How big's your postal run?

Englishman Nathan Millward has completed an around-the-world adventure on a retired Australian Post-badged Honda CT110, riding it from Sydney to San Francisco.

Millward covered a total of 29,000 miles, travelling at an average cruising speed of 37mph and passing through 19 countries along the way.

The first part of the adventure took Millward from Sydney to London, a 23,000 mile journey undertaken after only two days of planning.

“I’d been out in Australia for nine months when I was suddenly told my visa was coming to an end,” said Millward.

“I had a return ticket to England, but was in no rush to get there and so I just set off riding, on the bike I already had, in the clothes I already owned, and made it up as I went along. I thought it might take me five months….”

This journey from Sydney to London took Millward nine months, seeing him pass from Darwin to East Timor, along Indonesia to Malaysia and Thailand before finding a way around Burma and on to the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu. India and Pakistan followed, with the refusal of an Iranian visa forcing him through Northern Pakistan, over the Himalayas and the second highest road in the world (18,000 feet), in to China, then on through Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and Poland before finally, just as winter was about to set in, reaching the English Channel and home.

Millward wrote a book about his impromptu adventure, titled Going Postal in Australia, and now retitled for the rest of the world simply as The Long Ride Home.

Having completed the book, Millward continued his journey west, patching up the bike that had brought him all that way and loading it on an aeroplane bound for New York. For Millward it was a case of déjà vu.

“I didn’t really have a plan or a route in mind, all I wanted to do was get to San Francisco and in the end that took us (me and the bike) six weeks and six thousand miles. We passed through the guts of Detroit and Chicago, down old Route 66, over the Rockies, through to Grand Canyon, Monument Valley and Las Vegas until finally we hit the Pacific and the Golden Gate Bridge.

“In a lot of ways, the ride across America was harder than the ride from Sydney to London, simply because it feels such a big country, and there are so many different routes you can take to get across it. The traffic is also faster and the pace of life much quicker than the speed I was able to travel at.

“The mid-west was long and lonely and at times I felt quite vulnerable, but once I made it to Colorado I really enjoyed the landscape and the people. Death Valley was my favourite place, and riding through Monument Valley at sunset was just superb.”

In spring 2013, Millward and his bike – affectionately known as Dorothy – intend on making the final push north to Alaska.