Four (or Six, depending on who you ask) Countries!
We’ve pretty much closed out our first Real Day[tm] of travels. This beautiful Sunday morning we left Almere NL at 9:19am, a car packed full of goodies (food and otherwise), and we were destined for Doncaster UK. The first part of the trip was to Calais FR. Getting there was okay except for a weird 45min complete stand-still near Jabbeke BE. There were construction works on the road there, and I think maybe a car had broken down on the one-lane passthrough, so folks had to manouvre around it, or push the car suitably far into the shoulder for the other traffic to pass. As soon as we passed it though, it was smooth sailing to Calais.
We got there pretty early, as we had a 3:50pm train. When we rocked up to the gates, the LCD screen flashed ‘Welcome Mr Van Pelt!" which we both thought was pretty awesome - they have cameras reading the license plates and retrieving the reservations that way. We were offered a choice to go on an earlier train if we wanted to, so we moved our departure time back to 2:50pm. We ate some chicken (3 “halbe hendl” each), and then made our way onto the train. It was very very (very!) tight, with less than 50mm on each side of the tires, and a metal ledge which I tried very hard not to hit, so as to not damage the rims even more :) It was OK.
Then came the exciting part. England and driving on the Wrong Side[tm]. Actually it wasn’t that bad. I trailed a guy from Berne for a few miles on the high way and then decided to overtake him and go for it. The drive itself was pleasant and no major traffic, despite having to go all the way around London. In total it would be some 240 miles from Folkestone UK to Doncaster UK. Easy peasy! Paul and I switched drivers after about 130 miles, and he took the second part. Just before we hit Doncaster, we hit 1024 miles on the trip odometer, which of course we had to take pictures of.
When we arrived at our Campanile, the room was ready, already paid for, and checkin was easy. We bashed around a bit with the Savage [Paul and I both made a little movie of it], and then went for dinner. The place Google Maps suggested had been since closed, so we drove into town to find some grub. After walking up and down the main street, we settled for a Tex-Mex joint. You may ask: why would you eat texan/mexican food in Doncaster UK? I may say: good fucking question.
It’s now 10:10pm and I’m beat. I will take a shower and pass out in this overly squishy bed. Tomorrow, we go to Edinburgh.
- Pim has now been in: CH, DE, NL, BE, FR, UK.
- Paul has been in: NL, BE, FR, UK.
By the way: in further posts, we are so totally calling Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland out in an ever growing list of countries we’re visiting on this roadtrip!!
Posted by Pim van Pelt at 2:10 PM
