Where's Bertie? He's at New Dover Road P&R in Canterbury, although not in one of the dedicated motorhome parking areas. Cost: £8 per night, including service point, toilets & bus into town.
Weather: Sunday warm and sunny, Monday hot & sunny (31 degrees)
Away from home at 10am, Bertie's nose was pointed towards Crawley to visit friends before moving on to Canterbury for the night. We'd not been on the motorway very long before we started to question where everyone was going. There's a reason we choose to travel on a Sunday, yet on Sunday every man and his wife seemed to be heading south on the same motorways as us.
Our attempted stop at a service station was aborted due to the size of the queue just to get onto the service area access road. Then we got to the M25...
Weather: Sunday warm and sunny, Monday hot & sunny (31 degrees)
Away from home at 10am, Bertie's nose was pointed towards Crawley to visit friends before moving on to Canterbury for the night. We'd not been on the motorway very long before we started to question where everyone was going. There's a reason we choose to travel on a Sunday, yet on Sunday every man and his wife seemed to be heading south on the same motorways as us.
Our attempted stop at a service station was aborted due to the size of the queue just to get onto the service area access road. Then we got to the M25...
We finally concluded that it was the forecast hot weather for Sunday and Monday that had drawn everyone out, but it did negate our reason for travelling on the weekend.
Eventually we reached Crawley, and some hours later we left again.
We needed to use the A2 to reach Canterbury. The A2 was closed. "I hope Google has picked a suitable alternative route!" I said as we turned off the main road. Google had not done so. After managing to turn around (in far fewer manoeuvres than a car two in front of us!) Bertie had to get far too friendly with some pokey hedges in order to retreat the 200m or so he'd driven down the road, and he and a van managed to squeeze past each other with millimetres to spare. The problem was't the size of the road, per se. On an ordinary day, Bertie would have been fine on that road. It was the quantity of Bertie-sized vehicles trying to use the road in both directions at the same time that caused the problem.
It was later than expected when we reached Canterbury and both motorhome parking areas were full (or were effectively so, due to poor parking). Fortunately, the P&R is huge, and we managed to find a spot where we could fit Bertie into a single space (an unnecessary concern - the car park has been 90% empty all day).
Within five minutes of the handbrake being applied the bed was made ...and I realised I needed to strain the kefir. The problem with such warm weather is that the kefir, that usually takes 2 days to transform itself from milk into a fermented tart yoghurty substance, is done within a day (even though I'd reduced the number of kefir grains so as to slow it down). I put the new batch in the fridge to put it on hold for today's hot weather.
A quiet night was had and this morning I went to survey whether any motorhome spaces had become free. They had - 8 of them in the main area (the one with the service point). We contemplated, then decided to stay put. There is no shade in the motorhome area, whereas we were under trees and were going to stay sheilded from the sun all day. With the forecast, it felt like the most sensible place to be.
There's Bertie, all the way over there. The French van beyond Bertie appeared at some point in the night.
I'd not paid any attention to the time as we set out to catch the bus into town, and it wasn't until Mick questioned why so many shops were closed that I realised that it wasn't even 10am yet. Still, good to be out in the relative cool of the day (the forecast had said 25 degrees at 9am, for which reason I'd decided I didn't need a run today).
We ambled. We ambled some more. A bit of shopping was done. Tea was drunk. Iced water was drunk. A breakfast was eaten (just the one). New pyjamas were nearly bought, but weren't (will the failing elastic in my 15 year old pair last the trip? It's touch and go.)
By 2pm we'd braved the sauna of a bus and were back in the glorious relative cool of Bertie.
So, the burning question: where are we going. Good question! We embarked on this trip without knowing. The original plan of driving through France for a few weeks to Roscoff and catching the ferry to Ireland, then driving to NI to catch the ferry to Scotland was abandoned last week when we decided the plan didn't leave us enough time in Ireland to make the ferries worthwhile. Various other ideas were had, but we hadn't even managed to settle on a country.
At risk of arriving in Calais tomorrow and tossing a coin as to which road to join, most of the rest of my afternoon today was spent looking at various resources. The result is that we have settled on a destination...
There are some characterful buildings in Canterbury. Have you ever seen such a wonky door?
Eventually we reached Crawley, and some hours later we left again.
We needed to use the A2 to reach Canterbury. The A2 was closed. "I hope Google has picked a suitable alternative route!" I said as we turned off the main road. Google had not done so. After managing to turn around (in far fewer manoeuvres than a car two in front of us!) Bertie had to get far too friendly with some pokey hedges in order to retreat the 200m or so he'd driven down the road, and he and a van managed to squeeze past each other with millimetres to spare. The problem was't the size of the road, per se. On an ordinary day, Bertie would have been fine on that road. It was the quantity of Bertie-sized vehicles trying to use the road in both directions at the same time that caused the problem.
It was later than expected when we reached Canterbury and both motorhome parking areas were full (or were effectively so, due to poor parking). Fortunately, the P&R is huge, and we managed to find a spot where we could fit Bertie into a single space (an unnecessary concern - the car park has been 90% empty all day).
Within five minutes of the handbrake being applied the bed was made ...and I realised I needed to strain the kefir. The problem with such warm weather is that the kefir, that usually takes 2 days to transform itself from milk into a fermented tart yoghurty substance, is done within a day (even though I'd reduced the number of kefir grains so as to slow it down). I put the new batch in the fridge to put it on hold for today's hot weather.
A quiet night was had and this morning I went to survey whether any motorhome spaces had become free. They had - 8 of them in the main area (the one with the service point). We contemplated, then decided to stay put. There is no shade in the motorhome area, whereas we were under trees and were going to stay sheilded from the sun all day. With the forecast, it felt like the most sensible place to be.
I'd not paid any attention to the time as we set out to catch the bus into town, and it wasn't until Mick questioned why so many shops were closed that I realised that it wasn't even 10am yet. Still, good to be out in the relative cool of the day (the forecast had said 25 degrees at 9am, for which reason I'd decided I didn't need a run today).
We ambled. We ambled some more. A bit of shopping was done. Tea was drunk. Iced water was drunk. A breakfast was eaten (just the one). New pyjamas were nearly bought, but weren't (will the failing elastic in my 15 year old pair last the trip? It's touch and go.)
By 2pm we'd braved the sauna of a bus and were back in the glorious relative cool of Bertie.
So, the burning question: where are we going. Good question! We embarked on this trip without knowing. The original plan of driving through France for a few weeks to Roscoff and catching the ferry to Ireland, then driving to NI to catch the ferry to Scotland was abandoned last week when we decided the plan didn't leave us enough time in Ireland to make the ferries worthwhile. Various other ideas were had, but we hadn't even managed to settle on a country.
At risk of arriving in Calais tomorrow and tossing a coin as to which road to join, most of the rest of my afternoon today was spent looking at various resources. The result is that we have settled on a destination...
Got a bit confused here, but that's not unusual. Thought you'd gone to Belgium for one day then returned to Canterbury until I realised your posts were chronologically reversed.
ReplyDeleteSorry! I realised after posting the Belgium one that the previous post was missing. There was a bit of a panic about it being lost, before I located it in draft form. By the time I posted it, I wasn't moved to go into Blogger to change the date to put them back into chronological order.
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