Day 46 – Time to La Manche: 0930 – 1110 – Departed Calais: 1135 (UK time) – Arrival: 1430

Final trip milage: 7,002 miles between Islamabad & Palestine (Hampshire!)

Home in Hampshire!

We had one last challenge: to repack the car in order to make space for our cherubs to return to the UK with us. Our trusty chariot needed one last push to get us all home.

Until now we had carried three 20 litre jerry cans, one of which was still full with diesel brought all the way from Pakistan. These cans had been our ‘insurance’, giving us about an 800 mile range with a full internal tank. This was essential while travelling in Central Asia where diesel was either nigh impossible to get hold of or was of such poor quality it would compromise the engine. We estimated the cans’ cumulative weight was equal to that of Max(!). Filling the car with the remaining can we left all three empties in storage and took out the food box, now pretty much devoid of food and all the Army rations that had kept us going, and replaced these with the various purchases from along the way. With a very stringent repack there was now space for Charlotte (phew!) – we hadn’t bargained on the children having quite such large bags but with a squeeze and a push everything we needed, and everyone, was on board!

Always in the back of our minds was the thought, “Are we going to make it?” We were after all travelling in a 15 year old car, the provenance of which we had no notion other than that of the past two years since I had been driving it in Islamabad (was that a good thing, or a bad thing?!). It had originally come from the UK and had some service records so in those we put our trust. We were amazed that in all the miles we had travelled, and the testing terrain that we had traversed over two thirds of the journey, we still had not had a puncture. The journey was not yet over. We had another 190 or so miles to cover, and the Channel crossing – all the opportunity for a jinx was there!

Cote d’Opal countryside

Arriving at the Tunnel check in – the last border post before home!

Murray had had the foresight to book our Channel Tunnel ticket a number of days before, mindful that it was the end of half term and deemed one of the busiest days of the year. I wondered if we would have trouble bringing the car with its Islamabad Diplomatic Plates into the UK but this hadn’t been an issue so far. Having set off in surprisingly (for a Whiteside!) good time we arrived at the check-in point with a host of other travellers. It was the busiest I had ever seen it. Nevertheless we got through the queue in good time and with only a brief set of questions from the British immigration and customs officer we were through and homeward bound!!

One last train photo . . .

Well, you can’t have everything. A grey colourless sky is comfortingly familiar

(I was coerced to add this)

Half an hour in the train, anticipating our arrival finally in the UK!

Driving back on the right hand side of the road the familiarity of it all rather subdued us but we were deeply content and tinged with relief now being safely back on UK soil after all those miles. The M25 still had enormous amounts of traffic but it was flowing. The M3 was now clear of road works – good things come to those who wait! And the car was behaving, although feeling the weight going up hill.

7,000 miles on the clock!! So nearly there.

Badges of honour! Flags of all the countries we drove through.

We watched the milometer flick over the miles as simultaneously the fuel gauge dropped. Just shy of reaching 7,000 miles, the cumulative distance we had travelled since leaving Islamabad some 46 days ago and having passed through 20 countries, we made a short detour to fill up the tank. At 7,002 miles we were home!!!

The view from our home in the setting sun. A fitting sight to end our journey.

TO CONCLUDE:

With some days now behind us since we arrived home we have slotted right back into the whirl of every day life with little time yet to reflect on the totality of our trip, from its inception, to the hours of planning and eventually to getting on the road. We are tremendously grateful to our respective employers, Simon Gordon and the MoD, for granting us this time off work.

It has been a great privilege to see so many unfamiliar lands, some truly magnificent geography and to meet some extraordinary people while experiencing cultures so different to our own. That said, we still can’t understand Cyrillic script and have a dreadful ear for unfamiliar foreign languages! (I put it that Georgian was the simply the most challenging of tongues.) We did however marvel at the continued influence of the Silk Road with the migration of cultures and trade still very much in evidence from China to Europe.

We are enormously grateful to all our family and friends who have supported this endeavour not least by caring for all our children’s needs in our absence and for all the words of encouragement sent via emails and texts. Thank you to you all for your kindness and generosity and not least for indulging us by reading the account of our travels.

