{"id":25044,"date":"2016-11-20T19:14:02","date_gmt":"2016-11-20T19:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/?p=25044"},"modified":"2026-04-15T16:33:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T15:33:21","slug":"our-first-experience-of-driving-onto-the-channel-tunnel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/our-first-experience-of-driving-onto-the-channel-tunnel\/","title":{"rendered":"Our First Experience of Driving onto The Channel Tunnel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Zagan the motorhome has headed south to avoid the wrath of Storm Angus. He’s now sitting in a free aire in Montville in France (N49.54730, E1.07189<\/a>), just north of Rouen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Motorhome<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last night in the Canterbury aire it was like Zagan was in a dishwasher. He was bumped around by the wind from Storm Angus, but it was the noise from the rain that kept me awake. Think of frozen peas being thrown at a metal sheet, which is inches from your head. When our alarm went off at 7am this morning I was very bleary-eyed. But, in minutes we were up and at ’em. While Jay emptied the loo, I was blown over to the pay machine to cough up our \u00a34  for the night – we’ll certainly be stopping there again. Canterbury town council deserve an award for being so welcoming to motorhomers, they put my own local council of Nottingham to shame. Recently there was a report in our local paper about a motorhoming couple from Germany who tried to visit our city. They couldn’t find anywhere to park their van because all the car parks have height barriers. Leaving it near a park and ride tram stop, it was stolen by the time they returned. Shame on Nottingham council for not providing anywhere for us to park, but an even bigger shame on the scumbags who stole their motorhome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, back to today. Leaving Canterbury we were just half an hour from a new experience – The Channel Tunnel, Le Shuttle, or as I like to call it the Chunnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Normally we get the ferry when crossing La Manche, but I have always wanted to try the chunnel especially because it is guaranteed to be sea-sickness free. Because we took a long (for us) crossing home last month, from the Hook of Holland to Harwich, I decided to treat us to the chunnel for our trip back out. Sure it was a bit more expensive than the ferries at \u00a3105, including one dog, but boy was it worth it. With Storm Angus doing his worst to the south east of England, we couldn’t have timed it better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Dog
At Dover port the dog exercise area is a cage under an underpass ramp – Charlie gives the chunnel his woof of approval<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Hymer<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When we arrived the ticket machine told us we could board the earlier ferry for no extra charge so, before 9am, we had driven into our compartment and were settling in with Charlie. As the gas had to be off we couldn’t go so far as making a brew (we’ll remember to take a flask next time), but we got a few jobs done in the van while we were whisked under the sea to France. We arrived bang on time and while there was some sort of comical convoy to get out of the station, which I don’t think is normal as we lost quite a few of the cars behind us, it was a breeze. I’m sold, I just need to convince Jay that it’s worth the extra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n