VGLPS Tour Day 1

An early start for our intrepid explorers. Out of Sunderland at 06.00 heading south to deliver the cargo of dowel to the South of Spain. Finely cut to the requested length and diameter. Now there is a tale. Instructions arrived ‘Two windows to be done, dowel 50 cm in length and the diameter of a cigarette are what is needed’. The guardian angel of dowel was to be our constant companion.

However the guardian angel of dowel could do little about the injured Nick, he arrived with a damaged Achilles tendon sustained on his journey home from Friday's meeting. Would this inhibit our progress?

6.00 a.m. Hunter Terrace, car packed and ready

Nick managed to drive through the pain for a while before I took over and we had a relatively clear passage until reaching the vicinity of the Dartford Crossing. It started well, I spotted a lane without traffic, took it and found that we passed over three miles of stationary vehicles before arriving at the pay stations. Here things began to go dreadfully wrong. It became almost impossible to engage any gear on the car and the clutch pedal was stuck in place. Crashing through the box without the benefit of clutch or synchromesh augured badly for the future health of the vehicle. Was this to be an early abort of the adventure?

Brute force from the Hendon Hammer managed to get us to a service station where we found the culprit to be a creeping mat that had captured the clutch pedal and stopped all sensible manipulation. Mat beaten into submission we arrived at Eurotunnel early and got bumped up the queue.

A relieved Nick at Eurotunnel

For those who have never travelled through the Tunnel, it is an experience. After having been awoken by the occasional announcements, I heard the voice say that we were half way through and we travelling at 140 m.p.h. The feeling would have suggested we were stationary. How smooth can a ride be?

On arrival at Calais our mission was simple, head south for Reims. The early part of the route was slowed by the ubiquitous CONES, clearly a summer holiday gesture by some disgruntled French trade unionists. However they had rapidly run out of steam and a clear road took us to our destination. We noticed lots of cars had more stuff packed in that we had, were we packing wimps?

A last little stop close to our hotel had us come across a butcher's shop that would entrance any lover of flesh, besides which it was open and did sell wine so we thought it rude not to purchase a couple of their fine bottles, €2.95 each. Across the road was our billet. Checked in, had beer then shower before evening meal. Local wine the evening selection.

Not quite an Irene Pasty