I’m tempted to add “and good riddance” to that, in the time honoured fashion. Putting up with the noise of camping on what amounts to a construction site, really was the limit. Don’t do such extensive, disruptive and noisy work in tourist season, for pity’s sake.
Our pitch move did buy us some respite from the racing dumper truck and, of course, construction work stops for the weekend, so folks arriving on Friday late afternoon would wonder what all the fuss was about. Admittedly, the construction disruption is a temporary affair for this year but we have also discovered that the Clicochic camping chain is actually associated with the distressingly extensive Capfun chain, which is everything but fun. So, given all the water slide components that we saw ready for installation and our experience with Capfun, this is likely to become a no-go zone for us and other discerning couples looking for a peaceful break. Given this site’s history, it’s a sad loss to touring campers but I very much doubt that we’ll be back. We’ll need to find an alternative.
Our 350kms run to Neufchâtel-en-Bray took us about 5 hrs. The campsite reception opened at 13:30 but we called in to the extremely handily placed local Leclerc supermarket to fill up with fuel and Ricard, plus a few other essentials, before checking in. The campsite is an absolute goldmine but the owner, to his credit, does plough a lot of his money back into improvements and development, which happily do not include water slides. Since we have never witnessed ongoing changes, just noted them between visits, it can be assumed that development here is done out of season.
Here we spent out last night in France for this trip before heading for Le Shuttle on Sunday morning. The French side of the operation ran a lot more smoothly than did our outbound checking in and boarding on the English side. There was no repeat of multiple lanes merging/barging into one to get through passport control.
Once disembarking, there is no doubt that you are back in England with all the potholes and uneven road surfaces – you could detect it blindfold. Added to that is the weight of traffic, of course. Getting through the Dartford Tunnel took 30 minutes and, after 3 hours of the constantly appalling road surfaces, Francine’s nerves were jangling by the time we neared home.
Using Le Shuttle has some appeal. However, given the trauma of getting to and from Folkestone plus driving the extra distance on the French side through the Pas de Calais, we have to ask whether it’s worth it compared to a south coast ferry crossing.
I know Francine’s answer.
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