Two for the Road Read online

  Shirley Hardy-Rix & Brian Rix

  Now enjoying retirement, Brian was a policeman in Victoria for 36 years. During that time he headed up the Homicide Squad, investigated drug trafficking, kidnappings, armed robberies and worked undercover. He spent the final five years of his career as President of the powerful police union, The Police Association.

  Shirley met Brian when she was working as a crime reporter on Melbourne TV and radio. She is now a freelance journalist working as a magazine editor and publicist for film, TV and publishing.

  As well as Two for the Road, in 2013 Shirley and Brian published Circle to Circle: a journey through the Americas and beyond — an account of their 16-month 83,000-kilometres, 32-country motorcycle adventure.

  First published in Australia in 2005 by Pan Macmillan Australia

  This expanded edition first published in 2014 by Aussies Overland

  www.aussiesoverland.com.au

  [email protected]

  Copyright all text, photos & maps © Shirley Hardy-Rix & Brian Rix 2014

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

  Hardy-Rix, Shirley & Rix, Brian.

  Two for the Road: 56,671 km, 27 countries, one dream

  2nd edition.

  ISBN: 9781742984193 (paperback)

  Subjects: Hardy-Rix, Shirley—Travel. Rix, Brian—Travel.

  Motorcyclists—Australia—Biography. Motorcycling. Voyages around the world.

  796.6092

  Re-design and additional graphics

  High Horse Books

  www.highhorse.com.au

  Digital edition distributed by

  Port Campbell Press

  www.portcampbellpress.com.au

  Conversion by Winking Billy

  We dedicate our journey and this book to Fran, Shirley’s sister, whose courageous battle with cancer and extraordinary will to continue living was an inspiration to all who knew her.

  And to Paul Carr, a friend who lost his life on a Tibetan mountain trying to achieve his dream only days before our journey began.

  Their spirits journey with us.

  CONTENTS

  Map

  Introduction

  The Journey Begins

  The Isle of Man TT

  Ireland

  Back to London – via the Scenic Route 31

  On to the Continent

  Western Europe

  The Dalmatian Coast

  Greece

  Turkey

  Iran

  Pakistan

  India

  Nepal

  Thailand

  Malaysia and Singapore

  Home

  Something for the Trivia Buffs

  Bike Logistics

  Acknowledgments

  INTRODUCTION

  10 November 2003

  Pakistan, and there is absolutely nothing out here. Dirt, a few rocks and dust as far as the eye can see. I crane my neck to look over Brian’s shoulder and what lies ahead is no different.

  The road is taking us through desert; flat, rocky terrain. The only living things we see are a few camels. A dried-up carcass shows that even these beasts find life hard out here. The shifting sands drift over the road, making our progress slow. In some places it is virtually impossible to gauge the depth of the sand, which makes for some slippery riding.

  We’ve been warned about this road from Iran into the heart of Pakistan. It hugs the border with Afghanistan, at times taking us less than 20 km from Afghanistan. We are in the heart of Taliban country, an area where, we’ve been told, foreigners are not welcome – particularly foreigners from the West, countries that are part of the Coalition of the Willing put together by the US to topple Saddam Hussein.

  We don’t see people out here. Scattered along the roadway are military outposts, where soldiers living in mud huts record the name and passport number of everyone travelling through. They aren’t here to be a nuisance. And they aren’t here to protect us – not really. They are here so, if we disappear, they will be able to find out when and where we were last seen alive. Hardly a comforting thought. The isolation is palpable when we stop to eat on the side of the road. There is no-one in sight. No cars pass by. From roadside to horizon there is nothing but more of the same rocky landscape.

  When we stop at the checkpoints, Brian gets off the bike, takes our passports out of the tank bag and wanders into the hut with a grin. The soldiers are friendly, keen to have their photo taken with the digital camera. They nod and smile, practising their English as Brian fills in our details in the old ledgers propped on ancient wooden tables. On our BMW R1150 GS, we are a novelty. They don’t get too many motorbikes out here, or visitors. And when four bikes and a Land Rover pull up, the soldiers seem overwhelmed. It is comforting to be travelling in a group with our German and South African companions, whom we met in Iran a few days ago. We all feel a safety in numbers.

  Most of the soldiers are a little perplexed by our arrival but are usually happy to wave us on – apart from one remote outpost. Here the guards are agitated by the thought of us moving through on our own. They want us to take a guard. There is a problem, though. They don’t have a vehicle (imagine being out here without transport!) and there is no room for him on the bikes or in the Land Rover. Eventually, after much head-scratching, they let us move on.

  Then we get to Nushki, the closest town to the Afghan border, and we are berated for not taking a guard. There is no room for argument. On the next leg of our journey we are led by an armed officer, ensuring we make it to our destination.

