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Then you get to the Bixby Creek rainbow bridge at Big Sur and you'll almost certainly want to drop to four mph, then to a complete standstill. It's far from the most sophisticated bridge in the world, since it's built from wood and concrete and it's not the most beautiful either.

But when it spears off into the fog, and all you can hear are the bark of the sea lions below, well, it's a moment you don't want to waste by passing through at 120, with your hair on fire.

The next day, I had a similar sort of feeling while cruising down the waterfront in San Francisco. I felt sure the speed limit here is 30mph, but that's way too fast. I did about three, so I could spend more time drinking in the smells from the sea and gawping at the Bay Bridge.

Peering up those concrete canyons, I saw the funfair road system that had launched Steve McQueen and his Mustang 30 feet into the air, and into the consciousness of small boys everywhere.

Counter to this, I recall driving once through a eucalyptus forest in Portugal and because there wasn't much to look at, I went nuts, squealing my tyres on every corner and generally being quite loony. Quite an achievement in a Toyota Starlet.

Had the Banana Girl who filled my face with pie this month seen me being so reckless, she would have dropped a large boulder on my foot. Or maybe shot me in the heart with an organic gun.

And she'd have been similarly mad if she'd caught me in Alice Springs having driven at an average speed of 130mph on dirt roads from some massive ranch about three million miles away.