Photo: Allan Waldon
Nearly 50 years ago, Allan Waldon read a magazine story about a rider travelling around Australia on the same silver Honda XL250 he was learning to ride. It planted the seed of a dream that never left him. Now almost 70, Allan lives on a cattle farm near the Barrington Tops in New South Wales and has built a life around adventure—but crossing Australia by motorcycle remained unfinished business.
When a long-planned ride in the United States was cancelled just two weeks before departure, Allan turned to his riding mate Adam and said, “Why don’t we ride across Australia?” Ten months later, they left the Pacific coast on a Honda CRF300 Rally and a Suzuki DR-Z400, aiming for the Indian Ocean more than 6,000 kilometres away. Ahead lay remote deserts, flooded and closed roads, deep gravel, fierce winds and slippery red clay. This is the story of two riders, two small motorcycles and a childhood dream that had waited almost half a century.
