So it was finally here, the 16th of May! The day the Shake G8 bicycle caravan had been leading up to for weeks. We were finally crossing our final and most important border, from Poland into Germany, the hosting country for this year's G8 Summit.

We had spent the last two nights camped 30km from the border, to make detailed preparations for the border crossing action, to make sure we were prepared for every possible scenario.

So we set off early in the morning and took a break at 12pm, 2 hours prior to our planned crossing of 2pm, to get dressed up, rehersed and ready for the action. But within one hour we could see a border police vehicle patroling the road in front off us. So as soon as we came out onto the main road we were followed by both the polish police and the German border police, we even saw them greet each other and shake hands!

At 2pm, with the tractor behind us, blasting out music, and the cyclists in front, dressed in colourful outfits, from cheer-leaders to cross-gender dancers, we approached the border. Holding our bicycles we marched across the narrow bridge, blocking the traffic, and reached a huge line of German police, who looked positively delighted at our entry into'their' country! With the music blaring we then proceeded to quite literally dance down the border! With disco-dancing, traditional waltzes and cheerleading chants we pranced about, throwing confetti, blowing bubbles and having a fantastic time shaking up the border. Meanwhile, the police continued to stand in a line looking stern, merely sniffing there noses, or lifting their chins to avoid being hit in the face by approaching pom-poms!

After plenty of dancing, a lot of shouting, and the police getting extremely annoyed finally we had to show our passports. But rather than walk up one by one, we had one lone 'prisoner', who rather than dancing was chained to a huge box labelled 'passport to fortress Europe'. When given a signal he then very slowly dragged himself and his burden up to the police who then took the passports. But rather than let the police identify us each to our passport we then pulled out placards with a barcode and our passport number written across so the police had to call us by our number, rather than our name- showing how the current system reduces our identity to nothing more than a number.

We had some minor difficulties getting everyone through, as the police said we needed a 'leader' who would take full responsibility for the action. But being an anarchist caravan of course we refused to name anyone a leader. So the police got pretty angry and took down all of our adresses and we shall all apparently be spent a friendly letter of some kind from the German police!

Our main difficulty however was the tractor. Our faithful tractor, who against all odds had made it, with circus trailor attached, through Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Poland with no problems until now. Sadly the tractor and trailor was declared unfit for German roads (for many, varied technical reasons) and the police will not let us drive it until these problems are fixed. Luckily though some protest supporters, who had come to greet us on arrival, offered us some private land to park the tractor, avoiding us having to pay a heafty amount of money for holding it at a company. So accompanied by the police we were led through Schwedt into this private land, where the tractor still stands now.

What a friendly welcome into Germany! But the cycle caravan continues no matter what! We will either arrange for the tractor and trailor to be fixed or carry on with no support vehicle.

The journey continues...