Completing a 5 year Road Trip

Completing a 5 year Road Trip

This trip has been 5 years in the making. Right now, you catch me at a ferry port. It’s not in England or France or Spain or Ireland. I’m actually in Estonia. But before I tell you more about where I’m going, let’s rewind and cover the history of the 5year road trip. This is quite an epic story. So, back in 2019, we sold our house and moved into our camper van to go traveling full-time. If you’ve not watched that video, I’ll put a link on screen and also in the video description. But anyway, in early 2020, we found ourselves in Tarifa without understanding about this whole trip and the way it’s going to work out. We were already at the most southernly point of the European Union. very point we have the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Obviously got a bit of a castle, a monument, World War II bunkers as well and epic beaches. I mean, look at those beaches. A few weeks after being in Tarifa, we decided that we’re going to hug the coastline, the very rugged coastline of Portugal towards Lisbon. The scenery on this coastal part of Portugal is absolutely stunning. And um this is one of the locations we chose to stop at overnight uh and enjoy this absolutely epic sunset on a beautiful beach. And this is Koba de Rocka, the most westernly point of the EU. Now, fast forward to 2022, and this is me heading up Norway into a tunnel to drive all the way to NordCat. And if you ever get to do this portion of the trip, you will understand how steep these tunnels are. This tunnel actually goes under an island. Just look at that sky. That’s amazing. quart 10. You just wouldn’t believe it, would you? Absolutely fantastic. There’s no audio from this day. It was blowing about 60 to 80 mph gusts and um yeah, not a chance of catching any audio, but we made it to Nordcap, which is the most northernly point of the European continent that you can drive to. And for some strange reason, I can’t remember exactly when now, um but some part of that trip, I decided that once I reached Nordcap, I would celebrate by shaving off my beard. So, while I continue to shave off the bottom part of my beard for a reason I can’t remember now, let’s discuss where we’ve been so far. So, this is the northeast southwest um extremes of continental Europe. So, no islands or anything like that. So, as we started off on our little trip u back in 2020, we reached Tarifa. Now, yeah, it’s that little kind of little island there at the end, but we couldn’t get access to that. So, as you can see from the map, this is the furthest south you can get in continental Europe. Now, from here, we nip up the coast to Portugal. And from Portugal, obviously, the bit that sticks out the most um just near Lisbon there, um is Copa Rocka or Cape Roka as it is. So, yeah, that was our next destination. Again, this is just totally by chance that we ended up here. And it is just by a few degrees um the most west point of mainland Europe. And then if we just zoom out again to show Europe, and go north to show North Cape, which is recognized as the furthest north that you can drive, you’ll notice it’s actually an island. But anyway, it is the most recognized furthest north point you can drive. But you will notice it isn’t the furthest north. Um, obviously the other little bit of the peninsula there, there’s no roads taking you there. Um, but it is recognized as the most northerly point um of Europe. So yeah, I just wanted to make that clear that if you wanted to walk there, that is the most northern point. You could cycle there, whatever. But if you want to do it like I’ve done it as a road trip, uh then the North Cape is the furthest north of the European continent. I guess this is the point historically and all the trips are done, but obviously cuz it’s only a few miles away from Dover, but this is the point where you say either you’ve just come back or more importantly, you’re just setting off on your trip. I am at the Dover Road or the new Dover Road uh park and ride in Canterbury and um yeah, there are lots and lots of vans here. This is my starting point. And this is the part that I’m actually I would say looking forward to, but also quite nervous about too because of where I’m going and because of what’s going on in the world right now. Um, but you know, I’ve been told loads of times places we travel to, it’s not safe, but you can’t travel there. And that’s never actually been the case once you get there. So, let’s see how this transpires. I pass four. The things you do for the love of travel. I’m trying to be as quiet as I can cuz of all the neighbors obviously. So driving down the road at the moment getting blown around like anything. Ah, yeah. That’s um it’s never a good thing for a ferry crossing. Oh, well. Well, this allows me to um segue neatly into the topic of Whoa, that’s windy. into the topic of why Mandy isn’t here because Mandy gets very, very seasick. So, I’m not too fussed about the fact that it’s a bit windy. I’m all right. If it was Mandy here, yeah, she’d not be. Uh, but um yeah, like I say, this is a big trip. It’s a lot of driving and um going to places that are well bit niche, shall we say? Mandy’s more of a town, village, beach, city center person and I’m more of a forest mountain kind of yeah person. So Mandy’s dealing with a lot of