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Picture taken on Corfu

Friday 25th September - Saturday 26th September 1987

Martin came round to my house about 8.30 one night, we piled all my bits into the car and drove to Dover to catch the first available ferry to Calais. Since the idea was just to drive to Corfu we didn't intend to do much sightseeing in France, just drive straight through, well sort of, have you ever tried driving through Paris? We had this idea that we would like to have breakfast in the centre of Paris and possibly drive past a couple of the famous landmarks, after a couple of hours driving round in circles all we wanted to do was get out of the city. We managed eventually although not in the direction we intended but once out of the city we managed to find our way back on to our intended route. Bonnie Tyler's song Lost In France still brings back memories for me.

We carried on South on the Autoroutes only stopping for fuel and food. It was on the Autoroute that we had our first problem, at about 85mph one of the spark plugs blew out of the head (so who didn't tighten it properly?) This is actually quite a frightening experience, there is an almighty bang followed by a very loud drumming noise which causes immediate heart attacks to the occupants of the car. Fortunately the plug was still attached to the lead so we just re-gapped it and put it back in. It was while we were getting back into the car our most serious problem occured, one of the stereo speakers fell out of the door, we couldn't find the screws and just had to carry on in mono.

We drove into Italy in the late afternoon after going through the Frejus Tunnel, not to be recommended if you are claustrophobic, it's eight miles (12km) long, with only a little trouble at the border, Martin didn't see the stop sign and drove straight through Passport Control, he realised something was wrong when people started waving guns at us and reversed rather fast (have you ever tried to find out just how fast a B will go in reverse? It's not bad but it didn't seem fast enough at the time). We eventually got across the border although the officials did take an awfully long time giving our passports back, I think we must have upset them. We carried on and went through Turin, here we had another minor problem, the idle screw on the carbs came undone with the result every time we stopped then so did the engine, in Turin rush hour traffic this does actually cause a slight problem, we solved it temporarily by having the passenger pull the choke out every time we stopped to keep the engine running. We fixed that as soon as we found somewhere safe to stop, fortunately the screw hadn't dropped out, just come loose. We carried on South then at about 11.30 pulled into a campsite in Varazze. In our first day we had driven for 27 hours and done 915 miles!

Monday 28th September 1987

On the third day of our trip we decided to push on a bit faster and took to the Autostrada again, we did think of taking a quick trip through Rome (no, we hadn't learnt our lesson in Paris!) but we took one look at the stationary queue of traffic on the road leading into the city, common sense prevailed and we just carried on. The Autostrada in Southern Italy are great, well sufaced, wide and empty of traffic, you have to be careful though as they do have police checkpoints set up occasionally, we were stopped on one occasion but again the lack of a common language (we did speak English, French and German between us and on one occasion managed to find one person who spoke German when we were lost but generally we were reduced to sign language) helped and we were allowed to carry on. We stopped briefly in Pompeii for a look around and then carried on to Brindisi to catch the ferry to Corfu. Brindisi is an interesting town, there don't seem to be any traffic regulations in force, you just drive on whichever side of the road has the least traffic, park wherever you like and if you get held up for more than a couple of seconds lean on the horn. We made it to the port though and caught the overnight ferry.

Tuesday 31st September - Monday 5th October 1987

We spent the next week on Corfu in three different campsites, driving round enjoying the scenery and the hospitality of the locals. This was what we had come for so in the entire week we only did 300 miles, relaxed on the beach and drank far too much beer. One word of warning, one of the campsites we stayed at the owners invited us to join them in the evenings for a drink, unfortunately you can't say no as this hurts their feelings and neither can you stop drinking too early as this also upsets them, have you ever tried to keep up with a Greek drinking Ouzo? It is not to be recommended, an Ouzo hangover is death!

Monday 5th October - Tuesday 6th October 1987

We decided to catch the ferry from Corfu to the mainland in the evening and drive through the night so we turned up at the port and drove over to where the boat was loading to be told "no room, no room" so we went over to the ticket office to book a ticket on the next ferry out to be told "you want boat now? I get." The girl then tore a piece of paper off the corner of her note pad and told us to give it to the man directing the loading. He took one look at this scrap of paper and waved us up the ramp. The only trouble was we had to park underneath the rear of a truck and we couldn't get the doors open, everything was packed in that tightly.

We arrived in Igoumenitsa and drove Northwards into the mountains skirting the border of Albania. The scenery in the mountains was incredible, the moon was nearly full and we were driving along a road with the mountains rising on our left and dropping off into a valley we couldn't see the bottom of on our right. I was driving fairly slowly enjoying the scenery when as I came round a bend an animal, later identified as a wolf, came running out of the bushes towards the car, I have never flipped out of overdrive and accelerated so fast in my life. I don't know what the animal's intentions were but in the moonlight it did not look very friendly. A couple of miles further on, still travelling fast I rounded a bend and nearly ran into a horse that was standing in the middle of the road. Soon after that we had to stop and put the roof up as it was getting cold as we were getting higher, this was the first time in the entire trip we had had the roof up. We carried on over the mountains until lack of petrol forced us to pull into the forecourt of a petrol station and get some sleep while we waited for it to open. Sleeping in an MG isn't too bad as long as you don't get the side with the pedals, they do cramp you slightly.

