Up at 9am for the usual hotel smorgasbord. Quite a welcome change from the Asian dishes. Time to fill up the cars with all our possessions and a bit of a sort out then another banquet lunch . We then displayed the cars at the front of the hotel for photos followed by a short drive for a safety check. It was just like a wof testing station. We were told by the interpreter that some of the cars didn’t pass but that after some negotiation we were all issued with a Chinese drivers licence and a temporary registration . Our convoy headed out the drive and back to Beijing. What a drive, convoy at 100k following our coach that had been our transport to the port. Excellent 2 lane motorway with heavily loaded trucks travelling from 20 to about 50k plus masses of coaches, more trucks and black late model luxury cars. Mercedes, Volvo, Audi, Cadillac, Dodge, Lexus….. So if you can imagine that mix bumper to bumper and a no mans land inside safety lane used for passing on the inside it was a thrilling ride. Sandra was loving it. The Capri was running really well . And then it all stopped. A giant parking lot. for no reason. So we waited and wandered around and attracted a lot of attention. Then it was away again, back to 100k for the next 50k . Then the toll gate, 10 minutes in the heat creeping forward in the queue . One car died on the other side with a fuel vapour lock and our temperature gauge indicated we were close to boiling. One report was 39 degrees outside and 45 plus inside the car.
After a rest we were off again, missed the turn off but finally arrived at our hotel at 8pm.