family stuff at the moment and um that’s obviously keeping her busy and therefore I’ve got a few uh shenhen days left before I have to give it my uh 3 months of reset time cuz um we do intend to go back out again um in January for another 3 months. So um yeah, I’ve got to be back by the end of September. And um I’m off to do some exploring while Mandy does some probably Cornwall stuff and family stuff. I think that’s what she’s got planned. Anyway, it’s 10 to sort of 5 in the morning. The last few times I’ve chosen to come on the ferry, it’s been a breeze. Literally like boop bum. Oh god. And for anyone asking as well, chose the ferry because it is less than half the price of the tunnel. It also seems like I’ve got a sty on my eyelid as well, my right eyelid. Uh, happy days for all the driving and everything I’m going to be doing. I went in boots yesterday afternoon when I got to the Canterbury park and ride. I said, you know, you got anything for that? And not only was it odd cuz the woman in front had the same problem. Strange. Uh but they said, “No, just um warm water, warm compress, which is basically what I’m doing now, and try and draw it out there, which means assume that some gump inside my eyelid’s going to pop and come out or something. So, while I’m waiting for the ferry, that’s what I’m doing now. Now, in all well and good, most people wouldn’t see that too much of an issue until you realize that, well, I’m blind in my left eye, so I’ve only got my right eye to see. Yeah, there’s always something [Music] Oh, it’s been a long day. I think it’s about uh 13 and a half hours traveling. Get some food and get some sleep. Uh hopefully I’ll wake up nice and refreshed tomorrow and um yeah, I think it’s another day through Germany tomorrow. We got one other person parked over there. There’s a lake kind of over that way, but um it’s raining a bit, so I’m not going to get my drone out. I wanted to park away from the road a little bit. So, yeah, nice, quiet, peaceful park up. Just what we need. Good morning, or should I say Guten Morgan Mins? Um yeah, that was um an odd night’s sleep. Uh but yeah, I woke up basically and there’s a massive event on all around me. Loads of police and fire marshalss and everything like that. So, um yeah, I just had to get out of dodge rather quickly so I could actually get out before the whole place was closed down. Um I meant to press record on my dash cam at the front. completely forgot. Um so yeah, no evidence of that. Heyo. Uh today Poland and um yeah, rather looking forward to this one. Um I think it’s a park up we’ve been to before in Poland. If I remember rightly, it’s a cracking park up. So Poland, here we come. Yes, my eye is still quite bad. Well, that’s not what’s making me feel sick right now. Oh, about 5 miles ago, stopped at the services, got some diesel. It’s about half 12, so I thought I’ll just nip in the back and uh get some sort of like driving food cuz um yeah, I had a banana for breakfast and feeling a bit hungry. I remembered I got some quason in the back there and I like, “Oh yeah, just grab the bag, put them on the passenger seat, just, you know, I had three and then this happened.” So the bag’s there and I’m just reaching under, grabbed the next one. Luckily, I looked at this one. I didn’t look at any of the others. I don’t know if I’ve been eating ming infected quason or not. Yeah, that one’s got some blue on it. Oh, I don’t know. I’ve I don’t know if it’s psychological. I’ve got a funny taste in my mouth. I don’t know whether to go and throw up, you know, like with my eye. I don’t want to make myself sick as well cuz, you know. Yeah. Can just things be normal for some time? You know, like not have a silly eye thing going on, not eat moldy food, which is still in date. Says on there best before 16th of the 8th. Oh. Oh, by the way, let you know it’s the 16th today. So, they’re right. It is the best before. Not on the date, just before them. Mind you, I would imagine that that thing’s been a bit like that for some time. I’m just outside Dresden, probably about halfway through the journey today. So, um yeah, it’s not ideal. But um I’ve um there’s some toilets there. I’ll give it half an hour. See how I feel. And then um Jeremy Dodgers might be to the uh to the rescue. Give me eye a bit of a swirl out as well. Try and help with that. Take some paint killers. Let’s get back on the road. Hopefully about another 3ish 3 and 1 half hours to go. [Music] [Applause] [Music] So peaceful here as well. So pretty sure there was a jetty last time. Pretty sure the jetty was there. The jetty is now gone. fairly average drive today on the uh German autobands without speed limits and everything else. Uh it was a difference between people either sitting right behind me and like what the heck you doing? What the heck you doing? Or the autobomb which isn’t, you know, there’s no speed limit and just flying past. But I think I figured out why people are hugging behind me. I think it’s the flags. that one car came past me after doing the same sort of thing as many others had done um and then held the f the passenger held the phone up to the window and um I could see a picture of the back of my van with all the flags and they’re going like that. It’s like ah maybe that’s why people are hugging close to my van at the back. They’re having a