Meet the Australian adventurer tackling Tasmania on a trike to promote inclusion and raise awareness for stroke survivors

At the age of 12, Tommy Quick suffered a stroke. He remembers the night vividly: He had been reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which had just come out. It was his uncle’s 50th birthday and he had relatives visiting from Western Australia. His mum made a pork roast for dinner and it was delicious. Tommy remembers not wanting to go to bed that evening. He eventually fell asleep but awoke with an unquenchable thirst and a migraine. Then he fell unconscious and woke up five weeks and two days later, his world forever changed.

Tommy’s stroke was severe enough—a brain bleed the size of a golf ball—that he had to be put into an induced coma. When he awoke, he had to relearn everything from scratch. At first he couldn’t believe what had happened to him and thought he’d fallen into some kind of video game. He spent five months in hospital learning how to walk, talk and eat again. He’d try to speak and the words would form in his mind but no words would come out. After weeks and weeks of physio and speech therapy, he finally got a word out: “No”. 

Tommy had been growing frustrated at not being able to advocate for himself. This “no” wasn’t just a response to a question, it was a refusal to let the stroke define him.

In 2014, in defiance of the doctors’ prognosis and with the help of a team of local porters, Tommy tackled the Kokoda Trail—one of the world’s most gruelling hikes—to raise money for the Stroke Foundation. Despite his mobility being hampered as a result of the stroke, Tommy completed the trail in 12 days alongside his dad, his uncle, and his best friend. “Since day one, I have never come across a person like Tommy,” said Arnold Jinga, the head guide on the trail (who had completed the Kokoda Track some 113 times prior to meeting Tommy). “I couldn’t believe it when I saw it—physically witnessing what he did.” 

“He had the heart, and that is very important,” said Tony Ogonemi, another Kokoda porter. “As long as you have the heart, you can do anything in life.” 

Nearly 10 years later, in 2021, Tommy set off on the ‘4 Points Australia’ challenge. Three years in the making, the feat would see him ride his recumbent trike to all four corners of the country, covering a total of 9,889 kilometers in the process. After 189 days, one near-fatal car crash (that left him having to learn how to walk for a second time) and plenty of delays, Tommy completed his mission—raising AUD $124,000 for the Stroke Foundation.

“I know people are busy, but when people can slow down and walk at my pace, that’s what I love the most.”

- Tommy Quick

In March 2025, Tommy will set off on his next adventure: A 1,100km ride around Tasmania. The trip will focus on three key goals: To raise awareness for young stroke survivors, to raise funds for the Stroke Foundation and to promote inclusion through bike riding. “I just want to raise awareness of the exclusion that childhood stroke brings,” says Tommy. “540 kids will suffer a stroke this year [in Australia]. One third of those kids will be under the age of one. People think stroke is an old person’s disease, but under the age of 54, there are 124,000 Australians living with stroke.”

Where previous excursions focused on maximizing kilometers, the Tasmania trip is founded on a simple motto: “Fewer kilometers, more conversations.” Over 30 days, Tommy will ride from the northwestern point of Tasmania over to the eastern point, then down south through Hobart and eventually ending up in Cockle Creek—stopping in at a bunch of local schools along the way to have conversations with kids. “Because Tassie is smaller, we want to focus on being in schools, educating kids about inclusion—the disparity of one kid to another,” says Tommy. “I want to teach them the importance of walking at someone else’s pace.”

That last point is close to Tommy’s heart. He remembers once walking to a venue in which he was due to give a speech. Most of the group he was walking with bolted off ahead and left Tommy walking on his own. But one member of the group came back. “Let’s just say I’m much better at cycling than I am walking these days,” says Tommy, laughing. Tommy gave his speech and everyone applauded him for being an ‘inspiration’, but the thing Tommy remembers most from that day is the friend who came back to walk alongside him. “I know people are busy, but when people can slow down and walk at my pace, that’s what I love the most,” says Tommy. 

Traveling through Tasmania with his dad, fellow stroke survivor Glen Brown and “anyone else who wants to join,” Tommy’s mission is as much about raising awareness as it is about continuously pushing himself to his physical and mental limits. “It all starts as a thought, then it becomes a goal, and you want that sense of achievement,” he says. “And it’s even more a sense of achievement when I have my people around me. Anything is possible.”

Tommy isn’t a fan of the word ‘disabled’, and believes that it isn’t the responsibility of people living with disability to ‘fit in’ with their environment—but of our social, educational and communal environments to do a better job of catering for all abilities.

His father is a teacher, and Tommy empathizes with the challenge teachers face in having to teach up to 30 incredibly different children in one classroom. “Teachers are underpaid for the amount of work they do, their burden is so much—they’ve got to cater for all these kids with different abilities in one class,” says Tommy. “Schooling reform is a challenge that we should all fight for.” 

Tommy Quick will be ‘takin’ on Tassie’ in March 2025. You can donate to support the mission and find out more on Tommy’s website.

****

Adventure.com strives to be a low-emissions travel publication. We are powered by, but editorially independent of, Intrepid Travel, the world’s largest travel B Corp, who help ensure Adventure.com maintains high standards of sustainability in our work and activities. You can visit our sustainability page or read our Contributor Impact Guidelines for more information.