At long last we are off! After nearly nine months of planning we are finally on the road and this posting comes from our first night's stop at the Welcome Hotel, Wesel on the banks of the Rhine.
We left London at 7am on a beautiful but cold morning, aiming to meet up with Bob & Thelma, Eric and Lynn and Ahmad & Reza at the Eurotunnel Shuttle terminal in Folkestone. Our Shuttle was leaving at 9.20am so we agreed to meet in the terminal at about 8.30am. When we arrived we saw Eric's car already parked up. We met him and Lynn in the terminal. It was the first time we had seen them since saying goodbye at Hong Kong airport at the end of the South-East Asia drive in 2009, over two years ago! We had a great time catching up on each others news and whilst we were talking, Bob & Thelma arrived.
Time was moving on and we had to go back to the cars to catch our Shuttle. We were surprised that Ahmad had not arrived but then he was staying in Folkestone overnight and most likely had caught an earlier Shuttle. As we went through the customs and security, Bob was pulled over for a security check, whilst Eric and I were allowed straight through. Eric and I agreed it was not a surprise as we both thought Bob looked a shifty character! We waited for him at the holding area and then drove on to the Shuttle.
As the Shuttle departed I handed over the route stickers for the cars as well as the baseball caps I had bought which have the route map as a badge. Here are Eric and Lynn suitably hatted for the drive!
We left the Calais terminal at around 11am and headed for Auchan where we filled up with diesel at 1.35 Euros/litre. At the current exchange rate of 1.12/£ that equates to £1.20 a litre, about 20p a litre cheaper than in England. When you are putting in over 100 litres, as I did, it makes it worthwhile waiting to fill up in France.
I then called Ahmad and learned that he had caught the Shuttle before ours and was on the way to Paris to meet his brother who was flying in from Boston carrying the replacement inter-cooler for Ahmad's car with him. Ahmad said he would be staying the night in Paris and then driving tomorrow directly to Berlin – a ten hour drive!
I then received an e-mail from our Dutch friends, Antoine and Maria, who said they had booked in to the Welcome Hotel for the night and would meet us there in the early afternoon. What a wonderful surprise for us all.
It was an easy drive along the coast and then inland past Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp before we stopped for a short break and a cup of tea, care of Lynn, about 100 miles from Wesel.
The cars, with Thelma looking at the stickers on their car, parked up by the autobahn near Eindhoven.
We arrived at the Welcome Hotel, Wesel and about 4pm.
We have a great room, or should I say two rooms, overlooking the Rhine. Barges are constantly going in both directions along the river. Some are heavily laden and lie very low in the water, whilst others that are empty move along at quite a speed.
We had drinks on the terrace and reminisced about past drives.
Then a short walk along the river, going past the remains of the old railway bridge that was blown up by the German army in March 1945, as the Allies advanced across Europe.
On the bridge there was this strange sight of padlocks with names and dates on them, locked on to the wire fencing. Each had the names of a couple and a date. We wondered who had started this strange substitute for carving names on a tree.
We had a good dinner in the hotel and learned that Ahmad was in Paris and would meet us in Berlin at 7pm tomorrow. No news from Kenny as I write this.
We travelled about 520 km today and we have another 500kms tomorrow. The drive is well and truly underway.
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