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Notes for the travel log - Aug 1st 2007
Well, here we are sat in a tent in (very) sunny France having just christened
the new barbeque by cooking kebabs from the local supermarche for
dinner.......
It's early evening, the camp site is alive with activity and the smells of
cooking - overwhelmingly BBQ but thats good in my book.
Today has been a steady day after the long and tiring journey of yesterday.
We set off (finally) at about 1020 and had a good run down the M1 onto the
M25, over Dartford bridge and then all the way down the A2 to Dover. we
hadn't booked a ferry so I was a little bit suprised when we were able to
almost drive straight onto the next one.
The ferry crossing was uneventful, calm sea, vitually no wind and blue sky -
still we made ourselves feel ill by eating on the ferry, somthing I can't
advise anyone to do at any time - a bit likt eating in McDonalds really only
you could tell what went into the food. I noticed something odd on the way
over, the toilets on the ferry used to have a step at the threshold but they
all seem to have been removed - I wonder why as they were there for the sole
purpose of holding the sickness in the toilets at bay when the seas were
rough....... wonder what happens now - best not dwell on that one!
The roads in France......... what can I say, a drivers dream. They are smooth
(mostly), reasonably well marked and generaly in excellent repair. Navigation
has been made a lot easier by buying a TomTom - I've only just expecrienced
one in the UK and Europe (I don;t count us as being part of Europe - we just
contribute to the financial wellbeing of the other member states.....)
although I have used one in the US where honestly speaking if you can't
navigate then there is something seriously wrong..... Anyway, Kate (the
chosen voice for the TomTom) is excellent, she always knows exactly where she
is, where you want her to go and best of all only states what you need to do
to get there. I've been joking with Claire (who origianly pointed out that
Kate only speaks when she really needs to!) that she is almost the perfect
navigator - of course Claire is happy as well at not having to have a map
open on her knee trying to figure out where we are, where we are going and
which is the best route. Anyway, enough about the new toys.
We arrived quite late last night, which meant that not having booked anywhere
in advance we needed to find somewhere as an alternative to a camp site -
courtesy of the TomTom we found a nice basic hotel in Berck (a seaside town
not unlike Scarborough without the arcades and beaches like Cleethorpes!).
There was only a few minor problems......... we had a mosquito in the room
which not content with having a good chew of us both insisted on divebombing
my ear, loud enough to wake me and cause me to flick the light on, waking
Claire in the process, leap out of bed and then track it down to squish the
little devil......... little did I realise that there were actually 5 of them
in the room and that meant flicking the light on several times, leaping out
of bed and scanning the walls until they could be found and dispatched to the
blood donors in the sky. Eventually after about 30 minutes of searching I had
them all squished and could once again retire to a fitful sleep. Claire
complained of grunting, snoring and some idiot flicking the lights on and off
at 0230 in the morning (I'm just glad I wasn;t responsible for the grunting
and snoring, that was the guy in the next room!)
Today we visited the most idylic camp site, unfortunately it was so good they
didn't have any spaces so we had to go somewhere else. That bad fortune
turned out to be good fortuns as the camp site we ended up at is gorgeous,
it's in a small wood on the edge of a small village. There is a stream
running down one side of the site and it is "fairly quiet" - more on this
tomorrow if it turns out not to be because we are here for 3 nights! Think we
might try a little exploring of the local area tomorrow - probably down those
fabulous beaches we are near (We are near Abbeville).
There are a few photos of the camp (gripping stuff I know :-) ) if I can
manage to upload them to the blog I will.
Right thats it for now, the red wine (very cheap from the local supermarche)
is starting to have an effect so I'd better go before I write some more
rubbish! Oh, one last thing to all you wage slaves, enjoy the rest of your
working week :-)
Ian and Claire.
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