The first 3 days

Sunday 24.4.11

Waiting at Calais

Calais

The truck with Hilary and Josie

Inside the truck

Cool dude driving on the wrong side of the road (for us)

We are on the ferry  (The Spirit of Kent) from Calais to Dover, it’s 9.50 Easter Sunday. You can’t see much out to sea, there is mist in every direction, but the sun is there through the haze.  It was lovely to hear an English voice at the UK border control, about 2 metres further towards the ferry than the French customs/police booth.  Though Di did say, “Bonjour” to the very British officer, who just smiled.

We spent the night in the ferry car park last night, along with a number of other campervans and cars, very quiet apart from a bit of engine noise this morning at just after 6 when the traffic started up to catch ferries and one (or more) arrived from elsewhere.

We are on a P & O ferry, very large and comfortable. Heaps of very comfortable seating, tables, couches and soft arm-chairs. Hilary is watching a movie on the big screen, we have shopped for maps and a DK book of Great Britain.

Yesterday after we left McDonalds in Doullon I think it was, we drove down to Albert which has a great WWI museum apparently, but unfortunately we didn’t have time to look around as I was aware I wanted to catch some memorials/cemeteries etc.  and we had quite a drive to Calais. I think we need to spend more time in Brittainy and Normandy, there are some fantastic historical sites and also scenery which we didn’t have time to enjoy, so I reckon a week or two there settled at one camp-ground maybe and doing day excursions on our way back from the UK.

Anyway we took a couple of photos of a beautiful church in Albert, with a golden spire gleaming in the sunlight.

The white cliffs of Dover

The haze over the cliffs

The view from Louvencourt cemetery in The Somme

Louvencourt

Thiepval the day before ANZAC Day

Pozieres Cemetery

The church in Albert

Thiepval Monument

Inside the truck

Dinner first night

                      Albert was another of those towns/cities that proved to be somewhat difficult to find our way through. We made the mistake of going off the main road so as to get a close up picture of the said church which we had seen in the distance. We turned off left into town knowing  that the road we wanted was signposted to the right to Bapaume. Easy we will just take a photo and make our way back to this intersection!!!!!  The Tui ad comes to mind!!! About 30 minutes and a number of terse words later, after we had gone around one round-about 6 times from different directions, on our last attempt we chose the correct road.  It was signposted but then all signs would disappear, eventually  I stopped and asked a Frenchman who gesticulated wildly and said,” blah blah blah blah gauche blah blah blah Bapaume” which I translated to, “keep going along this road to the round-about, then turn left, and carry straight on to Bapaume”, my translation must have been spot on, because that is what we did and voila there was Bapaume!!!

On the way we stopped at some memorials to the Allied forces, 3 in particular come to mind, the first Louvencourt  in a field surrounded by farm  buildings in a very quiet rural spot, with beautiful views out over the green and yellow fields,

 

 and the other which was our intended  ….Thiepval.

This cemetery at Thiepval had a very good visitors’ centre with a movie running and static displays, so we spent quite a while here. The monument was immense. The photos don’t really show it, but in one you can see Diana in the background just to give some perspective.  On each of the white panels are soldiers names, the lettering about an inch high, 200,000 in total….. totally inconceivable.

The cemeteries are numerous to say the least. It seemed every few hundred yards there was another paddock filled with gleaming white tombstones, and many brown signs pointing down roads towards other cemeteries and memorials. The area is so peaceful and stunningly beautiful with yellow, green and browns in patch-work, interspersed with pretty sleepy little villages each with their little church, it is hard to envisage the horror and carnage that the soldiers and civilians had to endure.

A couple of days later, lying in bed in London, listening to birds, jets and trains.

I had to leave that entry about half way through as we were coming into Dover and Di told me you could see the “white cliffs”, which was enough to make me leap to my feet, camera at the ready. It was still a little hazy, but I did my best.

 

Various Dover Castle shots

We intended driving down to Rye from Dover but inadvertently took the road in the opposite direction, in looking for a turning place we stumbled across Dover Castle, so decided that fate had led us there for a reason.  It was great, we spent hours there, looking at buildings, we did a tour down into the tunnels, reading up about the history of the place. It was very old, started in 1000 I think, added to at various stages and used for different wars. The tunnels were only discovered in 1980 (the one we went into) it has been set up to resemble how it would have when it was used as a hospital during WWII. The smells are authentic hospital smells, and as well as the live commentary there is a story of a young mosquito pilot who was shot down over the channel  and brought in to the hospital for repair. It is really well done, and interesting.

From Dover we drove north around the coast towards Sandwich and Deal.

We had joined “EnglishHeritage” at Dover, so determined to get our money’s worth stopped at Walmer Castle and Gardens as well, not that far north of Dover. Hilary and I had the “concise” do it yourself tour of the castle, before heading out into the gardens to do the Easter trail which involved finding wooden eggs on the woodlands walk, answering quiz questions, and being rewarded with a chocolate egg (only for Hilary, not me) at the end. Pretty castle, nice enough gardens, but nothing stunning. I don’t think I saw more than about three flowers at the French Chateaux we visited, lots of buxus, but I’m hanging out for colour.

