Saturday morning was a very early start! The alarm was set for 7:30 which was really 6:30 proper time Got ourselves ready and headed down stairs to the cars to meet everyone. Today was the day of the photo competition which had been set up by Andy and Natalie. It was called Canine Capers. We were given a sheet with places we were meant to be visiting on the day, and while we were there, we had to take a photo. The list of photos we had to take were dog related - French Poodle, British Bulldog, Wolfs Lair, Pit of the Dog and Dogs Dinner.. This may sound simple enough, but coming up with ideas for these pictures was really hard!!

We were all meant to have downloaded the TomTom itinerary files to go to the places on the sheet, Matt hadn’t done this so we had to team up with someone else who had a TomTom with the files on them.. Chris and Jax asked us if we fancied teaming up with them, they weren’t taking part in the competition but were going along for the ride. It was set out a bit like the Italian Job, where we were all given a time slot to leave the hotel and start our journey, we were given the countdown, and then we were off

Once we were on our way, we were soon caught up by Paul and Simon. Team cheapskate - as Simon liked to call us, all together for the day! Very pretty good fun! Plenty of random and funny banter on the radios on our trips out and about

Our first stop was mean to have been a rather cool looking castle, but Chris and Jax’s sat nav went very wrong and took us through a tunnel and the castle and away from it instead of around it to park up and explore After much debating about turning round and going back, we decided we should just carry on - seeing as we getting further and further away from the castle! We crossed the border into Belgium and decided to find somewhere to have a snack - it mainly for Jamie as apparently he had to be fed every hour! Mad kid!! We found a nice little cafe where we all had drinks and Jamie had a cheese toastie whilst sitting there drinking away, we were trying to figure out how and where we were going to get pics for the photo competition.. someone up there must have been listening to our conversation, as at that moment, a woman came in with a French poodle!! That was picture number one sorted!! What was even better was that she sat down and started to feed the dog! Dogs dinner pic sorted!! Now for the rest..

After our little stop, we then carried on with the route. The roads we drove around on were amazing, bendy twisty roads, perfect for a MINI adventure! Although one road we did encounter, none of us were too keen on, very narrow and full of very deep potholes! That didn’t stop us with out adventure though! Our next stop and final stop was Hitlers Bunker - I believe that’s what it’s called! Seeing as we never got a chance to explore the first place, we decide it was only right to explore this place. There wasn’t a huge amount too it so it didn’t take us long to explore We wondered into one under ground room which is where Hilter would have slept.. I was one of the last people to go in there and I soon as I entered I screamed the place down!! Jamie had hidden behind the door and decided to jump out in front of me and scare the crap out of me!! Everyone of course laughed at me! Matt came up with a strange idea for the Pit of the Dog photo. He asked Jax to lie down on one of the benches in the room we were in so he could get a pic of it.. not sure what he was trying to say about Jax!!

That was the end of the route and supposedly the end of the photo competition.. it was still quite early so we gradually made our way back but stopped off at a maccy D’s on the way back for a late lunch and then to the super market next door to get breakfast for the next day On our way in, we had noticed a MINI dealership close by, so after we were finished in the super market we decided to pay a visit to the dealership It was very unlike the ones in the UK.. no one wanted to come over and see if we needed any help - I know we were the foreigners but still All the people working were sat around in an office not paying any attention to what was going on in the show room! I found some really cool looking cans which looked like soft drinks cans, but had MINI UP printed on the front of them, one can for each model of MINI.. no idea what exactly that were advertising, the can had paper inside it, but of course, I can’t read it! I decided I wanted one, so Matt nabbed a couple for us to keep as the cans look very cool! It was then time to head back to the hotel and meet up with everyone else. We were the first ones back so we went back to our rooms and waited.. though I hung out the window and watched for them all They eventually turned up and we all met up downstairs at the bar.. Andy got his laptop set up so we could all load our pics onto it ready for judging the competition.. We didn’t win Doesn’t matter, the pics that other people had taken were far better than what we came up with.. although to be fair, I think the majority of them cheated as they all somehow managed to have either a toy bulldog or a keyring of a bulldog! Cheats!!

That evening we were all meant to be having a meal together, but the place we were going to eat had a problem with us all eating there, we had to all have the same meal which was odd.. It was then decided that we would go for a meal else where.. Most people wanted to go to a beer place which wasn’t a place i wanted to go to, and thankfully, team cheapskate felt the same too so we decided to find somewhere else to eat After ages of searching we came across a nice Italian place which was fine for me! Had a really nice evening with everyone, lots of chat and laughter!

Pics from the day