Well this is the last blog of our
journey and I hope you have enjoyed reading about our adventures as much as we
have enjoyed them, or most of them should I say.
In Belgium the rain was so bad
that poor Blossom got stuck in the mud in the campsite and we had about 20
people pushing her to get her out. The one thing that has spoiled this latter
part of our trip has been the constant rain.
We travelled along the border of Belgium and then dipped into France
beside Dunkirk and spent the night at an aire in Bergues. When we left the aire the next day we headed
for the motorway to get to the ferry port and ended up in going in the wrong
direction, typical us!! Just as well we had given ourselves plenty time to get
there. Anyway once we got back on the motorway and heading the right direction
we finally got to the ferry port. There was a sign that said “if you have a
reservation or sailing in the next 2 hours use this lane if not wait in the car
park” Ok so we did have a reservation but we were not sailing until 6pm and it
was 3.30pm. When we got to the little window we were told that we should have
gone to the car park until the ferry at 4pm had left. They gave us directions
of how to get back to the car park. We passed through border control and were
given further directions but somehow we ended up where the queues were to get
on the ferry!! Only we could manage to get it wrong. Off I went to the office
to see about getting our tickets and I explained our situation about where we
had ended up and the staff in the office were a bit puzzled about how we
managed to get there but told us to move to the side until that ferry had gone
and come back and get our ticket then. Nothing else to do but put the kettle on
and have a cup of tea.
The crossing was quite rough and
the ferry was late in leaving so we didn’t get back to Dover until nearer 8pm
and arrived to more rain and fog. We stopped at a CL (Caravan Club Certified
Location) just outside Folkstone.
Next day we headed off to meet up
with Wendy and Mick who we first met up with near Barcelona, seems like a
lifetime ago already. They stay in a small village near Bicester, the
countryside and villages round about there are really pretty. We had decided to buy another motorbike to
take back with us to Benidorm, one which we could both ride, so as Wendy and
Mick were both at work we ended up going bike shopping. We got a fantastic
bargain of a month old Suzuki Gladius in a bike shop in Peterborough, bit of
impulse buying as we hadn’t meant to spend so much. The plan was to pick up the
bike on the way back to Benidorm but you know what our plans end up like… NO
PLANS.
We now needed to get a bike trailer and a towbar fitted to Blossom. All
this was going to take time and we were happy to wait. On Saturday Wendy and
Mick took us into Oxford for the day and we had a look around the Ashmoleun
museum and then had a wander about the streets around the University where we
came across filming of the series Lewis and both Kevin Whatley and Lawrence Fox
were there.
Now we had some time on our hands
and that left us with too much time to think about how to get the bike back to
Aberdeen rather than leave it in Peterborough. So we have run around middle
Englandshire looking at trailers and finding out about towbars and you will
have guessed by now we have got the bike on the trailer behind the van. In-between
getting the trailer, towbar and bike we have collect the 70kgs of stuff sent
back to our friend John’s address in Nottingham and met up with my brother at
Meriden which is at the centre of England and we have now travelled back to
Scotland and have stayed with my brother Ian and his wife Ann for a couple of
nights and will be home tonight in Aberdeen so feel free to give us a call and
we can bore you to death with our photo’s.
TTFN for the last time……
