Friday 19 May 2017

Canterbury to Han sur Lesse - 230 miles

Rained most of the night but it had stopped when Jamie announced at 6.15 that he wanted to go out, which wasn't any bother as the alarm was set for 6.30 anyway to give us time to have breakfast, service the van and get round to the Chunnel for our 09.20 departure. We learned later that there had been serious delays overnight due to a breakdown in the tunnel, which was probably the reason for all the lorries parked up before the check-in booths. It didn't affect us much and we only had a short wait before loading although it was about 12 minutes late departing.

Usual smooth crossing and we were on our way to Auchan to refuel. No shopping required so straight onto the autoroute heading east for Belgium. Our route took us past Dunkerque then down to Lille but here we seemed to go wrong. We were following a route offered by a contributor to MMM, our motorhoming magazine, but the instructions at this point were either wrong or easily misunderstood. Being lunchtime it was extremely busy and it was also pouring with rain, making driving difficult, so it was not surprising that we found ourselves heading in totally the wrong direction. Escaping onto a Centre Commerciale, our efforts to park up were thwarted by height barriers and we ended up on a dead end road behind Carrefour!

ENOUGH! Stopped at the side of the road and got TomTom involved, who promptly tried to take us under a 2.2m bridge - we're 3m high......... Sorted that out and eventually got onto the right road with the bonus of the rain stopping. We shortly encountered an aire so stopped for lunch, the break for which was badly needed.

With no plan for a stopover, we continued for the moment on the suggested route in and out of quite heavy rain showers all afternoon. By 4.00 pm we concluded that the aire suggested in our route plan would be just right so we programmed TomTom with the coordinates then came to a stop for a set of serious roadworks which cost us over half an hour delay. It is Friday afternoon so we suppose the same set of rules apply here as at home. POETS day (push off early, tomorrows's Saturday!).

But it is a very nice aire in the Belgian town – well, big village – of Han sur Lesse. We noticed two campsites as well as the aire and a massive coach park, which was empty but it was after 5.30 pm, so the town must have something going for it. So after a cuppa we took Jamie for an explore and discovered it was home to a series of underground caves, a “grotte”, which had been developed into a big tourist attraction along with a wild animal park. And it was only €28 entrance!!! Shame it was closed! Still it's a nice little town otherwise.

Decorative street bollards all round the town

Scrap metal sculpture

At last the rain had given up and as I write the sky had cleared although the temperature is dropping, but it has now clouded over again and is raining. We're in no rush and after the long day today we'll take our time tomorrow - Terry has had an upset tummy all day, probably too much cheese last night.

Where we stayed

Aire de Camping Cars, Rue de la Lesse, Han-Sur-Lesse. Signed.   N50º07.650' E5º11.280'

40 hardstandings with water & electricity adjacent to each pitch. Large service point. Small toilet block 50c. WiFi. Town, shops 300m. Local attractions. 2 other campsites close by.

€11 pay at TI or collected after hours.