Day 9: Harwich (United Kingdom) –> Dublin (Ireland)

If the crossing was rough, we certainly slept through it! After a light breakfast in the Stena Plus lounge, we head down to our car parked on the car deck.

Despite having to go through immigration control – we're through quickly – and are soon on the quiet Essex roads with the moon still visible in the early morning sky.

As Irish citizens, we're exempt from the new electronic travel authorisation (ETA) to enter the United Kingdom.

Unlike last weekend, when the roads were packed – we hit zero traffic as we cross the United Kingdom.

To kill some time between our ferries today we decide to stop in at the RAF museum at RAF Cosford.

Which has an awesome collection of advanced German WW2 planes and weapons. They were amazing to see up close and in-person.

Alongside more modern planes for the current day RAF, including this experimental plane from 1986 which was the precursor to the current day Eurofighter Typhoon.

The Eurofighter is also a very important plane for Ireland – as it also defends Irish airspace that extends well into some of the most vital US-European air routes across the Atlantic Ocean via a secret deal signed decades ago between the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The museum also has a dedicated (and terrifying) building dedicated to the British nuclear deterrence during the Cold War.

Including full sized training models of nuclear warheads.

And the precursor to our own 911 Targa, the venerable VW Beatle.

After a few hours spent at the museum, we head back on the road towards north Wales.

Picking up our final fuel top-up in Market Drayton. This means that we've completed this entire trip only on Shell V-Power.

Shortly after the we experience some nice fluffy snow falling.

Despite this, we are still well ahead of time and as darkness falls we pull into a Welsh service stop for some hot drinks.

These long drives are tiring and we find that without the need for the charging breaks that a Taycan EV impose on you – we are going longer without stopping.

A habit we'll need to break so as to ensure we don't get too tired during the longer legs.

We only have 85 kilometres left to the port.

Last year – under our principal to charge up regardless ]when stopped – we'd very likely be topping up our battery!

After we come out of the service station and back onto the dual-carriageway we run into a total road closure. Typical!
Thankfully, we have about two hours still to play with before we'd miss our ferry.

After about 30 minutes we are moving again. It soon becomes clear why we were stopped as we see a number of crashes as cars hit either the ditch or each other due to the slippery conditions and most UK cars driving on summer tyres.

We arrive at the port with enough time.

And arrive safely into Dublin just before midnight and work in the morning.

Stats

Today we did 552 km over 7:48 hours, with an average speed of 89 km/h, consuming 9.4 litres/100 km.