Lumbres

This morning I was awake at 6am. I sat up, put the electric fire on and went back to bed for an hour and got up just after 7am and made coffees.
We had a proper comedy moment last night when another motorhome turned up.
During the day we needed a decent WiFi signal so I moved from the concrete turning circle we had parked on after getting stuck and we set up camp at the start of the campsite on a big piece of tarmac where the bins were. It was also the entrance to 2 tent pitches which were chained closed but one had an electric port, so it wasn’t as if we shouldn’t park there but it wasn’t a pitch and we were the only ones there.
At 10:30pm just after we got in bed another motorhome turned up. There’s 28 pitches on the site and a few random concrete turning circles to park in an emergency like we did but where did they choose to park? Right next to us. They didn’t even bother looking around the site to see if there was anywhere else. It was a joke. If we had parked in the street they still would have parked next to us.
We left Cappy at 9am after tipping our grey and filling with fresh water. We were booked on the 11:20pm eurotunnel and we had just one stop to make and it was a 2 hour drive of 70 miles to reach the outskirts of the town of Lumbres and a huge E L’Clerc store. Here there was a supermarket, gas station, motorhome wash and laundrette so our first stop was for diesel.
Then we drove out of there and into the motorhome wash, where we exchanged €10 for 5 tokens and washed Wanda. I didn’t think for a minute it would be as good as it was but it was great. We soaped her first then used a soapy brush to scrub her and then finally rinse her. We could have polished and waxed aswell and I think for €15 we could have done a proper job but I just wanted the worst off before we get home. We will have to wash her back in Norfolk anyway before we put the cover back on.
After washing Wanda we put our laundry in and then went and picked up a couple of pizzas from the main store for dinner and when we came out the washing was done and then we dryed it.
Once the washing was dry and put away we went to the far end of the car park and closed all the blinds ready to chill out for a few hours. It was a one hour drive to Calais from here and it was only 3pm so we put the tv on for an hour and then we had a little sleep.
At 5pm we were fully awake and we put the TV back on and continued with our breaking bad marathon while the oven heated up. We had our goats cheese pizzas for dinner and some cakes we’d bought from the supermarket. We had decided to spoil ourselves and the cakes were a double meringue with cream in the middle coated in biscoff.
After dinner we had 2 hours left and we just chilled out, tidyed up a little and waited until our leaving time.
At 8:15pm it was time to leave our safe haven and take the final 40 mile journey from Lumbres to Calais. It was an easy 50 minute drive mostly on duel carriageways and before we knew we were at the terminal, checked in and ready to finish our journey.
Originally we were booked on the 11:20pm train but we were offered a free 10:20pm alternative and took that. The train was running slightly late so it was actually 10:20pm when they started loading us but within 15 minutes of the barriers lifting up we were all on and the train was moving.
35 minutes later we were back in England, it was now 10:15pm UK time and the roads were fairly busy for this time of night but flowing smoothly and just after midnight we arrived at Ellies mum and dads. Of course nobody was up, and as soon as we parked up next to the garage we made the bed and jumped straight in it.
It was freezing in the living area because we hadn’t warmed it up with having the oven on and it took us ages and ages to finally get to sleep, but we were finally here and we had completed our journey.
We had travelled 4150 miles, spent £1050 on fuel, paid for just 5 nights sleeping at £57, spent £25 on LPG and Wanda had done really well. We were pleased with our upgrades of solar power which has already paid for itself and the engine modification which has worked a treat pulling us up hills and sitting at lower revs on the motorway and above all we have had an amazing adventure.Read more