Englishman Nathan Millward has completed his round the world adventure on a retired Australian post bike, riding it from Sydney Australia to the American city of San Francisco.
The Mansfield-born adventurer covered a total of 29,000 miles, travelling at an average cruising speed of 37mph and passing through 19 countries along the way.
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| Round the World on a CT-100, that's Nathan Milward |
This journey from Sydney to London took Millward nine months, seeing him pass from Darwin to East Timor, along Indonesia to Malaysia and Thailand before finding a way around Burma and on to the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu. India and Pakistan followed, with the refusal of an Iranian visa forcing him through Northern Pakistan, over the Himalayas and the second highest road in the world (18,000 feet), in to China, then on through Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and Poland before finally, just as winter was about to set in, reaching the English Channel and home.
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| Monument Valley |
Millward wrote a book about his impromptu adventure, it being launched in Australia as Going Postal, and now retitled for the rest of the world simply as; ‘The Long Ride Home,’ a book, which in his own words doesn’t try and glamorise the realities of riding across the world on your own; instead the times of happiness, sadness, loneliness and fear; also themes of regret and faith that if you keep on riding you’ll get there in the end.’ Millward concedes that the book as a thinly veiled message to the girl he left behind.
Having completed the book, Millward continued his journey west, patching up the bike that had brought him all that way and loading it on an aeroplane bound for New York. For Millward it was a case of déjà vu. ‘I didn’t really have a plan or a route in mind, all I wanted to do was get to San Francisco and in the end that took us (me and the bike) six weeks and six thousand miles. We passed through the guts of Detroit and Chicago, down old Route 66, over the Rockies, through to Grand Canyon, Monument Valley and Las Vegas until finally we hit the Pacific and the Golden Gate Bridge.’
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| Across the World on a Honda 100. Piece of cake... |
Speaking of the journey, Millward admits, ‘In a lot of ways, the ride across America was harder than the ride from Sydney to London, simply because it feels such a big country, and there are so many different routes you can take to get across it. The traffic is also faster and the pace of life much quicker than the speed I was able to travel at. The mid-west was long and lonely and at times I felt quite vulnerable, but once I made it to Colorado I really enjoyed the landscape and the people. Death Valley was my favourite place, and riding through Monument Valley at sunset was just superb.’
In spring 2013, Millward and his bike – affectionately known as Dorothy – intend on making the final push north to Alaska, with a sequel to the Long Ride Home due not long after. As Millward explains, ‘It’s hard to stop once you’ve started because on the road you find so much freedom and space. No one is hassling you to do things or be someone you’re not. You can just sit there on your bike and ride all day and get lost in the world, seeing things and meeting new people. After Alaska I’d love to ride down the Pan American Highway to Argentina, and then I guess we’d have no choice but to stop, or end up in the sea.’
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| Book available- a good read, we reckon... |
For more information on Millward’s adventures visit www.thepostman.org.uk. Or to order a copy of the Long Ride Home visit the Motorcycle News online shop (shop.motorcyclenews.com) where the book is currently available to UK customers for £9.99 including postage and packaging. Buyers outside the UK see Millward’s website for more information. Alternatively, for the Kindle edition see Amazon.
Cloud9 Notes
Dorothy is a 2004 model Honda CT110, or ‘postie bike’ as they’re known in Australia. She was used to deliver the mail in Queensland before being retired off at 30,000 kilometres.
The only modifications for the trip was an extra tank from a Honda XR250, mounted in the step-through, as the original tank is beneath the seat. She now has 90,000 kilometres on the clock (55,000 miles) and is still running original engine and piston.
Millward previously worked as a motoring journalist, writing for Auto Express in the UK, and for the Australia title, MOTOR. He is now 32 years of age.
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