This is the story of Will and his two friends who sailed to England in 1967 to see the world. Aerogrammes. letters, diaries and postcards help to tell of their adventures in this A to Z.

“Goodbye”       Mary Hopkin  • 1969
Please don't wake me up too late, tomorrow comes
And I will not be late
Late today when it becomes tomorrow
I will leave to go away

6th August 1969

It’s about 10 days since I last wrote from London and a lot has happened since then. We took the giant hovercraft from Dover to France. We then drove and drove through Belgium, Luxembourg and France arriving in Strasbourg at 11.00 am on the 28^th. Then on through the Black Forest, camping near Munich.

The southern part of Germany was very pretty around Bavaria where we camped one night on a site near a large lake. As the weather was very hot we had a few stops for swimming. In Munich we visited the famous Hofbrauhaus, a huge beer hall which serves litres of beer. There seem to be lots of works going on around the city as preparations for the 1972 Olympics are underway.

From there we drove through Salzburg in Austria, reaching the Yugoslav border at 2.00 am.  We kept driving to 5.00am.  Dawn was by a river where we lit a fire and cooked savs and beans.  

Austria was just the way I had imagined it with its high mountains and fertile green valleys, green lakes and the chalet type houses. The roads were very good all the way except when we decided to make a diversion from Zagreb in Yugoslavia down to the coast which I had seen before but the other three hadn’t.

We arrived at the beautiful Plitvice Lakes in a thunderstorm.  We then continued over mountains on bad roads to Kavlobag on the coast where rooms were 9 shillings each. The roads just about disappeared eventually and a bulldozer had to remake part of the road before we could get through but the old Morris carried on regardless. The next day we set off along the bad coast road to Zadar.  

I have never seen so many smashes in my life before as we saw along that 500 miles of winding mountainous road, some caused by rock falls and some by the road but others simply by careless driving. In parts there was no safety rail and a 400 foot drop to the sea. We were beginning to wonder when our turn was due. We struck some particularly rough roads as we climbed back over the mountain ranges at almost 7000 feet and it was no fun meeting a huge lorry with a four wheel trailer behind. Nevertheless the car survived that too except for shaking the exhaust loose so that we had to wire it up.

Arrived 1pm at Split and camped in the car.  Heavy rain proved that the tent leaks! Passed Dubrovnik at 5am over the mountain pass to Titograd (now called Podgorica, the capital city of Montenegro Ed.).  Swam in fjord (the Bay of Kotot Ed). Drove all night on rough mountain roads 6,600 feet high.  Got lost but found Pec, Yugoslavia eventually. In the town market  we fascinated the locals as they had rarely seen tourists. The central southern part of Yugoslavia around Skopje where the earthquake wrecked the city and killed all the people a few years back had a very strong Turkish influence. However, none of the women had the veils covering their face as the communist regime has made this illegal.

We got a blowout in a tunnel not long before the Greek border so drove the last 500 miles on the spare.

We arrived in Greece at 5pm (Thessalonika) and drove all night along the motorway through Greece.  Short sleep, breakfast and a swim in the Aegean.  Arrived in Athens at 10.30am.

The last two to three days we’ve spent in Athens which seems very interesting. Fortunately many people seem to speak English which is just as well as this Greek language is very difficult, not to speak, but to read and write because of the different alphabet. Our hotel there was quite OK, nine and six pence a night and the food in the restaurants is good and cheap. Peaches, tomatoes, melons, cucumbers etc are very low priced and the beer is excellent.