The 42-Year Voyage with Chris Donaldson | Ship’s Log #41

“Home is where the bike is!” — Chris Donaldson 

Episode Summary 

In 1979 a 21-year-old Chris Donaldson pointed a café-racing Moto Guzzi out of Belfast—a city of checkpoints and bomb scares, where his family’s furniture shop got blown up on the regular—and aimed it at Australia. He never got there. The Iranian revolution closed his road east, and what was meant to be a four-month, 10,000-mile ride became a year and a half and more than 50,000 miles the “wrong” way: across the Sahara on a road bike never built for it, down through Africa to Cape Town, a hitched ride on a yacht race back to Europe, then Canada all the way down to Buenos Aires. 

Forty-two years later, Chris is climbing back onto the very same bike to finally finish the ride—this time with Parkinson’s, an old friend named Liam, and a phrase he lives by: “adventure before dementia.” He and Jeanne talk about the Aboriginal walkabout that shaped him, why an unmapped, pre-GPS world made for richer adventure, and the strangers across four decades who fed him, fixed his bike, and once filled his petrol tank for free in Iran and waved off the money. 

They close with Two Truths & A Lie—the Sahara, a scooter to Antarctica, and crossing Iran with a canceled visa—and with Chris’s quiet reframe of a lifetime of detours: “It wasn’t the wrong way at all.” 

Guest Bio 

Chris Donaldson is an adventurer and author from Belfast who set out in 1979 to ride his Moto Guzzi to Australia—and ended up going 50,000 miles the wrong way instead. His memoir of that trip, Going the Wrong Way, is an Amazon best-seller with more than 1,200 five-star reviews. Now in his sixties, he’s back on the same 1977 bike, finally pointing it toward Australia—because it’s always adventure before dementia. 

Guest Links
Website:  https://chrisdonaldson.world
Book:  Going the Wrong Way (Amazon) — https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1838012761
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisdonaldson1
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/goingthewrongway.book
X / Twitter:  https://twitter.com/ChrisDo69411982
YouTube:  Video on file: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAEPhkadGbc 

Guest CTA
If you’d like to follow Chris’s journey or read his book Going the Wrong Way, you can find everything at https://chrisdonaldson.world.

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Transcript

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Cold Open

Chris Donaldson 0:03

I was travelling in no particular direction, which is a very unusual again state of mind because every time 99.999% of the time you get in the car or on a bike, you're going somewhere. Whereas I

Intro

Chris Donaldson 0:15

was actually spending a year and a half not going anywhere in particular. Turn right is actually work for me to get to North America. So it certainly made the trip for me, you know.

Jeanne 0:32

Hello and welcome to Project Candor. Today's guest is someone whose life feels like it belongs in an adventure novel, except every mile of it is true. Chris Donaldson is a motorcyclist,

Meet Chris Donaldson

Jeanne 0:45

author, and traveler who first set him off from Belfast in 1979 with a simple goal: ride his Motor Guzzi to Australia. But history had other play-ins. Instead of Australia, Chris rode across the Sahara Desert, traveled through Africa to Cape Town, come on a ride on a yacht race back to Europe, and later rode from Canada through Central and South America all the way to Buenos Aires. More than 50,000 miles later, the journey ended unfinished. Now, 42 years later, Chris is climbing back on the same 1977 Motor Guzzi Le Mans to finally complete the Ride he began as a young man. Chris is also the author of the Amazon bestseller book Going the Wrong Way, which

Chris joins the conversation

Jeanne 1:26

tells the story of this remarkable coming of age adventure. Chris, thanks for joining Project Candor and going on our journey. Great. And you're in Belfast, so I love hearing your accent. This is going to be a lot of fun for me.

Chris Donaldson 1:40

Yeah. Well, as I said, I can understand the American accent pretty good because I've done a bit of business there. Northern Ireland speak different accents. You go 10 miles and you've got another accent to compare into.

Growing Up in Belfast During the Troubles

Jeanne 1:54

So I will get started with questions. Are you ready to go?

Chris Donaldson 1:57

Sure.

Jeanne 1:58

All right. So question one. Chris, you grew up in Belfast during what was known as the Troubles. For listeners who may not be familiar, this was the conflict that lasted nearly four decades from the late 1960s until Good Friday Agreement in 1998, marked by bombings, armed contact points, and deep divisions across Northern Ireland. He left Belfast in 1979 and set off across the world on a motorcycle. When you think back to that moment, were you running away from that environment or running towards something you hope to discover about yourself?

Chris Donaldson 2:32

Both, I suppose. When your children, when your kids, something's going on for as long as the troubles did, you don't know anything else. You don't know anything better. So you've nothing to compare what's normal with what's good or bad to, you know. So when you get older, you can visualize, you can set things in your mind what's right and what is wrong. But to us, most of the time, there's a bit of excitement and a bit of hassle just to be there. But yeah, it was a it was like a drawing out civil war, which I don't think I wanted to leave because I was scared of the war. I just wanted to see something new, something different.

