Belfast rider and author Chris Donaldson weaves the tale of his decades-long attempt to reach Australia on his 1979 Moto Guzzi Le Mans.
Belfast rider and author Chris Donaldson weaves the tale of his decades-long attempt to reach Australia on his 1979 Moto Guzzi Le Mans. Leaving Belfast at 21 amid the Troubles, he planned to ride to Australia but was diverted by the Iranian Revolution, traveling instead through Africa (including apartheid South Africa), the Americas, and Argentina, later recounting it in his memoir Going the Wrong Way. Chris reflects on traveling for the journey, the kindness of strangers, and how writing the book 40 years later drew on diaries and photos. After his first adventure, Chris joined the family furniture shop in Belfast, which over the years he expanded into London and Dublin. In 2021, encouraged by a friend, he resumed his quest after COVID, faced border issues (including being denied entry to Jordan), continued alone after his friend quit the trip in Athens, and finally reached Australia, forming the basis of his next book, Adventure Before Dementia (May 2026). He discusses travel changes due to phones and the internet, Moto Guzzi community, other rides including Russia and U.S. trips, and how a Parkinson’s diagnosis motivates him to keep pursuing adventures.
Pictures of Chris, His Moto Guzzi and His Travels
Don’t miss the gallery on Chris’s website: https://chrisdonaldson.world/gallery-2/
Instagram: @chrisdonaldson.author
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction to Chris Donaldson
02:43 From London to South Africa
04:02 With a Motorbike, You're Bonded to the Landscape
04:22 From the U.S. Down to Argentina
06:53 Another Go at Australia
08:30 What's Changed in 40 Years, What's Stayed the Same
11:38 Going Back to the Family Business in Belfast
14:14 A Pensioner Riding a Motorbike Around the World
16:42 Pilgrimage to Australia - Arriving at Last
17:54 The Moto Guzzi Le Mans
19:23 Crossing the Sahara on the Motorbike
20:23 The Biggest Problem at Age 21
22:52 Every Corner Is a Danger
23:59 Traveling Light
27:10 Teo Lamers Cathedral of Moto Guzzi Festival
27:57 Texas
29:30 It Keeps You Young
31:00 Meeting Up With Old Friends on New Journeys
32:20 Russia
34:42 Spark of Recognition
38:06 Adventures Before Dementia and Going the Wrong Way
Chris’s Books
Going the Wrong Way
Adventures Before Dementia
Both books are available on his website: https://chrisdonaldson.world
Or use Amazon (not an affiliate link) if ordering from the U.S. or Canada:
Going the Wrong Way - https://www.amazon.com/Going-Wrong-Way-Australia-possibly/dp/1838012761
Christi: Welcome to Moving Along. I'm Christi Cassidy. My guest today is Chris Donaldson, talking to us from his home in Belfast, Northern Ireland. When Chris was 21, he left Belfast on his own personal walkabout, like a hero's journey, except Chris was headed to Australia, riding his [00:01:00] Moto Guzzi Le Mans.
It was 1979. Escaping 1970s Irish Troubles, he ran smack dab into the Iranian Revolution, and found himself in the Andes in South America instead. As he writes in his book about the experience, Going the Wrong Way, it only took him 43 years to get to Australia.
Welcome, Chris
Chris: Thank you. It's nice to be here
Christi: Yeah, it's nice to have you. Chris, you grew up in Belfast. What did travel and moving mean to you as a child?
Chris: I think probably one of the things about being Irish is a lot of people leave Ireland for generations, for hundreds of years. It's sort of an expected thing for a lot of people to do. So always had that in mind. You know, kept coming back again. But it was always growing up, the Troubles going on at the same time as well, [00:02:00] so there wasn't an awful lot of future, we thought, in Belfast at that time.
And the religious and the the IRA and everybody was... Nobody could get on at all. So we just wanted to get out of town
Christi: That's, that was the motivation f-
Chris: I think when you're 16, 17, you want to get out and do something, see what's going on in the world, discover yourself and discover, places that you've read about. It was obviously before the internet, so you couldn't... It wasn't so easy to get information about things. So yeah, I saw, read somewhere about this girl that rode a BSA Bantam around the world back in the s- '70s, and I had a BSA Bantam as well, so I thought, "Oh, I can do that.
If she can do that, I can do that." If you're 21, you just think you can do anything, so I thought, "I'll just head off on my Moto Guzzi."
Chris: I got as far as London, and then as you said, the the Islamic Revolution broke out in Iran.
So I was all set up to go with nowhere to go to, so I ended up heading south to South Africa through the Middle East across the desert, Sahara, and down through East [00:03:00] Africa and into South Africa, which was in the middle of apartheid at the time.
