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By the time we fuelled up it was 10:30am before we were back on the A31, heading south for the A9 Lyon. With a full tank of fuel I was sure we would have enough to get us to Cala' n Porter.
The scenery kept us entertained as we headed into southern France and the motorway was significantly busier. We were following the River Rhone on our Right, with distant mountain ranges to our left. I was hoping to get 250 mile done before our first stop, but with traffic holding us up around Lyon the minutes built up.
The temperature gauge was rising steadily as we headed south and when it hit 25 degrees it was time to get the convertible top down. This happened on the A7 south of Valance. Just over 200 miles into today's journey. The kids saw McDonald's at the services so lunch was also taken during our first stop. Again Vicky had problem with ordering her cup of Tea! LOL. We didn't realise that it had to be collected from a different collect point. We thought they had forgot to give it to us. Then we thought they forgot the milk, but they wanted an extra 50 cents for milk in the tea! The kids were having fun outside, with a pipe spraying out a cooling mist every 30 seconds or so. It was very refreshing in the mid afternoon heat.
The amusement was short lived though! And the blood pressure was back to boiling point when it came to taking off the convertible roof. I had taken out sufficient bags and contents out of the boot and rearranged items ensuring the luggage separator could be pulled across, enabling the roof to be removed. The problem was that I'd missed the Kong Wobbler ( a bloody dog toy ) which had wedged itself under the near side roof bracket. I gave Vicky the all clear to deploy the roof, as the roof entered the boot it was evident something was wrong with all the extra whining sounds. Then to my horror I noticed a two inch gap between the boot lid and the bodywork of the car on the near side behind the passenger door! I quickly shouted to Vicky to put the roof back on, which was then that I found the Kong Wobbler! I removed it and again proceeded to take the roof off. Again the 2 inch gap was there! My boot and bracket was bent! It resulted in me sitting on the boot and bouncing up and down trying to close the gap, but to no avail. If we now encountered any more rain it would pour into the boot, soaking the contents! Thomas started to cry, I was ready to return home! Again we fully closed the roof with plenty of excess whirring and one last time deployed the roof at this point it had mysteriously rectified itself....Thank God! We can look back and laugh now, I'm chuckling whilst writing, but at the time it was certainly one of the low points of the journey.
After the delay at the services it was time to catch up, we were running behind schedule. With the roof off, sunglasses on, wind blowing and keeping us cool and great scenery it was a pleasure driving through Southern France. Another quick stop was made on the A9 for toilet call and ice cream around Beziers. The sun was blazing, not a cloud in the sky and it was 28 degrees. We soon passed through the 1000 mile mark and entered Spain. The motorway was deserted which helped. The views were fab running alongside the Mediterranean. I was also surprised how easy we found Barcelona port, thanks to Waze. We just missed the Mahon Trasmediterranea sign, resulting in us having to negotiate a 5 - 6 lane roundabout so we could come back on ourselves. I thought we were in Paris, cars everywhere and horns sounding every few seconds! We did it, we parked the car in lane zero, eighth in the queue just after 8pm, an hour before Schedule.
With the roof securely back on, all we had to do was to collect the dogs boarding passes, these had not printed off when I checked in on-line last week. It was a simple 5 minute procedure, I was shocked that yet again they didn't check any documentation for the dogs after all time we put in preparing everything we needed. We left the car and found a little cafe / restaurant with tables out on the pavement and had a well earned jug of Sangria and an evening meal. The end was finally in sight. Menorca here we come.
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