A dirt bike and a secret: Heather Ellis

Heather’s first, mostly solo, trans-continental motorbike journey was from Cape Town to London. She then spent a year as a motorbike courier in London, fine-tuning all her riding skills through gridlock, cobblestones and black cabs. Heather was planning another trip, to Russia, when she was given a stunning diagnosis. What she did next was return to her family home in North Queensland, work on the banana farm, write a book, and figure out how she could get back on her motorbike to ride across The Silk Road. An HIV positive diagnosis was far more serious in the 1990s than it is today. There were few treatments, and for many the virus was fatal. For Heather, now the chair of Positive Women, Victoria, it was also something she hid from almost everyone, including her family, until she was in recovery.