Croatia to London overland

Croatia to London

On leaving Slavonski Brod we made a decision. There would be no more overnight stops, and we would just drive home. That meant me, as I was the only driver in the car.

Essentially the problem was money. We were running out of local currency and our travellers cheques were getting low. Today one can just push a credit card into a cash dispenser and draw out cash in any denomination, but it was very different then. Banks that handled international transactions were only to be found in major cities, and you could waste a whole day before the transaction was cleared. Being in the Soviet Block didn't help either.

Slavonski Brod is in east Croatia, then a region of the former Yugoslavia. Today Croatia is an independant state. Our route took us through Croatia to Zagreb and then through Slovenia to Austria.

As we drove through Austria dusk began to fall, and we met a very exitable Austrian policeman. In Austria you were not allowed to drive on side lights but had to have dipped beams on after the official lighting up time. I was unaware of this; I couldn't understand German; the policeman couldn't understand English; he demonstrated by flicking his lights on and off; I tried to copy, flicking my lights on and off - for a moment it was touch and go whether I would be arrested or he would have a fit. But I finally got the message - possibly I would have got it earlier if I hadn't been driving all the day.

The next stage was a night drive across German via the autobahns, a nightmare of road works. I stopped for a few hours sleep in the car, and then pressed on towards Belgium, just in time to hit the Brussels ringroads at the peak commuting hour in the morning.

A new experience. Everyone seemed singlemindedly determined to be in front of everyone else. But eventually the ringroads were left behind and we were on our way to the coast.

We had no booking, so had to take pot luck with the ferries, and it wasn't until the night that we were on board.

The next stage was the 250 miles or so to where we were to stay in London. We arrived in time for breakfast, just 11 days and 1 night from when we had left Kuwait, and only 48 hours since we had left Slavonski Brod in Croatia.

Of course like all travellers we wanted to tell of the things we had seen - the arms build up around the Turkey-Russia border, life in the Soviet Block, the wild landscapes of northern Iran. But like all potential audiences everywhere, no one was at all interested.