We, Natalie and I,
left The Conifers, our final holiday cottage on this trip, on
Saturday 3rd September for the drive through Southern
England, France and Spain, in our trusty 2007 Hyundai Getz, and
arrived home, in Orihuela Costa, on Monday 5th September. The second and third
days driving went without any problems and on schedule, cruising the
motorways south through Europe. The same cannot be said for day one,
which was predominantly in England, with a little section in Northern
France to get from the Channel Tunnel to the south western suburbs of
Paris.
Our aim was to get
to our hotel for the first night at 20:00 hrs. including stopping 30
minutes for morning coffee, 60 minutes for lunch, 35 minutes through
the tunnel, and a further 30 for afternoon tea. A stress free day was
the plan.
It all started to
go wrong after just an hour into our driving when we were delayed for
a half an hour near Stamford in Lincolnshire by the multitude of
vehicles clogging the A1, trying to enter the Burghley Horse Trials.
The drivers didn't seem to understand the instruction “For Burghley
keep in left-hand lane”.Once past this problem the traffic began to
flow freely; that is until ten minutes later when we reached the
beginning of the A1M section near Peterborough.
The motorway
section was completely closed in both directions. Having taken 20
minutes to exit the slip road, as directed by the diversion signs,
there was a distinct lack of any more assistance from the highways authority as to which way to go to continue south towards the A14 and
M11, our route for the morning. It seemed to be a case of 'we've got
you off the motorway – now you are on your own'. At first
SatNavratilova was of no use either as she kept insisting on
directing us towards the closed A1M. Out came the historical road map
from the boot of the car, below the suitcases of course, a diversion route was determined, and we
proceeded for some considerable amount of time along countryside A
and B roads until we rejoined our initial route. Having put up with
SatNavratilova telling me she was “recalculating” for some 15
minutes she eventually agreed with my old fashioned planned route and
decided to take over the navigation again.
By the time we
joined the A14, had had a very quick toilet break at some services,
well can't ask a lady to go behind a hedge, we had lost almost two
hours of our time. Never-the-less she, who doesn't like to have to
recalculate, was telling us that we could still, if we didn't have
any rest breaks, just make the channel tunnel before the departure
gate closed at 14:12 hrs. and catch our planned for train departure
at 14:42 hrs. When we left the M11 and joined the clockwise
carriageway of the M25, heading towards the Dartford Crossing she was
still confident, with our arrival time of 13:55 hrs. glowing in the
bottom right-hand corner of her screen.
Having negotiated
the many slip lanes to get into the flow of traffic, I was feeling
confident, thinking to myself that the traffic on the dreaded M25 was
flowing quite well and did the road really deserve its bad reputation
on everyday. This was a Murray Walker 'Murrayism' moment. A few
nano-seconds later Sally Traffic's week-end colleague announced on
BBC radio 2 that traffic proceeding clockwise on the M25 in the
region of the Dartford Crossing was not! There were delays of 45
minutes being experienced. It was an interesting time watching the
lane swappers in their unsuccessful attempts to regain seconds of
their time.
Eventually we had
crossed the Thames over the impressive Queen Elizabeth 11 bridge,
Natalie had accurately thrown our £1.50p toll fee into the urinal
lookalike chute, to catch the pennies, at the toll booth, and we were heading for Folkestone
our gateway to France, and freedom on the motorways. Of course there
was just one problem. Our train would be halfway through the Channel
Tunnel without us when we were now scheduled to arrive at the
terminal!
As we neared the
slip road from the M20 into the tunnel terminal I once more glanced a
look at the fuel gauge which was registering that the tank was
approaching only a quarter capacity left. Remembering the
extortionate price of unleaded, sans plomo 95, sin plomo 95 petrol in
France, and that there is not a petrol station on the entrance to the
tunnel, because Euro tunnel prefer vehicles not to have a full tank
of fuel on the trains, I decided to take 10 minutes to divert and
call into the local Tesco garage to top up with fuel at the best
possible prices. A saving of approximately £4.00p on 30
litres was worth a diversion of less than 3 miles. Time didn't matter
as much now as we were already late. Mission accomplished we arrived
at the check-in booths 1 hour and fifty minutes later than planned,
having had no lunch, and only 7 minutes before our pre-booked train
was to arrive in Calais.
Arriving at the
deserted booths, and selecting one with the ticket dispenser on the
left of the car, so much easier for a left-hand drive, I input our
reservation number. I was asked to confirm I was me via the console
touch screen, which after checking myself in the internal mirror, I
did. I was then informed that we had missed our train! As if we
hadn't realized! As I pointed out to the inanimate touch screen, in a
polite verbal manner of voice, I knew this fact, true to its
advertised policy this wonderful computerised component offered a new
selection of alternative train departures to choose from. We chose
the train just one hour after our original reservation. At no extra
cost. Take note Ryan Air of good customer service.
So, after all the
problems of the journey to the Folkestone terminal we would arrive in
France just one hour late. The rest of the day's, sunny early
evening, travel on the French motorways and the Paris Western and
Southern Périphérique to our hotel would be easy! There wouldn't
be any need to stop for petrol, and as we ate our late packed lunch
whilst travelling through the tunnel, there wouldn't be any need to
stop for tea. We could be at the evening hotel by 20.30 hrs. just 30
minutes later than planned; so I thought!
Two hours of easy
driving on a motorway and we began to notice the ash grey clouds
building ahead of us. A quarter of an hour further they had changed
to battleship grey with hints of lightning flashing across the sky.
Five minutes later the clouds are a dark slate grey verging on a crow
black, coal black, the lightning is forking to the ground, and the
heavy rain is drumming deafeningly on the roof of the car. The
windscreen wipers are on at the fastest speed and not coping with
clearing the water. The drains on the motorway surface are not
emptying the water away quick enough. The motorway has become a
canal. We passed a road sign reminding us that when it's raining the
maximum speed limit drops from 130 kph. to 110 kph. I looked at the
speedometer; we were travelling at 65 kph., keeping pace with the red tail lights ahead, and struggling to see
where we were going. We wondered at the kamikaze captains of the
speedboats in the outside lane. For an eternity, probably almost 30
minutes, we drove into the unrelenting waterfall longing for the exit
from the motorway. We wondered if we would be able to read the
road-signs, through the deluge, telling of the right slip road, when
SatNavratilova reassured us with her instructions of “exit right in
1 kilometre” then “exit right in 500 metres” and finally “exit
right”. I wasn't going to doubt or argue with her. In a
minor way I was like a pilot landing his aircraft under IFR(Instrument Flight Rules) conditions. Unfortunately though she
didn't see the lake on the slip road, neither did the drivers of the
two vehicles in front us. As
they both hit the water it was like a water main had burst through
the tarmac. The 5 metre scarlet fountains either side of them visible
in my headlights and the red brake lights of the cars, a warning to
me.
It seemed as
though the rain weakened shortly after we left the motorway, helping
drastically with visibility on the roads through the Paris suburbs
making it easier to follow the calm, clear instructions from
SatNavratilova, leaving me only to concentrate on the black wet shiny
roads, the multitude of bright traffic lights, and the erratic lane
changes of the Paris drivers.
At last at 21:30 hrs. her confident
voice assured us that we were “arriving at destination on right”.
The hotel sign a glowing beacon of safety from the coal black wet
night.
We had had a day's
driving not to be forgotten and hopefully never repeated!
