Tuesday 15th July - Boulogne sur mer to Calais via Cap Griz Nez, Ambleteuse, Wimereux and a field

After the vets in Boulogne we head directly off as we can exit on the useful side of town. We want to go and have a look at Cap Griz nez and check out Wimereux and hopefully find some rugged wild camping. All of this turns out to be a complete bust. Cap Griz Nez, grey, dull, inaccessible, full of anoraks and cross people. Wimereux, full. Ambleteuse, think it was there anyway where some woman wanted to charge us €10 for the pleasure of parking in her field, extra for the shower and you have to ask for the key. Cheaper in bloody Cannes. Wild camping is looking likely but then all the spots are either taken or too risky. We decide to bail completely and head to Calais and get a campsite. Now, this may not sound like the most tempting option to you, but trust us, this campsite was ace. Private access directly to the beach, no frills, no fuss, cheap as chips and about 2 seconds from the tunnel thing. We stay. For three nights. And we are happy. The weather is scorching, the beach is fabulous, we are safe, sunbaked, and relaxed.

Even though we are in Calais it doesn’t feel like the end of the journey, it just feels like the trip. So….. it is with rather a bump and an abrupt shock that we realise that is the end. That our last days of the trip are gone and we have to go. Just like that it’s finished. But…. It's never over. Until the next time, another Van another year. Au revoir nos amis x

Sunday 13th July - Le Touquet to Boulogne sur Mer

The day indeed dawns promisingly and off we zoom! We’ve also got our tunnel tickets booked so we’ve decided to scout out a vet in Boulogne to sort out the bowzers. We arrive safe and sound and the aire is all the photos promised and more. It’s perched on the cliffs and the town is ten minutes away downhill with the sea to the right stretching far away.

The view from the van window is amazing:

We have once again managed to nab ourselves one of the top spots, full sunshine all day, next to the cliff path but behind a fence so no gawpers and a strategic lamppost that stops people getting too close. This is actually proved by one poor soul reversing into it and nearly squishing his bike rack. Fortunately no harm down apart from red face and cross wife. The sun us blazing, everyone is happy. We take a stroll over the cliffs and discover an old German(?) position hewn into the cliffs, it’s like a cliff fort, it’s got jetties, landing points, wide steps driven from the cliff, a maze of rooms and an infrastructure still apparent today. How very depressing that the endeavour was undertaken presumably with the assumption that the war would be long enough to warrant the effort.  Unfortunately no photos, ah well, shall just have to return J

We take a wander into town to go and explore the old town, unfortunately we must have zigged when we should have zagged so although we get a good look from a distance sadly it is not meant to be. The sun us still delightfully hot, but not ideal when you’re lost and the dgs are melting. We stop for a beer in the shadow of a beautiful church and feel better about life. A stranger gives Moo a biscuit, everybody happy again. We didn’t take in the Nausicaa for the simple reason that like Le Touquet, the place is packed. It’s market madness, throngs of people everywhere, hot and bothered, we retreat to the beach. The beach is jaw dropping, miles and miles of golden sands, totally empty, but blink and you’ll miss it. The tide comes in so fast!! And you wouldn’t credit how enormous the beach could be when you see it fully in, how can it ebb and flow so far and fast? It must have caught out many ignorant sailors in its time.

After the beach we head back to the van , even the dogs are snoozing gently. That is until a fierce yapping from across the way disturbs everyone. The camper van opposite-ish us has dogs and evidently its time for walkies. This van proceeds to go into labour and a very short time later, like Gaia, has produced 8 dogs. 8. We think. Maybe 7. But still. REALLY? ARE YOU MAD??????

Is it 7 or 8?

At no point is Norm ever allowed to know that they exist.

Anyway, after a few beautiful days here it is time to be gone, we have a little bit of exploring left to do and only a few days to do it in. We finally manage to find the old town when we make it to the Vet. We park right next to it!! Yay, we are cultured.

Friday 11th July - Mametz to Le Touquet, Berck, Fort Mahon, Baie de la somme and Le Crotoy.