  Barren hills now line the roadway and we can see the sun glinting off rifles. Gunmen are hidden in the rocks, watching the roadway below. But they are not there to harm us – they are there to protect us … just in case. I can’t help but think, ‘What the hell are we doing here?’

  ONE

  THE JOURNEY BEGINS

  20 May 2003

  Shirley: What possesses two normal, middle-class professional people to give up the comforts of home for 12 months, jump on a motorcycle and ride from one side of the world to the other?

  Brian and I have always loved motorcycling and it was our dream to combine our love of travel and the joy of two-wheel touring. We met in the 1980s and made an unusual couple – he was a policeman and I was a journalist reporting on crime in our home city of Melbourne. Many people disapproved of our relationship, but we were made for each other.

  Brian had a motorbike and couldn’t believe his luck when he discovered that not only did I love the role of pillion passenger – having spent my teenage years with boys who rode motorbikes in Sydney – but also enjoyed a day at the motorbike races. As a teenager all my friends had bikes and I spent many hours riding on the back of a 250cc bike hurtling around the Sydney suburbs. I even dated a bloke who raced his bike. We would ride to Amaroo Park and he would take all the glass off the bike, race it, put the glass back on and ride home with me on the back! Brian honed his motorcycle riding skills on the banks of the Murray River near his home town in Victoria. There were 90 miles of public land to explore and Brian cut his riding teeth on dirt riding. He’d always had bikes.

  We both loved the idea of exploring the world and soon our holidays were spent travelling on Brian’s bike. We joined the FrontLine Tourers, the Emergency Services Motor cycle Touring Club, a group
of police, ambulance officers and fire fighters who ride motorcycles. Through the club we’ve met many great people and enjoyed some of the best roads on offer around Australia.

  In 1992 I gave up a senior position with a major magazine publisher to set up my own media business. This gave us the flexibility to enjoy Brian’s nine weeks annual leave and, like so many couples with no children, our lives were our own. Brian’s sons, Stephen and Gavan, are leading their own successful lives. While we share an incredible closeness and strong emotional bonds, they don’t rely on us on a day-today basis.

  When the boys were growing up we talked more and more about making an overland journey to the UK on a bike. This was to be our retirement plan, before tragedy hit the family. My older sister, Fran, became ill with cancer. She was a fighter and wouldn’t just lie down and die. She battled this insidious disease for years, but it soon became obvious her time was running out. At Christmas 1995 Fran was virtually bedridden. We spent a great Christmas together, the entire family, with Fran holding court from her big blue chair in the living area, the smile never leaving her face beneath a bald head. My favourite photo is one showing all of us gathered around Fran, taken on Christmas Day.

  Early in 1996 I spent some time with Fran, to help look after her. The cancer was attacking her spine and she could no longer walk; she needed people around her to perform the most menial tasks. One morning I was helping her dress. I’m not a nurse and Fran hadn’t been used to dependence on others. I made a real meal of getting Fran into her clothes for the day. We just couldn’t coordinate this seemingly simple task and fell onto her bed laughing. It was a great moment of closeness between us.

  There were many things left unsaid that day, but they were said days later, when Fran and I were sitting together in the living room. I was filing her nails and she said, ‘I’m not ready to die.’ I was so moved by her honesty.

  ‘I’m not ready for you to die, either,’ I said.

  That was enough. Fran knew I loved her and I knew she loved me. And she loved Brian. She once told her girlfriends that Brian was her ideal husband!

  When Fran finally lost her battle with cancer, Brian and I talked at length about her wish to live. We vowed then that we would have as few ‘if onlys’ in our lives as possible. Our plans for the future began to take form. Brian had always dreamed of travelling around the world on his motorcycle and this would be our future – Aussie overlanders! But it would have to wait until Brian retired. Under the current police superannuation scheme, that would be when he was between 52 and 55. It wasn’t that far away. My life as a freelance journalist could be put on hold.

  As Brian’s interest in round-the-world motorcycle travel took hold, we met Chris and Erin Ratay, two New Yorkers travelling the world and visiting Melbourne. We helped them with accommodation, found a mechanic to work on their BMW bikes and provided some good old Aussie hospitality. Little did we realise that meeting them would change our lives. Chris’s advice to us was two-fold and simple: ‘Once you’ve made up your mind, tell people. That way you can’t back out.’ And ‘Don’t leave it until you retire. So much can happen. You might never do it.’ That was enough for us – we decided to head off sooner rather than later. Brian would take long-service leave and I would arrange for people to look after my business.

  It took a couple of years to get things organised. Brian started researching the world of motorcycles to make sure we took the right bike for our journey. He settled on a BMW GS pretty early on. It was big enough for two-up touring and versatile enough to take some of the rough roads that lay ahead.

  After planning a rough route, we checked out the visa and health requirements of the countries we would travel through. We found a good travel medicine doctor – whom we quickly nicknamed the ‘witch doctor’ – who administered vaccinations to protect us from most of the ills that can befall overland travellers. Being an experienced overlander, he also had plenty of advice on eating and drinking and staying healthy.

