Countdown to Dunkirk
This post is for my own information, as I always forget the length of the last part of the journey to Dunkirk from the junction of the A18 and A10 at Jabbeke near to Ostende and Bruges. Jabbeke has a large service station on both sides of the motorway, so it is sensible pitstop both ways.
It took forty minutes from Jabbeke to the ferry at Dunkirk. Remember that the Dunkirk ferry is some way west of the actual town at junction 24. At the moment you should add another five minutes for bridge repairs west of Dunkirk. If they are bad, you can actually go into Dunkirk itself and take the D601 to the port.
Incidentally, there is a BP garage at Dunkirk on the motorway. I usually fill up there with diesel for the Jag as it’s cheaper than in the UK. But petrol is more expensive, so the Lotus comes through empty.
Don’t be caught out though with fuel when taking the ferry for Dover to Dunkirk. You have to travel almost to Jabbeke to get fuel on the motorway. Once I had to go off to look for petrol for the Lotus. Judging by the amount I put in that day, I was running on the fumes in the tank.
Skullduggery on Eurotunnel and P&O Ferries Websites?
I am in Holland and usually keep my travel plans rather flexible. If the weather is crap then I might go early or if the weather is good then the reverse might happen.
Last night, I decided that it would be convenient to have lunch in Den Haag and then drive to the ferries at about 16:00, catching the 20:00 Norfolk Line ferry out of Dunkirk for Dover. This would get me home about 23:00, which would be a sensible time, as it would mean I probably wouldn’t need to find any change for the Dartford Crossing. I’m not bothered about the money, as it is only a tiny proportion of my expenditure, but sometimes finding a 50 pence piece is not easy.
But I then found out at about 22:00 or so that the 20:00 was not running today. The previous one would mean I would miss lunch and the later one, is just too late at my age.
So I looked at Eurotunnel for a suitable departure. There was one at 20:40 or so at £73, which was just a little bit more than the ferry. The site declined my AMEX card, probably because I put a number in wrong, as I’d used it earlier in H0lland. So no worry, I’ll use another card. But when I rebooked the cheap price had gone and they wanted me to pay £127 or even more. I was so angry I couldn’t remember the real value.
So I checked P&O. I got a similar price, but after accepting it, when I went to add the credit card it had jumped from £50 to £100.
Now I know the prices go up at around midnight, but I was about half-an-hour before the witching hour and in the middle of an accepted transaction.
So I decided to skip lunch in Den Haag and take the 18:00 on Norfolk Line. At least I should be able to get a nice gluten-free meal on their ferries! I know from past experience that P&O regard all those with allergies as lepers.
This morning I checked the prices again. Norfolk Line was just a few euros more, Eurotunnel was £129 and the P&O web site was overloaded.
I know where I’ll be putting my business in future.
Gluten Free Lunch on Norfolk Line
I travelled out for a quick weekend away hoping to shake off the effects of the flu I somehow caught last weekend. I’ve had the jab too. I drove the Jag to Dover to get on a ferry through the Thursday on afternoon traffic and only just made the boat. The problem was the queues at the Dartford Crossing, as there were just not enough toll booths open to take the £1.50. As I noted previously, when you get there with coins you’re through quickly, but the outside lane is blocked by those without the correct change. People don’t think.
I haven’t eaten on the Norfolk Line boats before, as when I first travelled a couple of years ago, I asked about a gluten-free meal in the restaurant and the friendly steward said he didn’t know if there was any flour in the meals. So I took the sensible action as most coeliacs do and went hungry. But this time as I knew I had a long drive to Holland along the food deserts that coeliacs call motorways, I decided to ask again if there was something that was gluten-free.
So I looked at the menu in the Bistro and asked about the sea bass which looked promising. It came with a salad, fresh vegetables and potatoes. As it was under a tenner, I thought I’d give it a try, as at that price, if I abandoned it, it wouldn’t be a financial disaster.
- Sea Bass Meal – Norfolk Line
I have had better sea bass, but not often and certainly not at £9.50.
I actually ate it in Winterton Class, as I wasn’t travelling with the riff-raff. This meant that for an extra £8, I was in a virtually empty cabin with a steward ministering to my needs with free nuts, fruit, soft drinks and coffee. I also got to be the first off the boat.
Fast Train to Rotterdam and Den Haag
It has just been announced that Thalys is now running fast through to Amsterdam. So I looked up and see if I could book from Ebbsfleet to Rotterdam for a reasonable price at a reasonable speed. I actually would go to Den Haag, but couldn’t find that on the Eurostar web site. Or should I say, I could find it, but I couldn’t book it!
