Friday 30 November – Drive, Drive, Drive!

Where’s Bertie? To his great surprise, he’s not at a waterside Aire on the Begium/France border, he’s on our driveway at home.
Weather: Mixed, but then we did cover quite some miles.

At about 9 o’clock yesterday (Friday) morning Mick decided that he needed some urgent medical attention and, given the options of finding a suitable facility and dealing with a possible language barrier in France or Belgium, or returning home, he opted for the latter. In double quick time we were packed away, I’d modified our Eurotunnel booking and we were on the road.

The use of toll roads (a very great rarity for us) got us to Calais swiftly enough to get us onto a shuttle a little over an hour before the one I’d booked just two hours before (and with 14 minutes to wait before being called to board, just enough time to make a couple of travel mugs of tea before I had to isolate the gas tanks) and we were back in the UK by 11.30am (local time).

The M20 is currently subject to road works for almost its entire length and the M25 was exactly as one would expect the M25 to be on a Friday afternoon, which delayed us enough to put us in heavy traffic later on too.

We did, however, make it to the doctors’ surgery just before they closed. A couple of tests were performed then the next news we got was that an ambulance was on its way. The good news is that after a night in hospital and many tests and opinions, he got released today and he’s fine.  

So, the final day of our trip came sooner than expected, was a rather long one*, and contained the sort of ‘excitement’ that we can all do without!


I made productive use of the time spent hanging around in the hospital, but I'm really not sure I like the colour scheme

^{(*The other negative of the Aire at Grenay is the cockerel that lives next door and thinks that 3.33am is an acceptable time of day to start crowing.)}

 

Thursday 29 November - Grenay

Where's Bertie? Tonight Bertie has found himself quite a considerable distance from where he expected to be! He's in an Aire in the town of Grenay. It's free to stay here with (theoretically) free electricity, water and wifi (exact location: 50.44834, 2.73848).
Weather: Showers, some heavy, but with some decent dry spells this afternoon. Gusty wind.

Today's plan was to visit the town of Montreuil, as recommended by Martin earlier in the summer. Accordingly, we set off from Le Tréport (past the dismantling of the latest fuel tax protest in the town) and headed generally northwards, with the SatNav showing a total journey distance of 63km.

All went well until St Valery sur Somme, where a road closure necessitated a significant deviation inland - so significant that after half an hour of driving we now found ourselves with 65km still to go. And, if we were having to go so far inland (to Abbeville, which we could have reached far more directly from Le Treport, if we'd known about the closure), it didn't really make sense to head back out towards the coast. A replan was needed, and you'd not believe how far we had to drive before we found somewhere we could pull in to do that.

Having examined the options (the favourite of which ceased to hold that position when I discovered it had closed permanently just two weeks ago), we were lured to Grenay. A free Aire, with free services, including electricity and wifi, and with overwhelmingly positive reviews? Sounded good, although I was half expecting it to be full (there being only 3 spaces) of vans who had taken root.

There was one space available when arrived (and I suspect that at least one of the other two vans here is in residence, abusing the town's generosity in providing those free services), but we soon found that the only remaining electric point was out of order and that the wifi is only available for half an hour per registration.

A well-presented Aire, with parkland adjacent, which has been well tended by a whole team of high-viz clad workers this afternoon, including a thorough scrubbing of the service point.

What there also doesn't seem to be in the immediate vicinity is anything of interest. Admittedly, we didn't wander very far (not the best weather for it today), but we failed to find anything* other than residentail streets, industrial areas and a huge set of disused railway sidings - all with a general air of shabbiness. I think we have been sold a dud-un and will be moving on again tomorrow.

Today was, incidentally, by far our longest day of driving since the beginning of the trip, at around 150km. Being all on little roads, it felt much longer than that!

^{(*I suppose we did find a rather fine boulangerie/patisserie, where against all reasonableness on such a day of inactivity, we procured two cakes to (hopefully!) make up for the disappointing ones we had yesterday.)}

Thoughts about Water

MeanQueen left a comment about water on my last post, so I thought I would pen a few words on the subject.

Our water carrying capacity in Bertie consists of:
- A 120 litre on-board tank. We use this water for washing ourselves, the dishes, the occasional bit of laundry and for cooking;
- Four 5-litre containers, used for drinking water (which we obtain from the same taps used to fill the tank - in Bertie there's no good reason for us not to drink straight from the tank, but we don't);
- 2.5 litres worth of vacuum flasks, mainly used when we have electricity, saving us time and gas for hot drinks later in the day. Very occasionally they also get used for spare drinking water (i.e. cold water) capacity.
- 3 small drinking water bottles (2 litres total) that live in the cab area (they're all 'single use' bottles, one of which has been in service since 2012 and the other two since February 2017 - I do clean them every now and then!).

We almost never completely fill Bertie's water tank, as we seldom think we will get through that much water before we find a tap to fill it again. Usually we top it up to between 50 & 75%. That will last us at least a week (our record to date was 12 days on 75%, but we didn't run out even then). You may deduce from this that we don't wash very often and don't use much water when we do! I've also become an expert at washing dishes in a very small quantity of water.

