It was the last day of our car hire today and thus the last day of our roadtrip. We woke up early in the campsite, and left the tent out in the sun to make sure it was completely dry before packing it away. The first stop of the day was to a car wash, where we put the car on an automatic wash to get rid of all the muck and dirt for 30 days of driving, then gave it a vacuum.

The next stop was to go to Decathlon in Crawley. Josh had, for the past 3 nights, basically slept on the ground as the mattress replacement that we had picked up in Scotland had broken in exactly the same spot. It was obviously a design flaw, as it was the same problem for a second time around. So I went to Decathlon and got my money back. I was so unimpressed, it was the best mattress that they sold and yet it just kept breaking, even when I slept on it for a couple of nights because I had sore hips from the hard ground and Josh took my much cheaper one (which, by the way, was fine).

We didn't have to return the car until 4, so we drove to Mayfield Lavender Farm on our drive back to London. This was a farm that you could pay a small amount to go wandering through the lavender (as opposed to the ones in France where you shouldn't!). It was really pretty but I was surprised by the distinct lack of bees. I questioned the lady serving me at the kiosk and found out that they were having problems with their bees getting sick and dying. So sad! It was also different from the fields I'd seen in Provence because the ground was grassy, not rocky like in France... and the weather was noticeably different! But it was a nice way to spend an hour.

We left the farm and drove on to London. It took us hours to get to my home in northwest London - I want to say that something had happened around Shepherd's Bush but I'm pretty sure that it was just crap London traffic. We finally got to mine at almost 3pm, quickly moved all of our stuff inside in 15 mins, then jumped back in the car to drive it back to St Pancras for 4pm.

We made it! Dropped the car off, then caught the train back home. And came home to a flat completely covered in camping stuff!

We had another week before Josh had to fly home so we did some adventuring in London, including:

  • visiting Richmond Park and seeing the deer;
  • going to Buckingham Palace, St James's Park, Trafalgar Square and eating dinner at my favourite ramen place, Bone Daddies;
  • picking up Santander bikes and riding through Hyde Park before stopping off at Ottolenghi for lunch (and the best ANZAC biscuits around!);
  • going to Tate Modern and then walking to Tower Bridge with a stop off for lunch at Borough Market;
  • walking around Hampstead Heath and visiting the Pergola; and
  • catching the #15 bus from Trafalgar Square all the way to the end and back again (it goes past most of the famous London monuments).

On Saturday 29th June, we had tickets to see Gatecrasher Classical in Birmingham, a night of live classic trance music played by an orchestra. We caught a train up there and stayed in an Airbnb.

Then Sunday 30th June, we caught the train back to London, Josh re-packed and I took him off to the airport. It had been an awesome 6 weeks!

I'll leave you with some of the pictures I took on my phone, since I gave my camera a rest that week.