Jeanne 3:21

Oh, very nice. But that had to be hard as a child to, you know, have to go through bomb scares, get in a bomb shelter. I mean, I know we used to have well, I think they were ridiculous, but we used to have to get under our desk for like um nuclear drills.

Chris Donaldson 3:36

Right.

Jeanne 3:37

Like that was going to protect us or anything, but

Chris Donaldson 3:40

just to make it feel better.

Jeanne 3:41

Yeah.

Chris Donaldson 3:42

So now you it was an unusual time. In fact, it was in the museum with the daughter recently, and there was all the uh all the old stuff, dinosaur bones and whatever. And then we found a section which is actually 70s and 80s in Northern Ireland. So it was a bit of a blow to realize that it's age of 60 years old. Uh my life is now in a museum, you know. That's when you know you're really getting old.

Jeanne 4:06

Yeah, I think no, there's things in my house that are museum quality here. But um, yeah, that must have been a shock to see, you know, I can go back and look at a computer museum and be shocked at what has changed over the time. So it must be really hard though to see your country was going through such a troubled time.

Chris Donaldson 4:27

Yeah, and as I say, it was bad. It was security gates everywhere, all the shops, the family business furniture shop and it got blown up regularly enough because I think the I already reckoned that furniture bomb quite easily, so we seemed to be a regular target for them, you know. As I say, you just I think if you're looking back, we just got used to and everything going on. We went to school in the center of Belfast, which is probably ground zero for all the troubles. But we never thought of saying that, Mom and Dad, you'll think you should be somewhere safer, you know? So yeah, we got you just got on with life because that's all you know. That's all you knew. If it's if it started happening again, I wouldn't probably wouldn't be as relaxed about it all because when you read back at what was going on, it was some bits are pretty horrible.

Jeanne 5:15

Did you lose any friends?

Chris Donaldson 5:16

Like um when you were in school that um Yeah, I mean my best friend got shot in the um the chin at the time. He established a bank manager, so they the badly reckoned if they hijack a sous and his wife and his family, they'd be able to get him to go down and empty the safe. But it all went wrong and as these things happened to

A Best Friend Shot, a Shop Bombed

Chris Donaldson 5:36

seem to. So he ended up with a blue in his chin, but he survived okay. But yeah, I mean it was it was more material things we were got in the way, shopping businesses, um actually physically getting around the place, which was a difficulty for my growing up anyway. But yeah, to answer your question, it certainly made me want to go somewhere like Australia, which has got everything Northern Ireland doesn't have, lots of space,

The Dream of Australia and the Detour

Chris Donaldson 6:01

nice weather. Um and at that stage, stage of twenty-one, I reckon if I if I had got there, I would probably have stayed because everything's so much better in Australia than it would be would have been in Northern Ireland at the time. So it's amazing, keep saying back, it's amazing how one little thing can be, well big thing, totally separate from your own life. Um like the revolution, Islamic Revolution kicked off in Iran uh week after I left Belfast, so didn't want to drive it. We would like now I would have been wanted to drive it through through Iran. So I had to start again, all my plans and so on were up the left. Um so I decided I had to go somewhere else, out of Europe, so I ended up down to South Africa. And I think it was about halfway down Africa. I'd actually drove off the end of one of my maps and I didn't have anything, I didn't know what was further south until I met a guy come the other way and we swapped maps and so it was well before the internet age obviously. But um one of the things that really did make the trip was that I hadn't because of being physically rerouted, I had to reroute my whole destination. It turned out a completely different journey because I really didn't know what was going to happen from one day to the next. Which is uh pretty unusual way for people to live these days, anyway, because with everything online, you phone a traveling through a country, you want to know what's on, you just look it up on your your phone, you know. You can phone home free of charge and WhatsApp, you can message people, you can eat emails, you can we could run our own business when we're traveling. So it is quite amazing. The differences have come in over the last 40 years. But when you go back and read about what it used to have, it'd be like it's it's a bit of a game changer.

Jeanne 7:52

Right. Well, you compared your journey to the idea of a walkabout. That tradition where somebody and that's an Australian term, I think, uh walkabout. Um that's an ancient tradition where somebody just leaves everything familiar to discover who they really are. So looking back now, what did that young version of you learn about himself out there on the empty roads?

