The extremely long way round

France to Australia by car

e extremely long way round------------------France to Australia in a car

Yes   decided

You may ask why..............we left England years ago with our beautiful little daughter; she was then just 4 years old.  To live in the middle of a national forest, with wild boar and deer running free. To make this possible, financially, we lived in an old 500 year old house with no stairs, that didn't matter because there were no floors upstairs, and no roof.  Over a few years we turned it into a beautiful home. There we lived, with our wonderful French neighbours, all of seven people in the village, three of them us. We had two gorgeous husky dogs and acres of fields and woods to run in, them and us........It was a dream come true, but, ( there's always a but) it was so quiet.  We knew that if a car came up the lane, (which ended outside our house), we would either know the people, and we didn’t know many, or they were lost. Every evening we would have the same conversations with our neighbours, such as - how the dogs’ nose was peeking over the edge of the bed. We drank our wine, as you do in France. It was wonderful, but, we knew we needed more, we had found heaven but it was just too soon to be there.

We applied for our Australian visas, and put our home up for sale. Years and many hours of paperwork later, we still waited.....Then suddenly, still in the middle of the recession, the house sold to a South Africa couple.  No visas, what shall we do, should we go back to England? No!

  Then the idea came to Lee, “Let’s drive to Oz while they sort our visas out.” Is he serious, I thought, omg,  he is!  That’s when we started thinking, we have our old car, a 1991 Land Rover Defender 110, we bought it off e-bay for some off road fun.  Why not, as Jeremy  Clarkson would say "How  hard can it be"?

Friday, 11 December 2009

Moving out date

We have just returned from visiting our family in the UK and we have received an e-mail giving us our completion date, 15 Jan 2010.  So that’s it then, as of the 15th we are officially homeless and we start our journey to Australia.  Fingers crossed all goes well.

Our first plan was to travel through Africa, we got the paint brushes, some gloss paint and we painted the Landy like a Zebra and started planning, but soon decided this was, at this time, too much of a dangerous route.

Our neighbours faces were a picture, they  were dumbfounded, having never seen anyone hand paint a car before, especially like a Zebra.

 Route number two, through Europe and up to Estonia, over to Russia, keep going then turn right and down through China.  So many countries to see, simple!!!!

It's getting cold now and soon the snow will arrive, so do we really want to start out in January.  Perhaps at the beginning of spring, that may be a better idea?  We talk to the people buying our house, they are in no rush for us to move out, we can stay till the 24^th. After that, we have arranged that we can move into a friends gite......

Jan 21st..Jeudi.......

Have been invited by our friends, in the next village, to a farewell dinner.  They say they have a big surprise for us, and indeed they have, the surprise is our neighbours are also invited, they arrive all smiles. I do love these people!!!!!

Jan 23rd....Samedi

The last farewell dinner at our neighbours! Surprise! Our friends from the next village, I cannot hold the tears back, are we doing the right thing in leaving? We have the kindest neighbours and friends, all such genuine people. We never have to lock our doors, we can leave the car keys in the ignition overnight. Will we ever find a place like this again?  Well I guess it's too late now!

Jan 24th... Dimanche..

Everything we now own is either in the Landy or the trailer. James, (as we have named the Landy) stands proud, with his matching Zebra trailer and two roof tents.

Finally, and it’s very sad, we leave the village for the gite, box of tissues half empty.

What have we done? This gite is so cold, the snow is deep and we can see it falling through the gaps around the doors. It doesn't matter how much wood we burn we cannot warm up the house.

We have just sold the warmest, centrally heated house in France and are now shivering in a gite. This house should only be occupied in the summer!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think it’s time to toughen up and get the adventurers spirit. Life has suddenly become very scary, but we all feel alive and excited.

 

Through the internet we have come to know another family (A&A and their two children J--9 and AJ---6) who are doing the same trip as us, (are they mad).

We have decided to travel through China together. We have to have a Chinese guide to travel with us in the car, initial cost of £3600  and then  we have to pay for all their travelling expenses, hotels, food, entrance fees, as if another member of the family. Two cars travelling together and we only need one guide, so we agree to split the cost.

A&A   want to start the journey but still need to finish their house prior to rental, plumbing mainly. With Lee being a plumber, it is agreed that we will go and stay with them and help them prepare, therefore stopping us from freezing to death!

