Saturday, March 15, 2008

Back in London

Weve done a few k's since the last post and are now back at Charles's place in London. We left Jaki at Lisbon on 15 Feb and collected Nik and Katy for the weekend. Since then we have visited Tomar (Templar Knights hangout), Santiago de Compostella (Our time in Pergatory is officially halved!!), San Sebastion where we met Mike and Allen, Montignac again to see our french friends Natalie, Chris and family. We have also seen Paris and many of its sites and Amsterdam where we visited a coffee shop. Our last days were spent in Belgium where we saw Ieper (Ypres) where many soldiers died in WW1 including 43,000 Australians. The last post at the Menin Gates in Ieper was very moving (they do it every night at 8pm). The Menin Gate is a memorial to the 54,500 Commonwealth troops who died in WW1 before 1917 and have no known grave (Including many Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians).

Seafrance were on strike so we were put on a P&O ferry to recross the channel after a frustrating discussion with the English Customs. We told them we were from Australia and definitely did not want to stay in the UK but they had to see air tickets, van ownership proof etc etc.

Today we took the van to get MOT'd (rego'd) and it passed with flying colors. Next week we will pass the keys to Nik and Katy who will do another lap of Europe.

We leave London on 28 March and will spend a week in Cambodia before landing in Melbourne on the morning of 7 April.

Linda has been writing the blog but will need a full day to type it all up.

Regards
John & Linda