Chris Donaldson 8:13

Well, I'll also that was another story I suppose. Uh I wrote about going the wrong way about the journey. Um I'd kept good journals and so on,

The Walkabout

Chris Donaldson 8:23

but I thought finally I decided I should write about it because people said whenever I did mention it, people were interested. So we got a book published in Amazon three or four years ago, and um one of my Surradic liked it, and he said, Why don't you actually never got to Australia? Why not have another go? So I thought, well, I still got the original motorbike sitting in the back of the parents' garage somewhere. Um still pretty good pretty good fit, um, although we diagnosed as Parkinson's, which um I sort of thought, well, it depends how that's gonna go. So we anyway, long story short, we decided to ride to Australia the two of us. We didn't have time, both got jobs and wives and children, so we decided we'd go for drive for two weeks, leave the back summer, go home, and a couple months later go back out and do another another leg and another leg like that. So it worked out quite well, apart from the fact that Liam um decided to give up in Athens as a third afternoon leg, so I ended up going in my own innoi. And again, it's so it was a great comparison to see with what was just your phone and your computer, how you could actually do all your business by not even being at home anymore. Whereas I remember phoning home in the 1979-80, and you would have to somewhere like Egypt, you'd have to book a phone call in the whole in the post office, and you'd five pounds five minutes to talk, which would cost probably the equivalent of about fifty dollars, you know. And that was the only contact my parents had with me for the next three months.

Jeanne 9:50

And you had to hope they'd be there.

Chris Donaldson 9:52

Yeah. So this trip, um, we literally could phone up every every day. I mean, it was basically a Star Trek type thought back on what we can do now. It was pretty amazing. Uh but one viewpoint I had about the whole journey this time was well, the first one was a coming-of-age story. This is like a coming of old age story because then I were headed for retirement. And so as I did a little research of that, I came up with Don Quixote. Don't know if you've read Davs about a an aged knight and his his friend come servant travelling around the world or shopping around Spain trying to pretend that things are like they used to be and that we're not getting old.

Jeanne 10:31

What's a sidekick, Poncho?

Chris Donaldson 10:33

It was interesting, I supposed, nice to know too, that uh I can actually do just about everything I did when I was twenty-one. Even though um getting a few old people's diseases, uh problems like Parkinson's bad back, knees, uh arthritis and that sort of thing. So um I mean we made me realise that most of my friends who are at the same age, an awful lot of people they come out of work, they go into retirement,

Coming of Old Age

Chris Donaldson 11:00

and that's pretty much the end of it. They're stuck working in the garden or uh reading a paper, watching daytime TV. I sort of think, well, it's not really what we wanted to work for 40 years for, is just the opportunity to sit around and do nothing and wait for the inevitable, you know. So I suppose one of the reasons I must say it was an old Dutch story. I wanted to sort of to give fellow pensioners, if you like, um a reason to get up and get on a motorbike and go and enjoy your life because you can enjoy enjoy your life just as well as you as you did when you were a teenager. It's a sort of mindset really as old people get. And I so can see where it comes from. They've done probably well enough of what they used to do, and they're just happy to sit in the background and watch the world go by. I think men especially have this issue. Women women are usually more communicative with the family, with outside people, so on. There's little men you just see just voicing away any old folks' homes, you know?

Jeanne 11:57

Well, I'm trying to look up on my phone. I remember um that movie with John Travolta and his sidekicks getting on a motorcycle and their uh later years. I can't remember the name of it now. Do you did you see that movie?

Chris Donaldson 12:13

I can't remember that one now. Was it before or after Grease?

Jeanne 12:17

Uh I'm gonna look it up here because it is hilarious. You should see it if you haven't seen it. It's called Wild Hogs.

Chris Donaldson 12:26

Wild Hogs, I haven't seen that. I'm a bit of a Travolta's fan finance, you must dig it up in Netflix, Wild Hog.

Jeanne 12:33

Wild Hogs, and it had um Tim Allen, the John Travolta, and um Martin Lawrence and oh William Macy. And they all rode motor motorcycles in their later years. And when you were describing that, I kind of the way you said it like um reminded me of that movie. So you might enjoy that. You did talk about everything, you know, being different now on your your next journey. So tell us a little bit about what happened. You did say about the phones, but if something went wrong, you couldn't look up an answer, you had to figure it out, or you had to trust a stranger. Did you think something important about adventure has been lost now that the world is so connected?

Chris Donaldson 13:16

Well, it's I mean, probably it is in a way it has. It's been more changes in the last 40 years than the couple hundred years before that. We were just we overturned that explorers used to go to Africa with their columns of donkeys carrying all this stuff, this stuff and so on. So traveling on your own is slightly different from that. But yeah, I think it's probably a little it's easier to travel now because there's so much more knowledge of what's going on. But it does sort of spoil the show away because you know what's gonna happen the next day.

Jeanne 13:49

Yeah.

Speaker 13:50

It sort of spoils it. But it's like supposed like going down for a meal in a new restaurant, whatever, you very often you would check out the reviews before you go, check out the menu and parking, whatever it is. So by the time you get there, you know what you're gonna eat, you know what's happening. You uh there's no no uh last minute. I mean if there's a last minute something or other, it's seen as a disaster, you know?

Jeanne 14:12

Hey, that's a good analogy. I never heard it compared to that, because you're right. You get the menu, you order, you figure out what you want to order before you get there. So there's nobody that says, Oh, this is really good, try it.

