Me & ‘Trinity’ at Alexander Palace, London, UK'Trinity' and I at Alexander Palace, London

Hi, my name is Melanie (Mel) and welcome to my website!

In 2014 I decided to take a little journey. What started out as an ambition for a two week motorcycle tour of the western coastline of the USA turned into something so much more. My motorcycle tour aimed to fulfil two childhood dreams but what I got out of it was so much more!

On Valentine’s Day 2015 I collected my motorcycle, I call her Trinity, and on the 27th June that year we landed in Seattle for a three-month motorcycle tour of western USA and Canada. Trinity and I covered 11,450 miles (nearly half the circumference of the earth), visiting 21 National Parks and meeting loads of fantastic people along the way. The tour was undoubtedly the greatest experience of my life!

I returned to London, United Kingdom, at the end of September 2015 and realised I had come back a different person. The journey had crystallised my belief in two things:

  1. that people are the driving force in my life and that who I am inside and outside of the office should not be disconnected; and
  2. that the environments in which we live play a fundamental part in our physical and mental wellbeing.

So, I returned to the UK in search of how I could add more value to the roles I was performing.

A few months after returning to the UK I joined the global Consulting Engineers, WSP, in their Transport team in London, where I worked on a number of fantastic developments across London. A year later I was appointed as the Regional People Lead (London & SE Region) covering 6 offices and 160 staff. The  primary function of the role was to support engagement, professional development and wellbeing of the team in my region. I absolutely loved this role!

The incredible journey inspired a further challenge – to tour 100 countries, half the States and National Parks in the USA by motorcycle in 10 years. The challenge resulted in further tours in South African and across Europe between 2016-2018 and eventually took me back to North America in 2019 to complete the US half of my challenge.

My plan was on track and then 2020 reared its head and brought with it a whole new set of challenges – amongst them the COVID-19 global pandemic and a couple of health scares. This was definitely not in my plan! This forced me off the bike and back into the office. I joined Elliott Wood as the Head of Transport. Four years later I started my own Transport Planning Consultancy called DecarGroup. It’s been a busy 5 years!

Although I did not achieve all of my original challenge, I did manage to travel 36 countries, 30 of the 50 US States and around two-thirds of the National Parks in the USA by motorcycle. I also managed to pick up a passenger along the way; my partner Nesli.

I’m still figuring out the next challenge. I hope you enjoy the journey with me!

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbour, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
~ Mark Twain