Riding a motorbike in howling high winds and freezing temperatures to reach Nordkapp, the northern-most point of Europe could have been disastrous. But for Shirley Hardy-Rix and Brian Rix it was one of the best days of their lives.

This is what the well-travelled retired couple had hoped for when they planned to fill a gap in
their riding experience and take on Scandinavia, the old Silk Road in Central Asia and the worlds largest country, Russia.

They shipped their motorcycle to Greece and spent the next six months riding to the northern-most tip of Europe and then taking the long road to...

Plenty of retirees take a holiday. When Brian Rix retired after 36 years as a policeman in Victoria, rather than hitching up the caravan he put his wife, journalist Shirley Hardy-Rix, on the back of his motorcycle and headed off for a ride.

For the next 16 months Brian and Shirley rode more than 82,000 kilometres through 32 countries on five continents.

They rode from the bottom of South America to the very top of North America - from the Antarctic Circle to the Arctic Circle. They rode over 5,000 metre mountain ranges, through snow and ice, through deserts and tropics, enduring altitude...