Sweltering in the Dunes, Sainte-Cécile-Plage
As I’m guessing you’ve all noticed, the heatwave is back folks! Although it’s (thankfully) not yet knocking on 40°C here south of Boulogne-sur-Mer, it’s pretty warm. Ju and I have some history of attempting to travel through a heatwave, once resulting in exploding tempers and an in-a-huff-aborted drive from Hungary to the Austrian Alps! As well as some top tips for how to survive a heatwave in your motorhome. Taking our own advice, and wanting to avoid fireworks again, we’ve more recently taken a leaf from this dog’s book when it gets roasty-toasty:
We left the campsite at Carsington Water at the end of June, and had a few weeks back home. When I started to write this, I wondered what we did in those weeks and I’m not entirely sure. We both managed to catch Covid, one after the other, which kept us isolating and feeling poorly for over two weeks. I went to the local Nottingham Splendour festival (Ju still had the ‘rona) with friends for their 50th birthday and we helped my niece move house – along with some serious gardening. My Dad bought himself and electric bike, so when he and I took the trails in Derbyshire one day, he thoroughly beat me up every incline. For the final parts of my 50th birthday presents from Ju we had a go at pottery throwing at Denby pottery, and went to watch the athletics at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, which was just an amazing experience.
We’ve now been floated over the Channel and installed ourselves at Camping des Dunes for three nights, near Sainte-Cécile-Plage (N50.56419, E1.582491). Hopefully that’s long enough for the heatwave to pass and normal weather to resume. We’re not sure if it’s one of France’s cheap-and-cheerful ‘municipal’ sites here, but it has that kinda feel. The shower block gets slated in online reviews (looks OK to us, not that we’ll use it), half the water taps dotted around are dryz-a-bone and the power points are so far distributed there’s a sort of informal National Grid of cables lying across the dust-and-sand roadways. But it has a laid-back feel, has direct beach access and the pitches are all spread around on different levels, separated by mature foliage in the dunes so we’ve plenty privacy. Oh, and it’s all of €17 a night (two people, 6m motorhome, no elec) in the middle of August, that’ll do nicely.
We’re ‘out’ for about 5 weeks. That’s how long we’ve got between things we need to be at home for in the UK. We’ve not been in the van for a few weeks, and it needed a bit of fettling, so before we set off we have:
- replaced the leaking bathroom tap and waste hose,
- topped up the tyres with air (they had all lost about 5psi),
- poured in about 1.5 more litres of coolant into the engine (not sure where that went, might have a week leak somewhere),
- removed and resealed the dripping kitchen skylight,
- slapped a UK sticker over our now-defunct GB one,
- and ignored the fact the fridge has been on-off playing up staying lit on gas (touch wood, it’s working fine at the moment).
Knowing this free slot was coming up in our calendar we’d been playing about with ideas on places to go. Ireland and the Scottish West Coast were both close calls but in the end we opted for heading over the Channel. Why? No idea. Perhaps the fact there are just so many options once you hit the continent, perhaps the fact we wanted to feel properly ‘abroad’ again? Again, dunno, but here we are anyway.
Having loaded the van up with seemingly everything we owned, including ski coats when it’s 30+ degrees (you never know), we headed to the local Sainsburys to top up with stuff. Aye, that included cheese and bacon, which makes us international grub smugglers as, as far as we know, we can no longer take either of ’em into the EU these days. We’re not suggesting you do the same (English bacon might be a bit hard to find but they’re not short of cheese in France) but we were lucky and not stopped at customs.
Other than our cheap-as-chips truck satnav insisting the Queen Elizabeth II bridge didn’t exist (we’d set something up wrong), we had a pretty smooth journey down the M1 and around the M25, remembering to cough up the Dart toll online as it’s a few years since we last used it and they have shut our account to pay it automatically. Like everyone else we’d seen the huge queues on the telly at Dover at the start of the school holidays and, perhaps anticipating problems, DFDS asked us to be at the port 2 hours before our boat. Which meant being there at 6:30am for us, so we stayed overnight at the £8 Canterbury Park ‘n’ Ride motorhome aire the night before.