We woke up to find the petrol station had been open for a couple of hours but no-one seemed to object to us being there so we just filled up and carried on. Later that day we came to the border of Yugoslavia and crossed with no trouble at all, customs just took one quick look in the boot and shut it without touching anything.

The idea was to follow the border of Albania as closely as possible and then follow the Yugoslav coast road as far north as possible so we carried on again. Southern Yugoslavia in those days was a beautiful place, a lot of the locals wore the colourful National Costume and the main form of transport was the bullock cart. Our car, tatty though it was, caused a sensation wherever we went, it seemed no-one had ever seen a foreign sports car before and if we stopped anywhere we were immediately surrounded by a crowd of locals just looking at the car, we found though, that it was perfectly safe to leave the car open with all our belongings on display, no-one would touch anything. At one point a boy of about 8 came over to us, looked at the car and then asked for pens and footballs (in English!), we didn't have any footballs but we did give him a couple of pens. We stopped at a roadside cafe for lunch and came across the usual problem of no common language but the woman behind the counter solved this by disappearing into the back and coming out with a large tray loaded up with plates with the raw ingredients of all the meals she produced on it and all we had to do was point to what we wanted. While we were eating her son came in from the local farm (he parked his tractor next to our car) and came over and joined us, he spoke some English and that was the first opportunity he'd had to try it on some English people. Before we had finished the local Policeman came in for some food, he didn't say anything to us and the way he propped his sub machine-gun against the wall before he sat down was disconcerting to say the least!

As we had planned we followed the Albanian border into Pec, keeping off the main roads as far as possible, carried on to Titograd and then turned North again on the coast road. This road is incredible, it is 750 miles long and passes through some of the most fantastic scenery I have ever seen. We carried on 'til fairly late and pulled into a layby for some sleep (in the car again).

Wednesday 7th October - Thursday 8th October 1987

We continued up the coast road stopping briefly in Split for some food but generally pressing on as fast as we could. We crossed into Austria later that night and carried on over yet another impressive mountain range. As we were coming out of the mountains we had our most serious and potentially most dangerous problem, one of the brake pads exploded, tore out of the caliper and the piston popped out - no brakes! Fortunately we were just coming onto the Autobahn and as it was late with very little traffic around we managed to carry on into a service stop. We slept in the car again and then the following morning arranged to have the car towed into a local village with a garage. It was at this point we realised the money we spent on AA 5 Star service was worth every penny! We spent most of the day hanging around while the owner tried to find us some new brake pads, MG pads aren't easily available in that part of Austria, but were on the road again in the late afternoon. We drove on to Alpbach where Martin goes skiing every winter and as it was out of season were offered free accomodation for the night. A proper bed to sleep in - luxury!

Friday 9th October 1987

We left the hotel fairly early the next morning and carried on into Germany, before we got to the border we had our final problem, the heater valve sprang a leak and dumped all the coolant on the road. We got some more water from a friendly farmer and found that if we kept the heater switched on full it didn't leak so we were still able to carry on even if was a bit too warm to have the heater on at all. We planned to visit Martin's brother who was living close to Hamburg at the time and carried on driving again stopping only for food and fuel although we didn't really hurry ourselves. We were held up for a couple of hours at one point by an accident on the Autobahn and drove on late into the night before stopping at a service area for some sleep.

Saturday 10th October 1987

We arrived at Martin's brother's about mid-morning and spent most of the day relaxing before leaving in the late evening. We drove non-stop through Germany, Holland and Belgium arriving at Zeebrugge about three o'clock in the morning to catch the first available ferry to Dover.

Sunday 11th October 1987

This trip didn't do the car much good so it was taken off the road for a full rebuild and Martin still owns it, although one day soon, Martin, I WILL buy that car off you! We did have some problems but when you consider we had had the car for less than a month before the trip and it had obviously been well abused by previous owners, and also taking into account the mileage we did in a very short space of time I don't think it did too badly at all. The mileage we did was split about 50/50 between high speed (80 - 85mph) cruising and narrow twisting roads with plenty of gear changes but everything held up extremely well. The suspension was the only thing that really gave up, it was sagging when we left, we were carrying a lot of luggage (three man ridge tent, clothes for two people, two camera outfits, 12 foot inflatable dingy, tools and spares) and some of the roads we drove over in Corfu were no better than farm tracks so I had no complaints about that at all. And as a matter of interest driving up from Dover after the trip we were passed by another another MG so we accelerated to catch up, we saw three figures on the speedo before we let him go and slowed down again so the engine was still fine after a total of 120,000 miles. (You didn't read that last bit - I was actually quite a responsible 20 year old - honestly, and anyway I wasn't driving).

So what can I say about the trip? It was two weeks of hard driving covering a total of 4687 road miles, the total cost (remember this was 1987), including all fuel, ferries, tolls, food and campsite fees was £950. Would I do it again - You bet I would! If anyone else is interested in doing something similar this summer take a look at the European Tour 1998 page. Update - I did something similar again and I will do it yet again! See the rest of the European Tour pages!