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| 08:00ish - We had a lay-in today. As the ferry to England is not scheduled until 00:15 tomorrow, and we only have 370 miles to cover, why rush. We decide to have our morning shower and take a few photos before leaving for a site see tour of the west cost of the Rhine. The inbound journey was down the east bank. We meet the wife of the camp owner on the way to the showers. She was pleased to see that Brian was well. Which Brian played up to by telling her that my conversation had put him to sleep (the little sod). After the shower, we decided to do some housekeeping of the stuff in the car. Brian throw away his old tent (which we used as a ground sheet) and we consolidated the remaining stuff into fewer boxes and bags. It was while doing this that we show a large rain cloud roll down the a hillside on the other bank of the river. Watching the cloud, we realised that the cloud was heading towards us and we only have a few minutes. The housekeeping was aborted and we quickly packed the tent. We were hoping to pack the tent dry, but before we could pack it the rain reached us. |
| 10:37 - Left the Camp in the rain, on our homeward journey. |
| 11:03 - We had passed Koblenz and were travelling along the west bank of the Rhine. Thankfully we had also outrun the rain. Brian had to swerve out of the way of a lib from a oven, which fell of the back of trailer from the car in front. |
| 11:30 - Brian wanted to stop and take some more photos. After a couple of aborted stopped, most of the turn-offs lead to business parks or back onto the main road, we reached Remagen. This town was the birth place of Rudorf Caracciola, After a tour of the river side, we came upon the two large towers. These towers match a pair of towers we had stopped at on the second days of the holiday, on the east bank. The towers use to belong to a bride which crossed the Rhine. This bridge was the last intact bridge during World War II. The bridge is no-more, but the West towers have been turned into a museum to celebrate the allies achievement. Unfortunately, a large poster board shows that the east bank of the river was going to be redeveloped into a tourist site, with modern hotels, cinema and riverside shopping. We walked back to the car. As the sky showed no sign of rain, we decided to move the car a little and rearrange our belongings. |
| 12:55 - Left Remagen to continue north. |
| 15:26 - Reached Netherland border. |
| 15:44 - Reached Belgium border. |
| 16:04 - Rest stop. |
| 17:25 - Milometer shows 14,300. We have now travelled 3,009 miles. |
| 18:05 - We have reached Brugge. Rather than going to Zeebrugge, we decided to continue to the Belgium coast. We have only really seen Belgium from the motorways. The coast road passed through Osend, Nieuwport and Koksijde. Each showed extensive rebuilding, with a clean modern feel. Brian was also surprised and excited to see the coastal defences left over from WWII. The best of these were the bunkers, with their artillery canons viewable from the road. |
| 19:15 - Petrol stop. 23.83 litres. It took a while to find a suitable petrol stop, as most of the petrol stations were unmanned and credit card based. Given the number of dodgy scam, Brian wanted to hold off for a manned one. |
| 19:28 - Reached the French border. |
| 19:40 - Parked at Dunkerque. |
| 22:47 - Left for Calais. |
| 23:23 - Passport control and Seafrance check-in |
| 23:27 - Queued in lane 15. |
| 23:55 - We loaded onto the ferry. Tomorrow we leave for England. |
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