Back through Champagne country

France Passion provided a super end to the trip in Champagne country, as we picked a small producer and spent a lovely evening and night in front of the farm. The France Passion book shows the location of the hosts and it's just a case of relating this to a more detailed map and perhaps more importantly, the reviews left by other visitors.

In this case, the reviews mentioned a great spot and nice hosts at a small champagne producer, Champagne Lysiane Moncourant at Villevenard to the south of Epernay. It's just off the main road running north from Sézanne to Epernay. We turned up a hill and drove across the front of a big house, stopping in a turning space at the end of the road near farm implements and next to a nice lawned area. This was the overnight pitch. Room for one and that was us.

It's a good job that our rudimentary French was as polished as it could be after almost six weeks, as the host spoke almost no English. We soon established that we had access to a toilet and washbasin and we were asked if we wanted to sample the champagne.

We arranged to go and say hello a little later and got the kettle on and enjoyed what would be our last late afternoon in the sun. The weather was about to break and now we were approaching the "the North" it would be unlikely a quick route back to sun and heat.

Later our host picked us up and led us to the patio area, giving us a champagne brochure to study. We had already said that we weren't experts and wouldn't want to buy more than a bottle or two but she was perfectly happy with this. She suggested that we try the "normal stuff" and produced a bottle from ice. We drank with her and later her husband, talking about producing champagne, France, England and life generally. It was a lovely evening and there was absolutely no pressure to buy, although two bottles seemed the correct amount and was all we had room for anyway.

Overnight the lightening started and we could see some flashes from our elevated position. Later the rain came and was heavy enough to give the roof a good test. We are still not totally confident in wind and rain as we haven't experienced enough challenging weather with the new set-up but there were no problems and inside all was dry the next morning.

It was a damp start and in a very small space care is needed to ensure that wet stuff stays in the right place and nothing gets too damp. We headed for the Channel Tunnel as we had made a booking a few days earlier. The final night would be somewhere near Boulogne but with no campsite booked we took pot luck at the sites on the coast and stayed at Les Ajoncs at Audresselles. This is a Camping Municipal, catering for a huge turnover of visitors with barrier entry and exit. We were unable to pitch at the top with a view, due to the gale that was blowing and instead were in a small tent field away from the rest. Most people were in bigger camper vans and touring caravans with many arranged as permanent pitches for the summer.

A young guy pitched a tent near us. Really close. It was a bit weird as the field was quite big. He looked as though he'd just jumped on the bike somewhere down the road but said he was on a trip from Normandy to Amsterdam. It was all a bit strange.

Moules Frites seemed to be the ideal meal for the last night and we walked from the windy clifftop campsite into town and searched for a restaurant that had a free table. Dinner was very nice.

One of the best bits of "The Tunnel" is that they will let you onto an earlier train if there is space. So the process is very quick and the next morning we were up, off, under and onto the M20 in just a few hours.

The route to the M1 uses the Dartford Crossing and as on the outward trip, we made a mental note to pay the charge when we got home. However, in the pile of post waiting for us was an aggressive penalty notice from Dart Charge which claimed that we hadn't paid the fee for the outward trip six weeks earlier. As we hadn't taken advantage of the discount for early payment, we would need to fork out £73. This had already been increased to £105 as twenty eight days had elapsed since the notice had been issued.

It would have been useful if they had sent the notice to the email address I'd used to make payment as well as to the registered address for the vehicle.

We had paid of course, on the day we used it and had the on-line receipt to prove this, so I made what I assumed would be a simple telephone call to sort things out. Matters got complicated as I was told that I had received a generic penalty notice and in fact my misdemeanour was that I had paid the incorrect amount, £2.50 instead of £3.00. The penalty was to recover the 50 pence. Hmmm.

At the time of that call I hadn't checked their website and assumed that somehow we were classed as C when in fact we should be B. This would mean that they had picked up the Land Rover as a van rather than a station wagon (with windows and seats) or even a small camper. I was told that I would need to make a representation on-line and submit evidence that would include my vehicle's V5. So I did this and was told that they had fifty six days to reply. This was far longer than I had been given to pay the reduced fee!

Then I checked the website as I still needed to pay the charge for the return and had already decided not to argue and pay £3.00. However the Dart Charge website asks for the registration number and then pulls the correct class from the DVLA record and in our case it was correctly shown as Class B, £2.50. So why had I been sent the notice on the outgoing crossing if their system requested Class B?

Another phone call to Dart Charge was followed by several more. Each time I spoke to a call handler I was given a different story. Some said it was a mistake and another refused to do anything "as you have already made a representation".

It was very frustrating and impossible to understand what had gone wrong. I had gone on line, declared I'd used the crossing, stated my vehicle reg and paid the fee requested. Later, their system must have checked the cameras to identify the vehicles that had actually crossed, checked these against the online payments and presumably filtered out those who hadn't paid as well as others who's vehicle photo didn't match that that they expected (from the ANPR system).

I presume that they didn't believe that the vehicle identified in their photo, matched the registration. It must have been assumed that I was driving a different one with cloned plates. They didn't say this. They wouldn't talk about it. I just had to wait.

After several weeks I received an apology and "no further action will be taken". There was no explanation except that they had "made an error". I had no more energy left with which to complain.