Driving for endless hours on European motorways isn't that exciting, even if you are heading for North Africa, so I will keep my European driving adventures brief. It goes something like this....

I left London just after Friday midnight. The ferry was booked for 8am the next day and I didn't want to leave my fully loaded landy parked on the street overnight in Hackney. So I set off with mixed, and somewhat stressed, thoughts after saying my goodbyes with a plan of sleeping near Dover.

Camped up in a motorway services area at about 3am, woke up at 6am, made it to the ferry with plenty of time and spent the ferry journey very tired but excited as being from New Zealand the idea of driving to the edge of your country and catching a ferry to another was kinda cool.

Knowing fuel was much cheaper in France than the UK I had run my tanks right down. Being very tired, and thus quite dazed, I managed to drive off into Dunkirk without spotting a petrol station and so ran out of fuel after about 10km of motorway. I wasn't quite sure what road I was on either. Or what the best direction was to head in for Zurich.

A bit of a bloody balls up as they say where I grew up.

To get out of trouble I managed to mix the 3-4 litres of diesel I had in a jerry can with the 4 litres of paraffin I was taking for no good reason and it was enough to get me to the next petrol station. Now if I could just find a petrol station that had some food that was vegetarian I would be set for the long haul ahead (900 odd km).

Sadly I couldn't, and with a cracking headache I gave in at the 4th petrol station and had a ham sandwich. 4 years of being a veggie at an end. (note: July 2004 - I haven't died yet)

The rest of the drive through France was quite pleasent, and the realisation of having finally gotten away was starting to build. I was free! I was free! France was a nice place to drive through despite their meat lovers sandwiches always being a problem. All motorways had nice service areas with large, and usually quiet, areas set aside for people who needed to have a snooze in their vehicles.

After driving until 3am I sleep in a services area near the border of Swissland. Completely stuffed, but happy to be away.

I had been texting Chris in Zurich with my progress and so after rolling into central Zurich the next morning I let him know where I was and he promised to pop down to pick me up...

Travel Tip: Don't enter Swissland by motorway. You will be made to buy a 30 euro motorway tax sticker which is valid from Jan to Dec. Any non-motorway entry will avoid this problem.