Having driven 150 miles or so today we are more or less back where we started 3 months ago.

We spent the night hunkered down in Basil as a thunderstorm was followed by torrential rain for hours on end. But by the morning the rain had ceased.

Our journey today, unfortunately, took us through some of the more congested parts of northern Europe. We were caught up in roadworks and long queues round Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges and finally Calais. I can’t wait to get back to England’s clear uncongested roads! I’m particularly looking forward to the M25*!

To keep ourselves sane on some of the longer drives we binge on podcasts. Our favourite genre, like many other people, is true crime. For the last few days we have been listening to “Up and Vanished” and although we haven’t reached the end, we can thoroughly recommend it to anyone who enjoys that kind of thing.

Tomorrow the dogs see the vet to get the worming treatment which needs to be marked in their Pet Passports at least 24 hours before we cross back into the UK on Monday. I have found a Google Map that someone had painstakingly put together detailing vets in Europe who are familiar with the scheme. This time we have chosen a vet in Wimereux on the English Channel coast just 20 minutes drive from the tunnel. The reason I chose this vet is that there is an ACSI campsite in the village.

We arrived at Camping L’Olympic (50.760907, 1.607534 €18 on ACSI) in the afternoon, to be greeted by a miserable looking lady at reception. Camping L’Olympic is a municipal camping site, and it shows. Apart from the customer unfriendly reception, the campsite has a generally unkempt air, with hedges untrimmed and grass growing through some of the paving. Our pitch is large though, the showers are hot and powerful and we are only a short walk from a beach, so its not all bad.

Since we will be mostly chilling out tomorrow I will write my next and final post for this trip on Sunday, before we return to Blighty for a glorious English summer!