This evening was set aside for an adventure – driving from Tsunami Reef in the top north-west corner of the map down to Redrock Bluffs (i.e. the Grand Canyon) in the bottom south-east corner. There’s a secret Achievement for doing it, but the best reason to do it is just because you can. I didn’t turn on my GPS for the journey and instead pointed myself south-east and drove, mostly on the Dirtgrinder bike, but I also used the Spider Wraith buggy for a while.

You start off on sand dunes, then you reach the grass, then the forest. Gentle rolling terrain becomes mountains, where I couldn’t quite go in a straight line and drive through narrow valleys, which luckily pointed in roughly the right direction. Then more hills and forests, until they give way to red desert. Driving the last few miles reminded me strongly of the drive through southern Utah and northern Arizona on my honeymoon – which was also a drive to the Grand Canyon. My wife was sitting next to me on the sofa, as she had done in the car on that drive and we talked about the music that had playing on the radio. (Shakira and the Stone Roses, if you’re interested.)

Shortly after that I reached the base camp in Redrock Bluffs, after a drive of one hour and forty minutes and ninety miles.

I didn’t celebrate for long, instead jumping into the Career race that takes you round the Skywalk, which is really quite scary. Of course, once I’d won that race, I drove straight off it and fell to my expected doom. Fun!

That was almost it, but I grabbed a nearby livery and vista point, then raced against a helicopter, which was great fun. And then I noticed my mileage was on 1,491, so I drove another nine miles and marked hitting the 1,500 mile mark by driving into a fence.

Fantastic stuff all round.