18th September 2022

We packed away, and left the site at 8.30, heading back to the toll road. After a little over an hour, we were down to 180miles of range, so opted to fill up at a service station. This was a Total and had a cheap price (a little over 160) compared with the other services stations which were over 30 cents per litre more expensive. We took the opportunity to have breakfast, which was a disaster. Most of the small service station was closed, and there were two women dealing with a huge queue. They were making coffee as well as serving the prewrapped goodies. I could see we would be here a long time. We left.

We stopped at the next service station, and gave that a miss, it was a construction site. In a hissy fit I said f*** French service stations and continued the drive to Calais, hoping for a snack and duty-free stop there to take advantage of Boris Johnson’s “world beating” duty free allowances.

At least Euro Tunnel check-in was great, we chose a human operated one, explained we were traveling home several days earlier than our booking. He booked us in on the next available crossing and charged us an extra 49 Euro to travel. We had been expecting to pay a whole single fee.

Passport control took us in total another 20 minutes, it was a bit clagged on the French and UK booths. Then straight onto the train with no parking, and the train left in 5 minutes. So, we missed the duty free, and still had not eaten. While we crossed to the UK, we managed to have a snack in the van of cheese biscuits and some rillette. It was then time for a loo break, had to pass through 6 carriages to find the loos. I think they are at the back and front of the train. It was quite an epic trek. The doors between the carriages are very stiff, and not all of them worked, so you had to cross from side to side of the carriage. This did not appear to be safe in an emergency exit of the train.

Arrived in London, and we were straight onto the road home. That is the way to travel. What was not, were the hold-ups at the Thames crossing.