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Tuesday 11th September 07.30 The alarm on the mobile phone goes off and its time to get up for our marathon journey back home. 835 miles from Biarritz to Calais before the ferry check in at 02.30 on Wednesday morning. Across the Channel and then on to Paisley, another 520 miles.......What a thought. After a quick breakfast and back to the room for a quick shower and onwards to pack the car up, we met up with Steve & Pete with the Cherokee jeep who were planning to drive up to the Paris area. We decided to have a mini convoy with the cars with safety in numbers in mind. Especially with all the shenanigans that attracted the attention of the "Le Polis"...... We left at around 09.30 for the trip back and agreed to keep the speed at 70 -75mph which the jeep was mort comfortable with. The route took us up through Barcelona to Girona and over the border into France where we basically headed for Paris. Following the Sat Nav made it a doddle, we also had a map for backup. Our journey took us up the Pyrenees and over the worlds largest viaduct "Viaduc De Millau" which was awesome (See pics). At the highest point we were at 1120 metres above sea level. I think that this had an affect on the cars performance in that the idle dropped and the car "conked out" when we stopped at the service stations. The car didn't like the thinner air. This cleared as we descended into the low lands. We also picked up a small chip on the windscreen. Some parts of the climb had to be done in third gear they were that steep, but the old "James car", as my daughter calls it after James in Thomas the Tank engine, never once complained. After a bite of dinner and 500 miles gone we changed drivers and Kev took over still heading towards Paris. A couple of hours of more driving saw the light begin to fade an the headlights were used for the first time on the trip.
As we approached Paris we found that one of the motorways that we planned to use had been closed and the Sat Nav started to take us round in circles. The traffic was absolute chaos as there were no diversion signs. I spotted "Le Polis" who had pulled over to the side of the road and decided to ask for directions past the closure. Just my luck that I get the only two coppers in France that don't speak good French.....They couldn't answer my questions even though I pitched them in my very apt 1st & 2nd Year French that I was fluent in at High School..."Je Voudrais ra moturway tae Glesga Por fervour no..." they seemed to argue the point and I left them with their phrase book.
We decided that I would do the navigation via road sign and Kev would try not to "wipe out" any French drivers....God they are mental. I decided that we should let the Sat Nav recalculate and head for the Airport. Result, The Blackpool tower copy arose on the left and the signs started saying "Lille", we were on the right road. Pete & Steve were still behind us at this time and managed to find a hotel just outside Paris to rest their horses whilst we blazed the trail to Calais.... We arrived in Calais just after midnight and checked in for the ferry which gave us just a couple of hours break. Kev got to sleep first so I was gubbed.....he snores... After an uneventful ferry crossing where we had a coffee and Croissant we gave ourselves a shake for the long drive North. I did the first stint from Dover whilst Kez had another wee kip, but I only lasted an hour. We swapped over at the next service station and filled with fuel and Kev did the next 2 hours whilst I slept. Thats how we went until we got to 75 miles from home where I did the final drive home. We arrived in Paisley at 14.00 and had covered just over 1200 miles basically non stop. Mileage on the clock....140,487 Full trip mileage....3,285 in six days! Gallery
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