Back to UK the final leg

 We left St Jean de Luz on 1 March and travelled up to Camping Futuristic just north of Poitiers a 242 mile drive up the A63 and A10. Again we stopped here on the way down to Spain and it is well handy as the site is on 10 minutes off the A10 motorway and open all year.




Early start the next day as we had a long drive.  On the way down we had used the ferry crossing Portsmouth to Caen.  I couldn't get a return dog cabin on this route so we used the Tunnel on the way back.  This meant driving up to Calais.  I couldn't find any campsites open and in easy driving distance to Calais so the plan was to use the Aire de al Baie de Somme on the A16. 

The route meant that we had to go through Rouen.  All our mapping apps were taking us through the middle of the city and some work on Street view showed this to be challenging for a wide twin axle caravan.  Luckily after a search on the web we found a post on the subject which gave us a route which runs along the river from junction 22 on the A13 taking the D18E this meets up with the N28 to cross the river Seine and then out of the city. This turned out to be a really good straight forward route. 

We arrived at the Aire mid afternoon and parked up in the caravan/motor home area.  We were soon joined by three Brit motor homes.  The aire is great, feels really safe and even great for off lead dog walking.

Next day we had a relaxed start as only an hour and half to the tunnel terminal.  We arrived at the terminal in good time but needed to book the dogs in at the pet reception where they check the paperwork.  The issue with this was the roadways had been marked out with bollards but not with a really long and wide caravan in mind. In the end a staff member had to come out and move bollards for us, what a guy😃

Dogs got the thumbs up and Bill Bailey squeezed onto the train, just.  As we couldn't fit in the waiting area so we had gone straight through to the gate and ended up on an earlier train. Bye bye France hello England.

We arrived back at lunch time and after a brief stop at Folkestone services we headed off to Hertford Camping & Caravanning Club site.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spring & Summer 2023 @ West Runtom

Image
 So from Hertford it was off to West Runton to get settled in for our second season working as Site Assistants at the Camping & Caravanning Club site. We arrived on Saturday 11 March and it was really strange driving back down the long drive into the empty site.  Angie & Mick had been there a couple of days but they were out so it was just us.  On letting the dogs out of the car Buffy ran straight off into the woods, which is what she did as we left the year before. She eventually came back. We were on a different pitch this year nearest the entrance and we spent the next few days setting up and building the dog enclosure. The site opened on  31 March and we had a few days to get everything up and running.  Easter then came and we got filled up  with campers just in time for a major fire to break out in one of the electricity transformers over the Easter weekend, all very exciting. The weather was not so great and to mid June was pretty cold. Howeve...
Read more

August and it all change🤯

Image
So after much scratching of heads and thinking things through, during the summer we made the decision to change our caravan.  We had found Bill Bailey just too big when touring in the winter. We had considered getting a second smaller van for touring but after viewing a Swift Conqueror 560 we decided we could cope with a slightly smaller van all year.  The 560 is a 7.5 metre van with a mid bathroom and a fixed double bed in the back.  This layout gives us the feeling of having separate rooms as opposed to Bill which felt like one big room.  The new van being slightly shorter and a little narrower makes all the difference on the road.  So after a trip to Norwich Caravans the new van was ordered and the date for the swap over was set for Thursday 3 August. We booked a couple of days leave and had a day owed so we would have from the Tuesday through to Sunday to take down awnings, empty Bill, swap vans and put our life back together before going back to work. This ...
Read more

Bonterra Camping, Benicassim

Image
 Our first proper stop was Bonterra Camping, in the town of Benicassim.  Benicassim is a Spanish resort which has some lovely beaches lined with art deco villas.  The campsite is on the edge of the town and to get to the site from the N340 coast road you have to go through the town. There are three exits off the N340 for Benicasssim and we took the north exit on the basis that the campsite is at the northan edge of the towm. Unfortunately this route whilst closet to the camp site takes you into the old town down a narrow street which was lined with parked cars. Luckily we just squeezed through. We now know to use the southern exit and dive straight through the town on Grande Avenue Jaume 1 as this road has plenty of space and takes you right to the roundabout outside the sight entrance.  The form here was to leave the the car & van and have a walk around to find your pitch.  We picked a pitch without thinking it through too much. Again a lesson learnt. ...
Read more