Final Days to Oye Plage, Before The Ferry Home
Zagan the motohome has parked up in Oye Plage (N50.97691, E2.03924) for his last night on French soil. The village (once again) offers a free place to park your motorhome and a service point which we’ll use for the final emptying of Zagan before we drive the 25 minutes to the ferry tomorrow morning. It’s 33°C here at the moment, so we’re looking forward to getting back to Blighty where it’s bound to be cooler!
The aire is next to a building housing homing pigeons – there is a leaderboard, but we can’t work out how they have ranked the pigeons.
After a quiet night in Pont-a-Mousson, we were off early. Our plan was to get as close to the ferry port at Dunkirk (or Dunkerque as they French call it) as we could using the free motorways of Luxembourg and Belgium. Unsure if we would be back in France before the supermarkets closed on Sunday, we stopped at a Hypermarket for a bit of a stock up. The only problem was the place was huge – the drinks section alone was bigger than our local Sainsburys. After a few minutes of drooling over the cake section, I lost the will to shop. Is there such as thing as too much choice, it certainly felt like it.
Hmmm cakes – I could happily have filled my trolley with all of these, I’ll miss the French Patisseries
I hate the feeling I am being watched while I do my shopping
I eventually tracked down the ‘table wine’ section in the vin cave, yes we have expensive tastes, and once the trolley was too heavy to push around a corner, it was time to head to the check out. €160 disappeared off the credit card, and somehow Zagan’s benches managed to consume the evidence.
A few kilometres later we crossed the border into Luxembourg, making a bee line to the nearest petrol station. We think, from past experience, that fuel in Luxembourg is the same price in all petrol stations, so no need to hunt out a supermarket. We pulled into the first motorway services we came across, along with the rest of the world. The diesel was €1.105 compared to France which varies from around €1.46 – €1.56 a litre depending on where you fill up. It looks like everyone else wanted to save money too, so despite having several lanes, each with three pumps, there was still a queue several cars deep. We filled up with 60l of fuel, saving €18 based on the price in the cheapest supermarket we’d seen in France recently. Sadly LPG was only available on the southbound services, so after battling our way out of the services – the car park was packed, cars abandoned on access roads – we carried on towards the port.
On the other carriageway, thousands of Dutch caravans were heading south for their hols
A services further into Luxembourg had LPG, so we stopped and topped up at 0.52c a litre, saving even more. Those bottles of wine chinking under the benches were now feeling like they were free. All too soon we popped out of Luxembourg and into Belgium. A quick stop for a late lunch at a picnic spot – they have loads all along the motorway for the sheer volume of lorries using their roads – and we were now starting to flag. We hunted out places around us to stay, and found somewhere another hour and half up the road. That would put us just a couple of hours away from Dunkirk which would make it an easy Sunday drive.
We pulled into the aire to find, again, we had been very nearby before. The free parking area was next to the canal by an old boat lift (N50.47133, E4.09005), which was one of four that were replaced by a huge hydraulic lift where we had stopped off back in 2012. The little village of Thieu which surrounded the old boat lift had 250 houses and the town hall demolished back in 1990 to make way for the new canal, which takes boats up to the new big lift.
Motorhome parking next to the new canal with the new boat lift in the background
After a cooling drink watching the boats go by, we went for a walk along the old canal which was behind us. We only made it as far as the bottom lift, there were three others spread out along the canal, as we were tired from what was a big driving day for us. We’ve got too used to only driving for an hour or so at a time to make life easier for Charlie.
The old boat lift works on a balance system – one side lifts and the other drops.
The new boat lift on its canal below the old canal that we were walking along
Last night an ice cream van drove along the row of motorhomes by the canal, its tinny tunes reminding us of home. As it was still roasting hot and he’d gone to all the effort to drive to us, well it would be rude not to. Jay abstained, I’m amazed at his willpower, so I had two scoops.
This morning we were up early again. We wanted a quick paddle in the sea to end our trip, and as it’s a hot Sunday we figured all parking places would be rammed. Zagan’s new front springs got their first proper test as the free Belgium motorways deteriorated in front of our eyes. In places huge potholes and bad road joints had us wincing, but the engine didn’t cut out like it did in Morocco, so all was good.
We re-entered France just south of Lille and used the free French motorway all the way up to Dunkirk. Passing the signs for St Omer, my eyes filled with tears and my heart felt heavy. Our first time crossing the channel without Charlie, and every little thing reminds me of him, including the sign to the town where we used to take him to the vets for his pet passport treatment.
