We all rose bright and early on Saturday (6.30 a.m.) as we wanted to get away by 8 o’clock for the airport and had to pack up the gite before we left, including the fridge and all the wine we’d bought over the past few days. In fact we were ready for off a few minutes early, so decided to drop the rubbish off en route rather than taking it with us. We lead the way as Satan was guiding us, but she seemed to be intent on taking us on every minor road she could find to get us to the airport. In fact there were quite a few roads with grass growing up the middle, and at one junction we could see the main road in the distance with a clear sign to the airport, but no, we had to go on two other very small and windy roads to get us there. Geoff had 5 in his car and to say they were bemused by all this is an understatement!
Eventually we arrived and dropped everyone off, said our goodbyes, and headed back to Sainte-Foy via the garage to pick up Stavvers. The route Satan chose this time was much more straight forward, which was a blessing, and we arrived at the campsite before 10. Whilst Karol popped out to get croissants and coffee, I unladed the car and re-loaded with the stuff from the caravan. The back of the car was full of bottles – both wine and beer, and even though properly packed they rattled every time we went over a bump!
Peter, the site owner only charged us 2 euros a night for storage, which was really good of him, so after setting up we set off just before 11 to visit our next site Camping du Futur, just outside Poitiers about 250 km to the north.
Satan started off by taking us on quite minor bumpy roads, but soon reverted to better A roads which meant we made quite good progress, and we arrived at our destination at around 3.00 p.m. However the temperature had been gradually rising all day and was now 41 degrees centigrade! It was like being wrapped in a warm blanket as we got out of the car. We managed to get Stavvers set up quite quickly but had to erect the canopy too to provide us with a bit of shade. We also tired to use the aircon, but this only managed to get the temperate inside the van down from 38 degrees to 37 degrees, which wasn’t much help!
We’d planned to eat at the site’s snack bar that evening, but the choice was really poor – burger and chips or frozen pizza, so we decided instead to have pasta with a jar of sauce. Once the sun went down it was possible to cool down a bit, and the aircon did its job once it wasn’t fighting the sun, so we were able to get cool enough to sleep quite well.
We planned an early start the next morning, and were away by 9 o’clock and back on the motorway. As it was Sunday we were hoping the roads would be a bit quieter, as we had around 450 km to drive to our next site at Chateau des Tilleuls in Normandy.
We had a good journey, which was improved by the fact that the temperature had now halved to 19 degrees making it much more comfortable when we did get out of the car. We stopped for a picnic lunch of tuna sandwiches and hard boiled eggs at a services on the motorway, and having skirted [ ] arrived at the site at around 4 p.m. It had been another long but relatively easy day, and having got set up, we had an early dinner at the site restaurant and had an early night. The area of Normandy is quite beautiful and worth another visit.
The following morning we found an InterMarche supermarket and bought sandwiches and croissants as well as filling up the car once more. We’d arranged a late checkout of 1 p.m. with the site, but the fob which you needed for the shower block didn’t work after 12 noon, so Karol had to forego her shower and we left for Zeebrugge at one sharp. Once again the journey was mostly motorway, and we skirted Bologne, Calais and Dunkirk before crossing the border into Belgium. We arrived at Zeebrugge at around 4 15 p.m. and checked in. The young lady at the kiosk looked at me quizzically and asked if we were regular travellers with P & O as I looked familiar. She then asked if I was famous! Unfortunately not was my reply, which seemed to disappoint her, but she waved us through anyway.
We then had the caravan ‘searched’ by customs for stowaways, and joined the small queue waiting to board. We weren’t due to sail until 7 p.m. but in fact by 5 o’clock they were letting us board, so having parked up we got our keys for the cabin and set off to get a drink at the bar set up on the top deck at the stern, as it was by now a very pleasant 22 degrees and sunny.
We bought our gin and tonics and as there were no free tables, joined two guys who it turned out were bikers on a 5 day trip to Germany and back. Ian and Adrian were an odd couple – Ian was a businessman from Easingwold whilst Adrian was a builder from East Yorkshire. they were not only fellow bikers, but also private pilots and plane owners, which is how they met. We had a lovely couple of hours drinking and chatting in the sunshine before we had to leave to go to the restaurant for dinner.
We had a super dinner of fish platter followed by belly pork for me and cassoulet for Karol and then had another early night. The crossing was fine and very calm, although I didn’t sleep to well – probably because I ate all the cockles and four soused herring from the fish platter!
We’d actually set sail 30 minutes late the previous afternoon, but the time had been made up and we docked at 8.30 on schedule and disembarked a few minutes later. We were through customs quite quickly too and on the motorway towards the A1 in no time. We duly arrived back in Knaresborough at 10.30 a.m. just under two months after we’d set off. Another adventure completed!