With our love and best wishes,

Murray and Amanda

03/11/17

Temperature: 17ºC

Le Touquet – Paris Plage

Saying goodbye to my father and Lindy – they were heading home to allow us some quiet time together and, I imagine, to have a jolly good rest after the challenges and activities of the previous few days in charge of our ‘charges’ – we headed into Le Touquet for the day to enjoy the market and the fantastic assortment of fare on offer. For once it wasn’t raining (a regional characteristic), nor was it too windy!

We ate the perfect French lunch (snails, muscles, devilled kidneys, salads and obviously baguette) in the Restaurant du Marche and strolled along the huge expanse of beach and into the dunes to watch the kite surfers. It was a heavenly day.

Wonderful vibrant fresh veg!

One can’t pass up the opportunity to sample a little fizz – with a professional stance, of course!

Fish – the boat had definitely come in, unlike in Turkey.

Le Touquet mrachet

The Continent Express . . . may be this in an option for next time?

Family snaps!

Distance: 264 miles – Time: 0750 – 1330 – Temperature: 8 – 15ºC

The straight, clear road ahead into northern France

The excitement levels were stratospheric. Murray woke at 4.00, I snoozed on until 5.30. The weather was abysmally wet and windy in the early hours of the morning so we resisted getting up and setting off until after breakfast had appeared in the hotel restaurant at 7 a.m. The car was loaded and armed with maps and a fixed route plan to avoid all the road works on the Belgian auto-routes we set off just after 0730 in a direction I calculated would avoid most of the Luxembourg city commuter traffic. We had been warned about it the night before. It took us an hour and half to get out of Luxembourg – all of 24 km. Deeply frustrating – we should have sought local advice for the best route before setting off. With a lack of local road knowledge, heavy, heavy traffic and too much anticipation to get a move on we finally broke out and got into Belgium just after 9 a.m. Relief!

We had a very definite plan to drive the most direct route to the village of Loison sur Créquoise (where the family were waiting in the holiday house) in northern France, knowing some the roads from our previous travels from Le Touquet to the Trois Vallées in the French Alps. We knew the roads to be largely straight and usually pretty void of heavy traffic. The route from Arlon (Belgium) to Sedan (France) and on to Charleville Mézières was reasonable and without too much traffic and it was lovely to be in familiar countryside with rolling lush green farmland punctuated with woodland. However, from Charleville Mézières to Cambrai it became clear this was now a much used run for heavy haulage lorries on their way to the North Sea and Channel ports – our forth sea of the trip! – or to avoid the toll roads to take them north to Brussels.

Big French skies

One of the many cemeteries on the outskirts of Arras

We did not spare the proverbial horses. Murray drove like a demon, working as a team we overtook lorry after lorry until we got ahead of the bulk of the tranche of them. We scooted along on a short section of motorway to Arras, having been foiled by a rural ‘déviation’, all to the good. We then picked up the newly built dual carriageway from Arras to Le Touquet. The gods were on our side!

It is a moving route to take. The wide sweeping landscape is littered with cemeteries of the many war graves, all beautifully kept in ordered agricultural landscape. It never fails to make an impact.

Arriving in Loison after five and a half hours continuous driving we first saw little Union Jack flags decorating the flower baskets on the bridge over the river Créquoise. Slightly puzzled but not really taking them on board we were faced with large Union Jack with a picture of the Queen tethered to a hedge – this smacked of my father’s hand! – coursing up the lane to the house we found the hedges and drive strewn with Union Jack bunting and a wonderful ‘welcome back’ banner made by the children!

Finally! We arrived in Loison

We were filled with joy and love for our children and family, but we were keenly missing Zara. I can’t express just how happy and relieved we were to be with them. We had made it! Now it was time to pause and relax and enjoy a wonderful time together. Later we were thoroughly spoiled with a fabulous celebratory dinner of incredible sea food, roasted duck, Champagne and chocolate cake. What a welcome and a perfect way to end the day!!

In the last vestiges of our cleanest clothes!

Lindy and Pa outside the new summer house

Murray scrutinising the last page of his plan – we had made it!

Happy times with Max and Charlotte