Day 4 – Sunday 5th May 2013
Another leisurely breakfast, then after sorting out route, de-bugging the windscreens, etc, off we set for our journey further south. More flat open fields and lots of wind turbines to begin with, then started getting very alpine-like as we started to climb and the temperature gauge on the Mini started to creep up too. Stopped at a services near Baccarat, France, to buy some lunch, rather busy & long queues so we were there rather longer than intended but we were parked right by the doors with many people making complimentary comments, taking photos of the Minis, etc, which was very nice although Geoff didn’t extract any money from anyone so is very much failing in his fund raising duties! Found a picnic spot nearby to stop to eat our lunch, all very civilised. Weather beautifully sunny & warm but with a delightful breeze that makes it extremely pleasant to be in, lovely! Arrived at our destination for the day, Basel in Switzerland, literally on the border, having crossed through an empty and un-manned border crossing a couple of miles before our hotel, the Adagio. Very nice and trendy hotel, like something out of an Ikea world, the Swiss are so precise! Went for a walk down to The Rhein river, walked over the bridge and ate at an Italian restaurant over-looking the river. Current running really strong, watched the ferry boat going back and forth literally side-ways across the river keeping head in to the currents and attached to an overhead wire, also a guy swimming in the river, brave man!

Day 2 – Friday 3rd May 2013
Set off from Geoff & Carole’s at 8.30am, heading for Dover. Today’s slight technical hitch is that the microphone Ian got new for Geoff & Carole’s radio doesn’t appear to be working, they can hear us but can’t transmit, so it’s a bit one-way communication and we’re having to rely on signals from them – one flash of the brake lights for ‘no’, two for ‘yes’ – a bit basic but it’ll have to do for now. Gave Bill Bell a wave as we drove by his place of work before jumping on the M53. Had a very clear run down to Dover in gloriously sunny weather, a couple of stops for fuel re-fills, one unsuspecting admirer of the cars at Corley Services, East Birmingham, was chatting to Geoff and promptly donated £20.00 to the cause, bless! Geoff has now been appointed as chief fund raiser so look out any passing strangers – Geoff is on the prowl! Various texts from Bill Bell whlst we were en route commenting on our whereabouts from watching the tracker, apparently it’s quite mesmerising! A slight de-tour off the route at Canterbury where we popped to a Maplins to get a replacement microphone for the radio, still doesn’t work but Ian is confident it’s just not correctly wired for this particular radio, and Technical Department (aka Ian!) can hopefully work his magic and fix it with a bit of tweaking! Got to Dover ferry terminal in plenty of time for our 4.15pm sailing to Calais. Arrived 1.5hours later, although we’ve obviously gone forward 2.5hours with the time difference, our hotel, Ibis Calais, was just a drive away of approximately 10 miles from the ferry, so got there quite quickly and went to a nearby restaurant for a bite to eat before retiring for some welcome sleep! See you tomorrow, Au Revoir, Bonne Nuit!