England, and particularly London, is where Julie and I originally set up shop together all those years ago.  The city has many great memories for the two of us, living the dream in our 20’s, exploring the world, new adventures and experiences every day.  And 40 years later we’re older and wiser but it’s still the same, another chance to see London, catch up with old friends and of course there are new adventures along the way.

We left Snowdonia National Park in northern Wales and drove south through gorgeous green rolling hills, white sheep speckling the hillsides, thick hedges marking boundaries, across the border and back into England.  Our target for the day was one of the prettiest parts of England – the Cotswolds.

The Cotswolds, as we learned, is a small area in central England where homes have been built for hundreds of years using limestone from the local quarries which is a beautiful honey colour, unique in all of England.  Quaint little villages dot the landscape, each with their own special features but all primarily built with this local golden-hued limestone, steep pitched roofs and colourful well-tended gardens.  If you want quintessential English villages, the type you see on TV, come to the Cotswolds.

And so we did.  We stopped first in Cirencester, the self-proclaimed capital of the Cotswolds, and then moved on to the picturesque little village of Bilbury before heading up to the oh-so-English named town of Bourton-on-the-Water.  At Bourton we parked in the open public carpark and walked into the village, apparently referred to as the ‘Venice of the Cotswolds’ because it has a couple little streams with cute stone bridges over them.  Venice it was not but we enjoyed a tasting of warm pints and a fish and chips dinner at a highly recommended local pub and spent the night in the carpark.

But the Cotswolds had more to offer and we were keen to soak it in.  We followed more desperately narrow country lanes with their high overgrown hedges scraping both sides of Tramp and visited two quaint little villages with the curious names of Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaughter.  Both Slaughters were made almost entirely of this honey-coloured limestone, cute little cottages, colourful flower pots, lace curtains.  We walked their quiet narrow lanes and felt we had stepped back in time.

We stopped at the larger Cotswolds town of Burford to see their impressive church and engage in a little retail therapy before hitting the motorway and heading for Essex which is the county east of London.  In the superbly English-named village of Tolleshunt Major our friends Gavin and Emma lived on a farm in a charming sun-soaked and stylish converted animal barn (much better than it sounds!).

It was in one of the outlying barns that Tramp would be spending the next few months while we high-tailed it back to Sydney for some R&R with family and friends.   Gavin is introducing the V2 camper into the UK and European market and we were keen to support him in any way.  He had a spare barn that Tramp could stay in over the cold English winter so it worked out great for both parties.  That night the four of us walked down to the local pub, celebrated Gavin’s birthday and raised our glasses to success in his new venture.

We only had a couple of days before we flew back to Australia and had a long list of things we wanted to do before then.  With consummate ease we drove, shuttle bus, train, tube and walked to downtown London for a refresher look at some of the famous landmarks that make this city so compelling.  We explored Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abby and the Houses of Parliament, all standard fare in the central part of town.  We also revisited our former home in the suburb of Ravenscourt Park and had a beer in the 17^th century pub The Dove on the banks of the Thames where I used to work all those years ago.

That night we caught up with Nick and Fiona, old friends from Sydney who had moved to London, had a few beers and dinner at the local pub and shared stories of our respective travels, children, careers and future plans.  Great fun.

The next day we visited Andrew, a great old friend of mine from Sydney who had relocated back to his native London with his beautiful family, only to be struck down by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS, also known as Motor Neuron Disease, MND, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease.  After four years of fighting this horrific and incurable disease Andrew’s brave journey was coming to an end and it was a crushingly sad moment to have my last words with him, give him a hug and tell him how inspirational he had become to hundreds, if not thousands of people.

To give you an idea of the strength and extraordinary capacity of Andrew, as his body cruelly deteriorated while his mind stayed strong he learned to use his last functioning bodily feature – his eyes – and the latest eye gaze technology to write books in both English and German as well as share his painful journey with ALS through an insightful and endearing blog.  Sadly, only a couple of days after our visit Andrew’s long battle with ALS was lost and he peacefully passed away.  He will be dearly and deeply missed by all those he touched in his all-too-short life.  You can read more about Andrew and ALS at his blog www.stopforamomentpeople.com.

We returned to Gavin and Emma’s farm, packed our travel bags, gave Tramp a final pat on the flank and headed off to Gatwick airport.  We had a huge dose of mixed emotions, leaving our ever-faithful friend Tramp behind but knowing he was in good hands while we went home without him.  Our plan is to spend a southern summer in Sydney with family and friends before resuming our travel in southern Africa and across Asia to the Pacific Ocean.  That’s the plan, subject to change, as everything about Follow the Sun has been.  We wouldn’t want it any other way!

In all we spent about three and a half months – 108 days – in Europe, used up our Schengen Visa down to its last day, drove almost 14,000 miles (22,600 kilometres), visited 25 countries, had no flat tires, no traffic fines and no accidents (except a couple of scratches and gently backing into a couple of poles).  As we have found in North America and then in Central America and South America, every day was a wonderful adventure, full of new surprises, new experiences, new memories.  We’ve finished three continents of our Follow the Sun journey and only have two to go.  Can’t wait!