11th
& 12th March 2016
Pretty boring
driving, really……
Not the most
exciting day of the trip – Basically I just drove up through France, and much
of the day was on toll-free freeways that did little to excite one
scenically. But the purpose of the day
was to get as far north as I could so that Cherbourg would be within easy reach
tomorrow.
Having woken up
in the cold in the excellent little roadside Aire or rest stop, I quickly had
my breakfast and made my cup of tea before getting on the road and heading
north. There really wasn’t much to see
once I hit the freeway, although around lunch time I hit a section of toll road
so I was off on the side roads for a while, which was a welcome relief. It always surprises me how narrow some of the
roads are in these little villages, and yet how big trucks and coaches use them
all the time – It really must be difficult for the locals trying to live a
quiet life in their small community.
After Nantes I
started to look for a suitable campsite, and quite a number were marked on my
map, but whenever I found one, it was closed, despite all the signs beside the
road pointing to the site. Why people
cannot put a “Closed” sign over the top during the winter, I do not
understand. It becomes very frustrating
to drive some distance off the highway only to find the gates locked up
tight. Grrrrr. Anyway, after several attempts, I gave up,
and decided to head for Mont Saint Michel where I understood there was a camper
car site open all year. Camper car means no tents or caravans, just smaller motorhomes,
and since Troopie qualifies for this, it sounded the best option.
When I finally
got there, it was a fully automated site with payment and entry only by credit
card into a machine. For the last few
days my credit card has been unusable because the strip / chip have somehow got
damaged, so I was effectively locked out !
I had cash, but since the machine only took cards, I was stuffed ! More Grrrr, and I headed on into Mont Saint
Michel, and by this time it was getting late and I was tired and
frustrated. I followed signs to a
campsite, only to find once again that it was closed for the winter, so I ended
up in the car park for visitors to the Mount, which I knew could be paid for in
cash, and would allow overnight parking, although I knew it would not be
cheap. When I met my sons Nick &
Damien and their families here in July last year, we had parked here when we
went to the Mount, and it wasn’t cheap then !
But it was a parking spot overnight, which was all I cared about.
It quickly got
quite cold once the sun went down (a lovely sunset, with views across to the
Mount), and after cooking my supper, I turned in. During the night I woke up enough times to
realize that it was very cold, but despite that I was warm enough – except for
my head which I had to keep covered !
When I eventually got up early the next morning, I found out that I was
correct – It was minus 2.2 deg C at 7 am, so would have been even colder at
about 4 am ! Additionally, there was a
THICK fog, or morning mist, so I could hardly see the vehicles 20 metres away
in the car park !! I paid my fees at the
(cash enabled) machine, and soon headed off in the fog, hardly able to see a
thing on the road.
On the smaller
roads there wasn’t much traffic so driving wasn’t too bad and I just pootled
along slowly. But once I got onto the
dual carriageway where it was still really foggy, I couldn’t believe the local
drivers still going at full speed – like 130 kmh. There was no way they could have stopped in
time if anything slow or stopped had appeared out of the fog ahead of
them. There was even one Merc flying
down the road with no lights on at all – He was almost impossible to see until
he was 20 or 30 metres away.
Unbelievable.
Eventually by
about 10 am the fog / mist burnt off and a weak sun came through – By this time
I was only about 50 kms out of Cherbourg, and scenery wise there wasn’t much to
see. SO for the first couple of hours on
the road today I couldn’t see any scenery because of the fog, and for the next
coupe of hours, there was nothing much to see anyway ! So not the most exciting last drive in Europe
!
At one point I
was overtaken by a VW engine trike, and a good condition Citroen DS 21 (cars
that were way ahead of their time technically), which gave me something to look
at. Then not much further on I overtook
them again as they had slowed down and were no in convoy with some other
interesting old French vehicles – A Traction Avant Citroen from the 1940’s (another
design triumph for Citroen in it’s day), and then a Fourgonnette as it was
known – The 2CV in delivery van format with iconic corrugated body work to
provide added strength without adding weight.
And in front of that was a totally convertible 2CV, which I am not sure
was a factory original build, but could have been as apparently some were
produced. Anyway, at least they were
something to look at for a while during an otherwise pretty boring drive !
Shortly
afterwards I dropped into Cherbourg, and although it was only about 11 am and
my ferry didn’t leave till 5.30 pm, that was just perfect as far as I was
concerned. I cruised around town looking
for cheap fuel, eventually finding some at 0.92 Euro / litre, so I filled up my
tanks which were almost empty since I had last filled up before leaving Spain
! I then went down to the port and made
some lunch and did some odd chores around the car (like greasing the rear
springs !), and read my Kindle. The time
assed pretty quickly and before long we were starting the loading process.
The ferry was
going to Poole which is only about a 30 minute drive from my sister’s house, so
much closer than shipping to Portsmouth, and as the ferry eta was 9.45 pm, the
shorter drive in the dark would be better.
Once the customs clearance was completed (yet again, no inspection of
the car was made !) we boarded. After
the many trucks had been loaded, I was one of the first to drive on, and was
directed right down to the VERY front – Troopie’s front bumper was almost hanging
over the front of the ship ! I initially
thought I was at the front of the ship and would have waves breaking over the
car, but on speaking to one of the crew I was assured that this was the stern
of the ship, and the car would not get too wet !! Once we got underway, this
was proved to be correct, and as a result Troopie crossed the channel
backwards, looking back to mainland Europe as she left there for the last time.
The ferry
crossing was smooth, there were minimal people on board, and after a meal and
bottle of wine, whiled away the remainder of the crossing engrossed in my
book. Once we arrived in Poole, I was
the very first car off, which is not always good – No one to follow ! After a couple of surprises at the first
roundabouts (which felt really odd after being on the RH side for so long), the
UK police just asked me if I was enjoying my trip, and the Customs inspector
just waved me straight through. So once again, no inspection entering the
country at all.
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