I consulted Andy, he gave the new route the thumbs up and we were back in business. I buried the hatched with the ‘Jibbers’ and we arranged to meet up for another trip to DerbyshireNow that there would only be Andy and myself heading off on the trip, we re-evaluated what was achievable. The imminent arrival of a bouncing baby was also weighing heavily on my mind; Compromises would have to be made!

The biggest change to our plans was to reduce the length of our trip from three to two months, in the main this was because of the baby and me struggling to justify abandoning Jen for three months when the baby would be just over a year old. The other reason was that now there would be only two of us things would more expensive individually; we were less enthusiastic about rough camping and now intended sleeping under canvas on campsites where possible and no doubt the occasional night in a hostel, cooking for two was not going to be that much cheaper than for five.

With the change of time scale came the change of route, I spent many hours pondering what was possible before finally deciding we would need to omit North Africa completely, with this the new route would be:

Norway – Russia – Turkey – Greece – Macedonia – Albania – Croatia – Slovenia – Austria – Switzerland – France - Belgium

I consulted Andy, he gave the new route the thumbs up and we were back in business. I buried the hatched with the ‘Jibbers’ and we arranged to meet up for another trip to Derbyshire