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| 322 miles |
An extremely warm night and still so at getting up time, although the sunshine was quite hazy. Bacon and egg sarnis for breakfast then away by 11.05, delayed for a few minutes because the canal bridge was open to let a boat through. Then back onto the motorway, now being guided by TomTom with Nellie as backup - when she decides to cooperate; she's been a bit reticent of late! Past Groningen heading towards Amsterdam but veering off to keep to the east side of the Ijsselmoer, the big sea inlet on which Amsterdam sits. Had another short delay whilst another bridge had been opened to let marine traffic through - funny, it's never caught us before but twice in one morning? Despite it being Sunday the road was very busy although we didn't experience any delays thus proving our decision to route through Netherlands rather than Germany was good. Okay the scenery was nothing to write home about but we were thankful we could watch it whilst passing, rather than staring at somebody's back bumper for an hour.
Stopped for lunch halfway to Breda, still stiflingly hot but now there were dark clouds ahead and shortly after getting away we ran into the forecast thunderstorm as we negotiated the Breda ring road. However it didn't slow us down much,the showers becoming intermittent as we left The Netherlands into Belgium and approached Antwerp. You will recall we had an ugly time trying to get through here on our way north but this time couldn't have been any more different. Of course all the roadworks were suspended for the weekend and there were very few trucks so apart from slowing down to negotiate the odd deviation we sailed straight through! To help it all, the weather rapidy improved too and we were able to keep up a very good average speed. Just short of Ghent the fuel gauge started dropping towards the red line so we pulled into a service station - we don't normally like to use motorway services for fuel as they tend to be more expensive, but it was either that or deviate off into a local town. But it worked out at £1.51 per litre so wasn't too bad and it should be enough to get home with.
Pressed on towards Ostende and Dunkirk into France, heading for our planned nightstop at Gravelines. However we first went to the service point, as it had been a couple of days since the last, and refreshed everything before moving on to the aire we usually use in this part of France. A few vans already parked uyp but with the "field" now fully opened and marked out there is loads of room. Okay perhaps €7.50 just for parking is a little pricey at least it's a nice safe place with no hassle and the service point is only a couple of minutes away. Plus the walls of the attractive old town are just across the road if we fancy a walk.
But not tonight; it's been a long drive today and after 7.00pm when we arrived so just settle in, quick cuppa then a late meal. The temperature has also reduced considerably and although still a warm 22C it's much more comfortable. Tomorrow we'll be taking Jamie to the vet we've used here before, only a couple of minutes drive away, to see to his Passport then look at our options for bringing the Chunnel booking forward. Nice as France is, we've completed what we set out to do and are looking forward to returning home.
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| Looks familiar but the roses are out and looking lovely |
Safe journey home
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