Driving in Australia is not much different to driving in the UK. They drive on the correct (left) side of the road (most of the time!), usually stop at red traffic lights, and get fined for speeding. The things that we noticed most was that the roads are usually a lot wider than in the UK. For example, the main road from north to south through Adelaide is the Main Road South. At no point during something like 60 Km does it have less than two lanes on each side. There are stretches of three lanes too. In addition to this, at right hand side roads, there is usually a "slip lane" in the centre. The other lanes get pushed over to the left by narrowing them and cars turning right just wait in the slip lane without holding up the traffic. The roads are usually plenty wide enough to allow this and have a parking lane. So you can normally count on two lanes of reasonably free flowing traffic. How does that compare to you favourite UK town centre? Major junctions can be a bit confusing. If I take the junction on Main Road South and Grand Junction road, you suddenly have 5, maybe 6, lanes. One turns left, two or three go strait on and two turn right. You need to get into the correct lanes. When you are turning the lanes are marked with a white dotted line. That sounds simple, but the lanes from the other directions are also marked so you end up with a rather confused pattern of curved dotted lines. For the faint of heart, making a right turn across five lanes of snarling trucks all waiting for the green light can be a bit intimidating. You get used to it.

It is very common to allow left turns when the lights are red. You will see a sign saying "turn left any time with care" or something like it. But if there is no such sign, you are not allowed to turn against the red. Traffic lights also have a very long cycle. That means that you are less likely to be stopped but if you are you have plenty of time for a quick de-coke! And you don't get a red-amber before the green. It goes directly from red to green. This is a bit disconcerting to us Poms who are used to getting into gear etc on the red-amber but, again, you get used to it.

Pedestrians have right of way when crossing junctions. And they know it. Within the fist week of driving I very nearly took someone's knees off. I was turning left into a side road and local resident was walking along the pavement about to cross the side road. In England he would have stopped and waited for me to make my turn (although strictly speaking it is the car that should give way). Not in Australia mate! No, he just kept on walking. I must have missed his knees by 6mm at most! And did he give me a filthy look!! When I got home I checked in the "Road Rules" (that's what we call the Highway Code over here) and sure enough, I should have stopped and waited for him to cross. No damage but a valuable lesson learned.

Speed limits are strictly enforced. We all know of the tolerance that we can "get away with" in the UK. Australia is much less forgiving (regrettably I can now personally testify to this). Speed cameras are ubiquitous and unmarked police cars or bikes can park anywhere and get the radar gun out. My advice is stick to the speed limit.

Built up areas have recently introduced a 50Km speed limit with 60 Km on "through roads". If it is a town road and no limit is marked, treat it as 50. You may find areas with higher limits with 70 Km and 80 Km quite common. But you do not get reminders every half mile so be alert to the speed limit. (Some more cynical drivers say that the reasonably frequent speed changes are to catch out the unwary and generate income for the State.) In some residential areas you see a 40Km limit, often with speed humps (they really give me the 'ump!). The national speed limit is 100Km but some roads allow 110Km. This sounds painfully slow when you consider the vastness of this country.

Interstate travel is a dream. We took a trip to Leeton, about 900 Km from Adelaide. The roads were empty once you got out of town. Set the cruise control to 110 and just enjoyed the ride. It really was a case of "captain's log: 16:04 - car sighted." Our average speed over 9 hours of driving was just over 100Km. And it was entirely stress free. The return trip we did in one go with only a stop for lunch and my wife and I sharing the drive. Imagine sticking religiously to the 70mph limit on a journey from Durham to Bristol. Would your average work out to be 65mph? Unless England's roads have changed out of all recognition since we left I would be surprised if you would even average 50mph.

