Made it to the seaside - heading home

Saturday 21 September 2024

Nido's parked up at Ardres.  Not strictly an aire, but just a parking area, it's where we normally stop for our first and last night in France as it's quiet and only twenty minutes' drive to Calais. The alarm's set for 0500 tomorrow morning, to catch our 0748 tunnel back to the UK.

On Thursday, as Cathy was online for 2.5 hours on her Welsh language course, I decided to ride some of the excellent Avenue Verte cycle path.  Tarmaced and as wide as a single lane road, it mostly runs along a disused railway line.  This particular one starts in Dieppe and runs all the way to the outskirts of Paris.  In fact I rode the full length in 2008 with a group when we rode from Fareham to Paris, raising money for our local children's Hospice.

This time I rode from Forges-les-Eaux, heading north as far as Neufchatel-en-Bray and return, a total distance of about 24 miles.  The weather was lovely - warm, sunny with a gentle breeze from the south.  There were a few cyclists and walkers on the route, but mostly I had it all to myself.  The only issue I had was the many acorns on the path trying to take my wheels from under me!  My intention was to get to Neufchatel, have a coffee and return.  But on arrival there was only one suitable café open and I didn't like the feel there, so turned around and headed back south.  Luckily, there was a small café right next to the path, so I was able to get my coffee fix.  I'm sure we stopped here when I did the ride in 2008.  Refreshed I cycled back to the van and once Cathy had finished her lesson we packed up and drove to the vets at Buchy.  Salty took his worming tablets (cunningly disguised in some cheese and ham!) and whimpered through the rabies booster.  

Café next to the cycle path

All sorted, we drove 45 minutes to the free aire in Songeons.  We stayed here last year when we walked up to the old village of Gerberoy.  But as we'd had a busy day and Salty was feeling sorry for himself after being jabbed, we just chilled outside our large hedge lined pitch.  I walked in to town to buy a few items in the shop and with the intention of getting a takeaway pizza.  However, the pizza place was closed for a week, so a chicken kebab came a close second!  The kebab shop didn't open until 6pm; luckily the village Bar/Tabac was just across the square, so I was able to sit outside with a beer and wait for the doors to open!  We enjoyed our kebab sat outside in the evening warmth.

Waiting for the kebab shop to open?

Recovering from his rabies booster - poor pup!

Friday was warm and sunny again as we drove 1.5 hours up to the coast at Cayeux-sur-Mer.  The CCP aire is set back about 500m from the beach.  We had a lovely walk along the wooden promenade checking out the individual names of the many beach huts - rock and roll lifestyle!  Salty enjoyed a splash around in the waves.  We wanted some patisserie and the boulangerie was opening at 3pm.  Luckily there was a bar opposite so we sat with a beer until it opened - there's a theme to our shopping over the last couple of days!  For dinner I made some bruschetta topping using up the remaining vegetables, eaten with the baguette toasted, rubbed with garlic and drizzled with olive oil - that should keep the mozzies at bay!

Waiting for the boulangerie to open this time....honest!

This morning we serviced the van for the last time this trip and drove up to Ardres, stopping off at a Le Clerc supermarket on the way to buy the fresh foodstuffs to take home and fill up the diesel tank.  I walked into town to buy a baguette for tomorrow's breakfast on the train, plus some patisserie to take to our daughter's house; we're going to break our journey there and finish the drive home on Monday.

So that's it for this trip.  We've cut it short by a week as next week's weather forecast is poor, so there wasn't much point hanging around in the van in the rain.