look to see where I’ve been on the flags or something like that. But the the autob bands an experience. I mean, I’ve driven German autobands a few times and I know now that you literally you got to look in your mirror and then stay focused for like 5 seconds before you pull out cuz 5 seconds at the speed they’re going is the difference between you pulling out and having a car right behind you or just checking that there’s nothing possibly coming. So yeah, it’s just uh it’s crazy though because before I was just about to pull out, did the 5 seconds and then whoosh just as I was about to go past the caravan. So I’m glad I did that 5second little check on there and then obviously then I overtook the caravan at a normal speed. I do about 60 to 65 and I obviously overtook it. So for them to come past me as fast as they are, they must be doing 120 or something like that. Yeah, lovely spot. Somebody out on a kayak. Very peaceful night’s sleep. So, yeah, slept really well. It was an odd thing that happened. Didn’t record it obviously, but um probably about 8:00 last night. A guy came round, knocked on, and uh asked me uh one person for one night. I’m like, “Yeah, okay.” Turns out during the summer months, this is actually a campsite you pay for, which is why there are bins here um as well as the toilet and everything like that. So, uh we came obviously 2 months later when it’s shut. No bins, no toilet, and they don’t charge you for that. Go away flies have been bitten once already. So, yeah, it was uh 49 zlotty uh which is 10 quid. So, um yeah, not bad. Yeah, I didn’t expect to pay for it, but I paid for it anyway. Right. And now I’ve made use of I’ve made use of said bins, empty my bins, got all the stuff I want, and um yeah, it’s time to get on the road. And this morning, only got an hour to something I’m heading for. It’s quite cool, actually. So, I’ll see you there. I mean, everyone’s seen the film Final Destination, right? I don’t think the guy in front has cuz he’s literally hugging those trees. [Music] Right. So, you can see where I am at the moment on the map there. So this is Russia or Kenigrad. Uh this is Lithuania and this is still Poland. And if I zoom out a little bit, I’ve got a little bit more of Poland before I get in Lithuania. And then you’ve got Keningrad, which is basically a tiny little place that goes out to the coast, which is part of Russia. I had to do it. Put stickers on. So if you do ever come here, tag us in a photo or whatever. So we got a John and Mandy one, a Koopa one, and the Gadget John one. But anyway, let’s have a history lesson because, you know, who doesn’t like history? So, World War II, Germany obviously was taken over partly by the Brits and the Americans and the Russians, and that’s why you had East and West Germany. Russia also controlled everywhere else I’ve been recently. Uh, Poland did get independence from Russia. um long time ago, centuries ago. Um about century and a half ago, something like that. But since the war, it was still basically controlled by communist government. So what happened was in the 80s, I think it was lessens or something like that. Um basically led a group called Solidarity um and they managed to get Poland um to be democratic. So they got rid of the uh yeah the communist government and that must have set a little bit of a spark in the area because only a few years after that the Berlin wall came down. So there was no east and west Germany anymore. It was all just Germany. Sorry I’m just leaving a little map here just make sure I’m going in the right direction actually cuz I don’t want to get lost. I don’t want to end up in Russia. That would just be crazy. So yeah, there was no East and West Germany anymore. Uh early 80s and that set a spark off in the area I reckon because within a decade of that, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia all got their basically independence from Russia. So the strangest part about this is where I’m walking now would have all been under sort of Russian control at one point. But even stranger for me anyway is Kinenrad if I am saying that right was actually German and the Russians didn’t give it back to set a bit of a precedent there haven’t they of nicking other people’s land. Anyhow, um yeah, at school all this was going on. Well, the early stuff like the Berlin Wall coming down and stuff like that and the stuff going on in Poland. It just got me really interested. I had a great geography teacher and um yeah, he was talking about all this stuff, you know, about Falcon’s war and all that kind of stuff. So, I’m not really into history or politics, but I do like geography. So that’s why all this is pretty much like really interesting to me. And coming to these places is really good to actually see with my own eyes what I was being told or taught about um in school all those many years ago. And let’s face it, I probably wasn’t listening that much. So the fact that I did listen and retain some of this information, however dubious the dates may be in the facts. Yeah, that’s why I’m here. It’s pretty cool. So, I am actually walking up to the border of essentially Russia, Lithuania, and Poland. Uh, as you can see, freely walking around in Poland. I love Poland. This is my fourth or fifth time in Poland. Love it. Nice people, friendly, lovely place to go around. very