But so whenever I was traveling, I realized that very rarely do you travel anywhere where you don't know where you're going. It seems a bit of a misnomer in a way. The reason you travel is to get somewhere, generally. But the unusual thing about my journey was that I didn't really have anywhere to go.
I was just traveling for the sake of it just for the enjoyment. In fact, I didn't know what was going to be in the next country along, even from a guidebooks point of view or anything like that. It was all very, In fact, I think at the end of Sudan, I actually rode right off the edge of my map. I had to find somebody who was going up the other way to get a map to see where the road was taking me to.
So yeah, it was quite unusual from that point of view, and that's why I called the book Going the Wrong Way, because if you're going traveling for the sake of traveling, the enjoyment is in the journey rather than the destination
Christi: That's part of being a traveler, right? As opposed to a tourist.
Chris: I guess so
Christi: And when you're 21, [00:04:00] it's a little different regardless.
Chris: Yeah, when you've got a motorbike to look after as well, you can't just fly in and fly out, so you're much, much more bonded to the landscape. You know, you have to if you bring a motorbike into these countries, you have to sign a declaration that you'll take it out again, I So it's a little extra stress, extra strain, but certainly made the, journey.
Chris: So, yeah, as you say, I ended up took a yacht race, got a place in a yacht race coming back to Europe, which is another story. And then went over to the States, went around the States, and then down to Mexico, Central America, and ended up in Argentina. So you can't get much more the wrong way than Argentina to Australia
Christi: What? Exactly. And the, and you had the bike with you the whole time?
Chris: Yeah. Apart from on the sailing boat, I got a ship to sail, so yeah, it's a, what do you guys say are not V twins, maybe like a BMWs, but good and [00:05:00] sturdy. So, ended up writing a novel, writing a book, a memoir about the journey 40 years later, as you say. I felt it better... I'd taken a... started writing a book 40 years ago, and I gave up because it was just too much.
22 years old, you... more to do than write books. So it was fascinating to dig out my photographs and my memoir, my diaries and I choose to see what was actually thinking, I was thinking 40 years ago when I was just becoming an adult, I suppose. And it's amazing what you do remember, even though you don't...
Somebody asks you something today, you go, "I don't remember that." But when you see the photographs of it, you read the context of it, it all, it's all in your brain there somewhere. You, it's you have to dig off a whole new brain cells to find it. It's in there somewhere. So yeah and writing a book was practically as hard as actually doing the journey because I was never an English expert in at school.
In fact, my English teachers would be horrified if they realized it were the bestseller for Amazon. [00:06:00] So it was quite nice that I was able to write a book and some of the reviews have been absolutely tremendous. So s- I think the trick of that was really just coming on to the writing with a complete fresh mind without following any of the sort of rules and regulations with writing.
But yeah, they say everybody's got a book in them somewhere if you can get the time to get it out.
Christi: A new book called Adventure Before Dementia,
Chris: That's right,
Christi: do have a sense of humor.
Chris: Well, try to keep it interesting with a bit of a laugh and serious stuff as well. But yeah, I would... A bit, the first journey, I was 21. It was sort of learning about myself and what I was capable of and looking for the future. Obviously, the next 30, 40 years you're gonna be working, bring up a family, settling down, whatever most people do.
So it's very much a coming of age book Going the Wrong Way.
Chris: So a couple years ago, about 2021, one of my friends said, "I enjoyed your book, but you know, you never got to [00:07:00] Australia. Why not have another go?" So I decided, yeah, after lockdown, I've got to take my old self. I should take my old bike as well, so I took it out of the garage and gave it a good service, and we headed off 2021, just after COVID But we were very lucky. We Ended up, flying out of Israel the day before the place closed down with COVID for the Omicron, like it was called. So we were sort of chasing it the whole way as we went and traveled across Europe. It was... I mean, its effects are gonna be huge for years to come, I think.
People's lives, their economy, they, The way people socialize. The new way we pay for things now, everything's done by credit card. So many things have changed in the last six or seven years since COVID,
Christi: yeah, things have changed since COVID, but also I was going to ask you what you saw as the main changes between the first time, that you went off on your own. Yes, I understand there was no [00:08:00] cell phones, there was no Google Maps. But other things seemed to change, too from some of what I read.
I just wondered what your perceptions of those changes were. I'll give you an example of what I'm thinking. The first time you hit the Iranian Revolution, This time you got knocked out of, they wouldn't let you into Jordan, But both times, Burma, now Myanmar, was closed, So there's, like, some things change, some things stay the
Chris: think it stayed the same.
Christi: What did you, what was your perception?