As we’d arrived in the evening, Canterbury was pretty much closed. Some of the shops have closed permanently too, giving the otherwise lovely city centre a slightly depressing edge. After wandering around the streets, parks and walls for an hour or so we sat and watched a broken down bus being loaded onto a recovery truck (we’re not busy, and it was fascinating), and got our (working) bus back to the aire.
After a quiet night’s sleeplessness awaiting the alarm, we leapt up bleary eyed at 6am and headed the 25 mins south through the fog to Dover. As we dropped down in front of the white cliffs we could see there was no traffic and we only waited about 15 minutes to get our passports stamped. At the DFDS check-on booth the lady offered to pop us on the earlier 7:10am ferry, so we were sat in our designated ‘queue lane’ for all of 2 minutes before boarding.
Ju and I have different points at which we start to really relax and enjoy a journey abroad. Mine’s probably once the van’s parked on the ferry deck. Ju’s is once we’ve driven off said deck, as she’s a lifelong fear of sea sickness. This time we were lucky and the sea was calm. We stood on the rear deck as the boat left the port, watching the cliffs grow smaller and reflecting on how different we’ve felt each time we’ve been faced with the same sight. The excitement, urgency and nerves of two-week holidays from work in our campervan, which later gaveway to a sensation of unsettled bewilderment on our first one-year tour then unbrindled joy on later long escapes. This time we both felt pretty relaxed, ready for a wee wander about, no major plans to explore the world, remould our minds or discover new places, just a chill-out trundle about the place.
Sat inside, alongside a huge round window, we were treated to a flash of dolphin, before spying what appeared to be a dingy in the distance. A thin sliver of black, tiny compared with the outline of a more distant ship. We couldn’t make out any people on board, but we couldn’t work out what else it might be. A sobering sight that. Us safe on a huge ferry, having coughed up all of £50 each for us and our 3.5 tonne van. Them (assuming it was what it looked like) having paid at least £1,000 each, bobbing about precarious on the wide ocean. I once read a section of Factfulness (available here at Amazon) entitled ‘Why Don’t Migrants Fly?’ There are plenty of flights and boats, and they cost much less than a smuggler, so why not use them? Migrants moving for asylum can legally do so, but they can’t use legal means as any airline/ferry which carries illegal migrants (those subsequently refused asylum) have to pay the full repatriation costs. So none of them will let anyone without valid paperword board. Grim stuff.
Getting off the ferry we’d still not decided where to stay that night. There’s free, popular motorhome parking near the beach at Sangatte, and we were heading there when we changed our minds, reprogrammed the satnav en-route and headed here. We’d not booked in, as we could only find a phone number and neither of us fancied trying to speak French on the phone. So we were relieved when they’d space for us, taking our details on paper forms then showing us to our pitch on a golf buggy and leaving us to get set up.
It’s now the following day. We’ve had a beach walk up to the town (not much doing, it’s a custom built summer seaside resort with a few bars and restuarants and an ice cream truck). Ju’s been out running and I’ve had a cycle up and down the coast (lots of cycle paths here). During the middle of the day, the hottest part, we’re hiding under the awning. The map of France has been out and Brittany eyeballed, as we haven’t been there for about 15 years and I’ve my snorkelling gear with me, but we’re still not sure where we’re heading. The hope is France’s Great Return to work/school in the next few days will mean more space on the aires and campsites, but we’ll find out when we leave here on Sunday.
Cheers, happy travels folks, Jay
Let me recommend Camping La Falaise, Locmariaquer (47.5557306, -2.9403049) in south east Brittany. Right on the sea so great for snorkelling if the tide is in. Standing stones and a lovely coast walk to town. Also, central car park in Carnac if still allowed – a walk to miles of standing stones but a very broken surface from tree roots a few years ago. Also the Aire below the bridge in Dinan. I want to go back to to Brittany and would love to read about any places you go there. Have a great time!
PS take care with that coolant level. We had a tiny radiator leak from an unknown stone chip giving a slow coolant loss followed by an expensive new radiator and water pump. Fingers crossed on that one.
