We got up bright and early by 7 am to make sure we were at the Calais ferry terminal nice and early. We did a quick shop, re-fuelled the van and arrived at the ferry almost two hours early. We made a cup of tea and put together supplies for a picnic lunch on the ferry. The ferry departed Calais on time and arrived in Dover 90 minutes later. We could just barely see the white cliffs since it was quite foggy out. We had a two hour drive to our campsite near Keymer and Megs didn't have any trouble adjusting to driving on the left-hand side of the road. I also had the stereo figured out this time so no incidents like on our first trip to Dover. As soon as we got to camp, I checked my email to see if we had heard anything from our insurers yet. We were in luck – there was an email confirming that our repairs were authorized! I called the insurers to confirm that we could go ahead to VWCampersales to get the repair done when they informed me that they were going through another garage! I then spent the next thirty minutes trying to sort this out and get them to get the repair authorized through the garage we wanted. Luckily, they didn’t have any issue with this and by six pm, we were finally set to get the repairs done. It absolutely poured that night and we had to put the roof down before heading to bed. It was a massive relief that the repairs had finally been authorized and we were looking forward to getting on with our trip in Holland from Friday.

The following morning, we had an early start got to the dealership in Burgess Hill by around 9 am. We were greeted by Rob and Jason. We had a short chat about the trip and showed them the damage and mentioned a couple other minor items that we hoped they could have a look at. After offering us a cup of tea, they very kindly dropped us off at Wivelsfield Station. We were going to catch the train in to Brighton and they would give us a call when the van was ready. It was only a thirty minute journey into Brighton and we were soon walking down Queen St from the station, heading towards the water. We had gotten only about a hundred meters from the station when we spotted a cute café called "Elly’s". It was a little shop run by a mother and daughter who baked all their goods in store. We sat down and ordered a pot of tea for two and a scone each which we thought was appropriate given we were in England. The scones were absolutely delicious, layered with a generous helping of clotted cream and strawberry jam. We savoured our scones as we sipped several cups of tea before continuing down the street towards the Pavillion. The sun was just starting to come out and it was turning out to be a decent day. We walked through the gardens, looked at the India Gate and took some photos from the outside. We decided not to go in as there was a really large group of students waiting to enter and we were more in a mood to wander around outside. So we made our way down to the waterfront and were soon at the famous Brighton Pier. It was definitely the largest pier I’ve been on and was filled with food stalls, candy shops and of course, a mini-amusement park including a log ride and mouse roller coaster. We strolled along the length of the pier and when we got to the end, we were peckish again. There was quite a crowd at a Japanese noodle stand so we opted for large box of vegetarian noodles. We sat down on a nearby bench and relished our piping hot noodles which really hit the spot. We soon left the pier and wandered through the streets of Brighton, particularly focusing on a shopping district called “The Lanes”. They are aptly named because it literally consists of numerous, narrow lanes lined with clothing, jewellery and other assorted shops. We had a fun time poking around from store to store as we worked our way towards Brighton station. The dealership had called about an hour before to let us know that the repairs were complete and since we hadn’t been quite ready to leave at that time, we aimed to catch the 14:37 train back. Just as we were we about to exit The Lanes, we spotted a shop specializing in Cornish Pasties. Keith had impressed upon us that we must definitely not miss these on our next visit to the UK so we stopped to pick up our final snack of the day, a cheese and mushroom pasty. It was piping hot and a delicious snack. The pastry was soft and flaky and the filling was savoury. From there, we made our way to the station, stopping briefly at a grocery store to pick up some English tea. We were just in time for our train and were met by Jason in Wivelsfield who to took us back to the shop. The van roof was replaced and Jason had managed to address some of the other issues we had mentioned in the morning which was a real bonus. Megs gave the van a quick vacuum while I put the bikes back on and we were soon on our way to Martin Mill (just outside Dover) to camp for the night. It was great to have the roof finally fixed and we were quite excited to be resuming our travels in full swing once again!