Chris: Well, things, as I say, Israel hasn't changed. Northern Ireland's got a bit better. Iran is obviously exactly the same as it was. They're still fighting the Americans and Iranians. But I suppose one thing that never changes is that the friendliness of people that you meet at the side of the road or in towns, villages, are just as nice nowadays as they ever were.
I was amazed, I suppose. Oh, it just came back to me how much help... You'd stop somewhere and somebody'd give you food, give you petrol, give you lodging wherever you went [00:09:00] think people, if you're going a mission, like driving down Africa or going around the world, whatever, people want to be part of it w- as well a wee bit.
They want to put a, put sunshine into their lives, just be part of the journey. I don't know why, but certainly I find everybody, practically everybody apart from policemen, people like that very friendly. And places like Iran, which is obviously the... was chucked close to the axis of evil or something like that probably some of the most friendly people on all my journeys were Iranians.
Whether they were keen to put... They know their country's got a bad rap. They wanted to
put something back into it. But yeah, I mean, I'm a couple times going into petrol stations to fill up and the guys beside me would say, "Well, let me do that for you," and p- pay for the petrol as well. I mean, let me pay for it. Like, it's a... Enjoy our coun- country. So there's a big difference between governments and the people who live in the countries everywhere in Ireland, America and Iran, all these places, you know?[00:10:00]
Christi: Mm-hmm. And y- that's your experience around the world, right? Yeah, I mean, you've been how many countries now?
Chris: Oh, probably about 40. I don't really been counting them really. But yeah, probably about a good 40 I don- anyway. Yeah, I mean, riding around the world, as you say, it's... You can only really get as far as Nepal or India, and then you have to ship. You can't go through Burma. And even the Thais and a lot of those countries are all not that keen on big motorbikes, big motorbikes coming through.
So yeah, you can sail around the world, you can fly around the world, but really driving, you're going from island to i- island. So my original plan was to go to Australia, maybe get a job there and see how I liked it. it's ironic, or not ironic, the word is that something completely out of my control, such as the Iranian revolution, stopped me doing that.
To get to Australia when I was 21, eager to work and get a job, whatever. Who knows what would've happened to my life s- where I could maybe talking to you now with an, a Australian [00:11:00] accent, you know? Maybe would've got there and never st- never left. So it's funny the s- curveball life throws at you sometimes
Christi: That's for sure. You know, I have a friend who grew up in East Berlin, And she left as soon as she could, and I think this was even before the wall came down. She still lives in Berlin, but she has absolutely no desire to go back. None. To her, it was like a prison for a variety of reasons.
But I wondered, you decided to go back to the family business in Belfast. I wonder why?
Chris: Well, there was certainly my parental pressure to do that. I'd been working there part-time to earn enough money to go ahead, to go away. Yeah, looking back, would I have done that again? Probably not. Probably would have liked to start somewhere else, but I could understand it was a, an advantage in some ways to have a business to go into that was already functioning and making changes to it over the years of [00:12:00] doing a lot of different things with it.
It was selling furniture before, which haven't done that for 20, 30 years. So I've been able to use my, I suppose, my entrepreneurial skills to develop the business. And I knew at that stage to start a business from scratch is pretty hard work and with a good chance t- to fail. So it was an opportunity there that I thought I should take, you know.
But as you say, if it hadn't been for that again, probably would've stayed in Australia, maybe made a fortune, maybe not. Who knows?
So many ifs and buts.
Christi: So, you... Do you feel that your traveling and your own exploration of the world before you came back to the family business, do you feel that's part of what allowed you to have that larger vision? You expanded the business, outside of [00:13:00] Northern Ireland, right, into
Chris: and England as well,
Christi: oh, Dublin also.
Mm-hmm.
Chris: Yeah, I think it sort of gave me the confidence to do that. To look abroad and see that things aren't that much different there. Northern Ireland's always a bit of a backwater because it's at the edge of Europe and the edge of Britain even as well, you know?
So, there's great things about Northern Ireland. It's nice being away from the big population centers. I think there's maybe two million people live in Nor- Northern Ireland and probably 12 million in London alone, you know? So the whole country's just the size of a small town in some places.
Christi: So this gave you an ... you saw the opportunity
Chris: I saw the opportunity, yeah, to develop it and went ahead with that. I went ... Just bought the rest of the family out. Family businesses are difficult enough to work your way around because there's members of the family want to be in it but don't wanna work, who wanna take a pension, there's all sorts of
That's a whole nother book, family businesses. But yeah, we got it working well enough. [00:14:00] And then ironically with 2008 we were doing very well, and then the the property crash happened the world, so it was a bit of a downer. But we got over that it's still working away.