open and free to kind of like, you know, wander around uh countryside and park up. No one bothers you or anything like that. Everyone’s quite accepting of it. Lovely cities with the old mix and the new. Like I say, friendly people as well. So cool. Uh Lithuania, I’ve only ever been once. Same with Latia. Same with Estonia. So, it’ll be nice to try out different areas of there on the way as well. But it’s the first time I’ve ever done anything like this. And actually, I’ll give you a bit of a hint. It may be a theme of this trip. So bear that in mind. On that side there is Lithuania. On that bit over there is Russia. So the interesting bit is you can see the barrier between Lithuania and Russia. It’s unfortunate you can’t actually get that point there cuz that is the true point between all three countries, but that’s well fenced off. No military around either to signify any sort of like activity going on, especially given what’s going on in the world right now. But yeah, at the end of the day, quite cool, isn’t it? Nevertheless. Right. Anyway, now I’ve got six and a half hours to drive and I’m going to end up on the coast in Estonia hopefully. So, yeah, this is the border from Poland to Lithuania. There we go. Back roads. I do love a good border crossing. And now we are approaching Lapia. Another border crossing two one day. There we go. Happy [Music] [Applause] [Music] The weather’s took a bit of a turn for the worst. On the plus side, there’s no more flies on the windscreen. No bad weather and no traffic. It’s amazing. Although now it does feel like I’m driving in Sweden or Finland or Norway. Supposed to be okay to stay here the night right on beach. You have arrived. Yeah, look at that. I do think though this might be the last day this year that I’m in shorts. It’s a tad cold. So it’s 25° today. air con’s on and everything and um that storm we came through literally plummeted the temperature just dropped after that so it’s about 18 degrees now bit breezy as well not too fussed about that but yeah definitely um no more shorts I think on this trip or even this year time to get me jeans out right anyway let’s get inside get some food on the go starving It is. Um yeah, because of the extra hour on that um it’s 10 to 7. Um so I set off around about uh 9:00 this morning. Um obviously there was an hour added on to that. So if you say it’s 10 to 6:00, 3 hours, it’s 9 hours. Oh, fan’s locked, John. 9 hours. That was a day’s driving. Oh, I tell you. I turned the van round. Sorry for the dirty window, but yeah, I figured if I park this way, there’s no one else really in the car park. So, I can have me tea sat in a chair and have an epic view either out of the conservatory. Oh, yeah. Epic view at the conservatory or the kitchen. Oh, yeah. Epic view out the kitchen as well. You see van life. People say you’ve got no space at all. Look, kitchen, dining area, conservatory, and you know, bedroom and stuff in the naughty corner. That will do nicely. Good morning. And what a lovely day it is here in Estonia. In 600 m, turn right. So, it’s been about 2 hours drive so far. Um, I’m a few minutes away from the ferry port where I’m going to catch my ferry. It’s the same ferry we caught last time when we did the trip the other way round. And, um, yeah, really smooth ferry. Takes about 2 hours. And then you’re dropped right into the center of um, Helsinki, which is in Finland, which now we’re getting there. I’m kind of excited. [Music] You know me, I do like my parkups near water. The van’s just nestled in the trees there in a little car park. So, where does this fit in with the trip? Well, basically, we’re nearly there. I’m about a day away now. Um, I wouldn’t say it’s the start of the trip, but it’s kind of like it’s the point of the trip. And you could say it’s also the completion of the fiveear trip, too. So, yeah. Where we heading to tomorrow is actually the destination. Oh, I can’t wait for this bit. I really can’t wait. I can’t wait as well to see the reactions from everybody else as well. I don’t know if tomorrow afternoon when I get there and film it all, you’re all going to watch that back and just go, “What’s the point?” Or a lot of you are going, “Send me the coordinates. I need to do this trip as well.” Right. Let’s get in the van. It’s time to get some cooking done cuz I am starving. I set up this morning at 8:00. We’re actually 2 hours ahead here. So, it was actually 6:00 a.m. And um I had a pack of biscuits on the boat and that was it. Right then. Boom. Let’s get some food. Good morning. It’s another early start. Although it is quite an amazingly uh sunny and bright morning, although it’s quite cold. Actually got the diesel heater on. But yeah, today is the day. Um today is the seventh day I’ve been driving to get where I’m going. And today hopefully I’m going to get where I’m going. [Music] Hey, [Music] hey, hey. