england

England

At last the first step is being taken ...

20th October 2007: Twickenham, UK

At last we have a departure date and time, come what may, we are finally leaving!

...hopefully as Rugby World Cup champions!?!

We have now booked our ferry with SeaFrance ferries on Sunday 21st October leaving Dover at 11:00am and arriving in Calais at 1:30pm. Due to hugely inflated Rugby World Cup ferry prices to France, we have decided to watch the match with friends in Twickenham and go much more affordably on Sunday. (So ... YES ... Richard, we are having FINAL leaving drinks celebrating with the rest of South Africa.)

We plan to drive from Calais to Germany and hopefully if we can we will spend our first night somewhere in the BlackForest region. Although having no idea how long it will take us to go from "anywhere" to "somewhere" at this early stage, these plans could change.

Today therefore is the big pack-up day, when we attempt to fit EVERYTHING into Duzi2.

Not much longer to wait John & Barry, but no tyre sabotage early on Sunday morning!!

21st October 2007: Twickenham, UK GPS Info: N51°27'17.2" W00°19'45.8"

Miles today: 0 Total Miles: 0

After packing up till 5:00am this morning, and sleeping for only 45 minutes, we were both tired and VERY stressed out at what we still had to do before leaving at 7:00am to catch our 11:00am ferry from Dover. After a tea break and wise support from Daan, Monique and Cherie, our decision was to rather forfeit our ticket and wait to leave tomorrow, after a good night's sleep and a bit more organization.

This turned out for the best as we were able to at least pack more clearly and say final goodbyes to Kimbo and Karl.

Thanks Sutherlands and Van Wyks for your texts wishing us safe travels.

Hope the Amashovashova went well Paps.

Thanks to our parents for your incredible support over these very stressful past days.

22nd October 2007: Twickenham, UK GPS Info: N51°27'17.2" W00°19'45.8"

Miles today: 293 Total Miles: 293

At last the day has finally come to leave for our adventure! Both feeling very emotional we did a final squeeze of stuff into a VERY fat and VERY bulging Duzi2. We MUST trim down soon! We headed off to Dover and hoped to catch a cheap ferry across to Calais. When we got there, we were horrified with the day ferry rates and considered a night camping at Little Switzerland, Dover. We mentioned about our forfeited non-refundable ticket from yesterday and the very kind ticket lady ammended our ticket to the next ferry for only 10 pounds.

So onto the 4:30pm ferry we drove and stood on the upper deck to watch the white cliffs of Dover gradually disappearing as we crossed the English Channel to Calais. Thanks, we got your text on the ferry Claire and da Mexican.

--We'll update with photo's as soon as we can.