Day 1 – Thursday
The longest day in work, excited like a kid at Christmas knowing that we were leaving for our trip later in the evening. My previous post described my daily antics of getting some last minute checks done; tyres fitted, walkie talkie positioned, chargers plugged in, fueled up etc. Work finished and now was the waiting game.
We decided to meet at a local Tesco Extra to get some supplies such as numerous energy drinks, cans of coke, sweets and anything that we thought would help us stay awake and focused on the night drive to Dover. I’d realised that I’d forgotten a high-vis to comply with most European driving laws. So managed to pick one up in Tesco. A child’s cycling one. In pink. With a giant picture of a cartoon fox on the back. That’ll do perfectly!
With the cars loaded up with supplies and fuel, one quick pic before we hit the road for Dover!
Our first leg of the trip was a 3hr 30m trip from South Wales to Dover. ETA – 03:21. Tunes blasting and much banter of the walkie’s saw us make good progress for the first couple of hours. The weather was atrocious so we tootled along at 60mph in the name of preserving fuel, and not crashing on our way to where we hope not to crash!
Craig “nano-bladder” needed to stop for a piss, unsurprisingly!
And then for another one
Found the perfect clothing garments advertised in the Gents this time though!
Eventually, we arrived at Dover
Our ferry was booked for 08:00 but as we arrived early, they booked us on the 06:00 ferry instead. This meant we could get some shuteye in the cars before being loaded. The passenger seat in my MX5 was full of the aforementioned sugar related beverages and snacks, so I hopped in with Craig to have a kip. Luckily, we’d set an alarm. Oh wait, no we didn’t. I was awoken by the brake lights of the car in front and then noticed we were the only cars left in the front, holding up lots of people behind us! Doh! A quick dig to Craig’s ribs to wake him up, ran to my car whilst banging on Mick’s window to wake him up and we were being loaded whist still 79% asleep
Nice cuppa and a Muffin and chill for the 2 hour ferry journey:
We managed to upgrade to the luxury suite for a kip. Little did we know the luxury suite was a 10sqft spit under some stairs
(That’s Craig’s ugly mug)
We arrived at Dunkirk, unloaded and headed to the nearest Café. Well, we parked the cars and using Mick’s fluent Irish-Francais, bungled our way to a pastry shop for some Croissants and Swiss Rolls. We were hoping for a full English and a cuppa but we fell at the first European cuisine shaped hurdle:
Day 2 to follow
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