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] This is just the end of this road. Literally the road runs out the easterly point of Europe. And I’m so surprised that there’s no signs around or anything around of like military activity, cameras or there’s nothing. This is it. Just through there is Russia. So, let’s catch you up with where I am now. We’re going all the way over to Finland. And literally in the middle of nowhere is this line which just has a little kink in it which just makes it the most easterly point of um you know Europe um at least the European Union part of Europe anyway. And um yeah, on this little tiny island um just between Finland and Russia is the furthest east you can drive um in the European Union. So that’s where I am. And um yeah, this is a little road I’ve driven up on. Uh and what an epic trip. What an epic road trip. Um obviously if you wanted to do it all in one, what an epic road trip that is. Um but what an epic trip this has been overall. And um yeah, let’s see what it actually looks like. What is here? All right, let’s go and get some lookie looking. So the eastern tip viewing point can be visited without a proper border zone permit. As you can see, you are here. That’s the actual border crossing right in the middle of the river. And then we’re going to take a little bit of a walk to the yellow line, which is the outer limit of the border waters. The dark line is the national border. So, yeah. So, around about 7 hours drive today to get here. I hadn’t anticipated how much was going to be uh driving on those roads like that, which really does slow you down. So, I’ve had to fill up again even though I thought I’d have enough fuel. Seems that it’s um steep. Although, saying that, how much in elevation are we at? We’re only at 700 ft elevation, but there’s a lot of climbing up and down on the roads. Woo! I had a chat with Mandy this morning and I said although this is my plan, you know, probably about 6 months ago now um to come here, uh I actually planned to come here before my engine blew up. So, six months in planning with a few hurdles in the way. Mandy’s not here because of family and things like that she’s got to deal with. Um, and obviously I’ve have to get my my van fixed and everything like that. So, I was thinking this morning and said to Mandy, what am I going to do if there’s an anticlimax? I get there and then nothing. because I’ve built this up to be such a big thing. What if it’s not? So, what if it’s just nothing? I mean, the weird thing is there was more of an obvious border crossing when I was at the Polish, Lithuanian, and Russian enclave kind of border a few days ago. But yeah, nothing. I mean, I would imagine somewhere hidden somewhere are going to be some cameras or something like that, but behind me there, that’s Russia. Like, for real. I passed the signs on the way up here for St. Petersburg. And indeed, there are a few roads around here. Should there be a normal sort of uh operation between international, you know, cooperation and Russia, um you can actually go to Russia like a few roads around here. Right now, I think every single border crossing is shut. I don’t if you can see it, but the two little bards in the middle there signify the exact border. Um and there’s some ballards along. So, you can see some through the trees over there. same sort of thing signifying the border. Um border sort of follows the riverish. But yeah, this is it. 6 months in the planning and um 7 days driving non-stop every single day and I’m here. And is it an antilimax? Well, no, cuz it’s everything I thought it’d be. In fact, it’s more than everything I thought it’d be because it’s open. There is nothing. Buzzy B. You can booger off, Buzzy Bee. So, there’s no border like patrols. There’s no big barriers anywhere. It’s just brilliant. [Music] I mean, it looks exactly like Finland cuz, you know, there’s just a river that separates it. But they do warn you, don’t get on a boat and don’t go over there. So, I’m guessing there are cameras or something around here hidden in the trees or something like that so that no one actually goes there because technically then cuz that’s the border you could be in Russia. You could step in Russia and um I guess they definitely don’t want you to do that right now. So, you got a nice little plaque there. Rotary International. So, I’m guessing that they paid for this little area. So, thank you very much. It’s lovely. You can sit down. Lots of people could be here. Even got a bird little house up there as well. And look at Russia. There is no one on the other side. No one in Russia has thought to do the same. So, you know the portal that’s in I think it’s in Time Square and in Dublin where people can go and see each other from you know the other side of the world. I mean like if there was another little dock on the other side there and you could just sort of like shout and wave at some Russian people. That would be quite cool. Not going to lie. Not that I know any Russian words other than nat doa y um pibo. It’s about as much Russian as I know and I’m probably butchering those words as well. So that’s it. We have reached the end of the video. Four points. North, East, South, West, the four points of Europe that you can drive to the European um Union continent if you like. So yeah, quite cool that really. All right, thanks for watching folks. Take care and I’ll see you on the next video. Bye. Whatever by is in Finnish and Russian. See you soon. Bye. got the drone following as well. So, can actually see beyond where we’re going to go, which means the drone technically is spying on Russia right now, which, you know, potentially is not great, but I’m not going to fly it over Russia at the moment. It’s way back over the back of me still. Well in Finland.

