Nürburgring, Germany

Known as the ‘Green Hell’, the Nürburgring is a never-ending ribbon of automotive mania through the Eifel mountains. I was competing in its 24 Hours race with racing legends Jürgen von Gartzen and Christophe Bouchut, facing a delicious 14km of track and eight hours driving each. The track itself, occupied by 150 cars of spectacularly differing performance, had no run-off, so there was no room for error as we sped around and around to the roar of the 3.8 litre Boxer cylinder Porsche engine. In the evening, you could just make out the light of campfires and the silhouettes of the spectators in the forest. 

Car of choice: Porsche GT3 RS
Song: Another Round, Foo Fighters

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Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia

Once you start driving in Australia, you don’t want to stop. When you get to the bits where the people start to run out, it just gets more and more beautiful. I felt as though my diesel Land Cruiser would go on forever as I followed the spine of the Cape York peninsula along the Gulf of Carpentaria to the city of Darwin. There was a primordial, Floridian quality to it all – just me, my shortwave radio (which I would not have known how to use even if I’d needed it) and the occasional estuarine crocodile, lurking in the mangrove swamps.

Car of choice: Toyota Land Cruiser
Song: Down Under, Men at Work

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Hargeisa to Berbera, Somaliland

It was early morning with the light starting to flood in as we left Hargeisa, capital of Somaliland, to head north to Berbera, a coastal city on the Gulf of Aden. There were caravans of camels, carrying bright yellow water containers, desert-like plains and the ‘Sheikh’ – the highest mountain in the region – watching over us. Our driver drove with the authority of a man who liked asserting it, so I hung on nervously in the back. Africa is a humbling kind of beautiful, and I’ll always remember driving through the dawn, buzzing with the expectation of the day to come.

Car of choice: Toyota Land Cruiser
Song: Cold Desert, Kings Of Leon

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Edinburgh to Stirling, Scotland on the A90/M9

Each year, my friend and I make for the Highlands in Scotland to fish in the beautiful and primordial Findhorn gorge, just south of Inverness. It’s one of the UK’s fastest-running rivers and, rather magnificently, where we’ve only caught one fish in 10 years. The drive there is more successful, through the stark landscape of the Cairngorms National Park as we head north from Edinburgh. Then there's the magnificent sight of Stirling Castle, standing proud on an outcrop of rock like the Highland’s great protector from the English. 

Car of choice: Land Rover 110
Song: The January Man, Barbara Dickson

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A272 towards Winchester, England

The entomologist in me comes out as the English spring arrives and I drive along the A272, window open, in my shamefully dirty Land Rover. This road marks the split between the once ‘impassable Weald’ and the ‘blunt bow headed whaleback Downs’ as Rudyard Kipling described them. When I reach Cheesefoot Head, a natural amphitheatre near the beautiful town of Winchester – and the very spot where Eisenhower addressed the troops before D-Day – I know that I am nearly home.

Car of choice: Land Rover 110
Song: When The Boat Comes In, Alex Glasgow

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