Summer 2016: Adventures in Europe, Part 1

Day 1- Wednesday

Location: Oye-Plage, Nord- Pas de Calais. Free aire, no services GPS n50,99703 e2,04228

Miles Driven: 152m Norfolk – Calais, 10m Calais – Oye-Plage. Total 162m

Weather: overcast, some sunny spells

Bluebell the motorhome is parked up by the sea alongside several other vans from across the continent and we are waving to the big ferries traveling between Dover and Dunkirk.

We set off from a wet and miserable Norfolk late morning giving us plenty of time to reach our 6pm Eurotunnel crossing from Folkstone in light of recent reports over the weekend of hours and hours of delays. Of course, we had a remarkably quick journey, reaching Folkstone in around 3 hours, making us 4 hours early, and predictably, due to the summer holidays we were unable to travel on an early train! Oh well, we parked up and operation chill began with an immediate afternoon nap and a cheeky Burger King for good measure -Keith was suffering with a ~~migrane~~ hangover (we’d had a boozy night with friends in the village last night!) and before we knew it we were gliding through passport control at an alarming rate considering the extra high security alert at the moment and on our train waving Au Revoir Angleterre!

We initially thought we would drive straight to Belgium but on the train had the realisation that we are over here for 4 weeks, longer than ever before (and boy doesn’t Bluebell know it, her cupboards are filled to bursting!) so decided to pick an aire (French Overnight Parking spot for motorhomes) from our Bible (aka Camperstop Europe) ten miles E of Calais. Twenty minutes later and we rolled onto Oye-Plage, conveniently located a stones throw from a nice little locals bar, 5 minutes after that we were propping the bar up enjoying our first continental beer of the trip, a nice refreshing Pelforth each, thoughts turning to where next?! We’ve been slightly less organised this time round, with only a loose plan of a route, we have chosen to embrace this and so tomorrow we will be sampling a few Belgium beers/chocolates in Brugges.

Day 2- Thursday

Location: Bruges Air. 25€ per 24hrs , full services inc electric GPS n51.195670 e3.226380
Miles Driven: Oye-Plage- Brugges 64miles
Weather: mainly sunny
After a great sleep we woke feeling refreshed and eager to explore so we wasted no time and set off around 09:00, stopping at the municipal aire in the village to do our services (fill water/empty loo and waste water etc).

An hour or so later we were saying Au Revoir France! Bonjour Belgium! and 30 mins later, thanks to our trusty CoPilot and Camperstop app we were pulling into our secure aire on the edge of Brugge and ready to explore! What a perfect day!