Chris: So it was interesting to ride, I suppose when I was in my 60s now as a pensioner riding a motorbike around the world is quite unusual.
And it was nice to be able to look back at, see what I had been doing for the last 40 years and how much that's about my personality, my ... Was it a good thing or a bad thing? I don't know. I think traveling certainly brings out your innermost thoughts, and when you're on your own you have to put up with yourself.
You haven't got anybody else to blame for anything. It's just you and the bike. So it is a good learning experience
Christi: Part two of this journey, the one that started 40 years later, You went with your friend Liam, And then he ditched out in Athens, right? Or somewhere in Greece, did you think that maybe you were [00:15:00] gonna, stop the journey? Or what made you decide to continue
Chris: Yeah. Well, it was actually Liam's idea to go in the first place, so it was a bit of a shock whenever he decided he wasn't gonna go any further. Basically, what happened, we went to Israel we're doing the journey in legs because we both have wives, children, jobs and so. We ride for two weeks and park it back up somewhere for a couple of months, and then come back to it another...
to do another two weeks. So we got to Israel. The plan was to go from Israel to- into Jordan and into Saudi Arabia, which has only been opening itself up to s- tourism very lately. So it was gonna be a new route, so to go east, but it didn't work out. The Jordanians wouldn't let us in for some reason.
Christi: It a visa
Chris: it was a visa thing, yeah. Well, it was a visa, more to do with the motorbikes. They weren't happy with motorbikes. Paperwork wasn't right for some reason. Well, it was, but Liam decided I think it was just too much uncertainty. And every time you come p- away from Europe and come across the border, Turkey and [00:16:00] Pakistan Iran, Pakistan, India, you know, all these countries do have issues with the borders, and it's not unusual to be sent away and told to get our papers or come back tomorrow or something like that, you know?
But yeah, Liam decided he didn't wanna go any further, which is fair enough. And then I had to decide whether I should go back or not, but I guess I'm just a stubborn git that doesn't like going backwards till I get beat. I suppose it was
Christi: You might go the wrong way, but you're not going
back.
Chris: I suppose it was more my mission to go get to Australia on the same bike.
You know, it was a bit of a pilgrimage or whatever you wanna call it, for me to get, actually finish the trip I set off on in 1979. I was very glad I did
Christi: And what was it, I mean, what did it feel like when you got there? I mean, what was it like?
Chris: And I got there, it's a two-sided coin that because you're... It was obviously the destination was Australia, so I was pleased to be there. People are very friendly, beautiful countryside, [00:17:00] beautiful welcome we got. So everything that we wanted it to be was there. But it is sort of, if you're there for the journey, it's the end of the journey then.
So that's a bit of a, not depression, but it's a bit of a down just that you... It's back to work and back to barge, you know, back to doing the regular things again. So I just need to think about another place to go
Christi: And was it what you imagined?
Chris: Australia? Not really, I suppose, because it was two different people. You, what I imagine to be when you're 21, it's beer, girls, and do some work or whatever, healthy. So when you're a pensioner looking back at, looking at a country like that you know, you're not gonna get a job. I'm not gonna stay there.
It's more of a tourist trek. So it's really because my, the age difference between the first and second that's where the difference is, you know?
Christi: Can you describe the Moto Guzzi Le Mans for us?[00:18:00]
Chris: Well, it's a, my version of a model, if you like. It's a Le Mans. It's a sort of sporty, it's a Ferrari version of a car. You know, it's this very low slung, made for flying down motorways in Italy and that sort of thing. But I wasn't able to sell it at the time, wanted to buy a BMW because they're sort of reputed to be the best touring bikes.
But I just thought I'll take it anyway, because I wasn't planning on going off-road anyway. It was most of the roads to India are all tarmacked. So I found myself in Egypt with the Sahara Desert, which I knew it was there, but I didn't think I would ever be trying to cross it on a motorbike. So it's probably the worst motor- most sort of motorbike to to cross the desert in-- with, you know.
Since then Paris-Dakar Rally has made off-road bikes very popular, and off-road cars, four-wheel drives, so got that sort of everybody likes that image now. Whereas my bike was, everything g- those bikes aren't. It's the short [00:19:00] suspension, narrow tires. But it was a, it's a good... It's an 850, so it's quite a powerful bike.
And because it's quite a simple design made before all the digital stuff comes, come in, it's easy to work on with a screwdriver and a couple of spanners, you know. And it's not that heavy either, so it's worked very well both trips
Christi: I think I saw a picture of you on your Amazon page for Going the Wrong Way with the bike in the sand. Was that the Sahara?
