North Africa - 4

Once beyond Benghazi we were in the 'western desert' that had been fought over in the great North African battles of the second world war. The place was still littered - and dangerous - with the wreckage of the many battles. The desert preserved everything, so we slept in the little depressions called 'fox holes' which the soldiers had dug themselves for protection. All along the road we passed the beautifully kept cemeteries, Commonwealth, German and Italian. At Tobruk, just inside the Egyptian border, we fell in with the padre attached to the big British air base at El Adem who told us that the Bedouin still called him out into the desert to retrieve the perfectly preserved, mummified remains of British soldiers and airmen.

I had the Kowa camera with me which I had bought in Aden but hardly used it and, sadly, many of the pictures I did take were very poor. However, this picture, taken on our flight back from Tanzania in 2012, shows the desert road near Mersa Matruh in Egypt. The tourist developments visible along the coast weren't there in 1964.

We drank a cold lager on the Corniche in Alexandria, just like John Mills in the film 'Ice Cold in Alex', then pressed on towards Cairo. We slept beside the pyramids and saw the Tutankhamun treasures in the Cairo museum. Then, aided by a mad Irishman, we blagged a free ride on the train up the Nile as far as Luxor.

We visited the magnificent temple of Karnak and hired bicycles to ride up to the Valley of the Kings. We were 40 days into our trip and, for the first time, slept in a bed with sheets, because the Youth Hostel took pity on us and allowed us in even though we weren't members.

It was mid-August and we had to make a decision. We could press on south but there wouldn't be time to return to the UK for the start of the university term. We were running out of money; we were tired and thin as rakes; and Olga Omo was in Colomb-Bechar waiting to be collected. On the 15th, we turned back.

If we'd worked hard at hitch-hiking to get as far as Luxor, we worked even harder on the way back. In one 24-hour period in Libya we travelled 1,000 kilometres. At no point were we ill but our bodies were suffering: we'd both had diarrhoea but the main problem we had was with our feet, where cracked soles had become infected mainly because, throughout the trip, we had walked in sandals. By the time I reached Saida in Algeria - Michael had diverted to Oran to pick up mail - I was all in, but a group of young people saw me sitting at a sidewalk cafe and bought me a meal in a restaurant and a bed in the local hotel. Bless them.

We left Colomb-Bechar on 8th September and crossed to Gibraltar on the 12th. I have all these dates because, as promised, Michael and I both wrote home regularly. My mother typed out the letters and forwarded a copy to Uncle Stanley. She kept the originals, which I still have.

That said, the events of the last few days, between Gibraltar and home, were not recorded. The cylinder head gasket went as we drove up through France. By that time we were broke. A small garage - I wish I could remember where - replaced the gasket using one of the spares I had had the unusual foresight to bring, on condition we sent them the money once back in the UK, which we did.

We arrived home sometime around 17th September. We had travelled an estimated 15,000km in about 75 days, an average of 200km a day. While I was away my parents had sold Amberheath and moved to Orchard House, a rented cottage in Appledore in Kent.  Gill Rothwell had found someone who didn't go travelling. I was supposed to be leaving shortly for a geology field trip on Arran but couldn't go: my cut foot had become septic and I could hardly walk. And I was back in England.