I’ll miss the random brown tourist info signs by French roads – I like to think about the town meeting where they decide what they want to put on their sign
We arrived at Oye Plage around 10am, and found a place to park just before the height barrier for the nature reserve car park. There were more tears on the beach as we remembered how much Charlie loved the beach, chasing sticks and stones, rescuing stones from the sea and snuffling out bits of dead crab to scoff. When he was in his prime, I think he was at his happiest on the beach.
Bird watchers on the beach
Judging by our tan lines, we’ve had a great trip
After a stroll along the shoreline, paddling as we watched the ferry we’ll be taking tomorrow leave the port, we headed back to Zagan to find somewhere to stay overnight. The village of Oye Plage is a little way back from the beach, so there were spaces in the free aire. Pulling in we were welcomed by Kate who popped over to say hello. She along with hubby Chris and their three children were off on their summer hols and wanted to thank us for the information on this blog. Just when I was feeling very low, her kind words lifted my spirits.
DFDS ferries heading into and out of Dunkirk.
We went for a short walk around Oye Plage, but as it was Sunday most places were shut. The sun was beating down on us, so we soon retreated back into Zagan. We’ve spent the afternoon watching the Tour de France on the TV and sorting out under the benches to make unpacking easier when we get home tomorrow – that sounds so strange. I don’t feel ready to go home yet, I guess walking through our front door will be the final confirmation that Charlie has gone. Fortunately we’ve got tickets to a festival taking place next weekend and I have been looking forward to that since I bought them back in November, so we’ll be away in Zagan again almost immediately, no point in switching off the fridge.
When we set off on this trip we left three sets of prints on the beach. We need to get used to just being two now.
Ju x
Great blog guys we are off to Wilderness Festival next weekend are you going to that one ?
Hi David
We’re off to Carfest North this weekend. Enjoy Wilderness, I hope the weather stays good for you.
Ju x
Charlie is missed by all,he really was a huge part of your life but also a big personality too! I got one miss him already, Hope it’s not too difficult when you get home. I hope you don’t mind but Ive got a technical question? Can you help with it, when accessing our WordPress account on line, e.g. Mifi 3 sim, it’s gobbling data like the jolly green giant! We’ve turned off automatic updates on windows 10 on our Lenovo laptop but it’s using 420 mg in 7 minutes! Not uploading photos we were just copying a word doc into WordPress, no other devices are connected, sorry for asking but it’s driving us mad and eating up our budget! What in your opinion should our data usage be just having the WordPress account open?
Thanks in advance
Cathy
Hi Cathy. WordPress should be using next to nothing unless you’re uploading media files. My guess is something else is using the data. You could ensure the MiFi network is flagged as a metered network on your laptop, that might help. If you have phones etc on the MiFi network, they could be the culprits too. Try having just one device attached and check use. Then do a search on “what is using my data laptop” for example, for advice on tracking down which app is using all your allowance. Good luck with it! Jay
Hi Jason, thanks so much for your prompt reply! We’ve set the laptop to metred on wifi a few weeks back, also no other devices connected, we’re obviously going something else wrong but can’t figure it out, it’s probably something so obvious to others and I bet we’ll kick ourselves when we get to the bottom of it, we do videos on you tube and resize our photos with faststone resize app before uploading them, not being able to update the blog is so frustrating, I’m sure you know all about that too ! Have s great time back home
Cathy
Meyouandpogo2.blog
A few sorrowful moments there – no doggy footprints weaving about four hundred yards all over the place for every one hundred you walk in a straight line! What a great life he had. Hope it all eases once you have got past the different life landmarks. Best, Robina
Sorry to say LPG is available on the north and south services in Luxembourg.
If the services you went to are just before the Belgium ikea and the turn off to Arlon?
They were for future reference on the far right which did say cash only, it did take cards as that is how we paid four days ago.
The first services only had it on the south side, they were as you enter from the direction of Metz going up to Luxembourg capital. So we only got diesel there. We filled up with LPG at the one you mentioned near IKEA. Thanks for the info John, as you say handy for others and for future reference! Cheers, Jay
Hope you guys are OK. My Mrs family lost their dog whilst we were away too. Heartbreaking.. Take care
It’s so difficult losing a pet, they are one of the family. Your pain will fade and you will have many happy memoroies to look back on
It’s amazing how small gestures and connections on the road can lift one’s spirits. Your blog has been a constant source of inspiration and information for fellow travelers, and it’s fantastic to see the impact it has on people’s journeys. Thank you for sharing your travels.