England to Germany.

Wednesday was our last day in Brighton. As we have been so organised we had time to have a walk through The Laines and go and say goodbye to the beach. In good old English style the weather was horrible but we went to the smoke house and ate yummy kippers whilst fighting against the wind!

Bye bye Brighton!

We later found out our ferry had been delayed by a couple of hours. This was a bit annoying but meant we got to have dinner at home with my parents before we left, which was nice. So at about 9.15 we packed the last of our stuff in the van (very cramped!) and drove off to our new life - feeling excited, nervous, pumped up and slightly nauseous!

 

Off we go.

 

Even though we'd been told to check in at 10 the ferry didn't actually go until after 1, so we were able to get a little bit of sleep in before departure. The crossing was quite rough but uneventful - we found a chair and slept through.

We arrived in Dieppe at about 7am (we lost an hour due to the time difference) but it was still dark and raining alot and not very pleasant for driving in or map reading, so we decided to pull over and get another hour or so of sleep. At about 9 we woke up again, the weather wasn't much better but at least it was light and we were better rested. After another stop for coffee we were off and raring to go! We used A roads for the first few hours to avoid the tolls and because it is much more scenic (if we could see through the rain) but by the time we got to Reims it was already 1 o'clock and we weren't even half way to our motel. So we used the autobahn in the end, sped through to Germany and were checked into our cheap motel in Mannheim just after 6.

Coffee with Rusty waiting outside.

We have named our van Rusty, for obvious reasons! 

Tired in Motel 24, Mannheim.

We are now sitting in the 'common room' in the motel feeling very tired. The drive was a few hours longer than expected and we haven't had much sleep - but we have done 427 miles driving from Brighton, which is already about a quarter of the distance to our house - so that is good. I think in a minute we will retire to our room and eat Heinz tomato soup straight out the tin and a beer from the vending machine for dinner. Living the dream.

Dinner time.