On the Cliffs of Le Tréport, Normandy

Zagan the motorhome’s steadies are down folks. We’re face first into the wind coming up over the white cliffs of Le Tréport, a fishing port with a hearty chunk of industrial stuff slap bang in the middle. The town’s clearly been having a good crack at attracting the tourists too over the years, and we’re enjoying their efforts by being parked up in one of the town’s motorhome aires at a mere €6.40 a night, with freebie funicular rides thrown in (N50.05822, E1.36319).

We’ve made a bit of progress down towards Paris the past couple of days, albeit just that, ‘a bit’. Sticking to the free roads, and doing 90 minute stints at a time, we first headed inland from Sangatte down to the medieval, walled town of Montreuil for a night, before taking more toll-free road to get here this morning.

A quick aside: if you’ve not driven ‘abroad’ before, ‘on the wrong side’, and are perhaps nervous about doing so, I have good news for you! In our few years of nipping out and back into the UK, the scariest part of the driving’s almost always the route around the M25 and the M1 to get to or from home. Especially the M1 bit, which seems to attract the worse kind of ‘do or die’ nutter. I wouldn’t so much mind this, but for the fact the ‘or die’ bit could apply to me and Ju or whichever other poor unfortunate ends up in their path, rather than the careless fools which might actually deserve the consequences of their actions.

On this particular exit from Blighty, our brush with death came courtesy of a National Express driver. Pulling into the middle lane of a fairly packed-out M1, I was a tad unnerved when the bus, which had been back in the distance, quickly caught us up, undertook us, and then at rather a late moment realised the slow lane was occupied by a crane doing about 40mph, much slower than the bus. Rather than take the sensible route of applying the brakes to reduce the speed differential, the bus driver, who was now alongside us in several tonnes of metal, glass and squishy passengers, opted to pull back into the middle lane in order to avoid losing his hell-bent momentum. The only flaw in this plan: we were alongside the nutcase, boxed in, nowhere to go. With dilated pupils and doubled-up blood pressure I gently reminded him that he was about to kill us all with a minute-long lean on the horn. Evidently, this worked, as we’re not dead. To be fair to this particular muppet: he would have been far from alone in the Random Acts of Idiocy Awards for that jaunt south. If you can’t tell, I’m relieved to be driving ‘abroad’, where the roads are relatively empty and fewer people seem intent on maiming me and my loved one.  

Right, where was I? Ah yes, Montreuil. We’d popped the place into our satnav as it had a free aire and lots of good reviews on park4night (N50.45954, E1.75936). Seems we aren’t the only ones with these aire databases, as when we arrived all eight spaces were occupied with motorhomes and campervans. Fortunately the town has a gravelled parking area alongside which used to be the aire itself, and still has the service point but now functions as an unofficial overflow area. Before parking up in a corner of this area, we headed to the service point and emptied our fresh water tank, which we’d filled at the van’s storage location, and which was making our brews taste chemically. Partly this was down to the fact we’d chucked a load of sterilising tablets in there, but mainly down to the fact it tasted awful in the first place, hence the tablets. For years now we’ve not drunk from the water tank, as we’ve found it too easy to end up with an upset tummy that way, but the water was a tad too rough even for tooth scrubbing. €2 later we were full of fresh stuff, although we’d forgotten to empty the water heater’s boiler, so still have a few litres of swimming poolesque water on board to get through.

Although a space or two did appear in the official aire, they were quickly taken by new arrivals and in the end we didn’t move from the adjacent parking, sharing it for the night with six other motorhomes. Lots of British registrations too, perhaps as we were on a main toll-free artery flowing to and from the northern French ports, plus there’s a large vets a couple of minute’s walk away for pre-return dog worming treatments.

Montreuil proved a nice place. A market was just packing up in the cobbled square, where we narrowly avoided buying a cooked chicken as he’d flogged all the small ones and only seemed to have ones slightly smaller than a cow. Making do with full nostrils and empty bellies, we took a sunny stroll around the town’s high walls, past the busy street cafes and back to Zagan for a tea and a few hours of Broadchurch on the telly.

The half marathon last Sunday’s done me in a little, and I didn’t have the enthusiasm to do much else. Or more accurately, the couple of 8 mile runs I did in the days after it, which I really should have skipped or run less quickly. My heart rate’s still down at 46 (which is good), but I’m run down and need a rest. Ju’s pulled something in her knee popping stuff in the car boot when we set off, but managed to run a few km this morning without ill effects, so we’ll soon both be up to speed again.

Here at Le Tréport we’ve paid for a couple of nights, and had a short walk around the southern part of the town. The cloud’s since gone leaving a pastel blue sky, but it was cold earlier and we were glad of our winter coats as we ambled the few meters to the cliff edge. The walk into town takes you down ‘The Goblins’, named after the fire goblins said to live in the fire lit on a tower each night to guide ships into port. You get some great views of the rooftops, port, church, factories and the end-of-the-line railway.

Part way down’s a sign for the Kahl-Burg, an underground bunker network built by female Ukrainians and local conscripts in 1942, as part of the Atlantic Wall. Having been to Ukraine, I can only say I feel very fortunate not to have been born there, especially a hundred years ago, as the folks there seem to have been roundly crapped on by history, with this forced labour episode just a tiny, tiny example. We walked over to the entrance where a hand-written sign declared the place closed for the day, so headed down for a walk around the shops and restaurants.

Ju’s just looked up Trip Advisor’s top things to do in Le Tréport, and the Kahl-Burg is on there and fairly high up, but below the funicular which comes in at number one.

While we enjoyed our ride up on the glassly box back to the aire, we’re a tad worried it’s the best thing to do here, followed closely by the seafood market, which we’ve also taken a look around? Ah well, there is a film festival in town today, and we may yet get treated to George Clooney arriving up here in his Winnebago. Watch this space.

Cheers, Jay