July 2020 - Chris Donaldson from Ireland write to Wide Magazine: “Please see a magazine friendly version of the first part of my book ‘Going the Wrong Way’. I’m working on Part 2 now, which includes, North Central and South America. Here is a quick before and after shot of me and the same bike now, and then! In the first photo (below the title, on left) I’m 22 and holding a Guatemalan Panga. In the second one (on right) I'm 62 and holding my book! Finally, I’m proud to say that Going the Wrong Way has reached No 1 Best Seller in Amazon Motor and Sport! Thanks to all readers!”.
Congratulations Chris!
Here the book on Amazon:
wide.piaggiogroup.com/en/articles/accessories/vespa-racing-sixties-2020-capsule-collection-of-lifestyle-accessories-and-apparel
READ THE PREVIOUS ARTICLE:
wide.piaggiogroup.com/en/articles/travels/astride-his-moto-guzzi-le-mans
READ HERE AN EXTRACT FROM “GOING THE WRONG WAY” BY CHRIS DONALDSON, EXCLUSIVELY FOR WIDE MAGAZINE.
Going the Wrong Way by Chris Donaldson. Summarized press version.
“Since the Stone Age, the walkabout has been an Aboriginal rite of passage. It is when adolescent boys wander aimlessly into the bush on a journey with no particular destination. During this time, they make the spiritual transition from boy to man. It’s a time for self-assessment and deep thought when he can learn about himself without the influence of his elders, friends, or family. It’s a physical and psychological journey.
I didn’t look like an Aboriginal adolescent as I set off from Belfast on my café racing Moto Guzzi, but looking back, I see that the same determination drove me to set off on a journey of self-discovery. I was twenty-one and, wanted to go ‘somewhere’ for ‘some time’ and, well, for ‘something’!
Australian society now views the walkabout with disdain; it encourages kids to avoid risks, to go with the flow and to accept authority. The journeys we take in our modern lives are usually for pleasure. Young people may spend six months volunteering or on a foreign eco holiday, but even these kinds of trips are pre-planned and have been through rigorous health and safety checks.
Should young people, both male and female, learn about themselves on a walkabout now? We talk of “Millennials” and “Snowflakes,” young, over-emotional and easily offended adults who are uninterested in anyone else’s opinion. Over- educated, overworked and overwhelmed, they are on an organized path from cradle to grave.
This desire drove me to break free from my mediocre, middle-class existence and reach out for the unknown. The demand was irresistible and bound me to an ancient ritual that many young men before me had taken for adventure. Since the Stone Age, the walkabout has been an Aboriginal rite of passage. It is when adolescent boys wander aimlessly into the bush on a journey with no particular destination. During this time, they make the spiritual transition from boy to man. It’s a time for self-assessment and deep thought when he can learn about himself without the influence of his elders, friends, or family. It’s a physical and psychological journey.
Australian society now views the walkabout with disdain; it encourages kids to avoid risks, to go with the flow and to accept authority. The journeys we take in our modern lives are usually for pleasure. Young people may spend six months volunteering or on a foreign eco holiday, but even these kinds of trips are pre-planned and have been through rigorous health and safety checks.
Should young people, both male and female, learn about themselves on a walkabout now? We talk of “Millennials” and “Snowflakes,” young, over-emotional and easily offended adults who are uninterested in anyone else’s opinion. Over- educated, overworked and overwhelmed, they are on an organized path from cradle to grave.
I didn’t look like an Aboriginal adolescent as I set off from Belfast on my café racing Moto Guzzi, but looking back, I see that the same determination drove me to set off on a journey of self-discovery. I was twenty-one and, wanted to go ‘somewhere’ for ‘some time’ and, well, for ‘something’!
When I was 16, I read in the Motorcycle News about a bloke who had driven his motorbike to Australia. It lit a fire in my imagination and I bought my first motorbike for twenty quid; it was a BSA Bantam. Not quite Jack Nicholson’s Harley-Davidson, but to a spotty teenage git, it was the next best thing; and the full-face helmet hid my acne!