The practical test is similar to the UK driving test and exacts nearly the same amount of stress! You can do it by a log book which is very useful if, like my wife, you do not want to go through the stress of a test. The difference is that your instructor will teach you and test you on each aspect of driving. For example, this week you may have to work on doing a U-turn. He'll ask you to do it a couple of times without any instruction from him and if you succeed, it gets a tick. If you don't, then you'll just have to give it another go, either later in the lesson or at another lesson. It's reasonably stress free but takes quite a few lessons. (I think my wife took something like 10 lessons to get it all done, and she's a perfectly competent driver.) I don't have the patience to take that long, and am too tight to spend the money, so I booked a lesson on one weekend and sat the immediately after a second lesson the following weekend. From memory, the lessons were $100 each and a further $40 for the test, but this was nearly two years ago. Like the theory, don't think that because you have been driving in England for 25 years that you will (or are entitled to) pass without any further training. There are subtle differences, and you've probably picked up some bad habits anyway. Find an instructor in the phone book (or by recommendation) and book a lesson. They are very flexible and are used to us Poms doing this. Personally I would recommend using the instructor's car, even if you already have your own. Chances are you are still getting used to driving a huge 4 litre, 6 cylinder sedan after driving a Fiat Uno in England, and the instructor's paltry 4 cylinder 1.6 will feel more comfortable. He will also know exactly what bit of car to line up with what when doing complex manoeuvres. The test is remarkably informal too. You don't have to make an appointment weeks in advance and your instructor will organise that for you. Indeed, the examiner will probably be a mate of the instructor as it appears that pretty much all instructors are also examiners. You will meet up with the examiner in some convenient location, say a local car park, and off you go.

Most of the test is exactly the same as in England. "Please take the next turn on the right","Turn to the left and at a safe distance stop." etc etc. The only significant difference is the manoeuvres. There are five (in South Australia). Four are basic stuff that should pose no problem, but the one that I found the most difficult was the reverse parallel park. The concept is that you park parallel to the kerb in a tight gap between two parked cars. The gap is 2.8 metres longer than the car and you have to have your near-side tyres within 30 cm of the kerb and stop centrally between the two cars. You are also only allowed one back and forward shuffle to get the position right. In the test the parked cars are represented by a couple of sticks, one in front and one behind. I think you are allowed to fail just one of the manoeuvres. This one is particularly challenging although you may live in an area in the UK where that is the only way you'll ever get to park by your house, in which case it will be a cynch!

The Australian drivers license is treated almost like an I.D. card. Pretty much anything that requires I.D. will put the drivers license at the top of the list. When you get your Australian Drivers license you start to feel one big step closer to being a fully paid up Aussie!

Motorcycle Driving test. Like the above, you will need to pass your theory test. There was a bit of a stuff up in my case because the theory test didn't declare that I would be taking a bike test as well as a car test. I managed to persuade the test school that all was in order but query this when you take you theory test if you are expecting to also do a bike test.

The bike test is much more formal than the theory or the car test. You do have to book in advance and it carried out entirely at a test site. You sit through a lecture, which I found reasonably informative but for the other 29 in the class who really are just starting out, their attention could save their lives. Then you do a practical course involving basic manoeuvres, a very useful "emergency swerve" where you drive straight at the instructor and a few metres before you get to him he will put out his right or left arm to indicate the direction of your swerve. You shove the handlebar on that side and you are thrown into a swerve on the same side. I.e. you jolt the right hand handlebar forward and you swerve to the right (don't hold it forward, just shove it and let physics take over.) I didn't really master that. After 24 years of motorcycling and pushing the right hand handlebar forward to go left it came very difficult to push right to go right! I did it once or twice and I know that with that skill I would not have a couple of scars that I have today.

After an hour or so of training you do your test. There are a number of manoeuvres, including a ridiculously tight figure of 8, a very slow (feet off the floor) straight line drive, a slow S bend and one or two others. The emergency swerve was not part of the test. Bike's are usually provided and since you are restricted to 250cc (I think) this is the size that it is all set up for. Unless you brought your bike over you probably won't have one and you more than likely won't be thinking of buying a 250 when your last bike was a GL1200. You can use your own bike, even if it is a large one (using your UK license). In all honesty, I cannot see how my old Goldwing would be capable of keeping within the lines for the figure of 8.