Chris Donaldson 14:23

Yeah. And um I think you for a number of things, I suppose, but one of them is that, and the other thing is that

Has Adventure Been Lost

Chris Donaldson 14:30

you enjoy things more if there's a uncertainty to it. It's like gabbling, whatever, you know, it's extreme. But I think if there's an uncertainty, humans are brought up if it lasts what I don't know, 10,000 years or whatever, there's always been an uncertainty to things until now. And that's I think it's built into our psyche that we quite enjoy that, and that's why we're we're quite good at it compared to other animals, I suppose. Like who knows what the dog thinks, but you know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. And there are things that you do that surprises, I mean, everybody loves a surprise, everybody loves some sort of uncertainty. But um if I had known what was sort what the uncertainty was in Africa in 1980 and South America in 81, I wouldn't have gone. Because it was just you drive across across every motorbike in the Sahara. It's more thought of about now that they parstack our race motorbikes than the cars are specially are built especially for that. Whereas I had a normal road bike, which was never supposed to go off road, was never supposed to leave the Italian autostrada, you know. But again, that sort of made the trip as well. Those of motorbikes and both trips, it's motorbikes are a great way to meet people because you turn into a town, you're recognizable by as being somebody different from the usual guys. So people will come over and chat to you about the bike, about the motorcycling if they like that or if they don't like it.

Jeanne 15:55

Oh, you mean women?

Chris Donaldson 15:57

Well, that was alright. The first trip, though, somebody around this trip.

Jeanne 16:02

Yeah, here comes a biker guy. Wow. Yeah, my dad was a preacher, so I I know that wouldn't have flown very great with him, but we were all about the wild guys.

Chris Donaldson 16:12

Yeah. And even places like Pakistan and Iran, you know, where you're you stand out from maybe not such a good way, but sort of lucky, I suppose, with both trips that have never met anybody. Well, a few dodgy people, but most people are wanting to help you with your journey. They want to be part of the journey and give you a good time and somewhere to stay, look after you, show off their country, I suppose. But it's a great way of meeting of meeting people, just I suppose also being on your own. You know, if you two people go into a bar or a restaurant on your own, you're gonna sit there and talk to each other, you're not gonna talk to anybody else in the room. If you're going on your own, you don't know anybody else, you've no choice but you have to talk to people because nobody's gonna pay any attention to you otherwise. So it's it's a good force to get you involved in this the town that you're traveling through, which is really what it's a lot of it's about is to learn what's happening around the world rather than as I say, the power-stock card just scooting around 100 miles an hour everywhere that you don't actually learn anything about the journey. Yeah, but traveling is a great way to educate the mind and open your mind to different different cultures and so on.

Jeanne 17:16

Yeah, you know, one of the themes uh you write about again and again in your book um or your story was the kindness of stranger.

Chris Donaldson 17:24

Probably again and again. You sound I think it sounds very boring.

Jeanne 17:28

Oh, I just said that you one theme you do write about again and again in your story or your book was the kindness of strangers, which you did tell a lot of stories about that particular topic you were just mentioning that people were really good to you. So people who had no reason to help you but did anyway, what did those moments teach you about human kindness and sacrifice?

Chris Donaldson 17:49

Well, still like there. I mean, sure there's our good so much for information uh on the news programs who like a bit of uh trouble to be thrown in any mix, and all the online Facebook and Instagram, all the different ways people communicate now. Whereas likes of Iran found them one of the most friendly groups of people who mean well a couple of times I had to go into uh petrol station to get obviously get petrol. But they had because of sanctions, they can't use visa or access cards, so they have their own credit card system, which I didn't have. So I asked the guy in front of me to fill up his car and then I would pay him cash for the petrol of my car. So we filled up my tank and basically refused to take any money. He said, You enjoy our country and uh have a good time, you know, which I said I've driven all around the world and nobody's this is the first time anybody's actually given me a tank for the petrol.

Jeanne 18:42

Oh my goodness, that was really nice, very nice. Well, they have good oil life here.

Chris Donaldson 18:48

Yeah, yeah. Well again, all those people you're made sort of in their forties or in their 30s, well, in their thirties and above. They have no reason to dislike the West because all the Islamic revolutions happened since 79, 80, so they weren't alive then, you know. So all they know is what's going on now. I guess unfortunately there's another war to get involved in now, so God knows what they'll think of that. But uh

The Kindness of Strangers

Chris Donaldson 19:16

the world's sort of a crazy place. Same people keep fighting that did 40 years ago, you know. Right.

Jeanne 19:23

Yeah, so I think I heard what you said, but I said you said over and over again, no, you didn't repeat it a million times, if that's what you were saying. No, I just it just was like a common thing that you everywhere you went, people were kind to you. And that's a nice thing to hear about across all the countries. And the way you're framing it, that you know, they don't have any reason to hate.

