That's it, the end. Its over.....

The car is loaded on the final leg of our trip. Matilda is in a big steel box and waiting for shipping back home. We are also waiting for our shipping (flight) back home. I've posted some info on Wiki Overland about who we used for the car shipping

Loading and arranging it was pretty painless really. Not as cheap as we had hoped but cheap enough considering what we have paid for other shipping legs. The loading was $250CAN and the Shipping was $1818CAN. We should have minimal fees in the UK although the process is a bureaucratic nightmare. My advice is don't SORN you car, no matter what the RAC or DVLA tell you and when you return drive it into England and don't ship in ! We will pass some comments on how we get on later. The paperwork shouldn't be too bad but getting home on to the drive is the problem. There's a new thing called Euro Transit Plates that allow you to drive anywhere in Europe for 4 days. We will probably be getting those. It makes a mockery of our MOT, TAX and Insurance rules but is completely legal. Why can't England issue these? Every country in the world (we know of) has temporary plates you can use to get your car home if its unregistered. Not England. The plates are German. Welcome Back UK Citizen,,,, now fill out some forms.....

Yes its a film and its not even out yet !

 Not steaks this time but Lobster. I got them on special offer. Jan cooked them and had to show us how to eat them. Some tools were used. Phil had steak. I wish I had.

 1. 86,400,000 seconds
2. 1,440,000 minutes
3. 24,000 hours
4. 1000 days
5. 142 weeks (rounded down)
6. Two years 8 months and 26 days

We are not quite there yet but its not long......Sometime in July we will be home and on July twenty something we are at 1000 days. Will we beat the deadline? 

Costco didn't manage to honour there free balance and rotation promise and said it could not be done safely so what did I do?

I took off the wheels in their car park and presented them to the guy to balance. I then rotated them myself ! So if you're reading this Costco, you've failed us twice !!!! The guy gave some made up excuse about he book saying they were not allowed to jack up a Land Rover Defender as it could not be done safely. This is the same book I asked to see where it showed him where to jack it up !

We stayed and drank with Chris and Jacqui who we knew from railway days many years ago. They now live in Canada and they cooked us some massive steaks....we drank lots and stayed up late. Their house is really nice and has a great view. Chris needs to pull his finger out and get it finished though. We men have a hard life keeping the women happy. last time we saw them was 4 years ago in Costa Coffee at home. The week before they emigrated.

Now we are at Phil and Jan's place in Nova Scotia trying to plan getting home. We'll know more in a few days. I'm applying for jobs and all sorts or normal stuff. I don't like it. That's the getting home bit not the hospitality.

Few more miles and a few more checks of the car. Some service work done again. I really need to count how many we've done for the trip in numbers page. I'll do it when we get home. We stopped off in a little town on the way to the Canada border and found a nice Walmart and a Buffalo Wild Wings. Its Wings Tuesday so we can't turn down 60c wings day at Buffalo. We could have eaten cheaply but had a beer, which isn't. Only one. We've been splashing out a bit on eating out and we need to stop. Its getting expensive. Golden Corral and Buffalo Wild Wings and the odd Pizza. We still eat less than we used to. I think most overlanders loose weight although when they stop for a while the pile it back on!

The trip is almost over and thats a shock. The booking of things to get us home is looming.

Julie didn't used to eat Chicken on the bone. How things (including us) have changed. The car park photo is what we see almost every day. Walmarts garden products section. We've been counting things for the trip in numbers and we've been to 220 McDonalds (at least) for Wi-Fi. We will try to get that exaclty when we are back......surely we should get a medal or something. At $2 (plus tax) for Wi-Fi its not bad but it was cheaper in Africa for a mobile sim card and internet in the car ! We could get a month worth for $10usd and here is costs us $2 for the decaf coffees. I don't dring their tea, its awful. So we do get something else other than Wi-Fi for $2 but thats $60 per month if we do it every day (which we probably do !). I'm ashamed of it but the local places don;t have Wi-Fi or $1 drinks.

Now thats a big Alaskan Carrot ! They grow fast in the daylight 24 hours a day ! (I forgot we had the photo),