Chris: Yes the S- Sahara's, it's not just one big de- well, it is one big desert, but there's rocks, there's flat parts, there's... I mean, some days we'd be pushing and pulling the, It was part of a small convoy couple of cars, couple of Combis, and there's a lot of pushing and digging and pulling to be done.
Some days you'd maybe do 10, 15 miles in a day, and that's working for all day. Whereas other days it would be a hard top fla- [00:20:00] plateau with rocks, gravely sort of ground. You could do 100 miles, c- 100 miles in a day, you know. But it was challenging. It did wreck the bike, the suspension. By the time I got off the desert, the suspension was tied up with rope pr- literally.
Shock absorbers, there was oil everywhere. It was just a... I don't really know how I got through to be honest. I wouldn't want to do that again.
Christi: Oh, I can only imagine. And did you, when you were first going out, did you bring a tent or a sleeping bag, or did you stay, where did you stay, hostels or
Chris: Basic hostels, their tents, sleeping bags, you say sleep literally on the side of the road in the middle of a roundabout. Petrol stations forecourt, s- slept there in a tent. Just forever. One of the biggest problems, I suppose, when I was 21 was money. I'd been working part-time to earn enough money to get to Australia, which I reckon would've taken about three months, and then I would've sold the bike there and give myself a pot to stay for a bit [00:21:00] longer, a bit of work.
But because I was traveling south and then up north and South America again over 18 months, I was able to work a wee bit along the way, but not very much. So I was always very hard of money,
Christi: What did you do along the way?
Chris: Well, I stopped in The States and worked there for a couple of months. That was...
Christi: What did you tend bar? What did you do?
Chris: I worked in a furniture factory, funny enough.
Christi: Oh, okay. That makes sense.
Chris: the That's what you know
guy I worked for then is I'm actually quite friendly with his son. Kept... Well, didn't even keep in contact through Facebook. I met up again and I'm now working part-time, so selling furniture around the rest of the world. So it's funny how these things different come, different angles come in and meet up and can do something special 40 years on, you know?
Christi: That's great. So this is the son of the person that you worked
Chris: Yeah.
Christi: Was this in North Carolina? Did I... and you, so you still work with
Chris: Still work together yeah. So it's a connection that's been a [00:22:00] lo- lasted a long time. But yeah, so the this time as a pensioner, we basically stay in hotels most of the time.
We're not too flush but a bit more money than we used to have, so I think I used the tent two or three times when I got stuck, for instance, trying to get out of Iran.
It was a problem. It took me three different border sh- border stations to get out. So at one stage it's too tired to go on, the hotels were too far away. I just parked the tent up in the middle of the desert and went to sleep
Christi: Yeah. It's harder to... I don't know. The older I get, the more I like those hotels.
Chris: When I was 21, I would be able to ride all day and stop somewhere and party all night, you know, have a few beers and chat to people versus now. I can still ride all day, but I've gotta just get something to eat and lie down in my bed to go to sleep.
Yeah.
Christi: Mm-hmm.
Chris: Is, I mean, I've proved I can still do what I did when I was 21, but it just has to be a bit s- bit slower and a bit more careful, you [00:23:00] know?
Christi: Right. and you don't have any fear of the mountain passes or any of that kind of thing at this advanced stage? You're not that old, but you know what I mean, 40 years later.
Chris: You have to be worried about these things as otherwise you... That's what keeps you alive on a motorbike. Every corner is a danger. Every car coming past the other way could block your way. Everybody... I used to call myself a paranoid motorcyclist because you're thinking that everybody was out to get you.
And in places like India, the traffic is so bad, they practically are all out to get you
Christi: Pakistan and India, places like
Chris: Yeah, Pakistan and India are probably about the worst... I think the Pakistanis said to me that we have some rules but we ch- choose to ignore them. But the Indians just don't have any rules at all. They just drive up and down the road, no sign, but you're on a, you're on a motorway or dual carriageway
Christi: Oh.
Chris: and there's people coming towards you on the same road. It's just crazy. So you do need to keep your wits about you
Christi: [00:24:00] Exactly. I wondered if you prepared any differently. I guess when you're 21 maybe you don't prepare as much, although you had certainly saved all the money to do it, to do the trip, to... You planned the time, the whole thing. And so did you prepare differently this time?
Chris: No, I remembered what, how to prepare from the last time. I've been away on a few motorbike trips since then, but the first time I had far too much stuff. A jacket for this, clothes for that, different things you were bringing. Spare parts clothes, so much stuff, and then you realize that you don't actually need that much stuff.