In mid-January, I have found that I could do the trip in three hours and forty-seven minutes for a return cost of £127.50 with a credit charge of £3.
So how does that compare to easyJet?
easyJet on the same days costs £47.98 with a charge of £8 for the credit card.
The parking at Ebbsfleet and Stansted are about the same and I suspect you can get them for about £70, with perhaps an extra tenner for diesel for Ebbsfleet. And then you have the trains at the other end, which would both be just a few Euros.
As to time, the flight takes about five hours door-to-door and the train takes about six and a half.
So is it a no-brainer to take the plane?
No! I hate airports and all of the ridiculous rules. Not all are security too!
So it is perhaps why I actually prefer to take the boat. The last trip, I used Stena from Harwich and because I had a problem with the Lotus, I came back the same way. It is not really such a long trip in terms of time, as I would do Harwich-Hook overnight. But then coming back, you have the annoying delay, whilst they keep you on board, so you might have breakfast. I don’t, as their offerings are not gluten-free!
I normally go over using Norfolk Line from Dover to Dunkirk, which usually takes about eight hours door-to-door. That may be a lot slower, but I can fill the car with all the goodies that expats can’t get in Holland. And I can also take my Brompton!
Cost of the ferry is usually about £60 with perhaps about the same amount for diesel. I know that calculating the cost of motoring on the fuel cost is not valid, but it is the way we always add it up!
So perhaps, the easiest and most relaxing way is to drive via Dover. At least you get a nice break on the boat and can listen to BBC Radio 5 Live all of the way. And it’s only three hours slower than the plane.
Limping There and Back
As I drove to get the boat at Harwich, the Lotus Elan developed a gearbox fault. What it meant was that I only had second, fourth and reverse gears.
I was faced with a dilemma, in that did I drive back home and get the Jaguar or did I continue. To complicate matters, I was also going to see Ipswich play Peterborough, so I’d miss the match, if I changed cars.
So I continued.
It now should be said, that the engine of the Lotus can drive the car happily in second and fourth, so without any mishaps, I managed to drive from Ipswich to Harwich carefully at about fifty-five. I had dreaded getting on the boat, as on some ferries, you have to drive up a steep ramp, but in this case it was almost level, as they weren’t using the upper decks at all. I only had a few kilometres to go on the other side, so it was a chance worth taking.
I did check in with a friendly forum called Lotus Elan Central and this identified the problem as a gear cable. So I didn’t need to get any serious help in Holland and just drove back to the boat last night.
It was then a quiet drive home through the villages on a getting-better-sort of Sunday. Weather wise that is.
The question that has to be asked is, how many performance cars could have limped home so successfully? As a point here, my 2.2 litre diesel Jaguar always needs to start in first, as it has nowhere near the power range of the Lotus.
Pleasures of NOT Flying
I have come to Utrecht for a weekend away at a wedding.
I did think about flying, but although the drive would take nearly ten hours, I thought it would be the best way to do it. It has its compensations in that I can get the suits I’ll need and the smart jacket in the car without cramming them into a suitcase. And I can get my Brompton in the boot of the Jaguar estate.
I’ve just been for a ride around the city. It seems much like most Dutch cities; water, bicycles and windmills.
Utrecht
As to cost, well because I couldn’t be sure that I’d ever get here, I couldn’t book until a few days ago. Norfolk Line cost me about sixty pounds one way and easyJet would have been over a hundred and twenty because of the late booking and the luggage. So on balance the drive was a little bit more expensive, but it was certainly hassle free and I had the bike.
The only hassle was the difficulty of getting diesel at Total garages on the Belgian motorway. You had to pay first and I think they keep the card. I’m not doing that, because if someone skims it, it’s my fault, as I gave the card to someone else.
Night Crossing
I left Dunkirk just as it was getting dark last night.
Maerske Dover at Dunkirk
I did sleep a bit on the trip over as I was in VIP class and the seats are wide enough for a lie down. But I did have a couple of free coffees and then spent the last few minutes of the crossing on the blunt end of the boat watching it dock at Dover. So I did arrive fairly refreshed.
Dover Docks at Night
This picture shows the moment we docked.
To our right was the new LD Lines, High Speed Ferry that goes to Boulogne.
We need more like that. Hopefully like they used to be on Harwich to the Hook of Holland. I use it on my trips to Holland.
The Dunkirk Signs
Several times now, I’ve taken the Norfolk Line ferry from Dunkirk to Dover. Sometimes I’ve been late and have hurried along the coastal motorway, but yesterday I was on time and didn’t particularly push it.
