Motorcycle Explorer February 2015 Issue 4 | Page 130

T
hat night I rested in a small portacabin room at the Overlander Roadhouse. The next day the
journey closed in on Broome in the North West territories. Up ahead was a glinting thing
scurrying across the road. Bearing down on it at speed I saw it was a coke can clanking tinnily on
the tarmac, propelled by a lizard with his head stuck in the hole opened by the ring pull. I
stopped to watch, the small animal darting frantically back and forward across the tarmac. It
wasn’t carrying the can by choice, it had obviously got stuck chasing the sweetness of what was
left of the drink. It couldn’t see where it was going and it wouldn’t be able to eat or survive unless
its head was eased out of the can. I caught it and could see the can was stuck on tight. Only by
stroking the animal’s back to calm it, and then slowly easing the can from side to side along its
scaly neck did I finally see a very grumpy head slowly emerge. Its little heart was pumping hard
with fear. Suddenly free, it shook itself from my grasp to dart quickly into the undergrowth.
Back home Hennie was holding the fort, growing our new family, waiting for my return. Out here I
was shovelling out a foothold to accommodate this new opportunity. It was a novel experience
for me, planning a future not to be alone. Sometimes, when you really look at the detail, life
doesn’t suck. This new person could be thought of as a new character on my understaffed stage,
just as equally I might have been on hers, yet little did I know what a pivotal role she would play.
Knowing I would never be alone again put a smile on my face that lasted for days. This was a hard
project but a happy one.
Diarising a life is like telling a story without having to make eye contact. You also avoid censure,
but a tip for any would-be writer is to leave out the bits that most readers will skip – although
how do you know which bits they are? Certainly there are times when travelling involves times of
tedium which are unremittingly dull. For 30 years I was a slave to obsession and travelling, but
thinking about my family triggered a gentler impulse in me that soon became unstoppable.
Home life with Hennie made me very content, and we spent times together that counted among
the best in my life. The brief interlude we enjoyed together, sharing her pregnancy before I set off
to bike around the world, embodied everything I needed to make me feel whole. While it’s easy
to idealise a memory that happened long ago, the laughter and love we shared impressed on me
how joyful family life can be. When a woman pulls a man away from the abyss of being someone
without a family, how can she not be forgiven? Hennie did this for me.
Back on the road... MEM
Is where we are going to have to leave N