31-03-2021, 07:25 AM
I was fortunate to meet John in Brighton. It was at the end of an A7 London to Brighton around 2010 or so, he was sitting in the pale autumn sunshine, rather fragile, but still very alert and interested in all that was going on. I had not long returned from an A7 trip around Argentina from BA to Ushaia and back via Chile, the Patagonian glaciers, the Andes and return, over a 1000 miles on Route 40 a dirt road of fearsome repute.
John was interested to hear about it, asking lots of questions. At the end I hesitantly told him of an ambition to follow in his footsteps because his 1959 trip and book had been such an inspiration. He was immediately enthusiastic "You must do it, it will be a most important part of your life history". In the company of Diana Garside, River Dukes, Stan Price and my partner Amanda Peters in a chummy an RN and my RP we followed in JC's wheel tracks in 2013. Our route was largely based on his, but we were able to continue through Ecuador, where he had to divert by ship to Panama, and on through Colombia. Following a sea passage to Colon in Panama, we passed through Central America, Mexico and entered the USA in San Laredo, Texas. Now our route diverged from JC's, we crossed the southern States to North Carolina, the home then of Diana and River, visiting friends and briefly hooking up with Steve Berg en-route. North, along the Skyline Drive, avoiding the major cities until reaching New York.
We made a brief visit to Times Square, we reckon being the 3rd, 4th and 5th Austin 7s in that location. JC was the first, Vince Leek the 2nd.
Along the way we meet people who had met John on his journey, we drove a short distance on the original Pan America Highway, then a dirt road. We saw some of the river crossing points he had to ford and understood quite how epic his journey had been.
Some of you may have seen the three cars at Beaulieu together with JC's car, at the end of the trip, fresh off the ship on which they returned to the UK.
John was interested to hear about it, asking lots of questions. At the end I hesitantly told him of an ambition to follow in his footsteps because his 1959 trip and book had been such an inspiration. He was immediately enthusiastic "You must do it, it will be a most important part of your life history". In the company of Diana Garside, River Dukes, Stan Price and my partner Amanda Peters in a chummy an RN and my RP we followed in JC's wheel tracks in 2013. Our route was largely based on his, but we were able to continue through Ecuador, where he had to divert by ship to Panama, and on through Colombia. Following a sea passage to Colon in Panama, we passed through Central America, Mexico and entered the USA in San Laredo, Texas. Now our route diverged from JC's, we crossed the southern States to North Carolina, the home then of Diana and River, visiting friends and briefly hooking up with Steve Berg en-route. North, along the Skyline Drive, avoiding the major cities until reaching New York.
We made a brief visit to Times Square, we reckon being the 3rd, 4th and 5th Austin 7s in that location. JC was the first, Vince Leek the 2nd.
Along the way we meet people who had met John on his journey, we drove a short distance on the original Pan America Highway, then a dirt road. We saw some of the river crossing points he had to ford and understood quite how epic his journey had been.
Some of you may have seen the three cars at Beaulieu together with JC's car, at the end of the trip, fresh off the ship on which they returned to the UK.