UK to Netherlands

Two container ships being unloaded in Felixstowe port

The first step of the journey was the Sunday overnight ferry (23:00 BST -> 08:00 CET) from Harwich to Hook Of Holland (146 miles due east).

In theory I left home in ample time (with the Garmin satnav still "Calculating...", it then said that the arrival time was 22:53, which was a bit of an issue as last check-in is 22:00! Turns out it was still set to ignore motorways (left over from last trip). This was the first "Garmin moment", probably the first of many given its strange ideas on routing at times.

There was ~5 mile tailback for the Dartford crossing, but a bit of lane splitting (riding between lanes two and three amongst slow moving traffic) arrived with plenty of time to spare and got straight onto the ship as motorcycles generally jump the car queue and get on first.