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Thursday 1st September 2016 St Nazaire to Dover Our train was due to leave at 10.25 and as we were going to have to get the bikes dismantled and bagged before it arrived we had breakfast (average) fairly early then rode to the station, which was all of 50 yards away, getting there in plenty of time by 8.50 or so. That gave us an hour and a half to bag the bikes but somehow, amazingly, we managed it in under 25 minutes this time - ace grease monkeys indeed!
The train turned up on time and this time, thanks to Andrew’s investigations, we knew just where to stand to get our nominated carriage – there’s a train disposition guide displayed on the platform. While waiting for the train we had a chat with a German woman who was with her son and their two bikes – both un-bagged. She was interested in our baggy approach as, like us, she’d found it difficult to book places for bikes on the TGV, but after we’d explained what we’d had to do to get them into the bags she felt maybe it wasn’t for her.
We had a nice, smooth and timely trip to Paris Montparnasse and when we got there we lugged the stuff to the taxi rank and the driver took us to Paris, Gare du Nord for 25 euros. It was a slightly boy-racerish ride through the traffic but we got there unscathed.
We had a 2 hours and 26 minutes gap between trains but the connection had gone well and once aboard the Calais train it was another smooth trip. We reached Calais Fréthun station dead on time (well done SNCF) and now had an hour and 32 minutes to put the bikes back together and ride the 6 miles to the ferry terminal in time to check in. We did well reassembling everything – last time, in Nevers, it had taken us an hour and 25 minutes but this time we were done in under 30 minutes! OK, I had a washer left over but it had fallen into the saddle halfway through and I’d have had to upend the still partly-dismantled bike to get it back – I subsequently found it and put it in my pocket to fix later. (It had gone when I got round to looking, but I did replace it later at home).
After assembling the bikes on Fréthun station platform I took the lift up to the station itself and waited for Andrew. Between the station and the platform he still managed to go wrong! Up one lift he went, then out onto the road instead of across and down the next lift. It wasn’t difficult, it was exactly the way we had come a couple of weeks previously, but never mind. We managed to join up again and rode to Calais where it took a while to get through the centre, what with traffic and traffic lights. We were actually just in time, technically, to get through French passport control but then there was a queue to get through UK Border Control. As it happened though the ferry had been delayed anyway and the 19.55 crossing had become 20.30.
We chatted to an Australian biker in the queue – he’d been going since February and had ridden in Vietnam, Japan and a load of European countries. He only had 15 euros and £25 left and I think he might have been angling for an invitation to spend the night. As it was our B&B in Dover was already booked and when the ferry docked, after an easy crossing we went our ways.
We were booked into the Hubert House Guest House where we’d stayed the previous year at the start of my Mediterranean trip – it’s a decent place. We were provided with a large, very nice room by the anxious Spanish lady in charge there, who also provided us with a nice pot of tea.
We’d already eaten on the ferry so now it was off to the nearest pub, the White Horse, for a drink. The pub had a lot of pictures and mementos of Channel Swimmers on the walls and seemed to be a traditional watering hole/setting off point for them. We had a game or two of crib there and then, after all the other clientele had departed for their beds, we had to listen to an interminable discussion between an old boy called Derek and the bar staff about his unpaid bill from the previous week. Derek’s memory suffered either from alcohol or Altzheimers because he reckoned he couldn’t recall any of it but the young barmaid and the older boss kept insisting that he’d had trouble with his credit card when he tried to pay for a meal and drinks - £32 was the sum involved. It went on and on with them explaining and him repeatedly saying the same thing. . . basically ‘eh, what?’. It was hard going. The following day, Friday 2nd September, Trisha had generously agreed to drive down to pick us up and the Hubert Guest House kindly said we could wait there until she arrived. Of course as soon as it neared the time she was due – midday – Andrew decided to go for a walk and didn’t take his phone with him so that when she rang to say she'd arrived I had no way of getting hold of him. I did get a bit ratty at that point but not to worry, eh, it all sorted itself out in the end. We met up, put the bikes in the back of the car and drove home. | ||||||||||||
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