Salvesen Whites left Edinburgh at around 1.50am. Heading out along the M8 to Glagow to join the A74, the boys, coaches and helpers settled down for their 19 hour journey. The first stop was just past Carlisle for a toilet break at around 4.30am. Of course most of the bus party had fallen asleep by that point and had to be aroused from their slumber.

After around a 30 minute break we set off again and onward to Birmingham where our next stop would be in around 4.5 hours time. Most of the party fell asleep again relatively quickly although some did stay up to enjoy Austin Powers 1. We duely arrived at the services just outside Birmingham and stopped againfor a toilet stop but most importantly to pick up our driver, Kenny for the other leg of the jouney who will be with us from Birmingham over to Belgium and then back to Manchester.

We had a quick 15 min stop at Dartford before making the final stage to Dover. At around a hour from Dover we received the devestating news that Sea France had went on strike 1 hour earlier. This was very worrying indeed and we crawled into Dover docks not knowing what to expect. Lynne was informed that we would have to go to P&O office to try and get booked onto one of their ferries. After lengthy negotiations and pleeding thing were looking very bleak indeed and it seemed that we would all be heading back up the road home.

Firstly we were informed their was no crossing until Sunday at 6.30pm available, then that we could maybe get a crossing on Saturday morning. Then we were informed we had been added to the coach stand by list for a ferry on Friday night but it meant someone had to cancel for us to get their slot. It was all ifs and buts and nothing concrete. We were getting to a point were we just did not know what the best options was.

The 2 o'clock ferry we were booked on was laid up in dock in Calaise and the 2.30pm P&O ferry had long gone. But just when you thought everything was lost a lady appeared at the coach to say that we had been booked onto the 4.45 ferry.

HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!

What a relief. so we unloaded the boys of the bus into McDonalds for some needed food. The ferry was running late, we eventually boarded around 5.15pm and we were underway around 5.25pm. We arrive on foreign shores of France at Calaise about 7.30pm our time which was actually 8.30pm French time. The first thing we did was fill the bus up with fuel and then headed off on another 4hr trip to our base at Sun Park just outside Hommel, Belgium.

We arrived at the site just after 11.15pm and unloaded the passengers, cases, bags and Lynne made her way to check in to get the needed key cards and info etc. It was dark and we were left to follow a map to find our accomadation which was a very very very long walk after our already strenuous journey. But we had finally made it and we all needed our beds as we had an early start in the morning.

It must be pointed out at this time how well behaved all the lads were during this whole adventure.