We make a beeline south-ish to a campsite at Le Crotoy where we hope the weather will be better. We are so anxious to zoom away from the weather that we break our cardinal rule and don’t stop to get another bottle of gas, booze, fags, food, water or anything really. Major error, especially as it is a Saturday. Do we never learn??? We drive through Berck whose population more than live up to the name of their town, nuff said, we pootle down towards le Crotoy and it seems to be a general theme in this neck of the woods, what is wrong with the people around here???? We find one nice town called Rue (ironic when you consider the rest of our day) and we detour for supplies. On to Le Crotoy and our campsite. It turns out to be rubbish. We get as far as trying to park Valerie on a hopelessly inadequately sized pitch and just bail. If people don’t have the right facilities then they should explain to you on the phone when you ask them specifically if they do. GRRR. We go in search of Aires, this too turns out to be catastrophic. Nasty aire, Spartan, cliquey, unsheltered, dunes to the front with no view, brick wall/housing to the side and a roundabout to start. Nice. We park up briefly to let the poor dogs out for a blast on the beach – after all we were reliably informed that this is one of the most beautiful beaches/nature reserves in the world. They lied. We leave.

Sometimes you just have to go with what you know so we hare it back up the coast, past Rue, past Berck, past Fort Mahon etc etc all the way to Le Touquet, where we limp into the campsite on our last legs. Amazingly they recognise us and without further ado we are ensconced and collapsed. La vie est belle again. Phew.

We pass a couple of very pleasurable weekend in Le Touquet, despite the fact that peak season is more definitely upon us. The place is packed. Turns out Norm isn’t very good around this amount of people and noise, it makes town a bit difficult. We manage a meal out though, in a back street restaurant that we suspect may be an undiscovered gem. Can’t remember the name though – maybe all people have this problem hence it’s anonymity. Still, the weather is holding fair and the beach is glorious. Miles of sand for the dogs to tank about on cos everybody else is at the (dogs forbidden) end watching all the cool kite surfer types. We feel very un Point Break sure in our knowledge that Moo would eat their boards and Norm would eat their kites. (note to self, MUST get Norm on the body board thingy!).

There is a big fireworks display and music on the beach on the Sunday, but the weather is overcast and cool and it doesn’t start until 11pm; we are cosied up in bed by 10pm and glad of it. Have we turned into humbugs? Tomorrow we are off to stay in what looks like a really beautiful aire in Boulogne. Fingers crossed the sun shows his face again…. 

Mametz continued, for a while!!!

So,  in fact  we end up staying for nearly 3 weeks!! Yes people, it really is that good here. We pass our days lazing in the sun, fishing the mill pond and getting to know everybody on site.

Some fish (spot Norm’s head):

Without exception they prove to be charming wonderful people and abundant in their generosity with their Pastis. A fine example of this is one night when we have had an early collapse, we are in fact in bed by 9pm..next thing you know there’s a knock on the door and we are extended an invitation to go round the neighbours for a quick drink. 7 hours later, yes seven, having been plied liberally with booze and stellar company and obviously repaying their hospitality with a visit to the bar after hours and a loud rendition of the Marseillaise we finally make it to bed. We love you J

A few days later the weather closes in unremittingly and even we are confined to barracks by the severity of the rain and cold. It’s grim and everything smells of wet dog. We have also received news from home. Through a sad combination of factors we decide that Angleterre will be our destination in a week (via few other places, our last fling with la France). Our feelings our borne out by Fred’s beautiful tree that overhangs the millpond which suffers a gigantic collapse in the night; even ancient wood nymphs feel the burden of the weather. With heavy hearts we bid our farewell to Fred who sends us on our way with Ch’Ti baseball caps (it’s a beer) and hugs enorme. We will miss you all sooooooooo much!!! Au revoir.. a bientot. Xx

Friday 27th June Gourney-en-Bray to Mametz via Beauvais and St Quentin

Today is the day we get to our campsite and set up HQ for plotting ‘ventures and sploring’ into the unknown east. We stop at Beauvais to see the incredible church and cathedral there, but unfortunately it’s scorching weather and the dogs prevent play so we only get an exterior snatch at a view.

We would recommend the aire there though, despite what appears to be it’s out of the way location. It’s actually quite close to everything and masses of park adjacent if you’ve got hounds.

On we go towards St Quentin and the campsite Serracourt le Grand. We have phoned and reserved in advance and are assured that a pitch (and on site carp fishing) will both be available. We arrive and all goes well at first and then we are directed to our pitch. Unfortunately neither of us had the presence of mind to take a photo of this, but picture your standard aire drive over drain, hard core standing, tarmac/gravel, unshaded car park and you get the idea. Despite having no back up plans we immediately leave. I mean… really????? Plus it was full of oiks. Sucks boo to you we say. Except it’s sucks boo to us really as we’ve got no where to go that readily springs to mind, or indeed that we can find online, or via the acsi book, that meets our needs. We have one last card left to play, although it means a HUGE zoom. Again. Our old friend Frederic Lecat and his campsite ‘Camping de Moulin’ in Mametz. Erm. Near Calais. We stayed with him on our first trip and it was a perfect place to hole up, recover, plot and scheme and relax. We can’t get hold of him on the phone and it’s miles away, but we decide to risk it. The comforts that hopefully await us outweigh the miles and the risk, plus it puts us in a position to continue east either via Belgium or Luxembourg.

