Goodbye White Cliffs of Dover

We had an excellent sleep in our Premier Inn near Faversham. This was just as well as we were up at 6, had breakfast and hit the road to Dover for our 9am check-in. Of course it went smoothly and we were about 4th in the queue to get on the DFDS boat to Dunkirk. This didn’t mean we got on near the front - or off. I had a wander and I chatted to a cyclist who was wearing the Doddie Wear shirt for sponsoring MND. He was in a big group which has a support vehicle, but none of the others were wearing sponsoring T-shirts. (Duncan’s son-in-law has gone into palliative care only 4 months after developing symptoms of the disease).

The crossing was pleasantly calm. We chatted to a Dutch couple who had been on a bus trip to London, Oxford and Cambridge. They found the cities too busy though Oxford was the least. It was 1.45pm European time when we got off the boat.

When Mr C googled the route going via Brussels ring route was the fastest but by the time we got there we’d had road work hold ups and were in a queue of 25 minutes. Continuing this route round Liege was going to be troublesome too so I took us off the Brussels by-pass to head via Luxembourg. This was the route favoured originally. The family got there in the afternoon and will have ice in the freezer for our arrival. #2 daughter is cooking - they have their own cabin. #3 drew the short straw and will be having us with them.

We have just had our first stop, getting cheap diesel just before we exited Luxembourg for Germany. We are due to arrive at 7.50. It’s been a long day. The temperature is 28.