Well it’s 11.20pm here on Sunday 21st October; we’re in Brussels at present.
After meeting up with Carl and Angie from Team 18 on our arrival in Liverpool we all had an uneventful trip on our drive down to Dover on Saturday, I say uneventful we had some friends of Ian’s from Stone in Stafford on a bridge on the M6 with a banner and waving furiously wishing us good luck. We replied with lights flashing and horns blasting as we sped past underneath!
The car performed well, it took us about 5 hours to complete the journey to Dover arriving at the hotel at around 6.25pm. Having what we thought was a slow puncture on the offside front wheel Ian went off looking for air to pump the slightly deflated tyre up, after much searching at that time of night he had to buy a small compressor from a filling station. The tyre duly pumped up we were ready for the trip over to Calais the next day.
Sunday arrived the tyre stayed up and after a good nightís sleep we were ready for the trip to Calais and to start the journey for what we thought really on the wrong side of the road and in a different country. However, as we left the hotel a mere 5 minutes from the ferry terminal, and as we were approaching one of the concrete ramps into the terminal marshalling area Ian and Mike’s car was “rear ended” by a Renault Scenic, needless to say the air was blue for a while! The guy (fortunately an English chap) was very sorry and after calming down and a friendly word of advice from the police, insurance details were exchanged. This wasn’t a good start to the trip! Luckily the Mini wasn’t damaged too much; although a few panels are a bit crumpled we are able to carry on with the trip.
There were a few other “Jobber” Teams on the ferry, and the presence of a few decaled Minis attracted some interest. We arrived in Calais, had a quick chat to the other Teams from the ferry, and then we headed off for Dunkirk. From Dunkirk we headed to Brugge where we stopped a while and took in some local sights and had some refreshments. From Brugge we had a good run to Brussels where we are now staying the night, tomorrow we are planning to go to an automobile museum here in Brussels which is said to be one of the biggest in Europe! Tomorrow afternoon, if the weather permits, we will travel to the Nurburg Ring and take advantage of a run round the famous Nurburg Ring race circuit.
All in all the total mileage covered so far is 473 miles.
Will update again soon, bye for now!!!!
Ian & Mike
