Return journey to Northern France and CentrO Oberhausen

After a long, nice barbecue evening and a short night, we set off towards the Eurotunnel on Friday morning at 10:30 a.m. Just under 5 hours should be enough for 290 km of highway. After a fuel stop and the usual traffic jam around London, I was no longer so sure that it would fit. I became increasingly jittery 😬.

But then we were at the pet reception at 2:40 p.m. and were checked in again for an earlier train. When we arrived in Calais, we drove straight to the parking space and quietly ended the evening there. The last few days have been quite stressful for both of us.

The next day Ingo wanted to go to the bunker museum in Audinghen (Battery Todt, half an hour from Calais). But first we wanted to stop somewhere along the way and have breakfast (and maybe take a quick look over at the beach again?). I looked at the map: There is a free motorhome parking space near the beach in Sangatte - great!

It's just a shame that beams have now been put up there to limit the height, the parking lot is now only for cars. The bus parking lot that we wanted to use no longer existed either, so bollards were put up there. So, on to the next place, in Wissant. We could hardly believe our eyes: everything was full, close together! There was also nowhere to simply stop anywhere along the way, all parking spaces had height restrictions. By then I had really finished my coffee, or was missing it, because we still hadn't had breakfast!

We then drove through to Audinghen, where we wanted to check in at the campsite right next to the bunker: lunch break from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. (we were now at 1:30 p.m.) 🙄 It's really milking the mouse! So the museum parking lot (which was fortunately quite empty) had to serve as a breakfast spot. I made myself comfortable there while Ingo did something to improve his history knowledge. But it didn't fill the day, after an hour he was back at the car.

In the meantime I googled what else we could see and we drove a little further to Ambleteuse. The campsite actually still had space for us. The town was rather disappointing. There is a seaside promenade, the “beach” consists of huge stones (which can be quite slippery, as I painfully discovered 😣) and at the end there is an old fort - that's about it in terms of sights. We couldn't find a decent restaurant either, so we had fast food at the campsite snack bar, not tasty.

Somehow I was done with vacation from that point on and was looking forward to being home again. The vacation was wonderful, no question, but also tiring, especially all the driving.

The next morning we were woken up at around 10:20 a.m. by an incredible noise: for a good 20 minutes, hundreds of Harley riders passed right by the campsite, the Opale Harley Days 2023. 😅. Our cats obviously found it interesting, they were hanging on the window 😻😻.

Now off to home! We got through well and drove our longest stage today with 440 km in 5.5 hours. We ended up at the CentrO in Oberhausen, where you can easily spend the night in the parking lot.

We've been to the huge shopping center 2-3 times, but it was always too crowded and too loud for us. What we didn't know before was the promenade. Local to local, and of course they are all open on Sundays too. You can sit outside, by the water, really nicely laid out! The wild geese were fighting loudly, the weather was still pleasantly warm and the whole thing was lit up with a great sunset. The food at ALEX was delicious and we were completely happy and satisfied with how it ended 🌅.

Tomorrow we're going home! Then we ended up driving around 3,600 km in about 45 hours. In addition, there are 600 km with the rental car in Ireland and some distances with Laura. So there were more kilometers and more driving time than in Norway 😳

Zeven, here we come! Ireland, you'll have us back in 9 months! Then we will try the night ferry from Cherbourg. This will hopefully allow us to shorten the travel time for the outward and return journey from 8 days to 6 days.

Until then, 3-4 shorter tours are planned. Will I then write a travel diary again? Let yourself be surprised 😉