Sunday 1st July - Arriving in London

We arrived back in London on Sunday 1st July and as soon as I got home I found myself sucked back into normal life and work, with the expedition already receding into the distant past!

On the trip life was very simple - all we had to worry about each day was getting ourselves and the car another two or three hundred miles along the road. At home, life is much more complicated; requiring me to juggle priorities, commitments and future plans. I am enjoying my creature comforts, but missing the simplicity of life on the road.

Finally I've found time to add a few last photos of our arrival in London, which happened at the end of a long day. On Saturday June 30th, after some indecision as to whether or not to make inroads into the journey to London, it was decided to spend the night in Paris in a small backstreet hotel near Gare St Lazare. Sebastian walked by the river while I sat in a cafe, watching the world go by, and thinking about getting home.

Another early start (5.00) and we retrieved the Austin from Place Vendome, where we had discreetly freeloaded on the rally car security. We escaped from a still-sleeping Paris with only a couple of wrong turns, and set off for Calais.

After an uneventful journey, sharing the driving, and with mercifully few HGVs, we arrived at Calais in good time for our booked 14.20 Eurotunnel crossing. It was a good thing Sebastian had booked a place, as every train was fully booked, and even the Austin couldn't be squeezed onto an earlier crossing.

In England the forecast rain made only a brief appearance, and we arrived in London to a pleasant evening, and a great welcome from family and friends at the Leinster Arms. Many thanks to everyone who came to welcome us back, some travelling great distances.

Thanks also to all of those who have followed the blog, and encouraged us with your comments. It made it worth doing, to know that people were taking an interest in our trip. It's not too late to make a contribution to our Unicef fundraising efforts! You can donate online at www.justgiving.com/annabeljones or sebastianwelch.

Looking back
It has been the journey of a lifetime, and highlights which will stay with me include: Experiencing the great wildernesses of Mongolia and Siberia; receiving generous hospitality everywhere we went; discovering the beauty of Eastern European cities like Gdansk and Vilnius, and seeing the gradual changes in the landscape, the architecture, the wildlife and the people across 7,500 miles.

There have been low points in the trip, chief among which were: Attacks by the huge and silent Siberian mosquitoes; sandstorms - one of which blew away my tent; the Russian potholes, one of which launched the car into the air and broke its windscreen frame and glass on landing; and having with the split windscreen wide open when it rained, turning my skin to leather and the maps to papier mache.

The constant vibration over poor (or non-existent) roads led to everything working loose, and a few areas will now need attention. A week from Paris the starter motor stopped working, so we resorted to bump starting. By Europe we were using back axle oil at the rate of a pint every 100 miles. The fan housing and/or shaft became badly worn, and so had to be packed with grease at every stop. To everyone's surprise we only had one puncture, and returned with almost the entire collection of spares. Overall the car did superbly, proving the right choice for the journey - a testament to Herbert Austin and British engineering, as well as to its preparation and to Sebastian's maintenance en route.

Kip and Carmen took a different route to Paris, arrived safely and have now also returned to the UK, via celebrations in Normandy, where they have a house.

Statistics
Duration: 45 days (including 9 rest days)
Total distance: 7450 Peking to Paris, 7850 from Tanggu to London.
Average speed 27 mph - 17 mph in the Gobi Desert
Fuel consumption 37 mpg
Maximum altitude 8,800 ft (2,700 metres) near the Mongolia-Russia border

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