
So most bikes, you can go online and it willtell you what your inner leg length to the
(36:24):
ground is likely to be for that bike. So itmight help to measure your own, but most of
the time you go along and sit over the bike.To do a ride with a big, heavily laden bike,
even if it was a trail bike, they're typicallya lot taller bike. As a female you need to
be able to get at least one foot on the groundif it's trail bike but preferably two for a
(36:44):
road bike because you need to be able to balanceall that extra heavy weight. And again just
being aware like you don't have to have panniersyou could put strap a bag on the back which
is perfectly fine but it's much more fun tohave it all sort of decked out and all nice
and comfy and things with their own places andplenty of room for spare tube, repair things
(37:06):
and reaming tools to get that hole in your tyreso that you can get it pumped up again and
I used to carry little canisters like you useon a push bike but they make motorbike sized
ones so I'd have a little pack with about 10of those in just in case. Never had to use them,
touch wood, never will have to. So yeah, a bitof consideration around gear how hot it's going
(37:26):
to be, how cold it's going to be and how longare you going to be riding for because You
might start riding around Australia and decidenever to come back. Or just keep doing laps.
Yeah. And, and loading the bike correctly onceyou've decided, because I think females were
quite famous about taking more stuff than wereally need, particularly if you're going by
yourself, it's like, Oh yeah, I better takethe mini compressor and I better take, you
(37:49):
know, 10, 10 canisters. Whereas if you're ridingwith two of you, well, that means you, if you
took 10 each, you've got 20, you might not need20 on a off chance that you get a flat tire.
And then just a few other bits and pieces. Haveyou got something to clean your screen with?
You know, if there's bugs and you suddenly ridethrough them and it's still a hundred Ks
to the next servo, you want to be able to spraya little bit of detergent on your motorbike
(38:12):
helmet and clean it off. And hydration, importantto think about backpack with water or bottles.
I did ride with a friend once who was hallucinatingat one part of the ride, which we think was
probably just from dehydration. So yeah, soit can affect you quite, quite severely if
you aren't well prepared and don't have somethingas simple as water on you. Right. And then
(38:37):
how did you actually go about, like, where didyou stop? You're riding 10, 12-ish hours a
day. That's not all day. There's a bit of, I'llsay, rest or break time in there. What happened?
What do you need? So most of the time it wasjust stopping at servos, particularly because
the part on the Nullarbor is, you know, that'sall there is out there, is, you know, I said
(38:59):
probably five famous service stations. You caneven play golf all the way across a hole at
each of the service stations. Once you get throughthe Nullarbor part and into South Australia,
depending on which way you go, you know, there'sa lot more regular towns, except perhaps the
Broken Hill direction. And in the other smalltowns, it was always plenty of places to look
for to have a break. But generally I'll justride till I needed fuel or need or was really
(39:24):
hungry, which, you know, more likely to needto go to the toilet, stop somewhere and, you
know, have a little break that way and wanderaround. And the other thing I found is riding
a motorbike versus driving a car. In a car,you sit there and you're just sitting pretty
still the whole time, whether you're drivingor a passenger and you can't just stand up
(39:45):
and you can't just do a few yoga moves now ona motorbike. You can. So I had music, as I
mentioned, in my helmet. So I'd just bop along,and sometimes I'd stand right up, stand riding
up like you do on a trail bike, and just bopaway to the music for a bit, so you're stretching
your legs, and occasionally, because I do yoga,I'll put one leg out as far back on the bike
as I could, and sort of ride along like halfa praying mantis and stretch out a bit. And
(40:10):
yeah, as long as you've got two hands and twofeet on the bike at all times, that's the road
rules. Yeah, so it was kind of it's easier ina way than a car because you're not sitting
like dead stock still. So you've got the opportunityto move and stretch and as I mentioned the
throttle locks before you can take that poorold right hand off the throttle for a short
(40:30):
period of time if you need to just like havea stretch or get some more water or scratch
an itch or things like that. So yeah. Doyou do any other things in the way of letting
people know where you are or anything like that?Yeah, generally I try to. I'm probably less
good at it than my partner Dan is when we goin the car. He's very good at letting his brother
(40:53):
know if we're going to remote places. For thatparticular trip, my friend was expecting me
in roughly four days time so I think if I didn'tturn up she might have called someone or got
a bit worried. But yeah, usually you let a coupleof people know if you're going to do something
like that and sometimes I'll arrange a friendand say, look, can I just check in here with
(41:13):
you at the end of each evening? Oh, yep, I'mhere. No worries. Just to say, yep, I made
it and I'm safe. And yeah. And back to thatwas for me, most of the time, I'd just stop
at road houses or motels if there were motelsavailable. Again, some people camp on motorbikes,
but you need an extra chair and a tent and cookingthings and all that extra stuff if you're gonna
(41:37):
camp. Whereas I find particularly like thattime of the year was hot. And there's nothing
nicer than just being able to get into a motelroom and just take off all your gear, your
motorbike gets heavy. It's, it's not flexible.So you just want to throw it off as quick as
you can, and then maybe hop in the shower andjust hang out. So, um, yeah, that was always
a good part of like stopping for the day. Ifyou could find a nice motel or at the worst,
(42:00):
a cheap roadhouse. Yeah. Somewhere you can justleave the gear for a bit. you know, relax.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think these days,like there when I rode across was a few years
ago. These days, you probably want to call aheadfor at least for the Nullarbor part, because
the road houses are extremely busy. And there'sso many truck drivers that some of them don't
(42:23):
want to sleep in their trucks. So they'll they'll,you know, sleep at the road houses and book
motel rooms there. And again, so many more peopletraveling in four wheel drives with campers
that go, Oh, we've just been in the bush forfive days straight, let's stop in at the roadhouse.
And so therefore you just on a motorbike, it'smore important that you have a room rather
than just chancing it in the car. Worst is goingto happen. You can just sleep in the car. So,
(42:46):
yeah. So that's really just a plan ahead. Soyeah. Yeah. I think if you were doing it for
the first time, you'd probably want to justcheck, just check that you can get a bed for
the night. Check and be sure you'll be sleepingin the gutter, so to speak. Yeah. Or else knocking
on someone's door. Huh? Hi. Have you got a sparebed in this room? Haven't had to resort to
(43:07):
that. Oh, thank you very much, Sandy, for beingon Forrest.Chat. It's been great having you
here. Yeah, thanks, Paul. It's been fun to havea chat. Our Forrest.Chat listeners wish you
all the best with your future endeavors. Thankyou very much and watch out for the book when
it comes out. Absolutely. You've been listeningto Forrest.Chat, where we talk about individual
(43:29):
endeavor in Western Australia, what it takes,what it means and how you do it. I'm your host,
Paul van der Mey. And in today's episode, wetalked with Sandy De La Mare about riding across
the country on a motorbike. Remember, thereare three ways to get involved with Forrest.Chat.
Share the domain Forrest.Chat with your friendsand family and people you meet. Listen to the
(43:52):
episodes at Forrest.Chat slash episodes. Bookan advert at Forrest.Chat slash advert. I'm
looking forward to being with you for the nextepisode. Until then, enjoy making it happen.
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