Day 5 Poland to Lithuania

Good evening Blog readers. Thank you for joining us on Day 5 of our trip.

We woke up to a beautiful day, a swim in the lake and a quick breakfast and on the road again.

We left Ostrada at 9 and made our way East (any other direction would have been most foolish).

Everything was going really rather well and then.......we hit the Lithuanian border. Everyone has a tale to tell about that border so we've chosen one or two to share with you.

The LDV crew arrived with all their paperwork completely in order, as one does, but then a snag. As they were fumbling away with their paperwork trying to sort it all out, they put their passports on the dashboard. The border control officer looked at their documents and handed them back but their passports weren't amongst them. Steve and Tom were naturally very worried at this stage and were quite insistent that the control officer had held onto their passports. They tried to convince him but he was adamant that he'd given them back. Englis, Alison Handley's husband walked around the van and spotted the offending articles on the dash, exactly where they'd been left in the first place. Hey ho! Two very relieved LDV crew beat a hasty retreat.

Story number two. A separate, second convoy arrived at the border, one or two feeling a bit nervous about the prospect but with all our papers in order there was nothing to worry about. Two vehicles were waved through, but not without a thorough examination of the paperwork. Alas, three others were held back and questioned for some time about their documents. A fraught hour or so followed but then everyone was allowed to continue their journey - by which time we all just wanted to get away and continue to the next hotel to chill.

And another story. Our total convoy was divided, as you know by now. The first batch of vehicles had arrived in Kaunas but were having difficulty finding the hotel (we can find the town but hotels are a problem when you've been on the road for almost ten hours). Christopher spotted a police car and approached the Officer and told him they were lost and asked directions to the hotel. Language was proving a problem and so the policeman offered to escort the little convoy to the hotel. On arrival the police officer was asked to pose for a photograph - went back to his car and donned his hat and then was quite willing to be photographed.

Tomorrow is another day.............and another border. Times is 'ard!