Friday, 4 April 2014

Wednesday 2 April 2014

Yesterday and today have just been “making progress” days.  Although we made an earlier than usual start, there was nobody left on the Egurzon  site when we got up, so we just got on with it and hit the road. Despite our preferences, we decided that using the motorway, non-toll, made more sense so we headed north to Vierzon, intending to get fuel and some bread.

Whether we took the wrong turn-off, or went wrong somewhere else, we spent a frustratingly long time finding the LeClerc hypermarket and lost all the time we’d made up on the motorway. Still, once sorted we got back onto the D roads, now surprisingly busy as we had heard that all non-local heavy traffic must now use the autoroutes. It turned out that part of the autoroute was closed for repairs this week so we just mixed in with the trucks, occasionally “slip-streaming” one to help the fuel consumption!

A late lunch and yet again our destination was quite a stretch, so picked an aire at Nonancourt which turned out to be just off our route and very pleasant, and for a change full of Brits! It had been warm and sunny all day – we saw 27 deg once – and we were both tired so for a change we had an early night.

This morning, we were last away again but in fact earlier than we have been for a long time. Back onto the motorway heading for Calais until we approached Rouen where the Pont Madeleine was still closed. However we’re old hands at this now and took the riverside route via Pont de l’Arche, through the outskirts and up onto the motorway to Calais. Again our thinking was just to get some miles under the wheels as we have been this way several times before and the toll doesn't start until Abbeville.

Skirting the town and picking up the D road, it was lunchtime. The signposts were showing Berck, a nice seaside town so we headed for there to have lunch. Entering the town we spotted an Elephant Bleu, which is a chain of car-wash places and as Bertie was still filthy from the Picos Mountains adventure, we though a quick wash was in order.


With a nice clean shiny van again we headed for the aire – and decided to stay. Got some change for the meter from the chip shop (as well as lunch….) and that was that. We’re only an hour from Calais so tomorrow we’ll take a lazy run up, do our bits and pieces and get parked up early for the Chunnel on Friday. It’s nearly over.

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