Chris Donaldson 19:44

No, it gives them topic conversation, and it's something that's uh we both understand, it's not something in common for blokes, as you say girls as well. So yeah, it's a great conversation starter, I suppose. And some of the people I met. Uh the nice thing about the second journey was that I um through the wonders of Facebook were able was able to contact a few of the people that I met 40 years ago. And being a bloke, we don't write Christmas cards, we never did. So you meet somebody, you get their number, you maybe lose it, maybe keep it, whatever, but you maybe usually you never see them again. But it was incredible seeing people that I haven't met for 40 years, haven't heard of for 40 years. It really was a matter of well, how what have you been doing with your life? You know, because in your 20s you're starting your working life and in the 60s you're finishing it, so uh it was a great privilege to meet people and to communicate that from the I think they sort of some people think you're a bit of a psychiatrist or psychologist. Something that people would tell somebody would tell me things that they wouldn't tell people they live down the road, you know, because they know I'm gonna head off the next day and they'll never see me again, so we can bounce things off. They sort of noticed that a couple of times.

Jeanne 20:56

But it could have felt like you were an old friend that they just really wanted to share with because you knew them at a time and that was special to them, and then here you are again, and it feels like a reunion of sorts.

Chris Donaldson 21:10

That is amazing with Facebook um being a worldwide organization that you find people you haven't seen for years, everybody's on. I'm not saying it's a great thing, but it's just something to be a good thing that uh we're able to use to track people down.

Jeanne 21:27

Stalk people. Yeah, yeah. I I agree with you. It's a good thing in some ways.

Chris Donaldson 21:31

It's just an an obsession sometimes, I guess, with people, but well in Iran they call it whereas the devil, the devil incarnate is online Facebook type thing. And they're maybe not that wrong, you know, because we see what it does to kids. I don't know what the states we say Australia's just bound kids under sixteen from using it.

Jeanne 21:49

Oh really?

Chris Donaldson 21:50

Yeah.

Jeanne 21:51

Who you said? Australia?

Chris Donaldson 21:53

Australia, yeah. I've heard a couple of other countries looking at uh restricting the amount of kids time kids people. spend on because I mean even traveling we're traveling th through Africa and at the end of the night people would always sit down and have a beer sit around the fire and tell stories about what they've been doing what to expect to do. Whereas nowadays kids just sit sit around the fire, get their phones out and start sending pictures and messages to people that they really don't know and they really don't care about. So it's unless it's managed properly it is a waste of time, waste of your your life.

Jeanne 22:28

Yeah, it is definitely a time hog. I I think we didn't let our kids have these smartphones for the longest time. We held out forever until the schools started making this because they're like oh they need to take pictures of their homework um because we're running out of books and so they had to take a snapshot of their homework and then do the write the answers on a piece of paper and bring it back. I'm like they don't even deserve to have this phone because they're got bad grades.

Chris Donaldson 22:57

Yeah yeah so you see babies with them now you know babies put the baby in the problem with an eye on an iPod and doing some game you know which is really just training them to start screens all their lives.

Jeanne 23:10

Yeah that's true because uh I see them in restaurants a lot when uh babies get in the high chair and here comes the cartoon whatever iPad or kid iPad or whatever crazy gravel with that good enough to listen to them screaming yeah that's what they do it for it's a pacifier but um yeah it's um it's so strange because when you see that and then you think boy I feel really old because I feel like I'm such a prude because I'm thinking why are you doing that? Get them away from that. Yeah let them look around the restaurant and see people let them see who's sitting with them you know smile at them.

Chris Donaldson 23:49

Yeah every day is what you're gonna get you know there's nothing really prized into the rainbow it's uh gotta enjoy every day as it comes which is easier to say when you're I'm 67 now so on the other side of work. But yeah kids starting off you better

Phones, Kids & Screens

Chris Donaldson 24:06

get out and do it. And older people as well you see them you use it yourself far too long because the uh the machine sending you things it knows what to send you because you it knows what you're interested in.

Jeanne 24:18

So it listens to you. How many times have you said something and then you start getting ads for what you said.

Speaker 24:24

Totally on your smartphone your Alexa's doing the same your TV could be doing the same there's so many there's so much around in our lives now we take it as granted whereas if somebody said you 20 years ago you're gonna be have somebody listening into everything goes on in your house and you're on your bulk person, you wouldn't have believed them but that's the stage stage you're at.

Chris Donaldson 24:45

Yeah I mean that is where we are because I told my husband last night I mean I have a sinus headache because the weather just can't regulate around here or something. And so my ads today were popping up for Allegra and all the different pills for sinus headaches and stuff. I was like oh my gosh just leave me alone.

Speaker 25:07

Yeah no they know everything they know more about you than you do.

Jeanne 25:11

Yeah they do actually and then now I talk to chat GPT and other AIs and that's getting to know me. Uh I did click the button off that it can't use what I say to teach another AI so I don't know maybe that's not even true either.

