We now needed to get home so had to ditch our original plans to travel slowly up through France, but we didn’t make much headway that day; we had disembarked by 7.30am, but as we always avoid the toll roads we had unwittingly set ourselves up for an arduous 110 miles drive which took about 6 hours including pit stops, ending a few miles north of Grenoble on the P&R at Voiron (n45.34992 e5.556707). Needless to say, we opted for the Peage next day and paid a total of €55.50 to cover 246 miles!
Through Laon’s walls…
..the beautiful old town…
..all set for sun and rain!
Fortunately we had the straight, open Route Nationals at the end of the day so felt we were on the home straight when we set off on Wednesday, headed for the free Camperstop at Laon’s high town. We found the spot, parked up and had a good wander around the citadel town. We upped sticks later on as the parking area was quite noisy, finally ending the day by wild camping (n49.69012 e3.36542) at Travesy, a small village off the main road; we passed a pharmacie thermometer en route which was showing 33deg at 7pm, so it was a bit warm that day! We’d found ourselves quite a remote spot here, so were surprised to be joined a little later by a 2nd couple, but when the chap came over and presented us with some delicious cherries, fresh from their own trees that evening, he told us that he was born and grew up there; they were using it to break their journey up to Belgium.
tranquil Travesy
We reached Grand-Fort-Philippe next day, popping into SuperU to stock up on wine for home and fill the fuel tank too, before parking up for the night on the Camperstop opposite the campsite. Time then to now book the ferry crossing for Sunday morning, giving us a clear, quiet run up to Peterborough.
Camperstop view of Oye Plage
There are no services at GFP so we moved to the unlisted camperstop (n50.97691 e2.03936) in Oye Plage village on Saturday evening so that we could use the dump before boarding the ferry.
After taking the Calais-Dover ferry next morning, we were home by lunchtime, having travelled 3057 miles (on dry land plus 5 ferry journeys this time!) and another great trip was completed! We didn’t do much sightseeing/exploring this time because this year’s heatwave had made it just too hot for us, but we enjoyed it just the same, especially meeting new people, which is always one of the real pleasures for us.