So, so left the trail, but spaces all the way down Eu- through Europe because, you know, you really only need what you're wearing. A change of clothes, couple T-shirts. Parts for the bike. It's impossible to know what to take because whatever you take is the bit that you won't need, and the bit you will need is the bit you left at home sort of thing.
Everybody's got a different way of doing things and if you see the size of motorbikes these days, they're much bigger and more powerful and lots of storage in them than they used to be. [00:25:00] But they're all... At the end of the day, you're on a motorbike. You use your strength and your bike to keep upright.
So there's no point in bringing lots of stuff with you. I definitely of the travel light brigade rather than taking all sorts of stuff
Christi: And plus I think with the phones, right? The phones, you don't... Well, everybody says you should still have a paper map with you, but, you know, you have Google Maps or whatever you use, right? Like that.
Chris: Phone, no
pro-
Christi: that's a little different
Chris: I mean, one of the biggest differences between the two generations was the internet and everything the internet has brought such as phone. I remember ph- phoned home from Cairo, had to book the call the next day. It was about £5 for five minutes, which is probably $25 or something now, you know?
So, very different. Whereas now you just, you got WhatsApp, [00:26:00] you could just go on your phone anywhere in the world and phone home, and it's quite amazing. And obviously knowing what's ahead of you booking hotels even get the right restaurant, whatever, it's all there in front of you. Now you've got all the information overload nearly all the information you need.
How I managed to get through cities like New York b- before Google Maps is a mystery to me. It's... I think in those days you built up a sixth sense of where something was. Whereas now kids don't do that. You have a mo- Nobody does it. Every- everybody just follows a route on their phone, on their GPS. If GPS stopped tomorrow, most of the people on the road won't know how to get anywhere because they've forgotten how to read a map. We've no sense of direction.
Christi: It's true. I was trying to teach my nine-year-old neighbor, I was trying to show him a map of the United States. Whoa, right over his head. Right over his head. Like, "Where are you? Where is your [00:27:00] grandma? Where is..." No it's very different. Very different. But I told him too, I said, "You know, if you know how to read a map, you'll never be lost."
Christi: What is the Teo Lamers Cathedral of Moto Guzzi Festival?
Chris: Right, it's a an Australian guy. So he was actually Dutch, but he moved to Australia 20-odd years ago, and he had the biggest Mo- Moto Guzzi shop in Holland or in Europe, I think, at one stage. So he's retired and built himself a, it's really a museum with every motorbike. Not every one, but with about 100 bikes, all Moto Guzzi from the last, over the last 100 years.
So I was able to leave my bike with him in pride of place in the museum. And my bike really probably should be in a museum by now because it's it's hard enough for a bike to do one trip like that, but to do two trips basically although I got it back from Texas. R- rode across America last month,
Christi: So you went to Texas last month?
Chris: [00:28:00] Yeah, well, after I'd been in Australia, that's, that was that journey parked. So I thought I could either bring it back west or east, so I thought I'd send it to the States and actually the- well, theoretically ride it around the world. So it go, shipped to California, Las Vegas Los Angeles. Went up to San Francisco, rode around there, and then another trip went up with my wife, picked it back up in LA and drove it to Houston.
Which was interesting. It's a part of the States I'd never seen before. So it was great getting back on the bike and bringing it back home. It's really the start. It's it's the one that's gone around the world and gone up and down, you know?
Christi: That's so cool. So you didn't end up riding through New Mexico
Chris: We did, yeah.
Christi: Oh, you did? Oh, that's cool. I lived in Santa Fe for quite a while. There's a lot of bikers out there because it's so beautiful.
Chris: fun. Texas is sort of forgotten about a bit New Mexico. From our point of view, we would go to more the northern states, I suppose. But we had re- [00:29:00] relations relatives living in Texas, so when you're Irish, you've got relatives living everywhere in the world, basically
Christi: That's right. That's right. So how long were you in Texas for, or how long were you in the States
Chris: About two and a half weeks I did that trip, and then two weeks before that as well. So it's been good to get back, yeah
Christi: And so the bike is... Where is the bike now?
Chris: The bike's out in the garage
Christi: I love it. I
Chris: Ready, ready for its next escapade
Christi: you're not ready to give this up,
Chris: No. Well, I think it does keep you motivated. It keeps you young. You know, seriously. It's a lot of older men after they leave work, they lose their identity slightly. They don't have any hobbies or whatever. It's... Motorcycling's something that anybody of any age can do and get something out of it, you know?
Gets you
Christi: Is that like the midlife crisis thing? I mean, is it your Easy Rider memories coming
Chris: Yeah, I suppose it is. But like, you know, midlife crisis, [00:30:00] I don't know if there's a name for it, but it's an old age crisis. But it's nearly a bigger thing when you're middle-aged. The problem with being middle-aged is you're realizing that you can't do things that you used to do, and you're maybe not doing as well in work and that sort of thing.
