Sam's 'toys' - achieving mobility

My legs around the farm I finally found the solution to getting around the farm in the form of a four wheel motor bike. When I got my first one back in the early 90s they were required modification via a handle on the foot gear controls but today I ride a fully automatic Honda 350CC four wheel motor bike. Its forward gears are on the left hand handlebars with the option of manual or fully automatic gear change (below left) and the reverse gear is a lever to the left of the steering column (below left).

The motor bike can be used to operate a slasher (below right), a four-foot, three-bladed mower powered by a 13hp Honda motor; and a 100 litre spot sprayer (below left) that fits on the back.

Becoming a 'real farmer'

One of the biggest frustrations for me early on was not being able to help with the farming on the place, which made up about 60 per cent of the enterprise at the time. Once I got up into the machinery, like the header, tractor, front end loader or dozer, it wasn't difficult to make minor modifications to drive them. The big challenge was getting up into the cabins because unlike a paraplegic, I had no upper body strength to drag myself up. Finally the answer came in the form of a small hoist (as seen below) the type often seen on the back of farm utes.

The biggest problem was attaching a seat on the end, and keeping it level when the hoist went up and down. We devised a see-saw mechanism (the arm above the hoist) which solved that problem. Now I can get in and out whenever and wherever I want, with the help of only one other person. I ride my four wheel bike up beside the machinery I want to get into, while someone parks the ute at a 90-degree angle to the doorway. I transfer from my bike onto the seat of my hoist (below).

Someone drives away the four wheel bike, then reverses the ute towards the machinery doorway (seen at right) while I use the hand-held controls to lift the seat up to the right height. Once the seat is in the doorway and level with the seat of the machine, I transfer across into the seat (see below). Then I just have to hope like hell someone comes back a few hours later to get me off!!!!

 Flying to the top of my own mountain

Ever since I was a kid I have always been fascinated by the idea of flying but once I had my accident I assumed that dream would never come true. How wrong I was!

A couple of years after I got home to the farm I discovered there was an ultralight club in my home town of Warialda and my enthusiasm was immediately re-ignited. Thanks to the support and enthusiasm of one of the local instructors I learnt to fly a Quicksilver MX2, a two-axes aircraft which incredibly required no modification for me to fly. It had two controls - a rudder and elevator which were operated by a single joystick between the two seats.

Flying became a very powerful symbol for me. When you're disabled you have to rely on a lot of people to help you, but once I was fuelled up and into my ultralight I was in control and could do something that other people couldn't. There was nothing like the feeling of leaving the earth and looking back at my empty wheelchair....my faithful dog Dusty waiting beside (PICTURED BELOW).

My ultralight was quite simple to transfer into (LEFT). One strut was partially in the way, but otherwise it was more or less a clean transfer from my chair to the seat. I could do all the flight checks myself (BELOW), so once Dad had my aircraft pulled out of the hanger and fuelled up I was able to do the rest on my own. In the early days I used to fly for hours, just landing to re-fuel and take off again. It was fantastic because I could take all my friends for a fly and it was something I could do for them. It was a dream come true and proved to me anything was possible.