![]() I sold my cherished Yamaha YZF R1 to an Italian chap, handed over my “hut” in Sek O to some French hippies, gave away the remainder of my few possessions, threw some t-shirts in a rucksack, and flew out to South Africa. I was allowed to resign from Deloitte almost immediately having completed all my projects as I am quite sure some of the painfully dull consultants I worked with were glad to see the back of me. My plan was to differentiate myself from my peers by being able to speak, read and write Mandarin fluently, immerse myself in all things Chinese, and run my own practice.Īs my first semester on the Mandarin language course at Tsinghua University (清華大學)in Beijing did not start until September 2007, some six months away, I had some time on my hands, and so I decided to challenge myself by riding a motorcycle across Africa. Not being someone to do anything by half measures, I decided to press the reset button, resign from my job and chart a different course by enrolling as a mature student at one of the best universities in China. Time to clean out the sock drawer Rupert Utley – Zambia Whilst I am very good at what I do, the pettiness and unpleasantness of the corporate world, office politics, an unplayable nutty “ex missus”, and the Hong Kong Knitting Circle was really beginning to irritate and annoy me. However, I was becoming increasingly restless. I swam in the sea all year round, regularly ran along the mountain trails, kept myself extremely fit, rode to work at warp speed on a racing specification Yamaha YZF R1, and I could fly my paraglider up above Dragon’s Back Ridge, and land back down again right next to my hut. Various females, none of whom I liked particularly much (except for a cat), came and went. I lived in what can best be described as an “illegal hut” right next to a popular beach in the village of Sek O on the rural south side of Hong Kong Island. ![]() I did challenging and occasionally rewarding work, usually got paid each month, and on the face of it life was pretty OK. ![]() After a brief exchange of pleasantries Ewan McGregor and his wife carried on riding towards Lusaka, but Charlie Boorman and Claudio Planta stayed behind, chatting by the side of a road in the middle of African bush about the “stuff ” bikers usually chat about“……Īt the start of the new Millennia I was working in the fraud investigation practice of one of the worlds largest consulting firms based in Hong Kong. As we passed and waved at each other it took me a while to realise this was the “Long Way Down” TV expedition and so I turned around and caught up with them. …… ” In the middle of the Zambian bush I ran into Obe Wan Kanobe and his convoy of motorcycles.
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