Roads

It's unsuprising, really, but 'overlanding' in a truck entails a lot of time spent on the road. To a little Englishman such as myself, this continent is all the more huge, and the distances are vast – a word you can't readily associate with Britain. Not for the first time, Bjorn will say after dinner, 'right guys, it's gonna be around eleven hours on the road tomorrow', and nobody blinks or complains. It's amazing how fast the time goes, though. As I child, I used to balk at the regular five-hour drives to see the relatives in Cornwall. It was always planned at least a week or two in advance, and my parents actually used to put the back seats down and make a double bed of sorts in the back for my sister and I (this was, of course, in the days before compulsary backseat seatbelts). My dad even built a luggage rack out of wood so we could lie with our feet underneath it. These days, the journey length doesn't bother me. Perhaps it's part of being a 'grown up'.

Perhaps it's because I simply have so much more to think about these days – the 'where am I going?', the 'what am I doing?' I don't know, perhaps this ‘thinking’ time is a valuable part of the trip. The truck is so crowded that the most sensible course of action is to get comfortable, then stay as still as possible. The first track on the stereo is always 'Beautiful Day' by U2, but most of the other music is lost amidst the noise of the engine, the rush of the wind across the windows, and the rattling caused by the pitted and rutted roads. It's amazing how one manages to sleep whilst being bounced off the ceiling, though. And yet we do. Sleeping and day-dreaming. I've changed careers three times, moved house and bought a bike several times while my head has rattled against the windows. And reading, too. I've managed to plow through several books, despite only being able to read half a sentence at a time before my eyes are bounced back up the page again.

Is it time wasted, though? My thoughts usually turn to home, and all the things I've been meaning to do. My resolve tightens, but it remains to be seen whether I knuckle down and sort out all my outstanding tasks and projects when I'm back in London. Sort my life out, essentially.

Or maybe it's just that iPods weren't around when I was ten.