Il Pleut…
…not right now, but it seems a good title given what my day’s been like.
It got off to a good start, getting away from the hotel near Canterbury in good time to catch the 8am sailing from Dover to Dunkerque (check in 45 minutes early, after dealing with customs and passport control, which in this case consisted of a chap looking at you from a kiosk as you drove past). The weather was dullish but dry and still.
The crossing was uneventful. I’d paid a tenner extra to get access to the VIP lounge, but there were no VIPs there, or at least I didn’t recognise anybody. It was very quite, just me, a couple of retired-seeming couples and two or three business people. I spoke to one of the couples and we took turns watching each others’ things, allowing some unencumbered exploring, not that there was much to see, besides the sea. (Sorry.) And the duty free, of course, but I resisted the temptation. I’ve been cutting right back on the demon drink recently. Which is not to say I might not pick something up on the way back.
(By the way, maybe the best bit of the VIP treatment is priority in getting on and off—I was one of the first two or three cars each way. Some people might consider that alone worth £10.)
I managed to find a place to park just outside the docks and pointed the satnav at the Auchan Hypermarket, which I vaguely remembered from the last time I took a vehicle across the channel, about 20 years ago. It was just as big and stuffed full of stuff as back then, but it was a bit of a waste of time because all I got was a cheese roll. Well, actually half a French loaf split and loaded with butter and Leerdammer, which was very nice and quite cheap, but I could have gotten something just as good on the road, and it was noon before I got going, with a six hour drive to look forward to.
I think it rained, quite heavily, for somewhere between five and six hours, altogether, though not quite continuously. The journey actually took a bit over seven, door to door.
It’s all sort of merging into one tedious, soggy memory, but two points stand out.
(1) My first encounter with the French toll road system. I was slightly apprehensive about this, after reading that you should be careful to have plenty of change, and so on. There were no manned kiosks, and when I drove up to the box, which of course was on the wrong side, all I could see was a slot, with no indications as to what should be put in it. I will freely admit that at this point I panicked, put the car into reverse, switched on the hazard lights, and starting moving back very slowly. Then I made a very stupid move, causing a large truck to brake very sharply. For that I got, not so much a mouthful of abuse, as a belly and two lungs-full. The only word I understood was “English”. He must have seen the GB plate. The only response was a sort of shrug, but as apologetic as I could make it, unlike the French variety. Eventually he gave up trying to convey his meaning to me and drove on. I’ll cut the story short—it includes me crossing the streams of traffic back and forth on foot trying to find a clue what to do—eventually I decided that it must be a collection point for tickets, and if you didn’t have one, it would let you through, but when I drove up to it the second time I noticed another slot, this one with a ticket poking out, so I grabbed it, the barrier went up and I was on my way.
(2) The last hour or so stands out too, and not because it was such great fun, either. But I need to go back and tell you that I’d originally intended to put the beam converters on the headlights in Dunkerque, but forgot. I lived to regret that, because due to a combination of the time difference and the weather it began to get dark much earlier than I’d expected. I’d been running on sidelights most of the afternoon anyway, but it got to the point where just about everybody else had their headlights on with about 40 minutes of the journey left. I was on an autoroute so I couldn’t just stop and do it, and it really wasn’t a job I fancied attempting in the pouring rain anyway. I tucked in behind a big truck and prayed we wouldn’t get overtaken by a police car. We were, but in one of my few pieces of luck on this journey so far, it happened to be when the sky had lightened up a bit. Or maybe they wouldn’t have noticed, or cared that much, anyway, but the point is that I got away with it.
I’m still thinking about whether this is a good substitute for a postcard. I have free wifi where I’m staying tonight, but that’s a bit iffy when I get where I’m going. It would be nice to add to this, with some photos, though. We’ll see how it goes. Another six hours of driving tomorrow, but I’ll get a much earlier start, and there should be plenty of time to pitch the tent and get a meal under my belt before the sun goes down on the Côte d’Azur tomorrow night! (And the weather forecast is pretty good!)
September 1, 2009
Posted in: announcements
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