Feb 20th, 

We leave the gite, I should be happy, but our  dog, Alaska, is going to her new home, tears are flowing and it hurts!!!!! I know she will be better off staying in the village, she needs the freedom to run...........................................have done it, feel so guilty separating mother and son for the first time, keep hugging Beau, he doesn't understand. I must pull myself together, they are dogs, they will get over it I'm sure I'm not really that important to them!    Bye bye  Cussac....bye bye France..............................bye bye Alaska.....

Feb27th Sunday

Arrive at A&A's warm and cosy house, it's amazing how much you     appreciate things, when you go without.......AJ comes downstairs with a  sore throat, followed closely by a nasty flu, then he passes it to J. then Beverley.

Mercredi or Wednesday, sometimes I think in French, I suppose I shall soon forget.......A. is on the internet applying for visas for Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan, will leave her to it, she loves her paperwork!

31st March...

tomorrow the journey begins, two families set off for one big adventure, scary.

Over the last few weeks we have said goodbye to so many people, many so close, some we may never see again, nobody told me it could hurt so much.

 

We leave for Harwich Port at 8.15pm and arrive 10.30pm. We left A&A still cleaning their house, and I mean cleaning-----the fridge with a toothbrush, and behind the radiators the walls are sparkling, I just hope the lady renting it will keep it as clean, but I doubt it.

April 1st Thursday!  Slept in the car, it's now 6.30am, and still haven't heard from A&A (they said they would phone when they started out)
Excited ! All's well !.....9.00 o'clock and we drive onto the ferry, it's huge!

 We phoned A&A, they're still in St Neots ! !! Apparently they have an  appointment this morning to hand over the house keys and to have the house inspected. Therefore, it seems to me, that they had no intention of catching this ferry, but they paid for it, why lie?   Beverley is disappointed, she was looking forward to playing with her friends, what can you say, nothing stranger than people.
Good crossing, good food, tea, coffee etc.
Arrived at 5.00pm local time, 6.00pm in Rotterdam. As we drive along, the road is lined, both sides, with greenhouses. There is water everywhere; it looks like canals, and ponds and lakes, so different! We head for McDonalds, to use the internet, to see if we had successfully contacted Pieter. Beverley met him on our last holiday touring Europe; he lives close to where we are.  It’s now 7.00pm local time; there is no reply from Pieter.
It’s very busy here so we are heading to Roosendaal, for somewhere to stop, it looks quieter on the map, we shall see!?

Friday 2nd April.

 Sunny day, 15 degrees, great night in tent at the truckers yard (cost us 4 Euro's for 2 beers to stop there) Coffee and toilets good.
10.00am, called A&A, they are now on the ferry and want to go to Amsterdam, should arrive about 3.30pm.
10.30am and we are in Belgium heading for Antwerp.
11.30am. We must be a Jewish area, all the people are wearing a different style of clothing. Black coats, white socks and really big, tall hats!  Great to see, and very distinct.
There are cycle lanes everywhere, they take right of way!  We have driven our first bad tarmac roads, and have paid to pass through two gigantic tunnels.
12.10pm - back in Netherlands, we have left the main roads. We travel through villages with thatched cottages and windmills ! (Sat-Nav now on OFF ROAD setting) now we can see people and countryside.  This is much more fun! It’s very, very flat with thousands of wind turbines.
We are heading slowly back to Rotterdam to meet up with A&A. The weather is holding.
2.00pm, in  the centre of the city.  There are people on motorbikes with no helmets, it’s full of activity!

 Back to McD for the free wifi, and yes, Peiter has replied.  We are going to meet up tonight with Kees and Jacobyn (his mom and dad), Peiter of course, Yana and Stein(brother and sister), and their friends, whom we also know, Marie-Anne and Frank..

We have also received an e-mail from Holly, in Germany. We also met Holly and his family on our last holiday.  We have replied to say we will visit them in next few days--it's all or no-one!!

We waited outside the port for A&A, they followed us to McD for coffee and   somewhere to park our large vehicles. We have our trailer and they, their very old caravan. I wonder how long their caravan will last, it’s fragile to say the least.

Author's Note

There is a lot more and many countries to cross such as russia and china

Reviews

[Madge Jenner]

Wow!!! incredible piece of reading!!! Really enjoyed that, magnificent!!!