The morning of our ferry crossing (31st July) was a stressful one. Firstly, I had translated the wrong set of instructions for our Crit’Air sticker and had placed it incorrectly on its sticky backing so we had to stick it in place with sellotape! Not a big deal really but when you’ve had a scare during the night due to the alarm and then have to wake up early because “today’s the day” knowing full well that you have to get everything “ready” which includes waking the children from their peaceful slumber and into their car seats so we can make our way to the White Cliffs of Dover, I have to sadly admit that I was nearly in tears over a sticker!
Then we arrived to madness and in my husbands stress of it all, we entered the wrong queue, going into the queue with huge lorries rather than the one with cars and all the other motorhomes. I was flapping like mad as we watched the vehicles in the queue we were supposed to be in move at a fast pace through security whilst we were stationary between two huge lorries. My husband had a calm exterior but was slowly getting annoyed with my obvious panic at potentially missing our departure and my constant goings on about our situation so he really felt the pressure! 10mins before we were supposed to be boarding we finally moved and had our passports checked by a lovely policeman. Hooray!! Turns out there was a delay with our departure anyway!
Our little girl absolutely loved the journey on the ferry and spent most of it outside on deck watching the waves roll and crash. It was such a delight to watch her little face. We were told by my father-in-law, “Whatever you do, when you get to Calais just keep driving for at least an hour” so that is exactly what we did. We decided beforehand that we would avoid the motorways because we had read about the expensive tolls along the way and also thought that it would be nice to actually see France via country roads rather than what my husband refers to motorways as “boring roads”; not because there is not much to see but because of how straight they are, after all we have a lot of time on our hands now and time is no issue for us.
Our first stop was at a campsite right next to the beach which we fully enjoyed and the next day saw us at Nausicaá aquarium, where we spent most of our day gazing at beautiful sea creatures in all their glory. Have you ever seen pig nosed turtles? If you haven’t then look them up as they’re ever so funny looking. I find it amazing how there are so many species out there and many more that we have yet to discover!
That night we stopped in our first free Aire, yes free!!; a car park in Saint- Riguier, which has a beautiful Abbey, before making our way to the capital and making our little girls dream a reality. Now anyone who knows our little girl knows that she loves windmills so we decided to stop and get out to go and touch one and see it up close when we happened to see one not far from the road. They are massive!! She was all big smiles and full of excitement. Now to someone else that might be a small thing but to our little girl it was a big thing- it was naughty and exciting all at the same time and this little person got to stand under this huge structure and it brought light into her eyes and ours. Sometimes it’s the small things in life or huge things whichever way you look at it.
K.E.E.N Explorers 