Elspeth Beard: The woman who motorcycled the world in the 1980s

Elspeth Beard became the first British woman to circumnavigate the globe by motorcycle on her trusty BMW R60/6 touring bike.

Circumstances helped make up her mind to embark on her great adventure, she told RNZ’s Saturday Morning.

“I was part through my architecture training, and I fell in love with this guy, and we split up literally about two or three months before, before my finals.

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“So, I ended up doing really badly in my final degree and so I was feeling broken hearted, and I didn't really know whether I should continue doing architecture or not.”

She was already a motorcycle enthusiast with some tours under her belt, and the job market in early 1980s UK was in bad shape, so she decided there was no better time to head off.

“I had this slightly crazy idea in my mind, wouldn't it be amazing if you could actually ride a motorbike around the world, which now seems a bit daft.

“But in those days, without the internet or anything, the world seemed a much, much larger place.”

Heading off into the unknown without modern comms didn’t feel like such a stretch back then, she said.

“We didn't know anything different. It was the way we found our way around. If I went to Scotland, I had to get out a paper map. I had to work out where I was and where I wanted to go. It was just the way we had to do things.

“And it was completely normal not to be in contact with family and friends all the time. You went off on your own, you got lost, and you found your way again, and that's what it was like then.”

She set off with £2500 in her pocket, enough to get her to Australia, she calculated at the time.

“I hoped it would be enough to get me either to New Zealand or Australia, where I could work again and then plan the next stage.”

Staying in touch with family on the journey was patchy, she said.

“You just didn't plan things the way people plan now. And I really had no idea. I used to phone home once a month when I was in America and New Zealand and Australia.

“But once I hit Southeast Asia and India, Pakistan, Iran, I used to pick up letters at the main post office every three months, that was it. That's the only contact I had with home and my parents didn't have a clue where I was.”

It was liberating, she said.

“That was the whole point of me going away, to go and find myself and make my own life.”

There were plenty of mishaps on the way, she said.

“I cartwheeled my bike in the outback in Australia and was in hospital for a week.

“I hit a dog in Thailand, and I had to stay on this Thai farm for a week. I hit a cow in India.

“I ended up in a river. I dropped my bike lots of times. I got very ill. I got hepatitis, dysentery.”

She also had to know her way around the 1975 BMW’s mechanics.

“I had to do all the maintenance and servicing and all the repairs on my bike. I mean, nobody then could fix a BMW in Southeast Asia or India or Pakistan or Iran, so I was entirely responsible for looking after my bike, so she got me home.

“It was a lot of work, but it was great. It was one of the greatest things I've ever done.”

She was glad she undertook her round-the world trip in an age before Google maps and smart phones.

“It was just more of an adventure, it was a challenge, you just had to go out there and find out for yourself.

“You didn't have anybody to tell you anything … I felt, and I know it might sound a bit odd, but I really felt like an explorer, I was exploring the world, and I was finding out for myself.”