  We read books written by other motorcycle travellers to see if there were any pitfalls we could avoid. I devoured guidebooks checking out the scenic routes and not-to-be-missed sites along the way. I started to think I’d missed my vocation – I should have been a travel agent.

  We knew keeping in touch with home on such a journey could end up being a nightmare. Murphy’s Law was sure to mean we would forget to send postcards to the most important people in our lives. The easiest way of letting anyone interested know where we were and what we were up to seemed to be to have a web page. With some help from talented friends, we set up www.aussiesoverland.com.

  ABC Radio Melbourne’s breakfast program, hosted by Red Symons, heard about our journey and asked if I would be able to talk to them along the way. Why not?

  By May 2003 we were ready to go – or as ready as we would ever be.

  The Isle of Man TT is a motorcycle-racing mecca. Riders who have no thought for their own safety take to the streets of this wonderful island in the middle of the Irish Sea and race. And there is nothing demure or safe about the racing. It is right on the edge. Each year people die, racers and visitors alike.

  It is totally exhilarating. Spectators sit on fences, behind hedges and in the front yards of houses and churches to watch racers go by. They are so close, the spectators – who are as crazy as the racers – can touch them. We’d watched it on television and dreamed of being there, but always commented on how stupid the spectators were for watching the races from such dangerous spots.

  Our initial plan was to ride to London, go to the Isle of Man TT and ship the bike home. A look at the world weather over the next couple of months, however, made us realise that to be in the UK for the Isle of Man TT in May and June, we would have to ride through the wet season in Asia and arrive in Europe in the dead of winter! So we turned the whole thing around – we would ship our bike to the UK, attend the Isle of Man TT and then head home through Europe in summer and Asia in the dry season, arriving back in Australia while it was still warm in the north and the cold in the south wouldn’t kill you.

  When, on 20 May 2003, it’s time to begin our journey, Brian is keen to sneak out of the country, but it is not to be. Our friends and families insist on parties and more parties. In the end, we opt for one big farewell, which provides plenty of memories to comfort us during the times when homesickness hits.

  Brian: At last we are on our way. Shirley sleeps fitfully on the plane. I don’t at all, but luckily I have a window seat and after lights out, I look at clusters of lights from towns some 10,000 m below.

  I think about my friend, Paul ‘Possum’ Carr, who has just perished on Cho Oyu in Tibet, the world’s sixth-highest peak. It was Possum’s ambition to climb Everest and Cho Oyu was a training run with three other climbers. Paul and I worked together on many criminal investigations over our time together with the Victoria Police and we were both members of The Police Association (the police union) Executive Committee. We often spoke about our adventurous ambitions and he died living out his, the week before we depart to live out ours.

  What should be a happy time is tinged with sadness as we fly a mere 200 m higher than Everest’s 8850 m. Paul died at 7400 m and, for the first time ever on Cho Oyu, a recovery operation will take his body down. I know this is unusual because Paul told me that if you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain, and I can’t help thinking that he may prefer to stay there.

  It made me reflect on why Shirl and I are doing this. There is certainly the desire to have adventure and experience other cultures, but there is also a deep-seated fear of the ‘if onlys’ – the regrets you have to contend with when your life is nearing its end and you haven’t achieved all you wanted to. There may be no tomorrow, so you have to live life to its fullest.

  TWO

  THE ISLE OF MAN TT

  31 May – 6 June 2003

  Shirley: There is an interminable wait for the bike in the UK. The shipping agent said 40 days, so we allow 50 and it takes 60! Thank goodness for
family. My brother’s niece, Bettina, and her English husband, Tim, live in Surrey. Their friendship and spare bed are lifesavers. When we finally get to the bike in Felixstowe, our stress levels are peaking. We have a single day to get from one side of the UK to the other to catch the ferry to the Isle of Man.

  We arrive at customs early and the officials are more than helpful. They check out the bike registration from Australia, our green-card insurance, ask a couple of questions about what else is in the crate and that is it. They don’t even want to see the carnet.

  ‘You know you have to take the crate with you?’ is all the bloke at the freight-terminal office has to say as he points us to the back of the shed. Brian walks towards a freight officer only to be sharply told to move back to the car. ‘You can’t walk around here, because you don’t have green vests on. And you know you have to take the crate away with you?’ Of course we do!

  No-one seems even to think that we might not be able to take the crate away. Brian and I will be on the bike and Bettina and Tim, who kindly drove us to collect the bike, are in a hatchback. When the crate appears we are pleased to see there are no telltale tyre marks to indicate it had been run over, or bits of tape holding it together to show it had been dropped off the forklift. Everything seems to be as it should. Tim and Brian take to the crate with hammers and crowbars. Inside, the bike is in perfect condition. The metres of bubble wrap, tape and tie-downs have worked their magic.