At Montreuil-sur-Mer we discover that the sea is 13km away as the river silted-up in the middle ages. It must have been a slow death and presumably they didn't have any means to avoid it.
We are here for a final night in France and we are almost embarrassed not to be at Gypsy Woman's site near Boulogne. I have a feeling that she'll find out but if we stay away, at least we won't know that she knows we aren't there but could have been.
The campsite is below the ramparts and rather surprisingly there's a way through the walls for pedestrians. The entry and exits are about 20m apart, so there's an interesting and dark walk inside the wall to reach the other one.
Once in the town we had a wander and again marvelled at huge groundworks where masses of earth have been excavated in the quest to create an impregnable 'fortress town'.
The next morning we sympathise a little with a Dutch couple who have had no power overnight as they flattened their caravan battery. They didn't connect to the electric hook-up because their lead wasn't long enough and I reckon they had their 3-way fridge on 12 volts.
We 'pack' for the final time and drove to Wimereux where the tide is in and the seafront quiet. We tour the town looking for a parking spot that isn't 'pay for a day' or hidden behind a 2m height barrier. I think they have had problems with gypsies as these barriers are all over France - especially at hypermarkets. We have needed to be vigilant on approach.
We find a road at the north end of the seafront where we drop into a single spot; someone must have just vacated it. We walk slowly along until we get to the first coffee stop and take a seat inside. For the first time in ages it feels cool. Then we continue to the far end and mess about on a slipway with a washed-up tennis ball. We actually have fun kicking it back along the prom. which is still very quiet and no-one interferes with it as it rolls ahead of us and usually into the sea water drain gutter.
The waiter at the coffee stop restaurant is delighted to see us again; he had been disappointed to find that we'd only wanted to drink. Now he flourishes the menu and we ask for moules marinière and Perrier. Well it is the last day. He would probably have been disappointed to hear that all we've done between coffee and midi is kick a ball along the promenade but little things can be nice.
Now we are sitting outside and, as promised, the sun burns through and my head starts to fry as I'm without a cap. Fortunately I have a very lightweight shirt as a second layer and I make a very good job of wrapping it around like a keffiyeh and save my scalp.
The final treat is an ice-cream on the main street behind the promenade. There's a blackboard outside listing some of the flavours but it's comical as every one we ask for isn't available. We resort to asking for a suggestion. Here though a single boule can be had for €3.50 but it is huge and beautiful taste too.
Then it's time for the Channel Tunnel and we time our arrival to minimise waiting, only to arrive and discover that 'an incident' has pushed things back 30mins or so. It doesn't seem long and I spend some of the time talking Defenders to a driver of one who is right behind us. His 2.2 Puma has broken down twice on their shorter trip to Croatia. "Have you had any trouble (with your 30 year old 110)"? "Nah, it's been great as usual".
The route, roughly anti-clockwise:
The trip distance was 2,615 miles (4,184 km) and we used 477 litres / 105 Imp gallons of fuel, giving 26 mpg / 11 litres per 100 km.
There were no breakdowns and just one issue with the Landy. This was a bad connection at the coolant temperature sender, giving high resistance and consequent low temperature reading at the gauge. I managed to clean it up and locate it more securely and it was 'sorted'.
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