14. Apr, 2016

THURSDAY 16-4-15

We again woke to a glorious blue sky and the temperature in the vehicle already at 20°C. Special treat this morning - a nice hot shower. We could afford to spare the water as we could replenish our tank before leaving using a tap on site provided for the HGV drivers. After breakfast we moved off, parking briefly over a drain to dump our 'grey' water before hitting the road again. Lunch was again at a TruckStop amongst the HGV's.

I once worked with a character who had been an HGV driver. His colleagues in those days had nicknamed him 'Doggie' because of his habit of peeing up the wheels of his lorry. Well over here we have 'Sons of Doggie', giving the HGV parking areas that unique aroma.

Tonight was to have been spent in a parking area which has a toilet block; these again are used by HGV drivers for overnight stops. It was in the countryside about 100 miles from the Austrian border. However whilst The Chef was preparing the evening meal we, and numerous truckers were joined by a wreck of a saloon car carrying six adults and a small child. The car had Hungarian plates, and these folk definitely looked Roma. They must have got a great trade-in deal on their donkey and cart to buy the car.

Out of the boot came a mattress and bedding which was thrown on the ground, then laid upon by the young child. For the next 30-60 minutes the four young males in the group behaved in a rather feral way, the mother of the child looked as if she was going from truck to truck propositioning the lorry drivers whilst the grandmother went from vehicle to vehicle begging. She didn't get anything from me other than two loud words “NO” and “GO”.

We could have remained there for the night as planned but would have felt rather at risk, despite all our cards and cash being locked away in a hidden steel safe, and all the doors having double locks. These people looked like professional scum and I just know I wouldn't have slept well wondering all the time what they'd be up to when they thought we were asleep. Although I felt we could deal with any surprise or unprovoked attack this situation was predictable, and so we decided to move further on down the road. After our meal we left the 'Hungarians' pitching a small tent on a grassy area next to the car, so presumably it was to be four in the tent and three in the car for the night. We drove for about 30 minutes until we came across a TruckStop with full facilities. Here we would get a good night's sleep with the added bonus of a shower in the morning as we could refill our water tank.

14. Apr, 2016

14. Apr, 2016

14. Apr, 2016

WEDNESDAY 15-4-15

We awoke to a beautiful morning. After scrubbing up we did our final bits of shopping in Carrefour, including lashings of boxed wine. Having stowed it all onboard we popped back in to the complex for a snack (it was supposed to have been breakfast) as well as taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi to send an email to Snooper detailing the problem with the Satnav.

We didn't hit the road until about 10:45, passing through Belgium, a place we like very much and plan to visit again, part of the Netherlands (whatever happened to Holland?), then in to Germany, where, although they regularly beat us at football, when it comes to World Wars, we're still 2-0 up.

The motorway was very busy with huge numbers of HGV's presumably making their way to Eastern Europe. I was most impressed by the wide rivers and canals we crossed, navigated by large barges. There were a number of long river cruise boats, even this early in the season, and I imagine in peak season the rivers would be so crowded that it would be like cruising the M25.

We pulled in to a TruckStop rest area just east of Cologne at about 19:00. I was amazed to see that they charged 70 cents, about 50p, to pass through a turnstile to use, what looked like, nice clean toilets. This explains why our parking area smelt more of gent’s toilet than country air. We enjoyed a nice hot meal and an early night as Rosina was feeling quite rough with a cold coming on.

14. Apr, 2016

This trip was the third of three I uploaded retrospectively, and knowing nothing about blogging didn't quite get it right. As a consequence when working your way from the back to the front of each 'chapter' the photographs and videos corresponding to each daily entry are below the text rather than above it.

TUESDAY 14-4-15

We left home at about 18:00, and had a nice straightforward run to Dover, except for my discovering on the way that having 'updated' the mapping online in my Snooper Satnav I had nothing. It looked as if the download had emptied the MicroSD card but had then failed to load the replacement version, so I now had a Satnav with severe dementia. I was so angry with myself. I should have checked and tested it, but I hadn't, and now I was stuck. Fortunately we carry a spare, the Garmin Satnav we bought for our 2008 tour of America. Since returning home I purchased the Europe SD card, and just as well I had, though by now the maps will be out of date.

On arrival at Dover Port we were directed to the security shed for a check. A young lady came onboard to look around whilst asking several questions including was I carrying any knives other than those for domestic use, baseball bats or other weapons or pepper spray? I answered 'no' to all the questions but I must confess I was telling a little porkie. We do have some non-violent personal protection should I feel it warrants getting it out on standby. It's not just valuables and cash that are locked safely away in the hidden safe.

On leaving the ferry at Calais we made our way to the Cite Europe shopping complex (GPS: N50.932880º E1.811049º) next to the Channel Tunnel Terminal. We parked up in the large, almost empty car park outside Carrefour supermarket where we spent a comfortable night.