In 1972 my friend and I decided to drive her motorbike from Perth to Adelaide – only 2,695 kilometres – to see her boyfriend. The road across the Nullarbor Plain (the south Australian desert) was a dirt track. Before we reached Coolgardie, in western Australia, we hit a kangaroo. We managed to keep the bike upright and pulled over. The roo had been decapitated, and we had to pull bits of it out of the wheel spokes, before we could continue. Not very nice.

We decided that we would not drive at dawn or dusk, to avoid something like that happening again. Halfway across the Nullarbor we stopped. The road ahead and behind us was dead straight, from horizon to horizon. All around us the land was flat: no buildings, no people, no trees, no vehicles. We felt as if we were the only people in the world. It was an amazing sensation. We made it to Adelaide.

The next year we decided to go to the Gold Coast in Queensland for Easter. We contacted Honda to see if they would do us a deal on servicing and repairs to the bike. They told us that if we got our picture in the paper they would do it all for free. We rang up the West Australian and they came and took our photo. We were expecting it to be a small picture, hidden away in the paper, but when it came out it was a large photo on Page Three. So we were Page Three girls.

We set off, and the trip across the Nullarbor went as before. At Port Augusta we headed north east to the Gold Coast. At the petrol stop, there was a sign telling us that the next petrol station was closed. We decided to take a chance. When we got to the closed station we stopped, a car pulled up, and the driver had a can of petrol so he kindly filled our tank.

A bit further on, the chain on the bike broke. We stuck it together using a hair clip, and travelled slowly on to the next small town. It was evening, and the guy at the garage decided we were an emergency, so he called in his mate from a party, and said they would work through the night to fix it. He also offered us accommodation at his mother’s house. The next day it was all fixed and we continued to the Gold Coast. We had a great few days there, then headed south to Sydney to see my mum.

Later that year we thought we would go on another ride. The plan was to go across to Port Augusta, then north through Alice Springs to Darwin, and finally around the west coast back to Perth. We thought spring would be best, as there is heavy tropical rain in the north in summer. When we set off there was flooding in central Australia, and we hoped it would be OK by the time we got there.

Going across the Nullarbor was very different this time. It was more like a canal than a road! At first we were amazed to see big puddles on the track. As we progressed, the puddles got bigger and deeper. You couldn’t see where the potholes were, which meant riding through treacherous water. One time the bike stopped. We took out the spark plugs and held them up to the sun to dry, then rode on. Then we went through a very deep puddle with an unseen pothole in it. The water came right up over our legs, and the bike stopped dead. But we managed to hitch a lift on the back of a truck loaded with timber, and the two of us – plus bike – were taken safely into Adelaide.