We generally get through 4-5 litres of drinking water per day, so need to find a tap every 4 to 6 days for this purpose.

In all of the places we've visited in western Europe to date (with the notable exception of the UK), finding water is pretty easy, with motorhome service points and/or public taps being plentiful, although one does need to be aware that in Northern France in winter, the water at many motorhome service points get turned off. Our downfall is thus not usually the lack of a water point, but the lack of planning (or of preparedness to pay for water when we know it can be got for free elsewhere). On the 24 nights of this trip to date, I think that we have had access to water (sometimes free, often for an extra fee) every single night. The fault this week was ours, in that: a) we hadn't topped up the tank for a week; b) we didn't top it up when we left Le Treport the first time, because we weren't empty and knew water was included in the price at our next stop (Eu); and c) our hose connector collection is a bit lacking, which stopped us from using the water point at Eu.

The UK is a different matter and hunting down taps (or sometimes suitable streams) for drinking water can take a bit of effort. As I won't fill Bertie's tank from a public source that is not specifically provided for such a purpose (i.e. I'm not prepared to run a hose from some public toilets or a graveyard to his tank), his tank only gets filled on campsites. There have thus been a few times in the UK when we have found ourselves buying the cheapest supermarket bottled water either to decant into our drinking containers or, on at least one occasion, to pour into Bertie's tank so we could have a shower. Using, for example, Asda's 17p/2 litre bottles, it's not an outrageously expensive way of throwing a few litres in the tank, even if it's not an environmentally friendly way of getting water.

Wednesday 28 November - Eu and Le Tréport

Where's Bertie? He's back at the Aire in Le Tréport.
Weather: Morning showery (some prolonged and heavy), afternoon mainly dry. A high of 13 degrees.

The rain was hammering down as we readied ourselves for a look around Eu this morning. Earlier in this trip we would have stayed another night at the Aire and deferred our sight-seeing until it was a bit drier, but we're now running out of time, and having taken the trouble to go to Eu, we were jolly well going to see it.

Happily our waterproofs did their job to perfection: the rain stopped as we stepped out of Bertie and didn't start again until we were back.

Our verdict on Eu is that it's an interesting place to stroll around for an hour or two, with the first striking landmark when approaching from the direction of the Aire being the huge church:

It's dedicated to an Archbishop of Dublin, Laurence O'Toole. William the Conquerer married his cousin Mathilda there, you know.

There's also a chateau, in front of which a Christmas market is just being set up, looking like the same set of 'garden sheds' and marquees as we saw at Mers-les-Bains last weekend:

The back of the chateau, taken from the end of its garden, thus avoiding the clutter of the Christmas market at the front.

And generally there are just a lot of narrow streets lined with old houses:

Much wonkiness in the old timber framed buildings.

The one disappointment was our failure to buy cakes, due to one patisserie not having the best examples of the particular ones we wanted, and the other being closed. We didn't feel inclined to walk all the way back over to the other side of town to one of the outlets there.

Back at Bertie we weighed up the options as to where to go next. We already knew our next destination, but we also had to take into account The Water Issue. That is, we hadn't filled up when we left Le Tréport yesterday, as we knew water was included in the price of the Aire at Eu - but then we found we were unable to access it due to not having the right connector(/the absence of a sensible tap). There's a danger, being the end of November, that the supply will be turned off at our next stop, and we have no firm plan as to what we're doing the next night, so the easiest option seemed to be to backtrack the 4km to Le Tréport, and once here we thought we may as well stay the night.

Predictably (givng the morning's failure), this afternoon's objective was cake. Alas, we found the patisserie closed (their non-stop hours being modified by a note taped to the window saying they would re-open at 3pm) and it being about a mile each way from where Bertie is parked, we filled the waiting time by some semi-aimless wandering. That led us to discover things we had previously missed, like some information signs about historical points of interest, and a bit of art work:



The most surprising incident of the day was the sighting, at close quarters of three coypu (thanks to Mick for recognising what they were). On the body of water opposite the Aire lives a colony of ducks. They sit there all quiet and serene, until the moment they see a person passing by, whereupon they set up a frenzy of quacking, and make their way at full speed over to the slip way. They are obviously used to being fed (every time we've been on the road outside, we've walked over to the far pavement just to amuse ourselves with their Pavlovian reaction). As we passed for the final time today, their quacking had (to their little minds) paid off, and someone was there doling out bread, which had attracted not just the birds but also the coypu. The ducks got in the way, so the only snap I managed to get was at a distance, on full zoom:

There is a coypu in this snap, honest.



And after all that, they turned out to be rather disappointing.

Tuesday 27 November - Eu

Where's Bertie? He's sitting on his lonesome in an Aire in the town of Eu, which sits about 3km inland from Le Tréport. It costs €10 to stay here including electricity and water*. (Exact location: 50.05288, 1.42376)
Weather: Gloriously sunny morning, rainy afternoon.

