Another year and another European road trip was on the cards! After the roaring success of last year’s 4-day mini break with the girl child, we were heading off for a longer trip but this time, we were dragging boy child along too.
As we set off, the only things that we had pinned down were:
- Our ferry from Dover to Calais
- Our first night accommodation just south of Calais
- Our second night accommodation in Nice
- Our return ferry from Amsterdam to Newcastle in 10 days time.
We had booked the first night’s hotel on a new credit card and didn’t receive a confirmation page nor could I see the booking in my Hotels.com account. I assumed the new card had not worked and so rebooked on a new card……comforted by the fact that I had been told that there was only one room left on the initial booking and was told the same when I looked to rebook. There can only be one last room, right? Spoiler alert…..wrong! We will come back to that later.
The plan was, each evening, to look at a map and talk with locals and work on the adventure as we went along, taking us to wherever the vibes pushed us. We had an open road in front of us and we had a full tank of petrol and a playlist on Spotify all set up and ready to go. That playlist as named by daughter child, ‘Europe Who’ as in ‘You are a Poo’ just to set a benchmark for the level of conversation.
By the way, this seat-of-your-pants style of taking a long drive into the wilderness of Europe was NOT what Titchy is all about and so she remained very much at home for this one.
We set off from Whitley Bay at quarter past eight on the 10th August with a safety briefing from the kids mum ringing in my ears. 160 miles later we were in Newark where the boy child bought a new set of headphone for the trip, I think the playlist wasn’t to his liking, and we got chatting with a really nice guy in Curry’s who talked about his love for Notts County Football club. I assumed that his name was Colin, but I could be wrong.
As we got back into the car I was getting annoyed by private number plates as I was sandwiched between a Jaguar that had the letters “XJ” spaced into his plate and another that had “CUM” built into theirs. Grow up. Both of you.
The sun was shining, the roads were relatively clear and the car was full of smiles and silliness. There is an air of expectation and with two of the most laid back kids you could imagine, it was like driving into a blank sheet of paper where we could write our own stories. Honestly, we could end up anywhere.
We made it down to Honeywood Road Tesco in Dover by half three so just over seven hours on the road including stops and that was 366 miles at 54 MPG. Any Dad’s reading will love those stats and there are plenty more to come. I could even be tempted to download data from the VW app and post graphs!
We just about got to the café in Tesco in time for a quick refreshment stop, the lovely lasses behind the counter had to fire up the coffee machines to make one last cup for us each before they put on their coats and ran out the door, leaving one poor lass to mop up behind us on her own.
As we did last year, we booked the Aferry.com and they couldn’t have been any better or, frankly, and cheaper. To be one hundred percent clear, I am not a paid promoter of theirs, but they are bloody good! For just £141, Irish Ferries, can get three adults over to France with their car, provide unlimited food and drinks in their lounge that has leather seats and Wi-Fi AND you get a discount at Duty free. Well played AFerry and well played Irish Ferries!
We had just over an hour and a half to get our fill, and let’s be honest, the food wasn’t made by Gordon Ramsey, but it’s wholesome and comforting and got the trip off to a great start. We pottered around the Ferry to have a little explore but couldn’t really find any reason to move too far away from the posh seats, away from the riff raff, other than to try on every aftershave we could.
I watched the White Cliffs of Dover getting smaller and felt weird that I didn’t smell like me. I was just happy that the various aftershaves I had showered myself in hadn’t combined like a marvellous medicine made by George to turn me into some sort of monster, just smell like one.
We disembarked and waltzed through customs and made the very short trip to Saint Omer to our confusing hotel booking at the Auberge du Colombier. I tried, using a combination of my mostly forgotten GCSE level French and Google Translate, to explain that there may have been a double booking and asked the receptionist to confirm.
There were indeed two rooms in my name but she saw the error and said that I needed to chat with the manager at breakfast and it would all be sorted. We made our way up the wooden stairs in what looked like a converted farm building and into a very clean and pleasant room, albeit airless and swelteringly hot and sweaty with no airflow or aircon to help us out.
We had spotted what looked like a bar and restaurant and so made our way over for refreshments. It turned out that on the other side of the building in which the bar was based was a sprawling campsite that covered what seemed like miles.
We sat with parents getting drunk while watching their kids run around the playground, some booting footballs as high as they could while others sat and stared at their phones, all of them fuelled up to the eyeballs with Pepsi or, for the more adventurous and willing to take on the local traditions, Orangina.
A few drinks in and we couldn’t contain ourselves and more and we managed to ‘persuade’ one of the groups of kids to let us borrow their football and we had a quick kick around to get rid of the 8 hours of sitting we had been through.
After 18 and 21 years, my strategy of running my kids around until they fell asleep was still working a charm. We retired to the room with sweat on our brows and ready for sleep but not before the last action of the day and, possibly for me, the highlight.
I managed to plug my car in for an unexpected and free charge on their open electric point. A great end to a great day.
Itchy Feet and Titchy Feet 