In 1992 Heather Ellis took off , left her home , left Australia , on an epic ride that would see her discover Africa , discover the world , discover herself , discover UBUNTU ...
On that ride through Africa , rather than harm me , people always wanted to help me , offer me food or a place to sleep . This ‘ kindness of strangers ’ echoes many a traveller ’ s experience . This is ubuntu , the universal bond that connects us all as one and it became the title of my book because it encapsulates the very essence of my motorcycle ride across Africa .
This extraordinary , unlikely , adventure began on a Sunday afternoon at a backyard barbeque in a remote mining town on the fringe of Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory . For no apparent reason , as if possessed by the spirit of some long dead crusty old motorcycle traveller , I blurted out : ‘ wouldn ’ t it be great to travel Africa by motorcycle ’. Looking back , I was destined to have that light bulb moment . As a child , I ’ d spent a few years growing up in the outback where I learnt to ride a motorcycle ; the same riding conditions I ’ d encounter twenty years later in Africa . By the time I was a teenager , I ’ d read all of Wilbur Smith .
While I ’ d ridden motorcycles since I was eight years old , I ’ d never travelled on one other than weekend camping trips in Kakadu . I had no mechanical skills having always had my dad , my brother and later , mechanically-minded boyfriends , maintain and fix my bikes . Later , from my travels and armed with a Yamaha TT600 workshop manual , I soon learnt the basics of motorcycle mechanics ; I had too ! And today , I service all my motorcycles ( as well as my TT600 , I ride a Moto Guzzi V50 and a Triumph Thruxton ).
In those early days of planning , it was this lack of mechanical knowledge that caused me the most fear about my trip . But the idea to travel Africa by motorcycle was one that gripped my very soul and nothing would deter me , not even the barrage of doubts from friends and work mates from the Ranger uranium mine where I worked as a radiation safety technician . I ’ d been working there all up for nine years . I ’ d nearly paid off one house and my work mates insisted I buy another as though this was the meaning of life . I was cashed up , single and I had no responsibilities — my life lay before me , out there in the world , not more years in an isolated mining town , which had already claimed most of my twenties . I was understandably restless for adventure . And my deep yearning for it was a direct reflection on the enormity , of the impossibility , of the adventure my deprived mind had conjured up .
I was 27 years old . It was 1992 and the internet was still a few years away . It was before adventure motorcycling became an industry , before the plethora of websites , blogs , magazines and books filled with every detail one needs to embark on an overland motorcycle adventure . But even so , once I took that first step ; once the planning began ( a process of one year almost to the day ), everything fell into place . And this philosophy of ‘ everything happens for a reason and everything will always work out ’, became a central theme to my journey , from that very moment I said I ’ d do it . From the comments of many a
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