Triumph over grief KATHLEEN'S TOUR DE FORCE

After the death of her soulmate, the biker decided to see the world on wheels

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While motorbiking solo around the world, 58-year-old Kathleen Perry rode through giant sand and hailstorms in Morocco, battled altitude sickness in Peru, was under armoured guard in Pakistan and marvelled at natural wonders all over the globe.

But riding up her Christchurch driveway after two years and three months of adventures to see the finish-line flags hung by her family and friends also made for a very memorable moment.

“I was very proud of myself,” she smiles. “I wouldn’t truly accept that I’d achieved it until I got up my driveway, then it was like, ‘Wow! I really did this.’”

That was August 10, as Kathleen completed what she believes no other Kiwi woman has – a continuous, self-funded, solo ride around the world on one motorbike, clocking up 127,500km across six continents and 63 countries.

For Kathleen, the travel bug first struck four decades earlier, when at 18, she broke up with her then-boyfriend, Kelvin Perry, and flew to Australia to embark on her big OE. But just months after leaving New Zealand, Kelvin convinced her to give him another shot.

“He’d tracked me down from a postcard and phoned every campsite in Adelaide until he found where I was, saying he wanted to come over,” she recalls. “I decided if he’d put that much effort in, I’d return to New Zealand.”