No doubt, the Ulster ‘Troubles’ added to my eagerness to get away, helped by my geography teacher, Sleepy Sam, who assured me that the world was round, full of strange exotic lands and different cultures, and where, for some reason, they didn’t care if you were a Protestant or Catholic.
But my Bantam wasn’t going around the world, as it stopped every time it rained, so it had to go. I bought a BSA 250, but it broke down at every traffic light, so it had to go too.
My next bike was a 600cc BMW, which was boring, so I tried to sell it. But it had 100,000 miles on the clock, so I connected a drill to the speedo to wind the clock back. Two days later, a guy on a Honda flagged me down.
“I used to own that bike,” he said, glancing at the milometer. “Only 60,000 miles? That’s less than when I sold it!”
“OK, I wound the clock back,” I admitted.
“Don’t worry, I wound it back from 150,000 miles myself!”
Then I saw the red Moto Guzzi Le Mans in a shop window; it was love at first sight; one test-drive and I was hooked. The Guzzi had a big V twin. It throbbed like a heartbeat, like life itself. I had to have it.
But my dream was to ride to Australia, continue to America, and back home and circumnavigate the world. Did I want to meet new people, learn about different religions, and interesting cultures? Nope. I just wanted to get the Hell out of Belfast.
My maps promised me tarmac roads all the way to India. Burma was closed, so I would board a ship from India to Singapore, then to Indonesia and on to Oz. But with the oceans and politics, the concept of riding around the world was more an illusion.
I tried to sell my soul and buy a BMW, but the Moto Guzzi didn’t sell, so I converted it into a touring machine. Off came the sports fairing and low-slung clip-on handlebars. On went a touring screen, comfortable high handlebars, top box and panniers, adjustable rear air suspension, air filters, and a cassette tape music system with speakers on the tank bag. I felt terrible–it was like hitching a caravan on to a Ferrari.
My first stop was London and by the time I got my Iranian visa, it was the 4th of November 1979.
Then TV that evening, a bloke with a big bushy beard shouted, “Death to America.
The American Embassy had been overrun and the entire staff taken hostage. Ayatollah Khomeini had started an Islamic Revolution. The Shah of Iran had been overthrown. “Death to Western Imperialists!” chanted the students. I knew Irish motorcyclists were probably in that category. I bought a map of Africa, with a dotted line across the desert, inscribed “road”. It looked like my best choice: drive south to the Kenyan coast, hang a left, ship over to India and ride to Australia as planned. Easy.
After a small fracas with a blizzard in Austria I made it to Greece, but missed the last boat to Egypt, and took the one to Israel instead. I met up with a Scottish guy on a Suzuki and we tried unsuccessfully to get out, I was left with no choice but to take a boat to Cyprus then Syria then drive down to the Red Sea for another ferry to Egypt.
Syria was little better than it is now, and full of scary looking men with machine guns. By dusk, I reached Damascus, and I watched the sunset over the oldest inhabited city in the world. I had wanted to spend time here, but fear took precedence over curiosity, and I kept going.
The road climbed and deteriorated again as I approached the Jordanian border. The rain froze on my visor, my fingers were numb and I was nearly out of petrol.
The border post was deserted, so I drove straight through. The road deteriorated into a dirt track, and there were no streetlights or buildings; it was pitch black, and desolate; I was in no-man’s-land.
Through the drizzle and mist, my headlight beam suddenly lit on two soldiers standing in the middle of the road wearing balaclavas and old-fashioned WW1 greatcoats. They were armed with sub-machine guns, of course.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! I slammed on the anchors to skid to a halt just in front of them, but they didn’t flinch. Unshaven and gaunt, the taller one shouted at me then prodded me in the chest with his gun. I produced my passport and all the other papers I had.
He kept shouting and poking, but finally, I’d had enough machine guns for one day!
“So, what the fuck do you want?” I shouted back!
