2020-03 Spain & Portugal Day 1
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Lancaster to Portsmouth
Early March 2020, today we travel to the south coast, overnight at Portsmouth then catch a ferry to Santander in the morning. If we are going through Eurotunnel to France we normally drive to Folkstone, take a meal in a restaurant then cross to France and overnight at the large aire in Calais. That’s easy with the slick checkin and travel of Eurotunnel. Day one of our holiday. I say day one, but of course there has been a lot of preparation work done before we leave home, sometimes I think it’s not quite right to call it day one when we leave, maybe we should count all the days spent planning our motorhome journeys around Europe.
Spain via the ferry is different, 28 hours on the ferry is a long time. Taking into account that we live in Lancaster, that’s a drive of around 6 1/2 hours to get to the south coast, so we aim to arrive there, stay overnight then take an early ferry to Spain. Early is a relative term for us.
We have packed the Hymer B544 Premiumline model the day before, so all that remains to load are the last minute things like mobile phones, laptop, journal and diary plus those forgotten things that always mean a trip back into the house as we make the last minute checks. Gill is very good at this, having a checklist that has been honed to perfection over many trips.
We are booked on the Brittany Ferries sailing at 0815 Tuesday, so we have allowed all of Monday to travel from Lancaster to Portsmouth in our Hymer B544. It’s a long journey. Motorway travel in the UK can go well, or it can be a nightmare with delays caused by collisions or roadworks. Changes to the motorway network to create so-called ‘smart motorways’ are predictable in the sense that you will be delayed. On completion of all the work you will still be delayed so there doesn’t seem much sense in it.
To save time on the journey we make a flask of coffee so that our stopping time can be kept to a minimum. Gill and Alan share the driving, usually in about 2 hour sections. Departure around 1130, Alan drives the first 2 hours, reaching Stafford services on the M6, here we stop for lunch, Gill takes over the driving and does a long stretch before we swap and I drive the last stretch to the port and Solent Marina car park. We used a well-know phone app to locate this overnight stop at Portsmouth and phone ahead to request permission to stay on a car parking area. There are no facilities except refuse bins, but all we need is a place to stop and sleep overnight. Having a ferry departure at 0815 means checking in by 0730 at the latest so there will be no sightseeing today.
Portsmouth is not an easy place to find an overnight stopping location, although the UK is starting to have a limited number of places where motorhomes can stay overnight. There is a real problem in the UK in the shape of two organisations for caravan and campers. These organisations have networks of small campsites as well as their own larger sites, but access is limited to members of the organisations, the facilities are very rudimentary and variable, and costs far outweigh the value of the service. Europe is served by a huge network of ‘aires’ (as they are called in France) most of which are free to stay at and have nominal charges for water etc if those additional facilities are not also free. Motorhomes are seen in a positive way in Europe, they bring visitors who spend freely, especially on fuel, groceries and wine, not to mention eating out in local restaurants and paying to visit tourist attractions.
The last part of the journey was done in heavy rain. We have a meal ready and eat, do various activities and play cards – we don’t have a television – then settle down for the night.
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