The Journey

With the van bulging with enough stuff between us to last a year let alone four weeks we were surely ready to hit the road. By 12 o’clock we were all set and headed off on the first leg of the journey; destination Dover and the ferry. It was a brilliant day, the sky was blue and the sun was shining. The trip was pretty painless and we cruised in to the ferry port with plenty of time to spare before our boat left. Feeling happy with ourselves to have made a start on the journey, little did we know that we had barley scraped the surface and that by the end we would be seeing motorway in our sleep.

After the crossing to France, we drove another hour and then parked up for the night. The trip through France was pretty straight-forward, except for Paris. It could have quite easily been like driving dodgems through a maze, whilst trying to catch what is written on every road sign. It was pretty hectic to say the least. We made as far as the Pyrenees and my Dad’s place where we held up for the night. There was plenty of snow at my ol’ man’s which was a huge contrast from the weather we’d had on the journey so far.

This morning we set off deciding to cross into Spain at the nearest crossing to my Dad’s. This was probably not the best idea ever as it really slowed the whole journey down. Instead of cruising along the motorway, we were reduced to crawling pace as we creeped our way over snowy, mountain passes. Slowly the scenery changed from huge white, mountains to dry and dusty orange and lemon orchards, as we made our way deeper into Spain. We drove through the day, getting pretty lost around Madrid, but finally arriving near El Chorro at about 2am, knackered and happy never to see another motorway again. After finding a nice quiet spot we got our heads down for the night.