Tail of two dogs, their owners, a sidecar and rural South Australia
If you’re driving on South Australia’s country roads these Christmas holidays and happen to see two dogs wearing ski goggles and travelling in a motorcycle sidecar, you’re not hallucinating.
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If you’re driving on our country roads these Christmas holidays and happen to see two dogs wearing ski goggles and travelling in a motorcycle sidecar, you’re not hallucinating – it’s just a young couple having the time of their lives.
Army nursing officer Ashleigh Coleman, 27, and her American-born husband Nathan, 34, have crafted the road trip of a lifetime – a 23-day, 2990km coastal journey across four Australian states in a vintage Ural motorcycle and sidecar, with their born-to-ride border collies Callie and Buddy happily in tow.
For the intrepid couple the trip is merely the latest in a series of awesome adventures that have now grown to include their beloved dogs, who have been especially trained to travel in the Ural.
“It’s actually Callie’s sidecar, but she very generously lets me ride in it too,” Ms Coleman tells the Sunday Mail.
“Nath is on the bike with Buddy strapped into a special rucksack, and he has his paws up on Nath’s back, looking out at the road ahead.”
Her career in the military has made travel an ongoing part of their life together, which began seven years ago when she met Nathan, who is from Jacksonville, Florida, while she was on a solo trip to France, and he was travelling with a mate.
“I like to tell people that we met in Paris because it conjures up such romance,” Ms Coleman says.
“We did meet in Paris, but it was in a dingy bar at a backpackers hostel.”
They fell in love and after three and half years of doing what they call “the very long distance thing” between Australia and the US, Mr Coleman proposed and moved out to Australia for good when they married four years ago.
Before he left Florida, Nathan decided to go on a solo road trip across America and bought his first Ural to make the journey.
“I loved the movie Garden State, where the actor Zak Braff’s Dad had a Ural, and I just thought, man, I’ve got to buy one of those,” Nathan says.
“I paid two grand for a second-hand one and decided to ride from Florida to California to meet my buddies for my 30th, but it started playing up in Dallas. I had already spent about $1500 getting it fixed up. By the time I got to Vegas it was dying, and in the end it just blew up in the middle of the Mojave Desert.”
After returning to Florida in a hire car, Nathan moved here for good to be with Ashleigh – and immediately bought another Ural, a much more reliable 2015 model, the Italia.
Both dog lovers, when Mr Coleman moved here he went through the quarantine rigmarole of bringing his golden labrador, Cooper, out from the States. Cooper sadly died six months later, and the couple decided to get Buddy, a rescue dog, as a companion for Callie who Ms Coleman already owned.
The dogs are now seasoned travellers and love the sidecar.
“It really is so much fun riding with them,” Ms Coleman says.
“My favourite part is seeing people’s reactions. When Buddy was doing his training to get used to the rucksack I used to follow the bike in the car and you could see people with their mouths open doing a double-take going, hey, there’s a dog on that motorbike.”
They have already done one monster road trip through inland Australia in the sidecar when Ashleigh was posted from Townsville to Adelaide two years ago.
Now they’re doing the same in reverse, as regrettably for the Colemans, they’re leaving their beloved adoptive hometown as the ADF has posted Ms Coleman to Brisbane, the end point of this latest road trip.
The trip starts in the Coonawarra, that excellent strip of red earth in the South East which is home to Australia’s greatest cabernets.
“Do we like wine? Oh yeah. We like wine,” Ms Coleman said.
It then meanders along the Great Ocean Road towards Gippsland, through the picture-postcard towns of southern NSW then north to Lake and Port Macquarie, Valla Beach and Byron Bay, and finally to Brisbane.
The Colemans have just finished the first part of what they call their “farewell tour of SA”, recently returning from Kangaroo Island.
“I have loved living in Adelaide, it’s so cruisey, it reminds me of Jacksonville in a way as it’s spread out and you never feel crowded,” Mr Coleman says.
“But there’s a lot of Australia to see. And we are gonna see it.”
ASHLEIGH AND NATHAN’S BIG ADVENTURE:
Adelaide-Coonawarra 373km
Coonawarra-Warrnambool 229km
Warrnambool-Mornington Peninsula 322km
Mornington-Bairnsdale 278km
Bairnsdale-Bega 327km
Bega-Jervis Bay 253km
Jervis Bay-Lake Macquarie 344km
Lake Macquarie-Port Macquarie 248km
Port Macquarie-Valla 114km
Valla-Byron Bay 337km
Byron Bay-Brisbane 165km
Total: 2990km