We left Padderborn and Anne’s niece (in-law?) and first great-nephew late this morning. How special to have met little Samuel before heading off on our travels!

Riding on German autobahns isn’t the most pleasant but we have to make sure we keep to our Russian deadline so no time to take country roads at this stage. We kept out of the fast lane as much as possible as cars come up to you from nowhere so fast! Luckily we’re used to driving in Germany or it could be quite spooky.

We got to the southern outskirts of Berlin by 5.30pm and found ourselves a great hotel next to an Aldi. It’s very strange to be in Berlin and not see our dear friends as they are currently away in Siberia – we met Antonia in February 1983 in Rwanda and although we don’t often see each other, we have remained very close. This is one of the greatest experiences about travel – the people you meet and connections you make.

We have to go shopping for gloves tomorrow!! Anne’s summer gloves suddenly gave up the ghost – they are 5 years old and it never occurred to me to make sure they would last a year on the road…

Attached is a photo of Anne getting on her bike 😃. We are sure it will get easier over time!!

– Anne

Hole in Anne’s old favourite glove

Up and over – not very elegantly!!

We’ve now done 509 miles, 814kms since we left Anthony’s sister in Dorset yesterday morning and travelled through the UK, France (for a whole 20′), Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. We visited one of Anthony’s cousins near Antwerp last night and we have just met Anne’s first great-nephews this evening in Padderborn, Germany – he is so cute!!!!! So tomorrow will be our last family goodbye. No more delicious home cooked meals and comfy beds!!

Our Russian visa requires us to get to the Kazakhstan border by the 14th July so we need to get some miles under our tyres. After that, we will be travelling at a much more relaxed pace.

Heading towards the Polish border tomorrow – the route will depend on the weather in the morning.

– Anne

I have just received the all clear from the specialist and we are good to go!!! I am so relieved and grateful and can finally get excited about our trip. We leave tomorrow, 26th June, at 7am!!!

We have a busy afternoon ahead of us now with a number of final things to do, including and without forgetting to return the hire car. Anything we don’t get to do before tonight will simply have to be dealt with on the road now. At least there are no more show stoppers.

Thank you to all our blog followers, family and friends for your support, especially this past month.

Our next post will be sent on the road somewhere 😊

– Anne

I was not looking forward to these last few days, knowing that I was about to say goodbye to my immediate family, until our return next year. I can’t even watch total strangers saying goodbye to each other without being emotional, so how were these last couple of days going to be?!

I was very grateful to everyone for being very brave and positive and helping me through this. Luckily we’d beeing saying many goodbyes over the last few months that we made this one just like any other. Next will be Anthony’s family goodbyes.

Right now we’re keeping fingers crossed that I will be given the all clear on Wednesday and we should be off Thursday morning at the crack of dawn… Stay tuned for an update then!!

– Anne