After a moment’s silence, they burst out laughing and whacked each other on the back! I stood mesmerized, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, while the Guzzi burbled between my legs, trying to calm my nerves with its steady beat.
“I am sorry for my friend,” the short one said, “He likes to make a joke with you!”
“Ha bloody ha,” I said, too sarcastic for my good.
“Most people bloody scared at his joke; you bloody brave,” he laughed again.
“No, I bloody scared too.”
“You go now, you bloody good sport,” he said grinning, “We hope you have enjoyed our country.”
“It’s been a blast,” I replied, and drove off.
“You guys are twisted,” I shouted back when I was well out of hearing or range. It would be a while before I saw any funny side.
I camped by the pyramids for a week, then headed south along the Nile. The road stopped at Aswan, and I took a ramshackle boat to Wadi Halfa, where I intended boarding the train to Khartoum. However, the boat was late, and the train left early, so on the spur of the moment I joined a convoy crossing the desert We could follow the Nile as it made a large U bend to the west, or go the more direct route with the railway line. On my Michelin map, a dirt road followed the railway.
The Land Rover was desert-equipped, but two VW Campervans, a Moto Guzzi Le Mans, and the 1200cc Datsun Cherry were completely out of place!
I knew a motocross scrambler with off-road tyres, with a lightweight engine, a high clearance sump guard, and a long suspension would suit the desert. The factory designed my Guzzi with the exact opposite characteristics. With a heavy, low-slung engine, slim road tyres, and a short firm suspension.
What the hell was I thinking?!
The entire town came out to give us a raucous send-off, with lots of waving and high-pitched cheers. We drove past two random pyramids, then the track disappeared in a melee of tyre ruts that crisscrossed in the sand. We all stopped.
An old guy on a camel walked towards us.
“Where is the road to Khartoum?” I asked.
He waved his hand at the desert with a... ’Can’t you see
it, arsehole?’ look on his face.
The trouble was that in Sudan, the word ‘Road’ is merely
the general direction you should go; it makes no premise of any prepared track on which you may travel!
“Let’s go for it,” shouted Charlie in the Land Rover, and with a great roar of assorted engines, we drove away. The Guzzi skidded and fishtailed across the sand. I dabbed the ground with my feet to stop me falling. Then, even the ruts disappeared, as the desert wind filled in the tracks. We were lost. Well, not exactly; we could still see the town 200 yards behind us, our fans still waving, but we struggled on, too mortified to go back.
A few miles later, we all got stuck, apart from the Land Rover. The Guzzi sunk up to the engine sump, the front wheel buried to the axle and the rear wheel spinning.
As we set up camp, I knew the smart money was on going back and waiting for the train; we had all failed the first test miserably.
None of us had done any off-road driving apart from the English lads, who spent a wet afternoon in a muddy English field.
We were a motley crew of five vehicles, five nationalities, and all very different people, but all equally despondent as we set up our tents.
“Lambs to the slaughter,” I thought to myself.
As the sun sank behind the dunes, no-one spoke; they only worried about the desert ahead.
A canopy of millions of stars shone in the crystal-clear desert air, with not a speck of dust to spoil our view. The silver moon rose, as bright as day, but in black and white and grey. The silence was deafening, not a bird chirping or an insect buzzing. It’s hard to find somewhere, where there is absolutely nothing. Perfect silence. I had never experienced this.
I popped two painkillers; my back was still aching after injuring it on the boat when it hit the island.
“Did anyone let their tyres down?” Charlie asked. “You need to let your tyres down to 15 PSI to drive in sand.”
The most basic lesson in desert driving, but I didn’t know!
“What difference does that make?”
“It increases the contact area, and stops the wheel sinking.”
“Ok, I’ll see if it helps tomorrow.”
I’d decided I would drive 500 miles across the Sahara Desert on an Italian café racer; I was 21 years old and thought I was invincible.