Whereas the change in your habit, lifestyle when you retire, it's like falling off a cliff as far as your work and your habits are concerned, you know?
So I think it's And
Christi: Are you officially retired?
Chris: You know,
Christi: No,
Chris: it's the, the property stuff. It'll always do something. Again, I think your mind, your brain is like your, it's like a muscle.
It's if you don't use it, it'll shrink. It'll, you lose it, you know?
Christi: Wow. Is that true? Is that like a neuro- neuroscience
Chris: I don't know, but we'll check it out on Google. It's my theory.
Christi: It's your theory. It's your experience. Oh, that one week I was sick in bed, my brain shrank.
Chris: Well, you feel like that sometimes. You'd be away on holiday for a couple of weeks and you come back and you try to go, "What is going on? I'm back at work."
Christi: Those are, those holidays are supposed to be good
for [00:31:00] you.
Christi: What's your favorite part of your journeys?
Chris: mainly I suppose favorite part is meeting up people on this last journey, meeting people that I used to know. Guys are not very good at keeping in touch. We don't do postcards and Christmas cards very well. So I was able to meet a guy in Scotland who hadn't ... Traveled with him 40 years ago, but I haven't met him since or talked to him since.
And there's friends in Australia as well I sailed with 40 years ago and talked to them again, stayed with them, made contacts. So that, probably the nicest thing is meeting up with old friends and making new ones
Christi: That's nice. That's right. You did sail, I saw a picture of you on a boat
Chris: Well, I got to Cape Town, and with apartheid going on, I couldn't work there, and I couldn't find a way of getting out because there wasn't ma- many flights or shipping there. So I was very lucky to get a job on a yacht race. A guy broke his leg or pulled a muscle in his le- in his leg, so I got his place on the boat.
Which is pretty amazing because I'd really very little experience of sailing, apart from the old [00:32:00] dinghy. To go be going out in an ocean-going racing boat across the South and North Atlantic you'd pay a fortune to get that sort of opportunity now, and you'd have to be trained up over the years.
You'd need to be an expert. But I think a nice thing about 40 years ago is things weren't so official all the time. You know, you could bluff your way easier
Christi: You went to Russia,
Chris: Yes.
Christi: When was this?
Chris: It was in the years about 2001, 2002. Russia's always somewhere I wanted to go to. So I was able to ride across England, take a boat to Scandinavia, to Sweden, and up north Sweden across over into Estonia and into Russia. Gonna make it in about four or five days on a motorbike. So it was quite a nice experience too.
St. Petersburg's a beautiful city. It's such a different culture from ours in a lot of ways, but quite similar as well in a lot of ways, you know? Again, it's the story of the people. The Russian people are great people to get on with, very friendly and open, but the government's obviously a different thing [00:33:00] altogether. Like, you know, lots of places in the world, at beginning, you know?
Christi: Do you think you would still be able to do that journey today given the situation in the Ukraine or
Probably, no, I wouldn't want to go to Russia now at the minute. Haven't really looked at... I think you prob- probably still can with an Irish passport. Not with an American or British passport, probably would be difficult.
No
Chris: But no, with conflicts around the world, I wouldn't be able to do the Australia trip at the minute either with Iran and Israel.
It's just so- something-- there's always something going on in the world. this is a bit depressing after all these years
Christi: When you went to Russia, so this was this was around 9/11, right?
Uh,
Chris: Yes,
Christi: somewhere around there. Maybe after
Chris: Around about 9/11. Was it? No, I'd kind of have to check my diaries, but certainly that year, you know. so what we did is left the bike at in [00:34:00] Helsinki in a store there,
and then came back the next year and went down to Moscow and back through Belarus into Germany and back home that way
Christi: Oh, cool. also I wanna acknowledge, you went with Julia, your wife.
Chris: Yeah. Second year coming back through Moscow, with her in the back
Christi: And did she have a good time?
Chris: She did a bit. It's interesting. So what about ho- holidays or traveling, like, good times. It's not like sort of sitting around the beach all day. Sometimes
Christi: No
Chris: adventures are better looked on after the adventures whatever, get over the pain and the suffering that you were going through, the hardship.
You can sit in the bar with a pint of Guinness and say, "Oh, it was a good trip." You forget about the s- the hard things about it, you know?
