Monday 6 October 2014
It was a very windy night and the rain started at about 0700. After breakfast, we secured for the journey and drove over to fill up with water. The supplied hose had been joined - very badly! - so filling was difficult. I was getting wet from the driving rain and from holding the leaking hose together. Then it was over to empty both waste tanks, thankfully this was less stressful. We drove to the large Asda in Fareham to fill up with diesel and buy some food and drink. It was absolutely teeming down and the supermarket was busy so a very wet and hacked off Cathy finally returned to the van. Goods packed away and Cathy changed, I drove over to Wickes to get some hose clips and some sticky tape to hold down the rear camera screen.
The journey to Folkestone was uneventful, just very wet. We stopped about half an hour before the tunnel for lunch and I checked all the lockers to make sure we didn't have any English stowaways looking to get over to Pakistan for a free council house and benefits - sadly my cattle prod remain unused, maybe until we return!? We arrived a little over 2 hours ahead of our crossing and so were able to get an earlier crossing free of charge and 1.5 hours ahead of schedule - result! Cathy had a snooze while I filled out a Form C39 for one day's submarine pay. Travelling underwater is alien to me, but I didn't have a wash today in preparation.
Half an hour later and after resting our eyes on the bed we arrived in Calais. Cathy did see one illegal skulking as we left the tunnel port but unfortunately he was out of cattle-prod range. Our passports were checked in Folkestone so we drove straight out on to the A16 and 20 minutes later were parked up on the free Aire at Wissant. It was still raining quite heavily and looks set in for the night, so we stayed in and cooked garlic chicken with rice, plus a cheeky G&T and glass of wine to get us in the holiday mood. The wine was from Dave & Lesley, called Santa Caterina - thanks both! So day one en France is here already and today's flown past. But we don't want to rush about so we'll rest up tonight and hit the road early tomorrow morning, heading along the coast for our next stop, wherever that may be. Let's hope the weather clears up, if not we may need to sprint south to find some sunshine.