Chris Donaldson 25:25

No I find myself talking on a computer and saying please and thank you at the end of it when you really think over it's like please the computer folks like you know crazy but this is so it's so uh lifeline the responses you get it sucks you in.

Jeanne 25:40

Yeah but the the but manners are I mean okay so this is like another topic but manners were taught to us when we were younger you know you do say please thank you um can I request I mean that's probably why you had so much luck when you were going around you weren't assuming that everybody was there for you but now it's a little different attitude and people don't say thank you or please or ask you to do anything. And so you and I probably are just saying the computer what we would say to a person because it's acting as a person to us.

Chris Donaldson 26:15

Yeah. There was a movie you wrote so recently I can't remember the name of it but it was what the world I the internet went down how people are going to have to cope which of course they couldn't. I mean whenever I was in the twenties whatever before GPS you could drive through you I was driving through cities in America and South America huge cities you you'd nothing to guide you to where you wanted to go a map was practically useless so you're having to stop and ask people look at the map and figure it out eventually you sort of think yeah it should be in that way the maps leading to put in that way. So you'd sort of finally get there. And yeah I think by that you'd build up a um sense of direction which is nothing other than a sense a sense not based on anything much but your memory whereas kids now they've never had to find their way around anywhere. You just punch it into your phone your phone or your computer and off you go. So if that ever goes down you're not gonna know what to do have to start talking to each other as well.

Jeanne 27:15

That's true. Is that how you got lost going to Australia? So you somebody said oh you go this way and this way and then there you go on another trail. Yeah. I'm just joking. But you know what was the did we talk about the reason why you ended up wanting to go to Australia and then ended up somewhere else?

Chris Donaldson 27:36

We did just think I started I meandered off with something else. Uh yeah so I suppose it was a bit of a challenge the second time first time I didn't know where I was going went down Africa to say we got through arrived notes South Africa in a bit of apartheid. It was lucky we got it so it's a lot of luck I had different parts of the trip and a little bit of bad luck. I do think you you make your own luck you know if you're positive if you've if your glass is half full if you act as if you're always signaling disasters to happen I think you will get lucky I think luck bad luck comes to people who very often have been negative and uh brought those negative vibes towards themselves, you know?

Jeanne 28:18

Well you had a phrase that I uh love adventure before dementia. It's funny but there's also something very honest about it. So what does that phrase really say about the way people should approach life as they get older?

Chris Donaldson 28:31

I think they forget what they're doing. I mean we we all know of in fitness if you don't use your your arms and your legs you lose the ability to to use them. And I think that works with your brain as well if you don't you know you could one day with people who get retired one day they could be running a multi-million pound company and the next thing they're looking after the lawnmower which is a huge change of direction probably the biggest change of direction they've ever had don't know what to do with themselves um sitting around watching daytime TV is the the height of it so it's it was nice to be able to show as I say that something like a sixty odd year old could do and probably do it better in a lot of ways than a 21 more energy there and more poor girls say a bit more energy or interest in what was happening around me. I think a lot of people older people they lose interest in people and things happening. They sort of withdraw into themselves and they feel well only one way to go now I'm gonna slip your stuff down the down to a coffin you know so I suppose I wanted to sort of show people that it doesn't have to be like that. You can actually do whatever you like. Very often things that you were you were good at when you were young. And there's a huge explosion of um older people buying motorbikes. I suppose they're trying to live relive their youth to a certain extent but it also keeps your mind active and it keeps you fit, gets you out of the house. I even find with my Parkinson's um after we've been riding all day the symptoms are much reduced and I think because all the time you're using your brain you're using your brain skin messages to your arms, to your legs, change gear, get faster, slower, find that guy over there. I think using your brain once you stop using it, you do lose the ability to think properly.

Jeanne 30:20

I agree with that because you have to keep your mind fresh if you're not learning anything then you just stay like what is it called in a psych like a bubble or something and replaying what you do know and I don't know you don't get go anywhere. You just sit in stale thoughts. So your book is titled Going the wrong way but sometimes what looks like the wrong path to everyone else ends up being the most meaningful road we ever take. So looking back now was it ever really the wrong way or just simply your way?

Chris Donaldson 30:54

It wasn't the wrong way at all well once I realized that it I was traveling in no particular direction which is a very unusual again state of mind because every time 99.99% of the time you get in the car or on a bike you're going somewhere. Whereas I was actually spending a year and a half not going anywhere in particular. I got down to Cape Town I could have turned left trying to get a boat to Australia. Turned right as actually did work for me to get to North America. So

Adventure Before Dementia

Chris Donaldson 31:23

you keep an open mind certainly made the trip for me, you know and comparing it to the new actually finally getting to Australia on the bike. The good thing is there's much the same experiences and benefits I think to both ages me as a young guy and me as an older guy. The younger guy was a bit dumb but he was fit enough the older guy is more smart. And I just take it easy when you you just take it easy when you have to but definitely I think keeping active buying a motorbike it doesn't have to be a motorbike could be something you use some energy on or take up a sport whatever it will keep your body fitter and keeps your brain in ocean as well.