Christi: It always struck me that bikers are a community unto themselves, but it seems like the Moto Guzzi is also I know I'm not pronouncing it right, but it's also got its own, like, subcommunity. Is that
Chris: [00:35:00] Yeah, very much so. They, I suppose w- each different car clubs, people believe in whatever they're driving, but the Italians are so passionate about what they do with their cars and their bikes. They really do believe in them, and I think a bit of that rubs off and people buy the marque, buy the brand.
But yeah, I mean, they have a... Every year they have an open day at the factory in Mandello del Lario. Yeah. Beside the Great Lakes, the lakes up in Italy. So there's always a great you know, if you get thou- 10,000 Moto Guzzis all congregating in the factories as if they've come, like lemmings coming home to, I don't know what. It's sort of religious the way everybody... They know they're not the best
bikes in the world. Yeah
Christi: For the lemmings. That's wonderful though. I mean, how many are there in the world, do you think?
Chris: What Moto Guzzis? Oh,
Christi: Yeah.
Chris: God knows. the Le Mans
Christi: or
Chris: been good for 100 years, so, it's all right. But they're certainly very hospitable [00:36:00] to other people with the same sort of bike, you know? The Greek Moto Guzzi Club in Athens have their own, they have their own bar, their own clubhouse and everything, you know? I was very impressed with them
Christi: I wondered how you were greeted along the way. Is there that spark of recognition when the fellow Moto Guzzis see one another?
Chris: There is a bit of that. As I say, you know, we, I sent them a letter when I left the bike in Athens the first time. I sent them an email, and when we came back to pick them up, there was three or four of the guys who were there to show us where to take them down to the port and invited us up for drinks, for meals, and very hospitable.
So yeah, it's, it breaks the ice in a lot of places always. And I think even just people who-- motorbikes are-- most people like them. They like to look at them, to talk about them. But so if you go into s- a new town sitting on your own motorbike, it's, it makes it a lot easier to get talking to people, get interacting with the locals, [00:37:00] rather than if you just arrived in the city square or somewhere with a rucksack on.
So you are more noticeable, and if you want to meet people and learn about different cultures and stuff, it's a great way to do it, you know?
Christi: I was remembering my partner and I did a trip across the United States. She had a little old black pickup truck, a small one from, like, before they got big. Small. And we drove it from LA, all blue highways, so no interstates, all the way back East and
up to Maine and then back to New York. And along the way, we would stop at the biker bars because they would tell us where to go next. We didn't have a plan. It was, you know, we did... Just gonna drive, and they would tell us, they'd say, "Oh, go this way. Go that way. Go this way." And and we saw parts of the United States I'm sure we, most people in a regular old [00:38:00] car would never have seen.
But it was because of them, you know? They knew the best routes
Yeah.
Christi: Do you wanna talk about Adventure Before Dementia, which is published in May 2026?
Chris: Yeah. You can order copies on my we- my website, chrisdonaldson.world, and also Going The Wrong Way as well. It's on there. It's, I think we've got over 1,500 five-star reviews now on it, so it's got a great reaction. Hopefully Adventure Before Dementia will be as successful.
Christi: Definitely. And we'll put that link in the show notes. So you can order both books right from
Chris: Yeah. Well, probably in the States, to be honest, you're probably cheaper buying it off Amazon because they'll supply locally.
Christi: Right. What's Adventure Before Dementia? What is it about?
Chris: Well, it's about the journey I made from Belfast to Australia successfully. It's the s-
The second part.
Yeah.
So it's an adventure before dementia
Christi: I think there's a wonderful picture of [00:39:00] you that you put side by side of you at 21 and then you on the second part of this journey, And so Adventure Before Dementia is about the second part of the journey. So if-- And do you think that people should read the first part first?
Chris: they should do, but I've tried to write it that they don't have to, that it s- stand, stands up on its own two feet sort of thing. But yeah, forgive the bad, first one first, but this is see the evo- evolution
Christi: There was something in I read that you wrote. You said, "When I left in 1979, I was 21 years old, so the trip turned into a coming-of-age story. Now, at 64, I will have more in common with Don Quixote and a coming-of-old-age story."
Chris: Yeah, it's what I got. Chasing your dreams. Old man chasing their dreams
Christi: But it sounds like you're still
Chris: There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah it's n- no, no other way to do [00:40:00] it
Christi: Do you feel that the diagnosis has affected your vision for your own future and chasing dreams?
Chris: Parkinson's diagnosis, yeah, it's probably made me realize that we're not o- on the Earth for a long time. We're here for the years we have, and take off that the years that we're not fit enough to do anything. By the time you hit 60, you're not running out of time, but you wanna get things done that you wanna do I can be morbid about it.
You just want to keep at it. And it get, does get harder because your energy levels go down obviously, so it's harder to get started at something. But once you get started, just keep on going.
[00:41:00]