With hindsight, when we were surprised to see a clear blue sky this morning, we should have seized the opportunity to go for a walk. What we did instead was ready Bertie for a move.

Our new destination was only a handful of kilometres away, but it was broken up with two stops en-route. The first was at McDonalds, where we installed ourselves in their car park to avail ourselves of their (painfully slow) wifi. When it became apparent that our stay there was going to be more than five minutes, we felt bad about not giving them any custom, so Mick nipped in for a coffee. That backfired: it turns out that coffee is free before noon - and not just if you're making a food purchase. So, we then found ourselves not only squatting in their car park, using their wifi, but doing so whilst drinking free coffee.

As lunchtime came, the car park got busy, so we took ourselves off to Lidl (passing through a minor, but non-disruptive fuel protest on our way), then finally to this Aire, which is all shiny and new, having only opened 3 months ago.

The reason for coming here was that I ran through a bit of the town yesterday and it looked interesting enough to spend a day here. Our enthusiams for exploring was quashed, however, when rain started to fall immediately after lunch. Thus, it wasn't until the light was seeping out of the day (and the rain had let up a bit) that we took ourselves off for an initial glance at the place. No photos today - the light was too low - but we plan to have a better look in daylight tomorrow.

^{(*The price includes water if you happen to have a male-male hose connector in your armoury. We don't. It's gone onto the 'to buy' list.)}

Monday 26 November - Le Tréport

Where's Bertie? He's still at the Aire at Le Tréport.
Weather: Grey, damp and cool.

Contrarily, I have today done quite a bit and not a lot. That is to say that my day started with a 13.1-mile run, but other than that couple of hours, I've barely stirred out of doors.

It was grey and struggling to get light as I set out at half past eight, and grey and raining persistently when I swung past Bertie 45 minutes later. Knowing that my route would involve laps, Mick had anticipated my return and had my waterproof jacket out ready for me. Thus more suitably attired, off I went again.

A bit of a convoluted route, with three laps of the middle bit, although not all in the same direction.

As well as running three laps of the trails that follow the waterways surrounding Bertie (involving two descents of a steep and metal staircase and one ascent of a concrete staircase (after I realised there was an alternative to the bouncy metal one)), my route took me along the harbour and seafront. A couple of days ago I commented on the number of fishing boats in the harbour. This morning there were just three. I did, however, count 24 bobbing around not very far offshore:


Back at Bertie, I declared that there was no point in moving on. The greyness of the weather, combined with having had enough exercise to justify being lazy for the rest of the day, didn't make me feel inclined to go and explore anywhere new.

This afternoon, after being defeated by an absolute stinker of a crossword, it was with bad timing that we went out for a stroll, just as the rain, which had been largely absent for a few hours, returned. I still accompanied Mick for part of his Fitbit-appeasement outing, although not the entirety of it.

Incidentally, I noticed as I bought today's parking ticket that the two options are 'Min: 1 day, Max: 2 days'. It would thus appear that one is only supposed to stay here for two days. As no more than 15 of the 60 spaces have been taken at any point since we arrived, I don't think anyone is going to be bothered by our overstaying.

Sunday 25 November - Le Tréport

Where's Bertie? Still at the Aire at Le Tréport.
Weather: Grey but mainly dry.


One of the passenger pods on the funicular, of which I failed to give a comprehensible description yesterday.

From the upper station of the funicular railway, at the top of the white cliffs, there is a walking route that is particularly popular on a Sunday morning, and clockwise seemed to be the direction of choice ... for just about everyone except for us. Two enormous groups of ramblers were met and 'bonjoured' (the second group must have been more than 50 strong). I'm not sure what makes it so popular as, except for the few hundred metres along the top of the cliffs, it didn't score highly on my 'interesting walk' scale.

I took myself off for another wander this afternoon, which turned out to be a little longer than expected (mainly because, on a whim, I deviated from where I intended to go, so as to recce a potential running route). It also involved an incident of trying to return a football to a nearby Sunday-league-esque match and proving, in front of an audience, that I don't even have the ability to make contact between foot and ball. I ended up leaving the ball on the path in the hope that someone with better skills would do the job.

Arriving back at Bertie, it was to the news that the police had just been around to check parking tickets. Of course, we didn't have a ticket, believing the whole payment system to be out of order. Having been put right on that front, off Mick toddled to the machine, in the company of another chap who had made the same mistake (being Sunday afternoon, a number of other vans had got away with it, having left earlier).

The first chap succeeded in getting a ticket, but having selected the relevant option and put his card into the slot, the machine failed to give Mick his slip of paper. He stood wondering what to do for a few moments, not knowing whether the payment had gone through or whether he should start over, when the first chap returned, said they were leaving and kindly handed over the ticket he had just bought - valid until tomorrow afternoon. It'll take a few days of waiting for the transaction to turn up (or not) on the credit card bill before we find out whether we did in fact pay for our ticket, or if we've just effectively stolen another night here.