Wednesday 18 September 2024

Wednesday 18 September - Wissant

Where's Bertie He's in the Aire at Wissant where he has been many times before.
Weather: Misty start, slowly clearing to sunshine. Warm, but breezy.

Our day started, as promised yesterday, with a run/walk over to the next village: Gerberoy. A pleasant route, through woods, up and over an undulation in the landscape.

Snaps of Gerberoy, and the wooded route to get there.

A nice little place and very quiet early in the morning.

Back at Bertie for showers and second breakfast, before we packed away and pointed Bertie's nose towards the UK.

There's nothing interesting to report from the drive. We stopped in a car park in Wailly Beaucamp for lunch, and whilst I prepared the food, Mick nipped up the road to the patisserie:

I ate most of my half before thinking to take a snap, but Mick was more restrained.


Next up was a series of stops in Boulogne. First a petrol station for LPG, but they had run out, so we made do with buying some diesel instead (€1.53/litre), then Lidl for one of those 'Brits in France' shopping excursions. The till operator said something to me that I didn't catch, but it may well have been "You must be throwing a cheese and wine party!". 14 bottles of wine, 12 bottles of beer and four pieces of cheese for less than £48.

Next stop was another petrol station for LPG (33 litres at 97c/litre), before we came on to Wissant.

Here we found that a barrier and payment machines have been installed at the entrance, but the barrier was open and they clearly haven't been commissioned yet. Electricity pillars have also been installed around the Aire. It will be interesting to see how much they start charging. The 45 spaces are almost full at 7pm on a Wednesday in mid-September, but how much will people be prepared to pay for such narrow spaces? Hopefully they'll set it at a reasonable level, as it's such a convenient stop when travelling to and from Calais.

Purely because it would be remiss to be so close to a beach and not set foot on it, we wandered down there just before tea. There we found half a dozen armed Gendarmes standing in a huddle looking at the beach, and a huge number of kite surfers taking advantage of the windy conditions. We didn't see any white cliffs across the water, as it was too hazy. We could barely see the ferries, just up the coast.

Kite surfers a-go-go

Left: today; Right: March 2023. If I troubled myself I could find more photos of this house on my phone from when it was derelict, before its grounds were developed into a housing estate. 

The other cake Mick bought at lunchtime, before I cut it up for sharesies after tea.



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