In thick fog, Nasir helped load his young family's scant possessions into a van and turned his back on the beaten-up caravan that has been home for the past nine months in a migrant camp known as the "Jungle" in northern France.
In a few days, the French government will begin dismantling the filthy, ramshackle camp outside Calais that has become a searing symbol of Europe's struggle to respond to an influx of migrants fleeing war and poverty.
Nasir, a 23-year-old Afghan, doesn't want to wait for the bulldozers to move in and raze the camp as winter approaches.
Instead, he, his wife Nabila and their seven-month-old infant are joining one of the last voluntary resettlement convoys bound for reception centres across France.
A Union Jack flag painted on his caravan is a poignant reminder of Nasir's now-dashed dreams of a better life in Britain, barely 33 km away across the English Channel and the preferred destination of almost all migrants in Calais.
No one knows for sure how many have made the perilous crossing from France to Britain, sometimes stowed away in the back of lorries or clinging to the undersides of trains.
Thousands have however failed, including Nasir, thwarted by barbed wire-topped fencing lining the highway between the camp and the Calais ferry port, by police patrols as well as a battery of security cameras.
President Francois Hollande said last month that France would completely shut down the Jungle by the end of the year.
The plan is to relocate migrants in small groups around the country, largely removing the option of forging a new life in Britain.
Nasir now hopes France will grant him asylum.
"On the one hand, closing the Jungle is good. There is nothing, no future here," Nasir said. "The Jungle is not fit for humans, it's for animals."
A new census on Tuesday showed there are about 6500 migrants holed up in the camp, though aid workers say the number is closer to 10,000.
Most are from countries like Afghanistan, Sudan and Eritrea, and increasingly Syria.
