Matthew Benns and Warren Brown on a mission to drive 100-year-old Bean 14 sportster from London to Melbourne for RFDS
Believe it or not, when journo Matthew Benns and cartoonist Warren Brown finish their epic global trip, they won’t even be the first to pull it off.
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The button pinged off my waistcoat as I slid behind the wheel of the 100-year-old Bean 14 sportster and ricocheted around the footwell.
“Crikey! Good job I had my goggles on,” said startled cartoonist and co-driver Warren Brown. “That could have taken my eye out!”
The Naos Hotel in Orikum, Albania, is apparently famous for its breakfasts and the gouda and ham omelette certainly seemed to have done its work on my waistcoat buttons.
Well nobody said driving a vintage car from London to Melbourne was not without its risks but gaining multiple kilos on the first leg through Europe was not one of them.
The recreation of Francis Birtles 1927 epic drive to Australia in the same model car to raise money for The Royal Flying Doctor Service conjured up romantic images of roaring through the capitals of Europe – Paris, Berlin, Rome.
Naturally we started in that most glamorous of locations, Southampton, waiting for our delayed ship to arrive with the Bean and back-up Ford Ranger.
“Blimey, you came all the way from Australia to holiday in Southampton,” gasped a bemused local. “Why?”
“We came straight here because we were told it was the Monte Carlo of the United Kingdom,” explained Brown patiently.
From there it was a trip to Dudley where the Bean was made and then Herne Bay in Kent to pick up some tyres before finally arriving in London for a send off from the RAC Club in Pall Mall.
Then disaster struck.
Our videographer, whose name will be suppressed to spare his blushes, burst into tears and quit. Apparently a year of Zoom meetings and planning a world trip had not prepared him for the journey from Southampton to London.
We ploughed on.
Miss England Milla Magee waved us off from Australia House where King Charles had sent a letter with his “warmest wishes” for the success of the trip. And then we were through the Dartford Tunnel and on the road.
Nothing had prepared me for the response from other motorists.
Truck drivers honked their horns, families slowed down to film us and wave, van drivers fist pumped and gave the thumbs up.
It was the same right across Europe, motorcyclists in particular related to the car with its lack of roof, doors or windows and exposure to the elements and garbage truck drivers in Greece took a particular shine to the Bean.
“It’s a happy car,” explained Brown.
“People just look at it and smile. It’s like this trip, it is meant to be an old fashioned rip roaring adventure raising money for a very good cause.”
We stayed in Dunkirk in France and then began the tour of places you have never heard of, Han Sur Lesse in Belgium because Dinant where Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone was full and on to Bad Bergazem in Germany.
At exactly 2.01pm on Sunday afternoon we walked into the restaurant in Germany to be told: “Sorry, we are closed. If you had been here 90 seconds earlier you could have ordered.”
Turns out the whole town was shut.
And on to the outskirts of Salzburg where the onion spired churches and clinking cowbells could not disguise the fact that the hotel was in fact closed and you had to find the key under the mat and let yourself in.
We also discovered that cash is still king.
“You can pay 54 Euro in cash for dinner tonight or 151 euro by card in the morning,” one entrepreneurial hotel employee told us after dinner. We naturally paid cash and watched as she gleefully tucked it into her purse.
On the Bean powered.
Through delightful Slovenia and picturesque Croatia to Montenegro where we tried the national dish in a cliff top restaurant overlooking Sveti Stefan.
“Delicious, what do you call this?” Brown asked waitress Jovana Spalevic.
“Lamb,” she replied.
In the largely undiscovered town of Ulcinj we threw ourselves on the mercy of Barbana Draga, owner of the Pino Hotel, which was closed for the season and begged for a couple of rooms.
“We just have the caretaker here but you can stay if you like,” Barbana said. “Unfortunately there will be no service.”
We gratefully accepted and caretaker Elionel Gjoka settled in with us as we dealt with the devastating news that our ferry from Athens to Cairo had been cancelled.
A howling storm whipped up the Adriatic and Barbana begged us not to leave in the open topped car until it had passed.
Finally, under blue skies we motored into Albania still unsure of how or when we would get a ship to Egypt. Apparently every available cargo vessel was being filled with munitions. Shipping agent Marios Adam in Athens thought it might be in a couple of weeks.
The roads were full of speeding black Audis and peasants with donkeys. We took the Vlore bypass over the mountains to Orikum where Dutch motorhome dwellers with skin like Roman sandals guided us to the only decent hotel as night fell.
From there we headed to the UNESCO listed town of Gjirokaster where dictator Enva Hoxha was born.
The town has cold war tunnels dug under the castle by political prisoners over the course of a decade from 1963 for government officials to shelter in the advent of a nuclear war.
The whole country is riddled with tunnels and bunkers built on one man’s paranoia.
Bizarrely a majority of the population still look back on his more than 40 year rule with affection.
Our booking at the Hotel Kalemi 2 seemed like a good idea until we realised it was at the top of a steep, narrow, shiny cobbled street. The howling Bean rose to the challenge in first gear while the Ranger barely scraped through.
“Your room is on the top floor,” the receptionist said, handing over the key. “Unfortunately because of the heritage listing we don’t have a lift.”
At the border with Greece the police and customs officers came out to admire the car and remind us not to take photographs – before posing for selfies with their colleagues.
And then the phone rang. “Mr Matthew, are you in Greece?” asked cargo forwarding agent Marios Adam.
The good news was that he had a ship booked for us from Piraeus in Athens to Alexandria. The bad news was that we had to be there to load the cars into containers at 9.30 the following morning.
That was 500 km away and six hours until nightfall. Brown pulled on his chamois driving gloves and tightened his goggles.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Right now the Bean is on its way to Egypt in a container and we are preparing for the next leg of the journey through the shifting desert sands of Arabia and across pirate infested waters to the shores of the Arabian Sea.
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Originally published as Matthew Benns and Warren Brown on a mission to drive 100-year-old Bean 14 sportster from London to Melbourne for RFDS
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