France 2009

30th April 2009

After a short bus ride into Folkestone first thing in the morning we got our book and were back at the campsite ready for the off. We were booked on the 13:55hrs ferry and checked in an hour before as stated. We were waved straight through the French and English control and only had to stop at the check in to confirm our details. We then proceeded to lane 161 and waited to be boarded.

We finally boarded and got a seat at the front of the ferry. Angela had a Gin & Tonic and I had a bottle of Coke. We sat and looked at our French maps for a while and then we went to have a meal. We had Chicken Tikka Massala, poppadoms and pickles followed by a small tub of Cornish Ice Cream. We were just about finished when the call came through for all drivers to return to their vehicles.

The crossing was very calm and we arrived in the Port of Calais to lovely sunshine. We are heading for a place called Le Crotoy in the Somme region.

29th April 2009

We left Oxford this morning and headed to Black Horse Farm Caravan Club site just outside Folkestone. We are staying for one night here ready for our ferry crossing from Dover to Calais tomorrow. It is only 20 minutes to the port.

We had a pleasant stay here and met some other motor homers that were about to travel to France. We were told about an organisation called ACSI which if in it, it would give you access to sites all over Europe for 11, 13 or 15 Euros per night. The details were in a book that could be purchased online or from the shop in Folkestone.

Later that afternoon we walked up to the local pub had a pint then walked back via the shop to get a few provisions. We had a meal and then retired ready for our big day.

27th April 2009

We collected the van from storage and headed back to the campsite in Oxford. Before we drove in we decided to go on the weighbridge at Redbridge. Oh oh! Mass panic, we were over our legal limit albeit by 20kg’s. This was without a full tank of fresh water (100ltrs) 1 litre =1 kg. We also had to put our mountain bikes on the back!!

This called for more drastic measures to see what we could get rid of to get under the weight limit. We were booked on the ferry to France in three days time so we had to get it sorted. We went through all of our belongings and managed to get rid of some more non essential items back to Dean’s Mum’s.

We filled up with water, put the bikes on and went back onto the weighbridge..............
This time we were 4060kgs!! Although we were still over by 60kgs we worked it out that we could travel without water in the tank and be under, water will be available when we get to our campsites and we will not be on the road then. We are carrying lots of tins of food and jars of cooking sauces, when we start to eat these we will start to come down in weight. Then we can stock up on beer and wine when we return at the end of July!!!

April 2009

For those of you that are following our adventure the story so far is as follows......................

We arrived back home in Oxford after our tour of The Lake District and Scotland on the 2nd April. We spent 4 nights at Oxford Caravan & Camping Club site before putting the van into storage. The reason we did not go straight into storage was because we had far too much stuff on the van and needed to off load some back to Dean’s Mum’s. We were going to go on the public weighbridge at Redbridge recycling centre to check our weight as we did not want to incur a fine if found overweight by the authorities. Our Gross Vehicle Weight is 4oookg. We never got round to it as we thought that there is no way we would be over our limit bearing in mind there is just the two of us!!!!

We eventually moved the van into storage and spent 3 weeks at Dean’s Mum’s. Once again we were spoilt rotten (Thanks Mum), she could not do enough for us and made us feel more than welcome, and she also had a few odd jobs for Dean to do.

During our stay we had to take the van back to the dealer’s workshop in Taunton to have a few items fixed under warranty, as we were travelling back to the storage depot we had a bad experience on the A34. We had just come off the M4 at the Chievely junction and within a few miles on the A34 the vehicle in front of us lost its load! My initial thought was that the load heading towards us as we were travelling at 60mph in the outside lane was lengths of 4x2 wood; fortunately it turned out to be lengths of fibreglass tubes. We managed to keep calm and pulled into the next lay by as did the vehicle that lost its load. After having a good look around our van we noticed some minor damage to part of our skirting on the passenger’s side. The damage was only cosmetic and the van was still drivable, we exchanged details with the driver, took pictures and set off again for the storage depot.

We thought the accident was bad enough but what followed later that afternoon was just the icing on the cake!

On our way to the storage we phoned our brother-in-law (sorry John) to see if he would be able to collect us and take us home, he said he could but was not sure where it was. As we got nearer we were going to text him the post code and meet onsite. As we got just outside the storage depot we saw John and he followed us in. We gathered our belongings, shut the van up, set the alarm and drove off. We just left the depot when Angela said that she had forgotten the accident details so we had to go back. As we were returning we noticed a police car racing up the road. John suddenly said that they were probably looking for him! After getting the accident details from the van we set off again. We had only gone about a mile down the road when another police car went racing past us in the opposite direction. John seemed to be checking his rear view mirror and said again that they were after him!

I looked in the wing mirror and saw the police car carry out a U turn and began to race towards us, as they got near they put on the sirens and flashing lights and pulled us over!!!

A large policeman walked up to my door, I wound down the window and he said that there had been an incident at the nearby Airfield and that the security guard reported a suspicious character driving a car similar to the one we were in!

After taking all of our particulars he went away to call into the police control room to make sure we were who we said we were. John told us that as he did not know where the van was stored so he had a drive around. He parked by the main gate to the airfield and was approached by a man not in any uniform and showing no identity card. He asked John what he was doing there. John replied waiting for his brother in law. He was then asked what my name was. John did not tell him and drove away.

The policeman returned after all of our details checked out, I told him that my wife and I had just put our van into storage and that John was doing us a favour by picking us up. The policeman then said that we could go as there must have been some misunderstanding........you’re not kidding!!!

We finally got back home to Dean’s mum’s and had an uneventful stay until we collected the van from storage on the 27th April.