Send off Day! The team woke up at 6 o’clock to get showered and finish final bits of packing and get interviewed for a piece on BBC South Today! After a casual drive from Ian’s house, where his parents kindly hosted the team for ambulance maintenance for the past week, we arrived at Woburn Safari park. It was great to meet the other teams and see the other ambulances. After a brief tour round the safari park, we unpacked Rich’s belongings into his parents car before going to “The Bell” for a quick lunch with most of our families. A full belly was the best send off we could ask for and at roughly 13:30 we departed to Dover.
After a rather uneventful ride on the Eurotunnel, we arrived in France and, to our horror, found out the weather was exactly the same! Using Berry’s compass, we then proceeded to drive East along the coast to Dunkirk where we made our first stop. Although it was past 7 and raining, it didn’t stop us from having a stroll round the town and finding a shop for us to buy the evenings dinner.
We then departed for our first night-time destination, Brugges! The weather surprisingly remained rainy in Belgium. Upon nearing Brugges we came off the main road and took the side roads in search for a camping site. What followed was a casual drive around the outskirts of Brugges. The landscape was similar to Holland, lots of flat farmland, with a few cool windmills and barges on the canals. Then, after some computer sorcery from Rich, we arrived at a nice campsite just before 10. We gladly took the only available waterlogged camping spot and after some manouvering of ambulances we settled in for the night. A cheeky pasta, tomato and tuna meal gulped down with a moderate amount of french beer and cider was a good end to a very rainy first day.
