“The biggest mistake of our lives”, a book written by Compass Expeditions founder, Mick McDonald, is now in its second print run and we have a couple of 100 for sale.
In 2005 four novice bike riders rode Honda Transalps from London to Vladivostok, primarily to raise money for a tiny Australian based charity Freidreichs Ataxaia Network (F.A.N), at no point did we ever think of starting a motorcycle tour company, it simply never entered our minds even though we spent months discussing how we might continue to raise funds for F.A.N at the completion of the ride!! Two long years after the ride was done we decided to start a motorcycle tour company and thus Compass Expeditions was born.
Why F.A.N? Its simply really we had a great friend, Cathy McLean, who suffered from this extremely rare disease that eventually took her life in 2012. Cathy was an inspiration and changed the direction of our lives and was also the catalyst for Mick to write his award winning, Pulitzer Prize nominated book “The Biggest Mistake of our Lives”. OK its not award winning and has never been nominated for anything but what it is, is a great story on how one girl inspired others to ride the world in her name. It’s a story of a fundraising battle and the subsequent ride across an unknown region of the world, it’s a story of some of the characters we met in some of earths most inhospitable regions, it’s a story on how this ride eventually led to the establishment of Compass Expeditions.
Far from wanting to start a motorcycle tour company, so we could get a free ride while others paid for it, we didn’t have much interest in starting any company, let alone a tour company, however we did and believe it’s a good story on how one of the worlds most recognizable tour companies came about.
To this day we donate part proceeds of every tour to F.A.N and by purchasing this book all profits will again go to F.A.N
You can purchase a your copy for $20 (Plus Postage) from our web store buy clicking here