All our journeys seem to start and end on Portnalls Road and this was no exception. I rocked up in my little car. We all looked so fresh and ready for the next few days. We crammed our kit into my car. It’s small boot brimming with the bags and cameras. We would have this packing and unpacking routine down to a fine art by the end of the trip.

In Dover we boarded the ferry. Spirits were high and a filthy bottle of whiskey was purchased. It would end up being doomed to spending the trip in the boot, no more than the first swig being drunk, only proving that you get what you pay for and this was shit.

Winch and Stat had done this before. We had been packed into the same car and across the same country. But GM was missing. It would transpire that at a very similar time he was cuffed in a room under the care of the New York Police Department. But that’s his story. We had a new arrival. Gary. We had met before on Temple, but this would be our first exploring ‘together’.

We drove into the Belgium night and headed towards our first stop and sleeping place for the night, Basisschool. Not too far from ECVB, we felt it better to kip here and leave early to give us the maximum amount of time at what we knew would be one of the highlights of the trip.

We parked in the sleepy Belgium town and crept around the wire fence. The building loomed like some angry monster above the more modern buildings around it. Shutters half open, as if it were watching us, watching the children who would attend school here in the morning.

The front door was open and we crept it and upstairs, lookingofr a room which would provide us shelter from the night. On the top floor we found a dry room with a dusty floor and all its windows intact. This would do. Out with the tea lights and down with the sleeping bags. We had arrived.