Wow, what a change in the weather. The rain had stopped during the night although the sky wasn't exactly blue we did have the views across the vineyards below. The vans bringing the grape pickers had moved in at day break & were hard at work as we left the campsite to return to the motorway on our journey home. This area of France, with the rolling vine clad hills & pretty stone villages will be one that we'll be returning to for further exploration.
The day passed pretty well, the motorhome's 2.8TDI engine eating up the miles. This part of the autoroute system is pretty quiet & in some places deserted. As today was the 'head north day', we remained on route stopping overnight at the Municipal Camping at Chalons en Champagne, a site that we have visited before as it's a useful distance from the ferry port at Zeebrugge.
So parked up on hard standing, careful to avoid the trees which interfere with the Sat TV, we once again stocked up with local honey from the 'honey-man' as he buzzed from van to van offering his wares, 500 ml pots at 4.5 euros.
today's mileage = 191 miles
Day 13 Sunday 6th October 2013
Lovely sunny day, bright blue skies greeted us as we prepared to move off. The site was not particularly busy, mainly people en-route to somewhere else. Also this was one of the more expensive overnight stops at 23 euros.
Once back on the motorway with the GPS set for the P & O ferry terminal at Zeebrugge we enjoyed a pretty enjoyable drive north.
A lunch stop just south of Lille followed by a straightforward drive through Lille itself which, on a sunday, was pretty much like any major city, not exactly busy! Normally we would bypass Lille by turning right towards Tourai, but being a sunday we thought 'what the heck'!
It is noticeable that once on the Belgian road system the road condition become somewhat bumpy, however the fine weather seemed to bring everyone out. We always enjoy looking at the local agriculture as we travel, here in Belgium we are amazed at the amount of muscle on their beef cattle, we were not disappointed on our drive to the port to see the pretty small fields by our standards, housing herds of Belgian Blue cattle or growing maize for animal feed.
As we headed towards the port, the long sandy beaches to the south were busy, kite surfing, sand yachts, everyone out and about enjoying the fine weather. The P & O ferry port sat waiting for us as we drove in, we weren't the first to enter of the last, though there were a good number of motorhomes & caravans waiting to embark. The afternoon's entertainment being the inspection by customs of all vehicles for illegals; everywhere being checked - the shower, the wardrobe, the drop down bed, the lockers .............
So with no stowaways found, everyone was on board by 5.30pm. As the ship set sail. we sat eating our evening meal in the Bistro watching the shore line disappear, had a near miss with a zig zagging container vessel [even the crew looked twice] & then followed the slowly setting sun westward across the North Sea homeward bound.
Total mileage = 211 miles
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