France Sep 2010, Day One

Day one 4th Sep

We had to be in Dover for 11:00 to catch the 12:00 ferry, so we checked the route with AutoRoute and it reckoned that the 322 miles would take 4 hours, 42 minutes. Well we don't trust AutoRoute it usually takes a lot longer than predicted, so instead of setting off at 06:00 to get there just in time, we set off at 03:00. It took us about 4 hours, 42 minutes to get there and we had slowed down for the last 50 miles, we arrived as the 08:00 ferry was leaving and luckily where allowed on the 10:00 sailing. The new (since last time we used them in 2006) ferry was quite nice although most of the toilets where out of order.

As it was 12:00 by the time we arrived in Dunkerque, we decided to stop at the first convenient Aire for our lunch but it was miles before we found one, we were starving and guess what, the toilets were unusable. We had borrowed Nicole's SatNav and it worked pretty well until I noticed we hadn't turned off the A26 onto the A1 and ended up on minor roads for the last 35 miles, not really something you want when you have been up since 02:00.

We had filled the fuel tank the day before we set of, so we had the full 60 litres and I reckoned that was just enough for the 480 miles or so to the site. In the end we had enough for another week of short trips and in eventually got over 600 miles on the one tank.

BERNY RIVIERE La Croix Du Vieux Pont Rue de la Fabrique - 02290 Berny-Rivière Web Site

Checked in, the Mobile Home seemed to be nice, we unpacked the car and got changed into warm weather gear, it was then I noticed, that part of the main bedroom floor was wet. I reported it to Siblu reception and found the reason for the wet floor was, that a new shower tray had just been fitted to replace a broken one, we got a fan heater in the room to dry out the carpet. I also got the satellite working, we take it with us in the van, it is a portable system, so why not and there was an England match on, again.

As we were tired after a long day and it was about 16:30 all we did was head to the bar for a drink. It looked like we were in luck and that there was a better selection of beers than there had been last time we visited in 2008. We knew it was going to be expensive but if the beer was good that was fine, Dot got a Edelweiss and I ordered a Affligem, not just halves either, pints. We sat out in the sun to drink them, I tasted mine and it was not good, I thought it was half beer and half cider and set off back to the bar.

"This doesn't taste like Affligem" I said,
"yes it is" said the barman,
"it taste wrong" I said,
"it is ok" says the barman
"it doesn't taste like Affligem should" I say
"it taste like Affligem Red should" says the barman, I then reread the beer list.
"sorry I didn't look properly" I sort of apologise.

It was strawberry flavoured and not to my taste at all, mercifully, Dot agreed to swap half of her beer with me, we didn't have another.  We where supposed to be having lasagne we had brought with us for tea but we just went to the takeaway for pizza.  We also got a couple of beers there for less than half the price in the bar, it was also stronger and more drinkable.

After the pizza and beer we just went back to the van watched a bit of TV and had a relatively early night.