Since 2020, and a random visit to Tarrifa, a very strange roadtrip started to take place that wasn’t really anything that needed completing, even after visiting the western point of Portugal the connection hadn’t been made of the geographics extreme points of Europe, that was until Summer 2022 when I visited Nordkapp at the top of Norway, at this moment I’d visited 3 most extreme points of Continental Europe, and shortly after Mandy pointed out there was one left!

So here we are, completing the 4th geographical extreme of the Continental Europe landmass, the most Eastern point, the one that doesn’t seem to be visited by anyone as a tourist destination, well unless you’re into completing trips like this and also find any reason to go on an epic roadtrip.

So grab some snack, a nice drink, and follow me as I take you to all 4 corners of Europe.

Feel free to watch our 8 Year Documentary here – https://youtu.be/-C6lt3bmL3U

And please check out @CamperScrans food channel.

For reference I followed the well known points for the North, South, East & West, which are:
Extreme points of Mainland Europe
Northernmost point. Cape Nordkinn (Kinnarodden), Norway (71°08′02″N 27°39′00″E)
Southernmost point. Punta de Tarifa, Spain (36°00’00.2″N). …
Westernmost point. Cabo da Roca, Portugal (9°29’56.44 W).
Easternmost point. Ilomantsi, Finland (62°54’33.1″N+31°34’52.7″E)

Mentioned in this article, but modifying each point to be able to drive to it,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_points_of_Europe

In no way am I rewriting the endpoints of europe, I’m just showing the pints I visited and why I visited them, mainly so others can follow and even make their own roadtrip.

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