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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 3071 |
22nd May 2013 Hiking - Walking: Box Hill-Surrey Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: clouldy Max Speed: Distance Covered: Monday 20th May – Bank holiday in France – visit friends & travel – still more rain :( It’s still raining. Went into the house for breakfast and went on the internet after a chatty breakfast. Mag had a good chat with rob and it turns out that they are putting the roof on the roundhouse on Wednesday at 6 p.m. so we changed our shuttle to Wednesday and we will go and help with that. Hannah’s mum and sister are going to be visiting Sayers Croft on Saturday so if the weather is good and Damon can stay on we might stay down there until Sunday morning. We’ll see. Mag taught the girls and Arwen to play Newmarket while Jace and I were on the internet. Had lunch and left them about 3 and drove towards Orleans intending to stop at Combleaux again but we past a handy aire at Lamotte Beuvron so stopped here so we don’t have to do a detour round Orleans. Several campers in but there is room for 30 so it’s ok and it is still pouring so it doesn’t really matter where you are!!! We don’t feel bad about going back to UK a day early – we have enough of this rain and inactivity!!! Tuesday 21 May 2013 We had a pretty good night once I had been ouside 3 times to try and stop the dripping from the board bag onto the bumper! Left the Aire at about 10 – still raining! Drove up to Pont d L’Arche for lunch by the river and it had actually stopped raining. We watched a guy fishing and catching tiddlers. Went to a Super U just up the road from there to get a few bits for the boys and damon then drove on up to Boulogne and filled up with diesel then on to Ambleteuse which is on the coast just above Wimeraux. We stopped in the same layby as last time we were here and decided we could stay here the night instead of heading for our usual Escalles. Although cloudy to start with it did turn out to be a nice evening! We had a walk on the beach and the sun was really bright at 9 o’clock! Lovely views of the sea, the beach, the fort and the sunset – at last, its been ages since we have seen the sun! Mag did some statistics and it turns out that if you don’t count food we did the 34 days for under £500 and an average of £12 a day. We did approx 2600 miles (if you add a bit on to get home which we are not going to do because we are going to see Rob). So that’s it for France, we will be off in the morning to the shuttle for boarding at 9.20. Wednesday 22nd May - travelling then walk **** We both woke up at 6 so needn’t have worried about setting the alarm for 7! The sun was out and we had the beautiful view of Ambleteuse Fort and the view :) We could hear the sea when we were going to sleep but the tide was out this morning. Had our breakfast and were packed up by 8 and drove along the coast road to the shuttle. We could see the white cliffs of Dover as if they were only a short distance away, shining in the sun :) Got to the shuttle early and they let us on the 9.20 train so we were back in England (again in the sun but it didn’t last for long and soon clouded up:() by 9 o’clock English time. We drove along the motorway to the Red Hill turn off to go to Rob’s and realised we were really near the Bilbo showroom so decided to go and see if there was anything new in their range as we had lots of time to kill. They made us a very nice cappuccino as soon as we got there which was good! Two of the staff were really sociable and had seen our magazine article so they were very chatty, the lady in the office and the man who sold us our van. We had a good mooch round and they haven’t actually changed anything at all. We still only like ours and the only other one that came close was not one of theirs! It was a vw own conversion called a California and although the bed rather took over the cooker and the fridge with the door on the top and big capacity underneath were great. Mag had seen that the North Downs path ran along just under the M25 and we headed that way to see if we could find somewhere for lunch and for a walk. We ended up at Box Hill (which is where they had the cycle race in the Olympics) and although we had to pay £3 to park (grrrr National Trust!) we had a great time. After a quick lunch we went on their stepping stones walk which takes you right down into the valley from the top of Box Hill (275 steps – all uneven – just like being in France!) and across 17 stepping stones on the river mole. The woods were a beautiful sight, full of wild garlic and bluebells – like a carpet! I took lots of photos of the stepping stones but the river was a very strange colour! We walked along the river for a while then a huge climb back up the field running on top of the chalk cliffs, past a fort and back to the van. It took us about an hour and a half and was really lovely. The weather was dull but at least it wasn’t raining!!! Drove on to Rob’s which was only about 12 miles and had just got the kettle on and our last cake from France sorted out when Hannah arrived home from work. We went into their lovely caravan, it really is nice. Had the computer on for a bit to see if Damon had answered the message about staying on until Sunday – he had and that is all fine :) Rob came home and we had a good chat. At 5.45 we walked down to the field to where the round house is being rebuilt and as no-one was about we walked on through the woods to look at the blue bells :) When we got back David (Rob’s boss who is a great bloke :)) was explaining how to tie the coppiced wood onto the big logs which make the roof with tarred string/rope. It was great to see such team work. I suppose there were about a dozen of us and we were all treated to rather blackened hot dogs and bacon rolls. We got lots more of the roof struts done than they expected and David was really pleased. He was telling us about the lad who burnt it down (from the village so knew the round house was there, bad background, drunk as a skunk about 7 a.m. in the morning after going to 2 parties and drinking them dry!). David actually caught him by seeing his picture on cctv, seeing him in the local shop and asking the shopkeeper where he lived then telling the police :) It hasn’t gone to court yet. We came back to the caravan and had a drink. Absolutely shattered as with the time difference we had been up since 5 this morning - so back to the van to bed. Good day:) |
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