France 2023 tour.

runnach said:
Time wind up this thread, touring over, and later today leaving house to head north towards the tunnel.

It has been an interesting long tour, been to places that I never knew existed. The comparison between facilities in France compared to back home is wide. The timing has worked well, mid March weather around Normandy was ok, would have liked better, down here in the Vienne, better weather with some frosts in the morning. Now June and the heat is really hot 🥵 I’m in the camper as I type, every window, door and roof vents wide open and 010.30 gauge reading 27c. Hopefully carry on with the better weather back home, but not as hot.

When back home, start to plan the our next EU trip.

A big shout out to Bea who spent a great deal of time planning places to visit 👍 sourcing Aires etc 🍷

When we leave here later today, we’ll be incommunicado, RegLo card expired and GiffGaff have locked me out due to no use of phone within the UK. But they remembered to take funds for this month and last month from my account, shyster.

Cheers 🍻
Click to expand...
hi runnach . my 3 did the same the bar-steward's but took a shed load of not used GB's off me . anyway loved the trip you had talking about planning for your next trip i do it on my trip for the next one i know its sad :love:.cheyenne
 
runnach said:
Well that is us back on UK soil, back to cold weather, chit roads, weed infested footpaths. What is so Great about Britain? 😵‍💫
Click to expand...
the road out :unsure: because have you seen the price of uk campsites some people have more money than sense .its Europe for us all the way i am afraid . cheyenne
 
What we always notice as soon as we land on foreign soil is the lack of litter and the smoothness of the roads (especially the Netherlands). I don’t believe that the lack of litter is a result of better street cleaning than back in the UK, it’s because the culture is not to drop litter in the first place. We seem to have lost pride in the UK.
 
runnach said:
Well that is us back on UK soil, back to cold weather, chit roads, weed infested footpaths. What is so Great about Britain? 😵‍💫
Click to expand...

The UK is my favourite place in the world. The variety of weather is great whilst rarely too extreme. Most of the people are great. Personally I love just parking up for the night or one of hundreds of basic CLs. Only yesterday it was revealed that in terms of food prices it is amongst the lower half of Europe, France being most expensive. I feel very lucky to have been born with the right to live here.
 
Bill, reference was pointing to poor infra-structure. M20, 15 mile driving along the hard shoulder, with lane to my right, which is the slow inside lane, very tight due to 15 mile worth of concrete set separating what would the middle and fast lane. 15 mile and nothing going on work wise this morning. M25, like driving through the Somme, zig zagging to miss numerous potholes, quite a few of them long and deep. Weeds every where, more noticeable when I walked the dog in Folkestone. Weather, it is what it is, more noticeable when in long warm weather, I broke out the fleece 🥶

Again, when me experiencing this long trip, UK is way behind with facilities for our hobby.

Cost of food, I can’t agree more, France is expensive compared to UK.
 
The M20 problem is operation 'Brock' which ended last week. However .... they have decided to extend it again for another 9 weeks so that the movable concrete barrier is "parked" in the central reservation rather than on the hard shoulder. Brock is their "answer" to the lorries blocking the M20 when there is a hold up at Dover/ Calais. It has been here about 5 years on and off (more on than off!) And is a total pain in the butt for us locals!
There simply is no land to take the lorries going through the tunnel or Dover so they use the M20 as a car park.
 
Marshman said:
The M20 problem is operation 'Brock' which ended last week. However .... they have decided to extend it again for another 9 weeks so that the movable concrete barrier is "parked" in the central reservation rather than on the hard shoulder. Brock is their "answer" to the lorries blocking the M20 when there is a hold up at Dover/ Calais. It has been here about 5 years on and off (more on than off!) And is a total pain in the butt for us locals!
There simply is no land to take the lorries going through the tunnel or Dover so they use the M20 as a car park.
Click to expand...
Marsh man, name should be changed to Operation Broke 😂

Opposite carriage way heading towards Folkestone/Dover was clear and traffic moving freely, which was the case in March when in M20 heading to the tunnel.

Too much traffic ( and me being one ) for our infrastructure to cope with
 
"Opposite carriage way heading towards Folkestone/Dover was clear and traffic moving freely, which was the case in March when in M20 heading to the tunnel."
Runnach ..... that is the irony of it! Before Brock, when there was bad weather or a French strike or whatever, the lorries waiting to cross the channel simply jammed up the M20 and A20 between Ashford and Dover and all the surrounding roads ... there were 1000's of them! It was total gridlock! ..... for days at a time.

So they devised Brock ... which uses 2 lanes of the Eastbound (Doverbound) M20 to park the lorries in and bleed them through down to the tunnel and Dover. Any lorries trying to beat the queue on local roads are stopped at the tunnel and Dover and sent to the back of the queue.

In order to use the 2 lanes eastbound, they had to make a contraflow of 2 lanes on the Westbound side .... which is what you saw. They do this using a moveable concrete barrier that acts like a zip and can be moved overnight. The trouble is they have now realised that when they unzip the barrier and park it on the hard shoulder, it reduces the width of the hard shoulder, which is dangerous. So for the next 9 weeks they are widening the central reservation so they can park the barrier there!

Just thank your lucky stars you sailed through - it's a pain in the butt when it is in operation! (But not as bad as the gridlock (and bottles of piss all over the verges) that happened before!))

I think us Kent residents should get a refund on our Road Tax ... we are paying for a foreign lorry car park!

With the delays due to the new French/EU biometric checks coming in maybe next year, (or will it be delayed again?*) I forecast that you will see Brock in operation much more.

Jeremy

* There is a rumour that the French have delayed the EES's introduction until after the Paris Olympics because they want all us Brits in Paris so they can take our money!
 
Thank you for your clear explanation, Jeremy. It all makes more sense and what the uk gov are trying to do to sort a solution the best they can with what is available, not an easy fix

I have viewed the congestion via tge news, and must be hellish for locals, in fact anyone trying to drive from A to B.

Aye, when the biometric system comes to fruition, passing customs will take longer, thus creating more grid lock for locals, must have a huge impact on the local economy, and the wider economy too.

Situation in France is not great, many citizens not happy with excessive cost of living, increase pension age to 64 and, French gov inheritance law is just a huge money grab by the FG.
Cheers
 
""There simply is no land to take the lorries going through the tunnel or Dover so they use the M20 as a car park.""

We have Railway Lines that run all over the Island that we used to Transport 'stuff' what's the problem to go back to using them & free up our Roadways . COST ?
 
Last edited:
tarmac all the railways and get lorries on them much more practical than using that victorian travel system
 
cheyenne said:
that all depends where you live we was born in Manchester but as soon as we retired we moved well away the UK is NOT the same place we grew in the fifties . cheyenne
Click to expand...
I expect you would get the same answer for any large town or city, none of them are the same as in the fifties ..........
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who viewed this discussion (Total:0)

Back
Top