If you follow me on social media, you will know that recently Tania and I did an epic journey. It was part road trip, part photography shoot and part cat rescue. This is the story of that adventure
The Backstory
As many of you will know, Tania and I had to flee Ukraine in early 2022. In fact, I had already left on some family business when Putin’s orcs invaded. You can read the story of how Tania got out of Ukraine and how we were reunited in Bucharest here.
At our home in Odesa, we had four cats. When war broke out, Tania had a frantic scramble to find someone to look after them. Our friend Mark took up the mantle and moved into our flat. Sadly due various reasons, two of our cats, Ryzsha and Cheeky died whilst we were in exile. That left Pearcik and Kiki. Kiki was the only cat that we had had from a kitten, the others were all street rescues. We also knew that Pearcik would not travel well, she still had touches of the feral in her. So we decided from the outset that if the war dragged on, we would try to bring Kiki over to the UK.
That was easier said than done. For much of 2022 we were living in my late father’s house as my brother and I sold it. Once the sale was complete and in the space of two days, Tania and I set out to the North East of England to buy a place for ourselves. Knowing it could take 6 months to a year to buy a place, we took Airbnbs until we found a place to rent. Finding rentals these days is hard enough, finding one that would take a pet makes it almost impossible. So he idea of bringing Kiki to the UK was put on the back burner until we had moved into our own place.
Fortunately in early 2023, we found a lovely little house. The sale went through quickly and thoughts turned to Kiki.
It’s Never Easy
By May 2023, we had a plan in place. Tania would fly to Moldova, then take a bus down to Odesa and do the final paperwork for Kiki. I would do a photo/video shoot road trip across Europe and we would meet in a small town in south west Poland where trains from Ukraine terminated.
We liaised with the animal health authorities in the UK who were very helpful. Kiki would be able to come in under the Ukrainian Pets scheme and quarantine the remainder of her rabies negative test period at our home.
We booked plane tickets, ferries, buses and hotels. We were all set to depart on 12th July. Then on July the 1st, without much notice, Poland changed its entry requirements for Ukrainian pets. They reverted to the original EU rules that required 90 days between a rabies antibody test and entry into a EU country. Kiki had 65 days. What followed was a rapid rearranging of all the transport arrangements.
The new timing would see us start the journey on the 3rd August, with Tania flying on the 4th and me taking the ferry to France on the 5th.
No, Really, It’s Never Easy
The journey started well. Tania made it safely to Odesa, I made it safely to Dover. Then, whilst shooting video footage of the cross channel ferries, my shutter release button on my Fuji X-H2 started to fail. At first I thought it was something I had set in the menu, but soon I realised this was actually a mechanical failure.
Foolishly I had not brought a back up camera but fortunately there was a work around. As I was shooting predominately video, I could use the dedicated record button on the Fujifilm X-H2. For the rare still shots, I could trigger the shutter from the rear LCD touchscreen.
So, on the 5th, I crossed the channel and headed for my first stock location, Frankfurt. I won’t go into great detail as I vlogged the entire journey and will be putting together a film of the trip. However, whilst in Frankfurt I got two bits of bad news from Tania. The first was that Kiki had hyperthyroidism and would need constant medication. The second was that due to bureaucracy, Kiki could not be issued her EU and GB health certificates until her 90 days post antibody tests were up. We had assumed they would issue them in advance with a travel date of 90 days plus.
This fact put us back another three days but more importantly, completely screwed up Tania’s train journey to Poland. Tickets for this particular train could only be booked 21 days in advance and Tania could not change her ticket for a later date.
Cue more frantic research and rearranging. The only option I could see was for Tania to take the train to Uzogorod in Ukraine then cross the border in to Slovakia a few miles away. And so that’s what we planned. As I now had an extra three days, I rearranged my own photographic plans to incorporate some more shoots.
The Reunion. It Wasn’t Easy
I took a more leisurely drive across Europe. I did five days in Frankfurt, three in the beautiful city of Nuremberg, a stop at Stalag Luft III, the famous great escape POW camp. Then four days in the wonderful city of Krakow. Through the trip, I took some decent stock footage, and even managed to get some reasonable photos. I put my DJI Mini 3 drone up twice in Krakow, getting both footage and stills.
