Wednesday 1 November 2017

Our very Own Tour de France - Day 69 - 72

Le Crotoy France to our Home Base at Riddings Wood Campsite near Ripley

Sunday 29th and Monday 30th October 2017

Well, I hope you all enjoyed your extra hour in bed - we nearly missed ours because we forgot to alter our clocks before we tucked ourselves in!  It's a good job we've got clever tech - our ☎ did it all by themselves thus avoiding an early ⏰ call πŸ˜‚!

And after that our day on Sunday was quite a simple one - we journeyed about 40 miles from  Le Crotoy to Calais and the only really interesting thing we saw along the way was the vastly massive Etaples Commonwealth War Cemetery near Boulogne - the largest of it's kind in France.


The cemetery holds over 11,500 soldier's remains from several nationalities, but this number includes 8,819 British.  The graves are predominantly from World War One, but the cemetery also provides a resting place for some of those who lost their lives in World War Two, and, today in the lovely autumn sunshine it looked a very peaceful and pristine place for a final home, but what a terrible and devastating waste!
The brand new Aire at Calais with
room for 50 but not much of a view!
Then it was only another few miles down the road before we were entering the outskirts of Calais and heading for an Aire on the harbour side where we thought we could spend the night - WRONG - it's now just a massive building site.  However, France being France, it has provided another motorhome stopover, and although it wasn't quite so scenic it fulfilled our needs well - and in the end it was half filled with mostly British motorhomes so it was also quite social!  

During the afternoon we managed to dodge the showers and take ourselves out for a walk which we thought might be along the magnificent beach - but as we approached the strong winds whipped up the sand, and rather than walking on it we were almost eating it - so in the end we had to settle for the promenade instead.  And by the time we got home we were quite glad we weren't parked right on the sea front - I think T4rdis2 might have swayed alarmingly in the the gale that was persistently blowing!
The view from Calais's Promenade

On Monday we were booked onto the 12.35 ferry but we got there so early, that even after our van had been searched twice by soldiers with big  guns we just managed to nip onto the 11.35 one.





The Pride of Kent brought us swiftly across the slightly rough channel and we were soon deposited it the Aire at Canterbury which has provided a safe and cheap parking place on several previous occasions.  





However, because we'd arrived earlier than planned we debated if we should undertake some of our homeward journey, but in the end we settled for another lazy afternoon with just a quick bit of shopping at the local Sainsbury's and also completing the important job of re-taxing T4rdis2 so that we can look forward to another year of fun and travel.


Tuesday 31st October 2017  πŸ‘»πŸ‘»πŸ‘»πŸ‘»πŸ‘» Boo - are you scared yet πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚

Happy Halloween!

Today our day was passed with another long drive - but we're still not home yet!  And that's mainly because we had to make a detour to take  our e-bikes back to E-Bikes Direct at Bodiam for servicing and repair.  John's bike has had a creaking crank for a while but until recently it  only complained softly, however while we were in France it got worse and  developed into a horrible loud grinding noise - luckily there still under warranty, so other than the inconvenience of not having them for a while it wont cost us anything.

Then after that was sorted we drove about 200 miles to a campsite near Bradbury, but despite John's best efforts to stay off the M25 Mrs Sat Nav was determined we shouldn't miss it out completely, so just to make our journey all the more enjoyable she forced us to sit in slow moving traffic for a while!  Therefore, by the time we arrived  it was dark and well past 5pm, but looking on the bright side we've broke our journey's back and we've only got about another 80 miles to do and then John can hang up his driving gloves for the best part of a month!

And if the ghosts at the start of today's episode didn't scare you - maybe this lot of spooky ghouls will !

From the left - Louise, Adam, Ben, Vicky, Jack, Sarah and Thomas - and Evelyn's
up above cos she hiding when the pic was taken!

Wednesday 1st November 2017 πŸ‡πŸ°πŸ‡

Well that's it, we're back and snugly tucked in at Riddings Wood Caravan Park for the next month - that's after our 3,970 mile 10 week tour which has taken us to both the North and South coasts of France as well as to the top and back down to the bottom of quite a few high mountains in the Alps.  I think we'd have to say it's one of the best and most scenic tours we've done so far, and we've added quite a few locations to our πŸ“‹  of 'places too go back too'.

But for now we've got  a busy and exciting 4 weeks ahead of us while we get reacquainted with  all our family and friends, and also while we sort out one or two  glitches, fixes and replacements that T4rdis2 needs.

Then, at the beginning of December we'll be off again to find a warm spot in the 🌞😎🌞to while away the cold winter months - if the weather predictions for England are right it would seem it's going to be a bit more than cold here so not a good place to be if you live in a motorhome! 🌨☃❆❅❆☃🌨

Anyway, for now take care and we'll see you again in 30 days time when we set off to top up our tans in Spain 😘😘


No comments:

Post a Comment