I’d had no thought of what I would do if I broke my leg or smashed the bike, with no motorcycle or medical insurance, and miles from any medical facilities.
But immature men use their balls as brains, for risk and adventure. Generals knew this when they ordered them ‘over the top’ and into near-certain death. Pride and honour drove Kamikaze pilots to eternity. And suicide bombers believe they will go to heaven with 72 virgins. But ask a middle-aged man to do that, and he will refuse. He knows that one virgin is of little use when your cock lands a hundred yards away from your testicles.
I made it to Khartoum, then caught a train to Wau, in the jungle. I then had 600 miles to drive over dirt roads to the next petrol station.
7th February 1980
I tied the two 5-gallon drums on the pillion, along with 3 gallons of water. But with a full tank and all my gear, when I pushed the bike off the centre stand, the suspension compressed to the stops.
Jesus Christ, I thought, I can hardly hold the bike up, let alone ride it! The smooth tarmac on the Italian bridge was like the heaven before the hell on the other side. There was a five-foot drop at the end where the dirt track had eroded away. At the police checkpoint, the cops helped me down the slope, and I signed myself out of this dubious version of civilisation.
“Do you check with the other posts to make sure I don’t get lost?” I asked the sergeant.
“Yes,” he said, “at the start of every month we check the books!”
“That’s reassuring, I have to survive three weeks in the jungle before you come looking!” I said, my sarcasm lost.
This was it; six hundred miles to the next petrol station. I rode off, wobbling like a newborn puppy.
The road was worse than my wildest nightmare, and they had been really wild. The potholes were like bomb craters, all joined up in a continuous line that made up the road.
“Fuck, Fuck, Fuck!” I thought, as no other adjective completely covered the situation. “What madness is this?!”
I disappeared from one crater into another, the bike’s suspension bottoming out, and the rear tyre crunching on the mudguard at every hump. By the end of the first hour, I had covered five miles. I had to stop to rest my aching arms every fifteen minutes. It was hard physical work hauling on the handlebars to stay upright. I hadn’t got out of 1st gear yet and could have walked faster. My petrol would never last at this rate.
After another five miles, my back tyre burst. I had a repair kit, so it wasn’t a big deal, but I had lost my pump somewhere along the way. The local trucks had a compressor, but the police log showed two vehicles passed a day and two trucks had passed already.
It was getting dark, and I didn’t relish a night in the jungle. All I had to defend myself from wild animals was a knife and fork. I decided to buy a spear or bow and arrow at the next Sudanese Argos.
Out of the dusk, an old guy of about seventy suddenly appeared on a bicycle. I was embarrassed at being scared on my own. Anyway, I could always steal his bike and cycle off at first sight of a carnivore.
He smiled with his yellow and black teeth and told me to wait, and 10 minutes later a pickup truck appeared with a load of guys in the back.
The driver insisted on fixing the puncture and pumped up the tyre.
“I will follow to make sure it’s okay,” he said and sure enough, after another couple miles, the tyre blew again as my last inner tube gave up. He fixed it again, and this time it held.
I pulled into the first village, Tonj, after travelling a whole fifteen miles, and set my tent up beside the police checkpoint. The village was a cluster of mud and straw huts and didn’t have much to offer, but the cops were friendly and shared their beans before I crawled exhausted and depressed into my tent. The day had been a disaster.
Sleep would be a welcome escape from this nightmare.
The track was now smooth hard clay, dried hard in waves after the rains, and coming out of one huge hole, the bike slid sideways down another. I couldn’t hold it upright and slipped to the bottom of a ditch, then the bike fell over on me, with the exhaust landing right on the burn on my ankle again. I screamed in agony!
Then petrol poured out of the plastic cans and hissed on the hot exhaust. Panicking, I ripped the containers free and heaved it upright before it exploded.
The sweat dripped off me, as I swore at the continent of Africa in general. I sat down to catch my breath then heard a noise in the jungle behind me. Shit!
I looked around slowly.
