The long road south

Once again yesterday morning someone asked what I was doing for the winter and when I told him we were going travelling for the next few months an amazed and baffled look appeared

“Huh, how the other half live? ”

was the response. Coming from a working class background, I’ve never thought of myself as

‘the other half’!

I guess that’s what We are now?

People seem to think, that we will pack up at the campsite and potter off home and find a another job for the winter – oh how wrong could you be !

This sweet setup that we’ve made for ourselves see us as working as campsite wardens for 9 months and then we have 3 months of freedom to roam the globe

But I digress far too much , to steal a few quotes, and cliche a few cliches :-

We were far too excited to sleep!

There were ants in our pants !

the road was calling !

Paloma is back on the road and we, have a ferry to catch!

Basically from the UK you have three options if your chosen desire is to head south and chase that elusive winter sun.

a) catch a Ferry to the north coast of Spain and drive south to your chosen Costa.

b) take the Short crossing to northern France around the Calais area, jump on the toll motorways to Perpignan, then the Spanish coastal motorway to your destination.

Or

c) a Shorter crossing but drive across country through France and Spain.

The pros and cons of these options would take an entire blog post and there are many who have good reason for their choice.

For us option C is the only real contender.

Michele didn’t fancy the Bay of Biscay in winter.

A pet cabin is hard to come by

And

we don’t fancy paying to use expensive motorways all the way from Calais (think of the extra wine we could buy)

We are off on a long winter stay, so a few extra days driving are insignificant and probably one of the best parts of having a motorhome is the journey itself.

“Live the journey”

A little bit of planning and research has thrown up some intresting stuff to see on the way down,well interesting to me,anyway.

Ok, I know it’s winter and it may be raining, or snowing, but we will get to visit towns and tourist sites without the crowds and Paloma, our motorhome is fairly well winterised.

So we’ve opted for the Portsmouth to Caen crossing, partly because it gives us only about 100 mile to cover in the uk, meaning we can get away the very next day after finishing the season as campsite warden.

So tonight’s stop is just outside Portsmouth, giving us a chance to meet our travel buddies for the trip and leaving us about 20km to port early in the morning.

Paul.