Another day, another drive and another campsite. Bob had planned a cross-country route today and to me it was a bit of a magical mystery tour as he hadn’t marked it on my map and the map is very small scale with few road numbers shown. So pretty difficult to work out exactly where we are on the map anyway. Occasionally I managed to identify the name of a village as we drove through and I did keep the general idea of the direction we were heading which was mainly East and then a little bit South East. We bypassed a couple of quite big towns, Tubingen and Augsberg and successfully stayed mainly on the smaller, countryside roads. Drove through some delightful country. Lots of crops, all very green, sometimes flat and at other times rolling ... read more

Another driving day today and another gorgeous summery one too. Woken by delightful birdsong on our campsite which says "ornothologists delight" in its brochure so no surprise to hear Blackcaps singing in the trees all round. Away in good time again and we set off heading pretty well due East. Bob had warned me there would be more dual carriageway than country roads today and we started on the N4 but didn't stay long as a big stretch was closed so we had to detour along country roads after all. We were heading basically for Strasbourg and so were quite a lot of other people too. Bob had managed to find a stretch of really scenic route up through the forest into Alsace and through some lovely little villages with the pretty colourful buildings typical to ... read more

Today went like clockwork. Up at 6.30, showered, last oddments into Tandy, birds given a last meal of suet pellets and insructed to go find their own food for the next few weeks and we were on the road at 7.30am. Brilliant drive down, not a holdup in sight. It is school holidays so that could account for less traffic than normal. A bit foggy but no sign of the weather advertised as "risk to life" (Ryanair had cancelled all their Stanstead flights just in case !) In fact, such a good drive down that we arrived at the Chunnel terminal 2 hours before our booked train time of 2.20. Thought maybe we would be put on an earlier train but there were warning signs of 'disruption" and the terminal car park was chocker. Had our ... read more

Early start, woken by the shrill alarm clock, ugh. Breakfast coffee, mango juice and a cake I bought from the hotel pastry shop last night, for breakfast. Then down to reception, checked out and into our 7.30 am waiting taxi. At Mumbai airport we were well on time for our flight and goodbye to India and an incredibly wonderful holiday. Can't take Indian currency home so had an enjoyable time spending our spare change in one of the nice tourist gift shops then onto our plane and up and away we went. Short 3+ hour flight to Dubai, then the longer 7 hour leg to Manchester and home. Quite uncomfortable by the time we landed, and by the time we were home, having been picked up by Jane, Bob's daughter, was really pleased to be there. ... read more

That's the relaxing beach bit of the trip over, now to head back to the city for our final stopping place, Mumbai. Bob had chosen a nicely timed flight out of Goa, at 3pm, so we had a leisurely start to the day. Packed our cases, breakfast in the sun, a farewell to the lovely friends we've made here and then down to the edge of the beach for a read in the sunshine. The hotel restaurant by the beach has some well positioned sunbeds though Bob did regret his position later when he found ant bites on his ankles. Little creatures round here, roaming the sand but with an itchy bite. I had of course move my feet up off the sand so was unaffected. Checkout time and we were pleased to find that the ... read more