The Game of Inches

ACTION 2: Take action

‘Have a crack.

Kirsty Dunphey, Up Loans

Here's what happened. I was riding through the Stony Desert of South Australia from Coober Pedy to Alice Springs. My BMW motorcycle (an R1200GS, for all you bikers out there) was purring along and I had been on the road for only a couple of hours. The heat was already building and my drinking water was warming up. If you have never been through this country it's just what it sounds like — miles and miles of flat, stony earth. It's hot, it's dry and it just goes on and on. It's very beautiful.

I was about halfway through the first leg of the Ingenious Oz Project, which would ultimately take me to Darwin. I had left Sydney eight days before, travelled through outback New South Wales, down into the Flinders Ranges of South Australia, and once through Port Augusta headed north.

People ask me why I travelled by motorcycle on this project — surely a 4WD would be more comfortable and safer. Maybe, but for me a motorcycle represents the adventurous nature of business. It's sometimes lonely, but mostly there are people around who will help and advise you. Sure, there is an element of risk involved, but you learn to mitigate and minimise it. The payoff is enormous. Like a good leader, on a motorcycle you are actively part of the world and not sealed off behind a windscreen. You are in the action and your surroundings — you feel the changes in your environment, hear the noise, smell the land. I love the serenity of riding ...