Meanwhile Tania finished off Kiki’s paperwork and caught up with friends and family in Odesa
I headed to Slovakia. I spent a night in a hotel as Tania took the overnight train to Uzogorod. As I set out for the border, I got a call from Tania. She could not cross on foot, so she would go by bus to the nearest town in Slovakia. I drove there and waited. And waited and waited.
The border crossings at Uzogorod were taking up to 9 hours. Tania was sat on a hot, humid bus with a stressed out cat, I was baking in a car parked close to the border in a Lidl. We seem resigned to an awful long wait but fortunately Tania’s bus driver made an alternative arrangement.
There was a small border crossing about 20 miles north. This did not allow trucks (the source of the delays) and was also pedestrian. Cue a mad dash through the Slovakian mountains to a pretty village called Ubla. There, at 4.30pm, Tania, myself and Kiki were reunited. Kiki was in her cat box and extremely stressed, so the first thing we did, was get into the car and let her out. She immediately recognised me, jumped on my lap and stared head butting and purring.
Returning With Two Cats. That Wasn’t Easy Either.
The late departure from the border meant we had several hours of tortuous Slovakian mountain roads to get through before it got dark. It was the other cat that made that journey bearable. My Jaguar Sportbrake Black Edition. The Jag negotiated the undulating and twisty with ease. Despite my tiredness the Jag kept all of us comfortable. Kiki settled down and we pushed on to Poland.
As night fell, I booked us into a hotel just west of Krakow, taking in a couple of beers before a long deep, refreshing sleep.
We left early the next morning with no fixed timing to get to Calais. That was a good thing. Whilst the Polish motorways were an absolute delight, the much vaunted German autobahns were the complete opposite. Indeed within minutes of crossing the Polish/German border, we got stuck in a massive traffic jam caused by roadworks. That would be the theme of the next 24 hours. Brief dashes of clear road frequently interrupted by contraflows and jams.
By mid afternoon we had barely reached the middle of Germany, a city called Kassel. Here we would join the ring road to switch from one autobahn to another. Except the ring road was closed. Entirely. Sat nav rerouted us adding at least another hour to journey. By 10.00pm, utterly exhausted, we pulled into a service area near Dortmund. I decided the best option, rather than try to find a hotel at that time of night, was to sleep a few hours in the car and push on.
Finally the two cats meet. Watch the Youtube series of this epic adventure.
The Final Leg. It Was A Bit Easier
By 1.30am I was rested enough to crack on. Another two hours of torturous Autobahn suddenly gave way to bowling green smooth Dutch highways. Then onto potholed, rough but clear Belgian motorways. Making good progress, we stopped briefly to drink coffee and book a Eurotunnel train. I gave us plenty of time to get to Calais, but in the end, it wasn't needed. We arrived at the Eurotunnel terminal at 7.30am, some 21 hours of solid driving and 3 hours of sleep.
First order of the day was to check in Kiki at the animal border control. Both Tania and I were extraordinarily tired and perhaps a little paranoid that Kik would be refused entry.
No such issue arose, the staff there were brilliant and it took less than 5 minutes for Kiki to become a UK resident. Eurotunnel allowed us to take an earlier train and by 10.30am local time, we were back in the UK. We elected to take a hotel for the night rather than face the 300 mile drive back north.
The Two Cats
The beginning of the journey revolved around my Jaguar. It’s effortless power and comfort propelled me across Europe in supreme luxury. The return was the story of our cat Kiki. Yes she got stressed at times, but for a cat that had hardly been outside the confines of our small Odesa apartment, she was absolutely brilliant. As I write, she is curled up on my lap, enjoying life in a new house, in a new country but with the humans that raised her for 12 years from a kitten.
The journey was 3200 miles, some of it at leisure, some at pace. The big cat hit 130mph easily on the unrestricted autobahns and still returned 47mpg. The little cat, truly appreciated the air conditioned seats in the big cat, calling shotgun every time we set off on the next leg home.
To some it might seem crazy to do all that for a cat. But she is our cat, she bought us much joy in the many years we were all together in Odesa, it was only right that she should join us in our new life in the UK.
Epilogue.
But what of Pearcik I hear some of you shouting. Worry not. In March Mark left our apartment and Tania’s mum moved in for a while. She rather took a shine to Pearcik and unusually, Pearcik, a cat who rarely likes humans, bonded with Tania’s mum. At the end of September, she will go on her own, somewhat shorter journey to Ismail on the River Danube, Tania’s mum’s home.