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We stopped at a picnic spot in Pegwell Cove and Di cooked dinner while Hilary and I walked down to the beach. Not a swimming beach, more mud-flats really, but with interesting cliffs and a display board about what is buried in the cliffs, woolly mammoths and woolly rhinos! To name two.

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We spent the night at Nethercourt camping ground. Just a tiny little place where we set up our beds, used the toilets and hot showers, washed our dishes, spent a quiet night and left from at about 8.30 Easter Monday morning (only yesterday but seems like ages ago).

0603 Nethercourt Camping Ground.

Yesterday we drove up from Nethercourt to London. We stopped a number of times, firstly at St Augustine’s cross which is situated between Deal and Sandwich if I recall accurately. This is the spot (now 2 miles inland) where St Augustine (and 30 followers) is believed to have landed in England, and delivered his first sermon on Christianity.

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Our next stop (another English heritage site) was Richborough Fort and Amphitheatre.  Another fascinating site which had a really informative audio-guided tour through it giving a great historical outline of the area. Again hard to believe the Romans there in that paddock, living in a thriving village complete with pub, church, shops and houses. They kept changing its make-up and purpose as the area became threatened by invaders they would raze what was there and build over changing from large village, to fortified village, to garrison. Hilary of course was permanently fixed to her audio-guide though when asked if she had enjoyed it, stated, “it was alright”.

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We decided from here that we needed to head reasonably directly to London, with a stop at Leeds Castle as it was described as one of England’s best. It was a long drive through country roads to find the Castle, bloody expensive to get in (£43 for the 3 of us, with our heritage discount) but the tickets do last a year, so we may go back when we are back that way in a couple of months.

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From Leeds Castle we decided to use the M2 to get up to London as it was 3.30 and we didn’t want Yvonne wondering where we were. Well, it could have been straight-forward but for two things. Our fuel was running low, and we didn’t have a map of London. In France there seemed to be petrol stations every 20-30 kms, but not on this motorway. I kept seeing the needle on the fuel  indicator creeping lower until inevitably the orange light came on. Not only were there no petrol stations there didn’t seem to be any off ramps. On and on we drove, trapped on a serpent of asphalt, fast approaching the fangs end, my heart beating harder and faster, blood-pressure rising, as I waited for the spluttering conclusion, willing the van on, bargaining with whatever higher power would listen. My bargain was, you get me to a petrol station that sells maps, I don’t mind where, but once we have fuel and a map we can do anything. Well some higher power listened, but I should have added, “a petrol station that has functioning fuel pumps, and a retailer who can show me on the map where we are”.  Thankfully there was a lovely Muslim man there also trying to buy fuel, who told us where we could get fuel and that if we carried on the same road we would get to a sign to Finchley. We took the risk of not following him when he turned back to get fuel from the other side of the road, as he said there was a station not much further on, on the road we wanted.  Shame I say.   We got pushed off the 406 when the road became 2, and by then we still didn’t have our  location sorted on the map. Oh, and we still didn’t have any more fuel, and the orange light had been on for about 50 kms and there was still no sign of a fuel station. Just as I was about to dissolve in a screaming crying mess I spotted a fuel station,  shining beacon-like around the corner, across the other side of the road, with a traffic island in the way to prevent any u turns etc. Well desperation does funny things to a girl. I am normally very law abiding, you know, walk an extra 200m rather than walk up 5 empty stairs that have a no entry sign on them when there is no-one else around.  I also worked on the adage that “might is right”. So I did a 3 point turn in the middle of a very narrow street, held up a few cars, some tooting, others waiting politely and just took my sweet time negotiating my way into the narrow entrance and around to the pump. I don’t think the French number-plates on the van are a help in England, it seems to bring out the rudeness in some of the locals, or maybe they are just rude in general, like the men who were playing on the road outside the fuel station with their transit van blocking my exit so I had to reverse out again and manoeuvre around the pumps only to be blocked by a rude man refuelling his car who stood in the way knowing I couldn’t get out unless  he moved sideways a pace, and deliberately took his time. I was tempted to sideswipe his petrol door or mirror off as I squeezed past, but my maturity came to the fore.

OK so we have fuel, and an A-Z of London.  Now find out where we are, we know where we want to go, plot the quickest way from A to B and we are off. Well we had to get from map 68 to map 30. Sound complicated? Apart from distance it was remarkably smooth, we had to follow one road up 3 maps, and then catch the 406 across 4 maps and we were there!!!!  Really easy with the proper maps… Just took a long time in the traffic, but at last we arrived at Yvonne’s, it was like coming home.

She is so pleased to see us, chatting away and talking excitedly about what we could do while we are here. Hilary has taken a shine to her, especially as she took her out into the garden to put out some food for the local fox who visits each night!!!