Our Follow the Sun journey, which we had dreamed about, planned and anticipated for over 30 years, finally began in early 2017 when we left my parents’ house in California for our five continent around-the-world journey.  With our faithful Tramp as our home on wheels we toured North America, Central and South America, then Europe and southern Africa.  You can read more about those journeys here.  By the end of 2019 we only had one continent to go – Asia, and our broad plan was to follow the ancient Silk Road from London through Central Asia to the Pacific Ocean.  That should be fun!

A lot of things have happened since we began our journey, including the marriage of one of our sons, the birth of two beautiful granddaughters, the loss of two parents, serious back surgery for me, the downsizing of our family home, horrific bushfires at our rural retreat, the war in Ukraine and the dastardly Covid restrictions which kept us home for two years.  Never mind, patience is a virtue, good things come to those who wait and all that palaver.  We were ready to tackle the last leg of our journey – the Silk Road.

The original Silk Road plans were for us to drive from London through Europe, through the Balkan countries on the Adriatic coast, across Turkey, through the Caucasus countries, skirt around the Caspian Sea through Iran, into the five Stan countries of central Asia, into Russia, then explore Mongolia before moving back into Russia and finishing at their Pacific port of Vladivostok where we would ship Tramp to California and declare our around-the-world journey completed.

But travel plans need to be flexible and bend with the times and we definitely needed to do some bending on this one.  Despite Iran having the reputation of being a wonderful country to visit we decided that many recent events there pushed our risk/reward calculations too far into the red so we scrapped Iran.  And the war in Ukraine made travelling through Russia both risky and wrong on principle.  So we needed a new plan. 

The new plan was to cross Europe, the Balkans and Turkey before hitting the Caucasus countries and catching a ferry across the Caspian Sea into the Stans.  After exploring the Stans extensively we would basically turn around and return to London, albeit on a more northerly route.  It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t part of our original dream but we are nothing if not flexible and were very excited to visit these new places and explore them for ourselves.  So let’s go!

Well, not so fast.  Planning a journey with a foreign-registered vehicle (Tramp has a California rego) takes many months to get flights, visas and insurance plus organise a number of spare parts for Tramp, service requirements, shipping details, camper repairs and all sorts of minor stuff that can clog your day and fog your brain to the point of exhaustion.  Travelling with a foreign vehicle, as we have proved across four previous continents, is not for the faint-hearted. 

Luckily we have some wonderful friends in Gavin and Emma who live in Essex east of London near where Tramp has been stored.  Julie and I flew from Sydney to London with a one night stopover in Los Angeles where we picked up some of Tramp’s spare parts (long story, it’s complicated) before flying to Heathrow.  We then caught a train out to Essex and were welcomed again by Gavin and Emma who let us park next to their house and use their tools, manpower and local knowledge to get Tramp into fighting shape.

We spent a few days at their home, including a wonderful Sunday afternoon where we enjoyed a traditional English roast and Yorkshire pudding with excellent local beers at a nearby brewhouse. We had Tramp fully serviced at a local Ford dealer with parts I had brought from the US, put in a new truck battery and completed a number of other fixes and changes to make him match fit before we were finally able to hit the road.  And boy, were we keen!

But the UK is of course an island and if we were going to tackle the Silk Road we had to jump over to the mainland first.  We left Gavin and Emma’s place with a heavy heart, not sure when we’ll ever make it back to this wonderful part of the world but there were discussions about how we might see them again in Australia so let’s hope that can happen sometime in the future.  Gavin and Emma, you guys rock!

We filled the pantry with the necessary food and beer before heading down the M25, crossing the mighty Thames as it flows from London out to the sea, and then down the M20 to the port town of Dover.  We spent a quiet and relaxing night in the car park of a local community centre, as you do, before making our way to the port in the morning and catching our ferry to Dunkirk. 

Naturally our ferry was cancelled and the next one was delayed but eventually they loaded us on a cross-channel ferry to Calais, not Dunkirk, and we waved goodbye to the magnificent white cliffs of Dover and the United Kingdom.  We had thoroughly enjoyed our time in the UK as part of Follow the Sun, which first started in 2018 when we arrived from South America and included long bouts of Tramp’s storage during Covid but also excursions to southern Africa, Ireland and Scotland. 

Where will the road take us and what wonderful experiences will we have as we point towards the legendary Silk Road and follow the steps of Marco Polo through Central Asia?  We were bubbling over with anticipation and couldn’t wait for the exploration of our fifth and final continent of Follow the Sun to begin!