Hit the road, Jac!

Seven years, twenty countries, no plan. How it started... In 1998, after bringing up a family and enjoying a lifetime career as a nurse and health visitor in the UK, I set out on a year's journey, on my own for the first time ever, having always been someone's daughter, little sister, or wife. I started backpacking in Thailand and explored many South East Asian countries armed only with wide-open eyes and a guide book. Six months into the trip and feeling quite the adventurous explorer, I went to Pakistan and then to Rajasthan, India, where I met a Dutchman who was travelling on an Enfield Bullet motorbike. He fired my imagination with tales of the open road. I returned to the UK, but I found it hard to settle down, as I really liked travelling, and although at my age I really should have known better, I set off again, this time combining my love of travel with my other passion... motorcycling. I'd owned various Japanese motorbikes over the years since. Exchanging guide books for road maps, for my fiftieth birthday I bought a brand new 500cc Enfield Bullet in India and rode it, initially alongside the Dutchman who had suggested the idea. He was seventeen years younger than me, and I thought the adventure might last six months, at most. None of it was planned. I would not have dreamed I'd be having this chance of a lifetime when I should have been saving for my retirement or something! But life's too short not to take a chance. 

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