Our return to the UK coincided with the Country being battered with Storm Babet. How did we cope? Well I am now sitting at home in Dereham, so we obviously survived the journey. However, what was the last few days of our adventure like? Read on.
Wednesday was spent at Nonancourt listening to the rain dancing on the roof, whilst watching closely for any leaks from our skylight, fortunately the repair seemed to be holding up. Late in the evening a small VW camper turned up and managed to squeeze into a very tight space between two badly parked vans. It was occupied by a very young Austrian couple, who had been on the road for 7 months with the intention of “staying out” for another 5 months. When quizzed as to how they were managing their adventure at such a young age, the explanation was that for one year they had worked for 50% salary and were now spending the other 50%. Very interesting concept.
Thursday we relocated to St Pierre, putting us within striking distance of the Ferry. St Pierre had plenty of space and even electricity was available. Another British van was parked on the aire, Janet & Pete according to the livery painted on the rear. It turned out they had already been parked at St Pierre for two days and still had to wait until midnight Saturday for their crossing. They were beginning to discover that whilst St Pierre provides great facilities it is really isolated, in the middle of nowhere with no shops close at hand, so an extended stay can prove tricky. They talked about a couple of pieces of equipment that might be worth considering in the future, the first was their heating system. Our heater is good but as explained in previous posts it does drain the batteries quite quickly, they use a diesel heater which once it has fired up barely uses any battery power. They originally had an Eberspacher unit, but have recently changed it for a “chinese” model. Not sure it would work for us because we have limited weight capacity. The second item they recommended is a General Ecology Nature Pure, water purifier. They have used one for many years and really praise its efficiency. Nice idea but not cheap to fit, you could buy a lot of bottled water for the cost!
With all the warnings of Storm Babet being issued by the Met Office, I spent much of Thursday monitoring the shipping forecast and checking DFDS updates. We headed to bed quite early, with our alarms set for 03:30. I always find sleep very difficult when I know there is an alarm set, it is even worse when rain is drumming a constant beat on the roof. Both of us gave up trying to sleep and climbed out of bed at 03:00, trying our best to get washed, dressed and packed away in silence. We pulled away from St Pierre at 03:45 and with light rain misting the windscreen we picked our way very carefully towards Dieppe. Fortunately, traffic was light so I could travel with full beam selected. Dieppe border control was already open when we arrived at about 04:45, as we waited in the queue the ferry arrived from the UK. That was the first worry over, if they had managed to sail into Dieppe then I guess we could sail back to Newhaven. The traffic waiting for the ferry was really busy considering the time of day, but in their usual efficiency we were loaded and under way by 06:30 with the really surprising announcement that the sea state was “slight”. Although there were a lot of vehicles on the ferry, the ship itself felt deserted, we sat upstairs in the bar area with only another handful of people, I think many must have taken cabins fearing a rough crossing. With all the news about Babet we were firstly amazed at how smooth the crossing was and secondly could not believe to see the South coast bathed in sunshine as we arrived in Newhaven.
It was the journey home that turned out to be the nightmare and even that had little to do with the storm, it was just sheer weight of traffic. Virtually nose to tail all the way from Newhaven until Thetford, there was a delay in Thetford because the Southbound A11 was closed because of flooding which meant Northbound traffic could not access a roundabout. With patience and time we eventually managed to continue our journey. We departed Newhaven at approximately 10:00 arrived Dereham 17:30. I hate driving in the UK, there is just nothing nice about it, you have to be 100% focused on the vehicles around you and that is tiring in itself.
A very quick breakdown of our 34 days away. We travelled 1458 miles spending £509.30 on fuel. Our ferry turned out to be £214.40 because I misread the original tickets so had to pay an additional charge. We spent £326 which included entrance fees to museums, food, drinks etc. The total bill still averaged out at £30 per day which is still pretty good value. It is the fuel which is the big hit, and that of course is relative to the miles travelled. Now of course I will have to take into account the cost of my repairs and the list is now quite extensive; Leaking skylight, Habitation step welding, shower tap leaking, repair of ladder damage.
In summary, this is the first time we have stayed exclusively in France. We certainly found the Eastern region far more interesting than the “flatlands” of the West. France generally is very sleepy, very difficult to get a drink after 20:00, if you’re not sat down for lunch by 12:30 forget it. Mondays sees most shops closed. Given that during our visit the Rugby World Cup was being hosted by France we found very little evidence of it through our travels. It would not be rude to say that France is laid back, never in a rush to do anything – check out in a supermarket can take forever. Having said that, we enjoyed our 5 weeks, very relaxing. Chartres is a superb City, the Ain and Jura departments are well worth exploring with marvellous lakes and mountains, we were given a tantalising glimpse of Macon so might have to try and stop there one day. I think if you only have a few weeks of travel available then France is worthy of a visit. However, I think any extended visit would still see us venturing to the delightful Italy or equally delightful but far less expensive Spain.
Maurice on Manoeuvres 