It was with mixed emotions as we rode off the ferry into Dover. We had spent five and a half months riding through very differing countries, from the glacier topped alps of Switzerland, to the dry and arid plains of Turkey, from the ancient ruins of Greece to the rebuilding of Berlin. From 43° in Turkey to 4° in Austria and all the while coping with not being able to speak the local language, we do find it very tiering not being able to speak the local language. So we had been looking forward to being able to read the writing in front of us and to being able to speak to the person opposite us without having to consider if they would be able to understand us, but here we were entering England, probably never to return to any of these countries and the challenges we had cleared again, from here on we would be in modern 21st century counties that spoke English. How boring is that!
We stayed in the midlands with my cousin for two weeks while we had the rear wheel bearings replaced in the bike and caught up with family, we then headed down to London where we stayed with a lovely couple we had met in Croatia. London was everything and more than we had expected, the history, the buildings, the gardens, we spent six days traveling around sight seeing and we have barely scratch the surface of what we wanted to see, it has been amazing.
From here we had already decided to fly home and spend six months with our family and friends and to get away from the northern Winter, we had already stayed for Winter last year!
So we will return in Spring 2013 to continue on through Scotland and Ireland ( Did I say only English speaking countries from now on?) before shipping the bike across to America for the third leg in this adventure.
Thank you to all those people that have given us shelter, food and friendship and to those that have posted comments and messages, you have made our adventure what it is.
For the record, on this leg we have done 22,000 Kilometers, been through twenty countries ( some we had been to before ), replaced one rear tyre, replaced the rear wheel bearings, had one very near crash resulting in some repairs to the bike, dropped the bike once, met some more amazing people and met no bad people, truly an adventure of a life time!