Jon does yet another heroic zoom, this man needs a medal for endurance driving and upon our arrival we are greeted by Frederic himself who, incredibly, recognises us. Bearing in mind we stayed with him two years ago, for three nights, this is pretty amazing, especially as he may or may not have been three sheets to the wind for the duration of our stay! In short order he has ensconced on a beautiful grassy, sunny pitch with dappled shade, hook up, internet and all the facilities you could ever want (including an entire meadow for the dogs and fishing for us!) for the princely sum of €15 a night. We love you Mr Lecat. As an aside to all motorhomers out there, this man has five pitches and you basically need to stay here. There’s a beautiful carp lake (or three) down the road, the famous and beautiful river Lys runs through the town, the campsite has an excellent bar and the pitches are beautiful and well kept, there is a children’s play area, dogs are welcome and they get a huge field to tank about in. Everything is clean and well maintained while managing to have a warm family feel. The family themselves are completely charming and the whole set up will ease the nerves of the most hard pushed traveller. Do check them out online: Le Moulin de Mametz.

We decide to stay for a week, perhaps we’ll stay longer - especially because Jonboy has apparently inspired some major fishing activities with the locals having hauled out a specimen brown trout and a really big bream!

Thursday 26th June - Deauville to Gourney–en-bray

We are heading into Germany after Deauville, but we are not sure which way we are going to go in… via Belgium, via Luxembourg, via Italy, via where???! So we’ve decided to head a bit closer and bail into a campsite from where we can plot our next moves. After all the miles we’ve covered we aren’t that keen to do any huge amounts of driving (see tomorrow where the plan goes very wrong!) so we’ve decided to get past the notoriously difficult Rouen and spend the night in Gourney-en-Bray. This, remarkably, actualy goes completely according to plan and we arrive at our chosen destination with only one wrong turn. The downside is that due to EPIC crap driving on the part of every single road user we work out that we have averaged 7mph for most of the journey. Yes, you did read that correctly. What is wrong with people? What specifically was wrong with you mr double-artic-over-loaded-with-unsecured-logs-underpowered-swaying-swerving-IDIOT?? 

Anyway, breathe… we did manage to make it around Rouen without incident despite the bridge we needed being closed due to the fact that a new middle section of the bridge was actually being tugged/craned into place as we went past. Well, went around. Slowly.

We arrive at Gourney and the aire turns out to be charming and well equipped (as does the town) with everything you need, and is also free. Happy days. It’s market day tomorrow morning, which we decide to celebrate for no good reason by getting blad on local hooch. Sometimes you just gotta. 

Sunday 22nd June Arromanches to Deauville

The next day dawns fair and we attempt to zoom to Deauville. Unfortunately Noush has an epic fail on directions and we end up on the coast road, despite all attempts to avoid it. Eventually we limp into Deauville and begin the process of finding somewhere to park. This is not made easy for two very good reasons: firstly tempers are somewhat frayed, secondly the aire in Deauville is rubbish. Neither of us are hopeful, but our one salvation lies in some wild camping that we might have espied and the assurance of the tourist office over the phone that campers are allowed to park anywhere. Thankfully almost immediately upon our arrival we find a string of campers parked up in the port. We slide in with no trouble and evaluate our situation. We are parked about ten minutes from either Deuaville town or Trouville, about ten minutes from Noush’s father’s hotel, ten minutes from the beach and we’ve got a big grassy park next to us for the dogs, there’s a sliver of shade and it’s all free. We have landed on our feet, especially considering we are in Deauville where prices are – in the main - wildly inflated.

Jon gets his head down after hideous journey and Noush goes in search of refreshment and her father.  We all convene at Father’s hotel and a grand reunion takes place. This has been a long time coming and to say that has been worth the journey and the wait is to grossly under-exaggerated.

We spend four days in Deauville, enjoying the weather, the beach, the sites, the markets, Trouville, but most of all the company of Noush’s father and his wife. It’s a perfect few days and completely priceless. Dad and Lesley, thank you so very very much xxxxxxxxxx

View from the Van, sort of..

Still, not even for Noush’s father can we stay in a layby forever, so our departure and the next phase of our journey beckons...