March 8th - Day 30 - Beihai to Macau

Our final day!

The drive to the shipping warehouse near the border with Macau was just under 560kms, all on these great Chinese expressways. So, over 350 miles was covered in well under five hours.

A few photos taken on the drive. The first of us overtaking Paul and Jayne, not something we did very often, especially when Jayne was driving!

Driving up into the hills of south-western China. Not a car to be seen!

More empty road. OK, there is ONE car in the far distance.

Eric and Lynn Woolley, with Simon and Andrew as their passengers, drawing up alongside us in one of the toll booths.

We arrived at the warehouse just after 12.30pm. For the next couple of hours we all celebrated the ending of the tour as one car after another finished the event. Again a few photos. The first of the champagne being offered around by Eric and Lynn. Apologies to Simon if it was his!

Congratulations being shared between Lynn and Inez.

About to cross the Finish line behind Car No.4, Jim and Helen.


Crossing the line, with John Brown waving the chequered flag.

Do and Els finishing with Richard Smith on the left.

Rolf, Inez and Peter Pritz, finishing. How Inez manages to survive, sitting in the back of their two door Pajero, Wendy and I will never know!

True to form Paul Wignall had to do something different! He hurtled towards the finishing line, slamming on the brakes and screeching to a halt in front of a very startled John Brown.

Tom and Rosalie Gatsonides shaking hands with John and thanking him for another great event.

Felicity and Jeremy being flagged through. Sadly, they will not be at the finishing party this evening as they have to fly back to the UK today.

Eric and Lynn 'hatted up' in their Vietnamese pith helmets.

And with their passengers, Simon & Andrew, and a beaming JB.


Paul attempting to play one of the musicians instruments, or should I say, playing the fool!


The last car in - Jingers and Greg crossing the line.

Once everyone was in, we loaded all our bags into the coaches and headed off for the border. Our first view of a misty Macau and its high rise casinos.

It took about an hour to cross into Macau, pulling our bags through immigration controls, as they couldn't be left on the coach. It was then a short drive to our hotel, the Westin Resort, and the final party at a local Portuguese restaurant.

We took a short coach ride to the restaurant, which was in a small square. It was pretty cold as we sat outside under awnings. At first we all thought this wasn't going to be much fun, but how wrong we all were. There followed a great evening of prize giving, speeches and singing and dancing to a local band. Wendy and I actually won two of the photo competition prizes!! Many of the locals joined in and when Eric Woolley took the mike to sing, he brought the house down. What a great voice he has.

Stupidly, I did not take my camcorder, so I've no photos to post of a fitting end to the event. I'll try and get some from those who took their cameras.

We leave Macau this evening for Hong Kong airport and our 11.25pm flight back to London. I'll post a final summing up about the event when we get back home.

Before I sign off three very big thank yous. First to John and Joanna Brown for once again organising a successful event, which we have thoroughly enjoyed. The second is to those who have posted comments. As I have said before, it has made doing the blog, often at the end of a long hard day, worthwhile. Finally, I cannot thank Wendy enough for putting up with my Victor Meldrew moments, my driving and being such a great navigator and photographer. Virtually all the photos I've posted have been hers.

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