We find the campsite at Saint Leu d’Esserent (L’Abatialle),
awesome place with really lovely people who are utterly charming in their
welcome. We head to town to try and find some supplies and instead come across
a lovely little bar run by what could well be the nicest bar woman in the world,
serving the finest cold Beer In the world. As great as the ale was we were
somewhat bemused by the name, as popular belief would have us believe this is
contradictory.
Maybe, we mused, this beer contains some closely guarded secret
properties? We, however, preferred the story that is was in fact brewed by a distant
relative of Thomas Hardy the famous Poet who had an unfortunate Christian name.
After staying too long and putting too many Euros into the Hardy
brewing enterprise we made our way back to the campsite. We had come to a
decision in the bar (after receiving a phone call of potentially good news)
that the time was right to head back to the UK. The phone call, the length of
time we had been on the road, coupled with our recent engagement and the need
to go and see our families, made the decision fairly clear cut and easy. That
and the rain! So, decision made we decide to have an early night and make a
break for Calais early the next morning.
Next morning dawns and we greet it with EPIC shab on board! All
thoughts of an early night were washed away (by far too much red wine) in the
realisation that this was the last night of our trip as we knew it. However, we
put a brave face on the hangover and set off for Blighty.
The fates have not finished with us yet though and even in the
twilight of your adventure they still manage to surprise us. We have been
attempting to wind our way gently north avoiding the autoroute in order to see
the best of the countryside, but the roads are just too busy and it’s taking us
forever. So we make the executive decision to take the next road that will get
us onto the autoroute so that we can make some time. Unbelievably that road
happens to take us through Mametz: the campsite we stayed in on our very first
night of the trip in France all those months ago. It’s mind bogglingly
coincidental, what are the chances???! There have been many odd coincidences on
this trip but to end up, by pure chance, going through Mametz was almost like
we had gone full circle. There has been more than one occasion when we have
felt that the hand of fate was guiding us.
As we pull into the docks at Calais, we have one final laugh
which above all else has epitomised this epic road trip. We roll up to the check in window passport
control thingy and the guy asks us where we stayed last night… you would think
that this wouldn’t be a particularly difficult question, but it leaves us both
totally stumped and mouthing wordlessly, like goldfish, at check in guy. We
honestly can’t think where we’ve been and the guy is looking at us like we’re
on drugs or something. We try our best to explain that we’ve been travelling
round Europe for the last few months and that we’ve honestly got nothing to hide,
we just can’t remember where we were last night! Thankfully he sees the funny
side and lets us through with a chuckle. It does bring the point home though,
all the places we’ve seen and the miles we’ve travelled. It has been an epic journey
and an adventure, something that we’ll look back on with no small amount of pride
at what we’ve achieved. Whilst this might be the end of our travels for now, we
will be back in a few short weeks to carry on trying to find our new life and
to brave the second chapter in what we hope will be a lifetime together of
discovery and finding our place in the world.
Distance travelled to date 5,600 miles
With light minds and hopeful hearts we bid farewell to France,
we’ll be seeing you again soon….
To be continued..