Jeanne 31:59

Around here it's pickleball but that's not my thing. Pickleball's going mad here as well where did that all start from I can't believe it I don't know it sounds so ridiculous pickleball.

Chris Donaldson 32:09

I don't know tennis sounded more tennis for old people really in it another one paddleboard is the elder seems to be taken off us here as well though we've never I haven't tried it yet.

Jeanne 32:21

But yeah pickleball's good fun I only like stuff that's not really as for like paddle boats on the lake canoe not anything like pickleball but um you know this you're a really fun guy and to learn all this stuff I really want to thank you for coming on but I want to transition now to our game which is Two Truths and a lie where we go in and talk about more in depth of some of your stories or maybe we've already covered a lot of it are you ready to go play the game? Yeah one I'm gonna go. Okay so for people listening here's how it works. Chris has provided me with three headlines of his life two are true and then one is a twisted story or lie or just an exaggeration. I don't know which one but I'll guess I'm gonna read off the headlines then I'm gonna guess which one I think is the lie and then Chris is going to walk us through each of them. He won't tell us the lie until the very end and then he'll reveal and I'll see if I got it right. So play along with us and here are the stories. This episode is sponsored by Rebel 180 the home of brave pivots and fresh starts Rebel 180 is all about helping you rediscover what's possible when you stop settling and start listening to that little tug inside that says life can be different. Whether you're navigating a career shift dreaming about a new direction or standing at the crossroads wondering if it's time for your own 180 degree turn, Rebel 180 is a reminder you don't need permission to change your story. And now as we open the door to our second sponsor we're stepping into the world of tech simple socket print the lightweight lazy fast label print solution designed for those who need reliability without the blue with version 1.5

Was It Ever the Wrong Way

Jeanne 34:10

you get instant printing in milliseconds fully maintaining print sequence and automatic base64 decoding all without needing print driver installed if you're running SQL Server 2016 or newer SimpleSocket print 1.5 drops right in and gets to work. Keep your workflow simple keep your label printing fast with Simple Socket print thank you to our sponsors number one Chris once rode a road motorcycle across the Sahara Desert one of the harshest environments on earth number two Chris once rode a tiny scooter all the way to Antarctic reaching the edge of the frozen continent. And number three Chris once rode across a ran on a his motorcycle without ever having a visa so if I was gonna guess gee whiz. One I think you got it covered a little bit we already talked about it but you can tell me if anything stretched there but uh two or three wow two sounds like a lot to me but I don't know. So you tell us the stories go with number one first.

Chris Donaldson 35:22

Well number one a um my motorbike that I have is a I still have is a uh Motor Guzzi Le Mans which is an Italian it's the Ferrari of cars if you like made for going faster motorways. So it's a complete wrong place to take it would have been across the desert. I think it took me f uh over a week to ride 500 miles. So you can see that was pretty hard going. Number two very few people have been to all the condiments because obviously Antarctica is a continent. So last couple of years I've been to six those six nine ones. So always there's I think there's one girl that's rode a motorbike on all seven continents. But the heart getting to Antarctica was pretty

Two Truths & A Lie

Chris Donaldson 36:07

much impossible for most people. But you did it I did it and yeah number three was uh riding to Iran was always a boogeyman in the trip and the heart would use the hardest thing to get through and in fact if if I have a habit of arresting motorcyclists and trump putting Trump up charges with them just to get some food some uh attention from the companies from the countries um but yeah road past the uh road past the American embassy in Tehran which they now call the US Center of espionage number three so what do you think?

Jeanne 36:45

So where is the Sahara Desert in uh Africa?

Chris Donaldson 36:48

Yeah it's goes around across you know where the Mediterranean is goes across the country across the world the Africa the Sahara is basically goes east to west so they're right across Africa I suppose and thousand miles deep so it's it's the biggest desert in the world.

Jeanne 37:05

Okay. And the tiny scooter what kind of tiny scooter would be tiny scooter.

Chris Donaldson 37:11

I mean there's an awful fashion with cars on bikes these days is everything has to be big you if you ever see a an old mini British mini car compared to the new ones it's the same style but they're just huge the new ones are huge. Sometimes it's better to be on a small bike than a big bike and you see the BMWs in it. Oh I was thinking of like a moped yeah there's nothing to be said for it everybody takes it buys a Harley Davidson BMW 1600cc and for life I have no idea why because you can't pick it up if you drop it it doesn't go any faster to Harley and it's Harley. Chelsea being a very posh part of London but everybody drives Band Rovers and Range Rovers and they're never going to see it.

Jeanne 38:04

Oh wow yeah that's true that's very true because everybody around here that buys Range Rovers uh they're not taking it out on the beach and doing anything but uh yeah Harleys come on don't knock Harleys just the sound of the engine is just what is crazy nuts sounds great.

