08-17 21:30 welcome to Latvia. No timezone crossed and the roads seem perfectly fine. Cruising throughout the night it's going to be.. And all we really fancy is Dutch chips with mayonnaise. This is going to be a long last haul.

08-17 23:30 we get stopped by the police for speeding and apparently we are in a town.. Felt like the middle of nowhere and we were doing 95/100km per hour, with the speed limit being 50.. whoops ! Luckily we got off with a warning. That could have gone very bad on the last part of our trip.

08-18 00:30 Tom is in pain and needs to rest so Sas takes over for the night shift. We've already passed through Latvia by the way, very, very small country. While Tom has a nap Sas poodles along but is also getting more and more tired so after two hours of sleep Tom takes over again now driving in Lithuania and still on very decent roads.

08-18 04:30 Sas wakes up and takes over as Tom is game over for the moment and while the sun is coming up she realizes that they had left Lithuania behind them and Poland is now the country which they are passing through. Our twentieth country on this journey! We notice that Boris is cracking even more and now resembles a race car that has been professionally lowered with the wheels being hugged by their housing. There are some more noises that don't sound good but we hope he will make it and push on, very carefully.

08-18 08:00 morning rush hour in Warschau is a great moment to see the center with its beautiful buildings. And although it is quite busy, due to the low speed Boris is going at Sas can even admire the architecture. Tom is still napping which is a good thing as he needs to be a bit fit for our last leg.

08-18 12:00 lunch time for us and Boris at a petrol station. We need some moment to stretch our legs and switch driver. The last 900km have gone in and we are now longing to be home. The roads have been perfect and the challenge is done; we've made it! All that's left now is mentally enduring these long, flat and easy motorways all the way home which feels like forever. Trying to stay awake and focused is difficult on dull and easy roads. Our last challenge.

08-18 13:45 we have entered Germany ~ our last country before we enter our homeland. And about 10 minutes in we hit a traffic jam. Welcome to the good old Deutsche Autobahn where you can drive as fast as you want unless there are roadworks or accidents. Boris can now do a 140km per hour so we are kind of irritated that there are so very many roadworks as we just want to blast on home before he completely collapses.

08-18 16:00 roadworks causing traffic jams again

08-18 17:45 and again. Welcome to the German autobahn. Sas is getting a bit irritated and the sun is also shining very bright. The temperature has risen and our sight has been lessened by this.

08-18 19:45 Boris is making a new strange noise, not something we want to acknowledge when there are only 200km to go! We stop immediately at the side of the Autobahn and conclude that it is a new noise coming from the engine. After inspecting it as best we could we agree that we head on towards home and hope it's nothing dangerous! It seems like something is rubbing against something else and the noise was a kind of howling sound that occurred when we used the clutch. Very strange and a bit scary. Almost in NL at least! 70km to go. Please make it Boris!

08-18 20:15 back in the Netherlands!!! We made it this far and now for the last 150km. Come on Boris !! We hear the sound again but as there is nothing we can do we cross our fingers and hope we will make it.

08-18 21:00 Nijmegen in sight and Boris is shaking with all he has. The closer we get to home the more Tom steps on it. We can almost smell home and want to be there although Sas is concerned that Tom might break Boris on the Waalburg (the bridge coming into Nijmegen) as it is the last bit with bad surface. Tom just laughs and feels that would be a great story to break down about 1km from home and pushes on.

08-18 21:25 With more tension than you can imagine we drive into Hendrik Hoogersstraat. The street we departed from 26 days earlier. There were a couple of friends and family members waiting in the street and started cheering when we came closer! It has been such a big trip and more importantly; WE MADE IT! We have driven a total of 18.546km over 26 days which is almost 700km a day! Including a whole days rest in Moscow. It feels extremely strange that the trip is over and surreal that there is no driving anymore. A close inspection of Boris shows that he has cracked completely through his chassis and the bottom part of his frame has bent upwards. Throughout Boris we find holes and cracks that weren't there when we left which explains all the dust in the car and the noises. We have one beer and then each go to our own bed for a good night's sleep. Something that has come to feel more like a luxury than normality.