Friday 19th September. Day 15.

If forgot to say last night our trip meter ticked over the 5000 kms mark shortly after we entered Germany.

We woke up to a beautiful frosty morning meaning we had to use de-icer to clear the vehicle windscreens. We have certainly had some extremes of temperature on this trip. 34C on the day we went to Pleven and now 0C in Eastern Germany. The van soon warmed up and at 7.00am we were on our way.

For the first couple of hours we drove along almost deserted motorway through beautiful scenery. Rolling hills, deep valleys and picturesque little villages lined the route.

As we pushed further west the landscape became flatter and more industrialised particularly once we reached Cologne. However one that didn’t change throughout the entire trip was the miles and miles of maize crop in every country we passed through. I remember travelling through Europe as a kid and one of the most noticeable things about crossing borders was the difference in crops grown from one country to the next. Now it seems that just about everything has been replaced by maize and as you travel further east some sunflower crops as well. The reason ? Bio fuel.. Maize and sunflowers are an ideal crop for use in the production of Ethanol I believe and while I was aware steps were being taken to increase production of these crops I had no idea of the extent to which they have taken over the entire landscape of the countries we passed through.

At about 3.00pm we crossed into Belgium and by 5pm we were coming round the Brussels ring rood. Not a fun experience at the best of times but at rush-hour on a Friday night positively horrific. There were about 8 ‘spaghetti junctions’ in the space of about two kilometres and many entering, leaving and switching lanes.

We eventually made it though and miraculously all still together and continued on for the final 90 kilometres into Bruges. Everyone was tired but glad to have made it so we can have a free morning tomorrow before making our way to the ferry.

We all made our way to the restaurant across the road for our penultimate meal. Everyone was able to relax and have a couple of drinks as we had no early start or driving to worry about in the morning. It is a tradition of the last meal before the ferry to hand out various awards of which convoy idiot is the most prestigious. Although an honorary idiot award had been given to Jack from One Life Bulgaria in Sofia last week the real award was still up for grabs. After a vote the clear winner was Carl Webb for driving onto the wrong ferry in Hull on the first day. Carl also got the award for who made the convoy leaders laugh the most for his being sick at the Bulgarian toilets performance!

It was an enjoyable evening and good to relax after two very intense, tiring but ultimately rewarding two weeks.

Tomorrow we make our way to the ferry for the trip across to Hull and the end of the trip is now in sight.

Two more blogs to go however and tomorrow I will try and tell you a little bit about Bruges before summing the trip up on Sunday.