Great to be reading your posts again – I save them up waiting for your weekly email on a Sunday!
Enjoy your trip. We may also pop into Brittany when we cross in less than ten days. Having not been for three years, our thoughts are to just revisit some of the places we’ve liked on previous trips. Or just follow our noses and the weather.
Have fun!
Paul
Cheers Paul 👍 – not long now for you guys – happy travels fella – Jay
Hi Ju and Jay,
We look forward to reading your blog every Sunday. We have not been able to travel in our motorhome since out first trip of 4 and a half months in 2018. When you both kindly helped us get ready for it.
The delay has been covid and me waiting for a new hip for over 2 years
Hopefully next year if I’ve had my operation we will be out on the open road again.
I hope you both have a wonderful time and we look forward to hearing about your adventures.
Keep safe and thanks again for your blogs and help back in 2018.
Kind regards
Chris and Keith
Thanks Chris & Keith. That’s a long old wait for the operation – best of luck with it – hopefully you’re close to the front of the queue by now. You’re very welcome to any help we’ve been able to give you. Happy travels when they’re again possible, cheers, Jay
It’s great to see you back in Europe which I’m sure inspires us all.
Cheers Chris – it’s good to be over here! Judging from the number of vans in the campsite and site up the road, there are a lot of people travelling again. Cheers, Jay
Hi guys, I’ve been reading your blog and am very interested in the satnav you use. It sound great. Just one question about it … does it allow you to create routes using a laptop and transfer them to the satnav or do you have to do all your route planning directly on the screen?
Thanks
Dave
Hi Dave
As far as I know you have to create the route on the satnav itself.
Cheers, Jay
Thanks for the info, much appreciated.
Have a great trip
Thanks Jay for your reply, we may need your experience because next year all being well we are planning a trip to Italy. We have been to France, Spain and Belgium on our last trip in 2018, but we think Italy will be a different adventure.
Enjoy your trip
Chris and Keith
I’d agree: Italy is a new adventure! The driving and parking can be a tad more difficult but the culture is fascinating. Cheers, Jay
So great to see you out on the road again and to be able to vicariously go on the adventures! We’re with the kids in Fifi for the first time, up in the Peak District… hopefully a test run for a short Europe loop next summer maybe?
Love your description of your mindset in terms of a chill-out trundle. Hope it plays out that way
Cheers guys, good to hear from you, enjoy the Peaks, I imagine the kids are loving it!? Jay
It’s a great adventure, but comes with its (not insurmountable) challenges!
😀👍
Hi both
We live in Stuttgart and are planning to head across to France in October for 4 weeks (Pyrenees/Spain)
Are you coming this far south and if so what route are you doing
Regards
Barry and Andrea
Hi Barry
We’re aiming to stay further north this time around but other than that we rarely plan a route. Sounds like you’ve a great trip ahead of you, enjoy!
Cheers, Jay
Lovely to hear you are back in France. We have not been to Brittany, so it will be great to follow along vicariously.
We had plans to tour Ireland, but we are doing some renovations on a property we rent out in Leeds and it might take longer than we expected. So our travel plans will have to wait.
Another reason to enjoy travelling vicariously with you guys. Enjoy France and stay cool.
Thanks Gilda, the heatwave had finally passed so we’re off on the road again this morning. Hope the renovation goes smoothly, cheers, Jay
Hiya. Good to see you are off on your travels again. We are planning our own escape in September for a couple of months. Heading down to Spain to see relatives, then ending up in Brittany. As someone else has said, Dinan is worth visiting, and the Aire under the viaduct is ideally located. We know that area well. We’ll probably re-instate our Blog: daisydogtravelblog.wordpress.com, when we go, and yes, Daisy is still with us, although she is an old girl now. Have fun.
Thanks for the info Claire & happy travels! Jay
Looking forward to following your adventures again. We’re just back from 4 weeks in Brittany and Germany. We were very pleasantly surprised to find that the Canterbury aire now seems to be 24/7 for arrival, a very welcome change when you’re on a late Chunnel train into Folkestone and don’t fancy running up the motorway in the dark.