It's quite easy to avoid terrain over there... heading east to the desert...relatively flat terrain and easily cover a 500nm cross country with many airports to drop into on the way.
I did make it to 12000ft after completing my PPL to climb over some of the mountains but its fairly normal over there to fly at such altitudes...it's only in the UK that we hug the ground!!! ;-)
Its been a few years, but any questions, feel free to PM me