Eight African hunters were standing watching me silently from the bushes. They were armed with the best bows and arrows that money couldn’t buy. They were black as night, and their biceps bulged between ivory arm bangles. After the fat Arabs and starving Africans in Wau, these guys looked like Olympic athletes, but much more frightening than Tom Daley and his speedos.
They just stood and stared at me. The silence was deafening.
I didn’t know what to say, so I waved. It was supposed to be a macho, sort of ‘All right, mate’ wave. But it came out as one of those ‘girly, waggle the fingers ones! Embarrassing!
They gave me that, ‘it’s a spaceman’ expression, which was fair enough. I mean, a big red motorcycle falls into the hole, a white guy jumps up screaming, throws all his stuff off, then lies down in the middle of the road. Just what you expect to see on your morning monkey hunt!
I ducked through the civil war in Kenya, had a bath in Kenya, then crossed into Tanzania and Zambia. Rhodesia was transitioning into Zimbabwe and was in a state of turmoil. I would have to travel in armed convoy. The convoy vehicles assembled at the edge of town with armoured pickup trucks placed at the front, middle and back. They had a heavy machine gun mounted in a turret on the back. It had armour plates welded on the sides and they looked like they expected trouble.
The tarmac roads in Rhodesia were pothole-free. It would be shock-absorber heaven. I looked forward to the drive to the curiously named town of Wankie. (The new government would sensibly rename it Hwange.)
I started at the front of the convoy, but soon they were driving at 70 mph, which was too fast on my wobbly wheels, and the cars began passing me. Before long, I was at the back and the last tail gunner pulled alongside, the driver gesturing me to hurry.
I shook my head, pointing at the bike, shouting I couldn’t go any faster. He smiled and ran his hand across his throat, as if with a knife, and sped off. I got the drift: fall back at your peril.
My dilemma was that if I went faster, I would crash, but if I got left behind, I was at the mercy of the terrorists. I watched the taillights disappear into the twilight. Like the old buffalo that can’t keep up with the herd, he falls behind to be picked off by the lions.
Soon it was dark, and a breeze blew on the long grass verge, making it sway like machine gun barrels were moving it aside. What would I do if there was a roadblock? Do I stop, or blast through in a hail of gunfire? I had heard gruesome tales of torture by rebels; it had been a very dirty war.
I turned my lights off so the bad guys wouldn’t see me, but nearly drove off the road! Fuck it! If anyone tries to stop me, I’ll blast through, I decided. I would rather be shot in the back than get my balls stuffed down my throat.
I had never felt so alone!
I was so late arriving; the army camp Commander stood waiting at the gates. He thought I had been ambushed. I parked up beside their homemade ‘Leopard’ armoured cars.
I made it to South Africa then south towards Cape Town. I drove through the wine lands, over more mountains. Then there it was, Table Mountain, covered with a thin layer of mist, like a tablecloth. I had trundled into Johannesburg on a donkey, but now was flying into Cape Town on a winged stallion with my new fangled circular wheels, and fresh tyres. This was the moment I had fantasized about.
My euphoria rose as the smooth tarmac led me through the suburbs and into the city. I breathed the salt air from the ocean now. I was overjoyed, and then there it was, the South Atlantic!
At 5 pm on the 23rd of March, after five months, 15,517 miles, and eighteen countries, I parked on the promenade at Green Point. Behind me lay a microscopic tyre tread, which led all the way back to Belfast. There was no welcoming committee, no brass band, just the mountain glowing in the evening sun and Atlantic surf breaking on the rocks below. I expected to be jubilant, to punch the air and drink Champagne, but suddenly, I was as empty as a Sudanese petrol tank. I abruptly realised I was at another dead end. Dejected, I sat back on the bike with my boots on the handlebars and stared at the rollers, with no idea what to do now, apart from play my harmonica.
I still had a Moto Guzzi and $340 in my pocket, but my reality was that the next stop was the South Pole”.
(Photos source for this article: Chris Donaldson courtesy).