Chris Donaldson 38:23

And they they are beautiful thing Harley's but Italian bikes and Harley Davidson's are complete opposite opposite in a little ways you know yeah what what is you what is yours are you sitting back in your Italian bikes uh or you sit in your motor goose no you would be sitting forward more and more of a racing sort of okay you can't go without a visa so I don't know I guess two so which is the lie well it is two it's a an ambition I would like to get some time to take a right across or ride a bit on the Antarctic on a motorbike but whether that'll ever happen. I'm driving across desert across Iran with no visas probably just a stupid what happened is we went to the border post and I went to the border post and got my passport stamped to the left but they wouldn't let me take the bike for some reason the paperwork didn't line up so I had to go to another headquarters um customs post about 600 miles away which meant me driving through half of Iran and my passport had been cancelled you can see the visa had been cancelled but they couldn't reissue it of the border so I was pretty terrified that I'd actually given him excuse an excuse to arrest me, you know Whoa, so and you got through how'd you get out? Um I met a guy I was gonna say in a bar in a restaurant I was a doctor and he's he says he knew he said he knew some uh customs engine officers and the place I was going to and the usual if you need a helm give me a call which I wasn't able to do because my SIM card was hardly worked very well wouldn't work very well. But when I got to the border post he had actually contacted him and asked him to keep an eye out for me.

Jeanne 40:02

So I got out of Iran and I never found out whether I got out with his help or not, you know and it was quite nice to think that he he definitely made an effort he contacted this guy to smooth those greasy new wheels or whatever you call but um I mean Ira a lot of countries still a paper-based system so you gotta you stop on your passport if you haven't got a stamp on the visa you illegal at least you know yeah that sounds very scary knowing I'm ran now wow well that sounds fun so thanks for sharing these stories with us so I know people are gonna want to get in touch with you and try to get and to read your book so I've provided um I'm gonna s show people how they can get in touch with you. You had a great quote Chris home is where the bike is you want to talk about that?

Chris Donaldson 40:59

Well I think um I got to Cape Town in 1980 and with the part I was very much split off from the rest of the world very few flights in and out very few ways to get out of it and I realized it was as far as I could go away from home but because I still have my bike it was giving me a little security blanket but something to remind me that what I'm at and who I am and what I'm doing sort of thing. So I'd realized I knew where the bike and it's been a look back through my life it's been a few years of having been riding bikes but um has been a powerful part of my life.

Jeanne 41:35

Well home is where the bike is is a nice saying because that's what you love so it needs to be near you well I wanted to ask one more thing is so people to call to action from you is to um look at your website and then follow your journey or read the book uh going the wrong way and you can find everything on um Chris's site but I the one thing I didn't ask you is who bankrolled this thing?

Chris Donaldson 42:03

Well did you mean the traveling?

Jeanne 42:05

Yeah how'd you have all that money? Did you save it before you left the first time or did you...

Chris Donaldson 42:09

Save it before we went um I think the first time I went was I had about a thousand quid saved up which was probably the same as about five thousand nowadays. But I only left I reckon it would take me three months to get to Australia and then I was going to sell the bike there and get some money out of that. But I was what actually happened was it was travelling for nearly a year and a half so the hardest thing of that journey at all was always the lack of money and look back on. You know I didn't could stay in hotel very often because no money to pay for that but the bike had to get all the money because without petrol and oil and whatever is it wasn't going to get anywhere. But um money it doesn't make you happy but it certainly helps.

Jeanne 42:52

Did you have a lot of repairs on the bike along the way?

Chris Donaldson 42:56

I did have quite a few um but part of the having a mo nice Motor Guzzi which is quite a small so not very well known name but if you meet somebody else who has a Guzzi there's a sort of an immediate bond which is a bit weird sometimes I thought but um no people help me Australia and California and Athens anywhere you went there's Motor Guzzis, the guys would take you to the workshop fix the new broken bits and get you back on the road again is to say it's all part of I think it's made them part of the journey then you know yeah yeah well that's amazing you took it about five thousand dollars a year and a half a bike did you sleep on the side of the roads too I'm not telling your whole book I got a I got a pretty ultimate yeah well this has been so

Home Is Where the Bike Is

Chris Donaldson 43:44

much fun so I just I hope people will get in touch with you.

Jeanne 43:47

If anything that Chris has said on the show resonates with you I hope you reach out to him because I think this is an exciting journey that he's taken originally and trying it again the second time and still continuing to work to keep his mind fresh as he is moving up in the years as we all should be doing. And so for those listening I hope you tune in next week for another episode with a great guest. This is your Admiral of the unexpected Jeanne Andersen and I wish you all smooth sailing thanks for joining me on Project Candor where the doors are open the stories are unexpected and the treasure is always real. If today's episode made you laugh or think, follow the show and share it with your crew. Otherwise I might just make you swab the deck. I'm Jeanne Andersen your Admiral of the unexpected see you on the next voyage