Julio Languiller was born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1956. His
happy childhood, which included swimming in the River Plate sunken
wreck of the German battleship Graf Spee, was interrupted by a
military coup in 1973, which forced his family to flee to
neighbouring Argentina.
After two years in Buenos Aires, the Languiller family got an
assisted visa for Australia, arriving in late 1974.
After a two year stint picking tobacco as part of his
obligations to the Australian Government, Julio was able to
continue his love affair with motorcycles, buying a Honda 100cc to
replace the beloved Velocette Julio had to leave behind in
Montevideo.
That first bike was replaced with a Honda CB250 which ended its
life in a collision with a cow that had escaped from the Angliss
abattoir in Kensington. Another, inevitably larger, Honda followed,
which was to set a trend for the next twenty years.
Julio's introduction to scooters began when he spent 2004 in
Barcelona and a scooter was the most practical way of getting
around. He returned to Australia a scooter convert.
In 2005, Julio put his faith in a 50cc Honda Today scooter to
take him around a circuit around Melbourne's Docklands for 24
hours. The tiny bike ran faultlessly, and racked up more than 800
kilometres using just 25 litres of fuel.
Later the same year, Julio achieved two further 24 hour records
on scooters. It was during one of these long stints on his bike
that the idea of a Round Australia ride was formulated.
The imminent release of Honda's 600cc Silverwing maxi-scooter
was the catalyst for turning Julio's cross-continental dreams into
reality.