Early on a Saturday morning, we packed the last things into the car, posted our door keys through the letter box and set off to Folkestone for the channel tunnel.
With a couple of stops along the way, we made the 300 miles down to the Euro Tunnel terminal in Folkestone. We decided on the Euro Tunnel for a few reasons, its faster than a ferry but more importantly we could remain in the car with Pippa. On a french ferry she would need to left on her own, we felt that all the strange noises would scare her and due to the time of year there was no availability for a pet cabin o the Spanish ferries.
We arrived at the terminal and went to the pet centre, where they checked Pippa’s microchip matched her health certificate. They pointed us in the direction of the dedicated dog walk area , gave us a hanger for the car windscreen and a pet sun shield. We went into the terminal to get food for a late lunch. Before we knew it our train was being called and we made our way to the passport control in the car where they directed us to a departure lane. The process was very well organised and within minutes we were driving on to the train! After approximately 35 minutes of well deserved rest for Andy, we were in France.
We made our way to the outskirts of town in Boulogne-Sur-Mer, to an area called Portel, where we stayed overnight at the Aire Camping Car du Portel, the we found on Park4night. This car park offers, water and toilet disposal. we set up for the night, walked into the town and bought takeaway Pizza for dinner. Opposite the Aire was the beach, we went for a walk to give Pippa the opportunity to chase her ball and saw the lovely sunset.
We set off early on the Sunday morning as we wanted to cover around 800 miles, to get to Bordeaux. However as we made our way towards Poitiers there had been several traffic announcements informing us that there was very long delays on the motorway to Bordeaux because of a traffic accident. We made the decision to cut todays journey short rather than sit in a traffic jam and looked for somewhere to stay.
We found a lovely campsite called Camping Du Bois de St Hilaire in Chalandray. this site was run by an English couple who were very friendly and accommodating. The site has a nice pool area, toilet and shower block that are cleaned regularly, washing up area and a small bar. This is a site we would definitely recommend if you are in the area and we will definitely return.
The plan for Monday was that we would reach Zaragoza in Spain. We started our journey just after 9am the road to and through Bordeaux was very busy, there had been an incident on the other carriageway which caused a traffic jam on our side. obviously everyone likes to slow down to see what is going on and here was no different! With this delay costing quite a bit of travel time, we made the decision to look for somewhere to stay around Pamplona. Without too much trouble we booked into Camping Ezcaba for one night. This was a fairly large site with a bar, restaurant, shop and large pool area. The pitches were a decent size and well spaced, the toilet and shower blocks were clean and never too busy. We got organised and then went to eat in the restaurant. the food and service was good and a reasonable price. This is another site we will possibly return to.
Tuesday morning was a very welcome last stretch of our journey, we made two toilet and one lunch stops throughout the day, arriving at our holiday home around 6pm. Andy did all the driving over the four days, my job was merely finding us places to stop! Suzie and I want to thank him for his amazing driving skills!
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