2017-08-17 Gravelot aire in Calais to Home
Gravelot aire in Calais to Home
We have set the alarm (two of them just in case) and are up around 4.30am. We get dressed and on our way to the tunnel terminal, arriving at 05.15 (check-in closed 45 minutes before departure! This is actually our first channel crossing via Eurotunnel, in the past we have used the ferry.
After checking in and passport control, we queue down to the station platform at around 05.40. It is all a new experience for us as we drive along the platform alongside a train without windows to a carriage with an open section. We drive into the carriage one after the other, are checked by the train staff and the shutters divide and section the vehicles inside the carriage. We sit tight, although we could wander up and down if we want to.
The whole operation is very slick, leaving at 06.00 to the minute and arriving at Folkestone at 6.30am. We are signalled to drive off as quickly and efficiently as we had driven on at Calais. Before 7.00am we are on the M20 northbound for London and the M25 in torrential rain. We muse that we have barely seen rain in the past four weeks, except the Bremen thunderstorm and arriving in Sweden.
The UK traffic is as bad as it gets and the driving is not good, too fast and too close in such awful weather. We cross via the Dartford tunnel as the M25 is gridlocked, we are glad to stop for breakfast on the M40 services. We stretch our legs and then get on the way again only to see that the M6 is gridlocked, Thelwall viaduct being closed because of a problem with the rollers on the bridge spans. We groan and change our route taking the A50 through Derby and Stoke and then the A34 north via Wilmslow to Manchester. We finally arrive home around 7:30 pm, 13 hours after leaving Calais on Eurotunnel.
Gravelot aire in Calais to Home photos
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Motorhome return tour from Turku in Finland to the UK via the Baltic States Poland Germany and Eurotunnel
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