There is a problem with the signs. At one point, Dunkirk was showing as fourteen kilometres away and I had 107 miles on the odometer. When I got to the port, the figure was 126 miles.
That means that the port was almost 30 kilometres not 14 or sixteen more than the signs for Dunkirk said.
So be careful.
Note – To convert miles to kilometres multiply by 1.609344. 1.6 is usually good enough for an estimate. I hope you learned your 16 times table at school!
Safety Fast
This morning I was up at a quarter to three and on the road to Dover by twenty past. The road was dry, the weather was clear, the full moon was shining, the hood on the Lotus was down and there was little traffic. Except for the road works on the M25 between the M11 and the A12, there was nothing to hold me up. Even the tolls at the Dartford Crossing were free! Is there another crossing in the world, with a bridge one way and a tunnel the other?
So I pulled in to the docks at Dover at five past five after just one hour forty five minutes of travelling. The car may be seventeen years old, but it hasn’t lost its verve and long legs.
The title of this topic is the old slogan that MG used to use with their sports cars and saloons for many years. It is still the name of the MG enthusiast’s magazine. My father had many MGs in his time from pre-war Midgets to mid-fifties Magnettes and thought it was a slogan that suited the now-gone marque. I like to think that I drove the Lotus that way both to Dover and afterwards on the three hour trip to Holland.
The ferry was half-an-hour late due to a mechanical problem, which was a first for Norfolk Line, and the captain apologised, but I still had visions of hairy and oily mechanics trying to replace big-ends or something even more serious. But they did make up some of the time and I left Dunkirk exactly on half-past-nine by European Time.
In front of me on the ferry was an AC Cobra. Not a copy, but a genuine one from the 1970s and we started off in convoy towards Ostend. He was going to the Nurburgring, to see a classic Grand Prix. One day, I’ll take the Lotus there on one of their experience days. Sadly it won’t be this year, as someone has a wedding on that day.
One thing that was a bit wrong, was that the couple in the Cobra were using a Sat-Nav. Surely that is wrong!
But is it wrong that Colin Chapman named his car after a flower, with names that showed spirit, like Elan, Esprit and Elite? Not for him Cobra, Miura, Panther or Thunderbird, which exudes power, but something that is more about class and agility.
A word of warning here. If you are taking a ferry to Dunkirk, don’t do it with an almost-empty tank, as filling stations are some way over the Belgian border. The Cobra stopped in the first one and I carried on to Ostend. The fuel also seemed expensive at €1.41 a litre. So perhaps fill up at Tesco at Dover.
At Ostend the fun started.
The traffic along the coast had been light and generally proceeding at about 120-130 kph. But after the Ostend traffic joined the road was very busy and Mercedes and others were storming about at well over the legal limit. It is in traffic like this that the agile Lotus comes into its own.
With the top down, you have perfect vision in all directions and because the road-holding is so good, you can almost drive sideways to avoid someone who isn’t looking. In one instant a big 4×4 pulled out on me and I’m sure he was looking right over the top. And the Lotus is bright yellow! Norfolk mustard is the actual name.
Gent and Antwerp followed in succession without any holdup and I was quickly through the latter city and on the road to Breda and Rotterdam. And just as the road had got angry at Ostend, it calmed at Antwerp. It must be the Belgians.
And whilst on the subject of the Belgians.
Can they please use consistent road signs with the same name for the same city throughout the country? I don’t care if they call Bruxelles, Timbuktoo, but please be consistent. I wish the Welsh would do the same too. I don’t care what name, but every town and village in Europe should only have one name. To make things fair it should be chosen by those that live there.
The last part of the journey past Breda, Dordrecht and Rotterdam was busy, but again my speed was well-up and I finally arrived in Den Haag (Note the Dutch name!) just three hours and five minutes after leaving Dunkirk and eight hours fifteen minutes from home. I could have gone quicker by easyJet from Stansted, but I couldn’t have taken as much luggage and especially my Brompton. The difference is probably three hours.
Incidentally for most of the last part of the journey I was listening to the late great Dusty Springfield on the CD player. Wonderful! Especially, as through the Drechttunnel, with the top down, I was playing one of her songs at full blast and it was reverberating off the walls.
I did get slowed on entering Den Haag, so I turned off the motorway and followed the signs to Scheveningen. If you ask the locals how you pronounce that town, the answer is now very non politically correct, as it refers to shaving someone described by an N-word. But it is linguistically correct.
The Anonymous Widower 