Day 9 saw us homeward bound. It was planned to be a leisurely drive as we didn’t need to be at the Tunnel until 4 p.m. Given the traffic carnage of the past couple of days, we were a little apprehensive, but as it transpired, it was an uneventful journey, and we got there a couple of hours early. There was a little rain on the way back, but nothing too difficult, and we stayed dry inside the MG.
At the Motorway services stop, the occupants of a coach tour came over to talk about our car.
At the tunnel, we ended up parked next to a classic 1960s BMW. Surprise, surprise, it turned out to belong to someone known by my business partner!
For once, I didn’t ground the exhaust boarding and exiting the shuttler; I must be getting better at this driving malarky!
Now back in the UK and homeward bound, we again start to compare the quality of road surfaces we have come across on our travels through Europe. We agreed that UK roads are as bad as anything we encountered in Bulgaria. Perhaps the UK should take some lessons in road maintenance from Serbia and Turkey!
Our support vehicle, the camper van, nearly ran out of fuel. We can manage a 56-year-old MG across most of Europe, but a VW camper that can do 600 miles to a tank – well, it got to within its final 5 miles of range!
We stopped near Tenterden so we could get the Camper fuelled up before making our final leg home to enjoy an enthusiastic reception from our friends, family and neighbours.
And that was that. We’ve done it! We met some challenges and learned some lessons, and even though our stops in each country were mostly brief, we learned something about each of them and were pleasantly surprised by many.
246 miles + 45 miles = 291 miles