WALKING up Fremantle’s High Street six months ago, Deon Hubach was rocked back on his heels by a poster featuring the grim statistic that a child dies every 15 seconds for lack of clean water.

“That’s when I knew this is what I wanted to do,” Mr Hubach says of a 30,000 kilometre motorcycle trip he’s planning to make halfway across the globe.

He’s set the ambitious target of raising $30,000 (a buck a kilometre) during the trek, as that will give Water Aid Australia enough money to build three wells in a developing country.

He’s leaving next weekend and will be heading up to Darwin, across to Indonesia, through South East Asia and on to Kenya, the Ethiopian highlands, Zambia and down to his birthplace, South Africa where he’ll rest up with family before returning to managing his remedial massage business in Freo.

• Deon Hubach is using his “long way back home” to make sure kids in developing countries have access to clean water. Photo by Steve Grant

“It’s the long way home,” he says. Mr Hubach says he’ll mostly be doing it rough, but is planning to take a soccer ball along in the hope it’ll create a connection with families who’ll learn more about his mission and perhaps help out with a bit of shelter.

Water Aid says it’s helped 24 million people around the globe get access to clean, safe water.

But that, pardon the pun, is but a drop in the ocean, as it estimates 844 million people still have no water, which means they’re exposed to potentially deadly diseases and unlikely to escape the poverty trap.

All Mr Hubach’s donations go straight to the charity, via give.water.org/fundraiser/5099 and you can follow his two-wheeled trek at http://www.rideforchange.net

by STEVE GRANT