Where was Bertie? He spent Sunday night at the Aire at New Dover Road Park & Ride, Canterbury, where it costs £8 for an overnight stay, including use of the service point and as many trips into town on the P&R bus as you fancy.
Weather: Rain overnight, and once we got back to Bertie, but dry whilst we were out and about. Temperature mid-teens.
I spent 2.5 years in the 1990s living in the Medway towns, yet I had never been to Canterbury. Mick had never been there either, so with that combined with the fact that the Local Authority has seen fit to provide a proper European-style Aire (i.e. designated motorhome parking area, with a service point), we thought we'd go and take a look at the place.
The Aire was fine. The visit to Canterbury was disappointing.
My main issue with the place is that you can't even get close to the cathedral, not even to walk around the outside and admire the architecture (albeit it's currently covered in scaffolding), without paying the £14 entrance fee. One day I may feel inclined to splurge that amount of money to see it, but not unless we've got a good few hours available.
The other issue was just one of timing: the gallery/museum (Beaney House of Art and Knowledge) is closed on a Monday.
It's likely that those two places alone could have entertained us for most of the day, but as it was, we wandered the streets, read some information signs about the history of the place, went for second breakfast and arrived back at Bertie within 2.5 hours of having left him. I'll observe again: we're really not very good at touristing in cities!
I suppose the short visit worked out well. It gave me time to prepare a cooked lunch, to use up most of the rest of the ingredients that we're not legally allowed to carry into Europe, then to travel to the Eurotunnel terminal to arrive four hours before our booked crossing (usual strategy: book a cheap crossing then arrive early hoping to be offered an earlier one).
The chunnel was the second busiest we've ever seen it, but even with a delayed departure, we were still in France over two hours before we were supposed to be. A quick trip to the nearest Lidl for an ill-thought-through shopping trip, then onwards to Belgium.
An attempt to stop for tea at motorway services en-route failed (height barrier on the car entrance; being a bank holiday, lorries stacked up almost on top of one another in the large-vehicle area, leaving not a postage-stamps-worth of space for Bertie), resulted in me feeding crackers and pâté to Mick as he drove.
It was 8pm (local time) by the time we arrived at Campirama (Bertie's motorhome dealer) after a long day. We were unsurprisingly late to bed, knowing the time shift and the need for an early start was going to be a touch painful in the morning.
Weather: Rain overnight, and once we got back to Bertie, but dry whilst we were out and about. Temperature mid-teens.
I spent 2.5 years in the 1990s living in the Medway towns, yet I had never been to Canterbury. Mick had never been there either, so with that combined with the fact that the Local Authority has seen fit to provide a proper European-style Aire (i.e. designated motorhome parking area, with a service point), we thought we'd go and take a look at the place.
The Aire was fine. The visit to Canterbury was disappointing.
My main issue with the place is that you can't even get close to the cathedral, not even to walk around the outside and admire the architecture (albeit it's currently covered in scaffolding), without paying the £14 entrance fee. One day I may feel inclined to splurge that amount of money to see it, but not unless we've got a good few hours available.
Cathedral, from a distance
Beaney House.
Pretty!
The chunnel was the second busiest we've ever seen it, but even with a delayed departure, we were still in France over two hours before we were supposed to be. A quick trip to the nearest Lidl for an ill-thought-through shopping trip, then onwards to Belgium.
An attempt to stop for tea at motorway services en-route failed (height barrier on the car entrance; being a bank holiday, lorries stacked up almost on top of one another in the large-vehicle area, leaving not a postage-stamps-worth of space for Bertie), resulted in me feeding crackers and pâté to Mick as he drove.
It was 8pm (local time) by the time we arrived at Campirama (Bertie's motorhome dealer) after a long day. We were unsurprisingly late to bed, knowing the time shift and the need for an early start was going to be a touch painful in the morning.
Bonus snap. The texture of the dirt on this old Land Rover was a thing of beauty.
Love the Land Rover. I have just about finished a 1/24 model of one the same vintage. But, what I like about your comment is your appreciation of all the LR's accumulated "weathering" as we model makers euphemistically call it. Kindred spirits eh? Most people would just pass by and think "what a mess."
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