Our route returning via the Caen ferry

Today is the day of our return to the UK, I always find it rather sad when we’re heading for home, but there’s always something that says it’s good to be going back.

We sleep well here on the aire de camping cars at Port Réan, and wake around 7.30am, starting the day properly with coffee. It is a still and calm morning, the swallows swoop low over the river and catch flies, fish jump breaking the water surface. The bridge has eight perfect arches reflected in the river like a mirror.

We breakfast and have a shower (not least as we have access to free water so we can fill the tank before we leave). We service the Hymer and get on our way to Caen around 10.00am taking the D577 to Bruz, D177 to Rennes which is only about 20km away. Then onto National Route N136 all the way to Caen. This is a good dual carriageway road across Brittany, past Le Mont Saint Michael and the Cherbourg penisular. We note how ‘British-looking’ Brittany is, all rolling fields and countryside divided by green deciduous trees. It is quite hilly and reminds me of the rolling south downs in England, not at all like France. We stop at Aire de Chamborg for lunch and onto Caen arriving at the ring road (peripherique) around 2.00pm. We call at Super U, for cheese, jambon and wine, but they have a poor selection of wine. It is very busy around Caen and especially towards the ferry port. We buy wine at Carrefour and diesel at €1.377/litre and then on the last 2km to the ferry port.

It is very congested, long queues and very badly organised, with cars pushing in and pulling out of lanes at all angles. It takes us about 45 minutes just to get to the check-in desk and then another 45 minutes to queue through passport control and wait to board. It feels very stressful. We board quite early, park up on deck 5 (tall vans and motor homes). We walk up to the main deck area (8) with bar, full sit-down restaurant and self-service restaurant (which is really a glorified café or even snack bar), find a table and sit down. We are due to depart at 16.30, it is 17.15 before we leave, it is unclear why there is a delay, just an apology for late departure. Alan purchases a pizza, pastry and orange juice for £7.85. I go to purchase a salad, dessert and orange juice and ask if the ice cream is dessert, he says it is. The chocolate ice cream has cookie dough in it, so I change it to a yogurt. The guy on the till is very stressed and cross when I point out that he has over-charged me by £2 for the main/dessert/drink menu. He tells me I didn’t ask about the dessert, I point out I did but he didn’t tell me that yogurt wasn’t included (why… I wonder!).

He sighs, cancels the receipt and generates another and I pay. He is even more stressed. I wonder why there are no hot meals being served, I dare not ask in case he explodes. Later we discover that there is another ‘self-service restaurant’ serving hot meals and puddings at the front of the ferry… must look everywhere next time and not just sit at the first place we come to. The journey is slow and seems to drag, it IS slow, as we are over an hour late arriving at Portsmouth (on top of the 45 mins delay leaving Caen). We finally arrive at Portsmouth at 22.30 local time, instead of 20.15, no reason given. It takes us another 45 minutes to get through UK border customs, it is about 23.15 by the time we leave the port. It is dark and pouring with rain, we are both tired, not least as we have put our clocks back one hour to UK time. We can see that we are not up to driving another hour on the A34 in torrential rain, we are too tired.

We find a layby on the A34 north of Winchester where the trucks have stopped, park up, pull down the bed and climb in. Not the ideal way to get back into England, but we are here. The Hymer rocks from side to side as the trucks pass by, I sleep.