This sudden and totally spontaneous trip to Poland started off innocently enough in early June as we said goodbye to our Polish friends in Spain after staying with them for a week. Heading back to their homeland, they mentioned they needed to build a garage and an off the cuff remark of “we can come over and help” turned into a two week road trip to Lodz.
So on one warm Thursday morning in July we left home at 5am and headed to the M6, hoping to beat the morning rush hour around Manchester. The Pupster settled between the front seats and basically stayed there all day. Overall it was a good journey – M6, M1, M25 until we were approaching the Dartford Crossing and then we slithered to a halt and crawled glacially towards the bridge. It sounded by the radio traffic reports, that the whole area around the M25 was gridlocked and any thoughts of a sneaky detour were futile so we gritted our teeth and hung on in there.
It must of been a good 40 minutes before we were able to engage 3rd gear and we hurtled across the bridge to the M20, onwards to Folkestone and Le Shuttle. We were greeted by huge signs “Welcome to Le Shuttle” before stopping at a kiosk and being checked in by a member of staff who then declared that we needed to take Pupster to the Pet Reception and pointed vaguely in the distance.We didn’t really have a clue where to go and tentatively followed lanes lined with cones (hoping we were heading in the right direction) until we were ushered by staff to carry on and finally parked in a broad area of tarmac with several other campervans, motor homes and caravans.
We grabbed the Pupster and followed the signs to the Pet Reception, hoping the £100 plus piece of paper that acted as her passport was all present and correct. After a quick microchip scan, she was checked in and ready to hit France. We hit the Passenger Terminal for a well deserved coffee and headed back to the van to munch our previously purchased sarnies from one of our stops at the motorway services, enjoying the hot sun and fresh breeze. There was a large board announcing departures and when to go to border control so we kept an eye on that. Our 15:30 train had already been delayed by 40 minutes (like all the other trains that day) when Le Shuttle announced that they had “unexpectedly lost a number of their trains” (careless of them) which we found hilarious and quite mind boggling! The electronic announcement board inched closer to our number and we hoped to see “Go to Border Control” very soon. Sadly instead, we got “wait 23 minutes to be updated” and when that time was up, a further 15 minutes. This was getting rather frustrating. Then imagine our dismay, when our departure time was changed to 18:30! Despondent and desperate for the loo, we wandered back to the Passenger Terminal and finding it cool and air conditioned, decided to sit it out there. We hadn’t been there 10 minutes, when we were called to go to border control. Not quite believing it, we trotted back to the van, and meandered along with other vehicles around various roads until we hit another row of kiosks and our passports checked! Now this was more like it! Our next hurdle was the French customs about 100 yards beyond, but we were diverted to a shed on the side together with a Discovery and a Volvo. Oh no, hope this wasn’t going to be a full “empty the van” search, but all they did was waft a wand over our steering wheel and to check our gas was off (couldn’t check the actual bottle as they had parked the Discovery two inches off our back door) so we turned on the hob and burnt off the residue gas and that apparently satisfied them.
Finally we rejoined the queue for the French customs and then followed the signs for “Large Vehicles” as instructed. Another labyrinth of lanes, another kiosk and finally first in the queue in Lane 14 where a red traffic light halted us. We reckoned we had more than an hour to wait so we flung the doors open until we noticed the traffic light had turned green. Yikes! Back into the van, follow the coned lanes and we suddenly found ourselves on the platform for the Le Shuttle. We couldn’t quite believe it. After a short wait, we were ushered on, drove to the bottom of the carriage, parked, wound the windows down and breathed a sigh of relief. It was 5pm. Somehow we were late, but earlier than expected.
Le Shuttle is quite shabby really. Grubby and tired and losing trains unexpectedly, but it did its job and soon we were back in daylight in Calais. Easily escaped the terminal and began to follow the satnav to our campsite in Ypres. For some reason we had told the satnav not to take motorways, so we had a rather scenic route through some very agricultural landscapes with acres of harvested corn fields, sweetcorn and other crops interspersed with pretty villages – it was like driving through Suffolk – which was lovely, but a bit time consuming.
We arrived at the Urban Garden campsite in Ieper at 8:30pm and promptly made a cup of tea. A quick check out of the site – which was full of British vehicles – and we were soon recommended to walk to the town centre some 12 minutes walk away. We all needed to stretch our legs so we followed a woodland path that came to a road which in turn was cordoned off for roadworks. A British couple had sneaked across by slipping through the railings surrounding the works and we snucked across too. We walked along the river until we reached the magnificent Menin Gate, a memorial for over 54,000 men killed during World War One. It was quite thought provoking to look at the names and the sheer number of them. It sent a shiver down the spine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menin_Gate
We walked through the Gate and down the beautiful main thoroughfare before it opened up into a fabulous square, surrounded by the most amazing architecture. It was stunning. We found a lovely restaurant with a terrace and settled down for a celebratory drink and some food. Being slightly overwhelmed with our day, we failed to realise that it was 9:50pm and the menu stated that last food orders were 9:30pm. But the wonderful waiter checked with the kitchen and gave us the full menu. We chose a quick snack as it was so late and felt a tad guilty. The waiter struck up conversation with us through the Pupster and managed to end up talking about Ypres war history and his 20 year old grandfather fighting, getting captured twice and escaping twice, the second time with success and ending up in England. We even got a photo of the young man. It was fascinating.
We said our goodbyes and waddled back to Van in the dark and basically crashed.
apathtosomewhere 