To Dover - Eventually

It took 15 minutes to get to the ferry port the next morning. The weather wasn't good: windy as well as wet.

They were late loading us as the ferry hadn't arrived. Many of our fellow passengers were Triumph owners who'd apparently been taking part in the Ten Countries Run

Eventually the ferry arrived and we were allowed on.

About an hour late I think.

We tend to be put with the trucks and the route from our van to the lounges wasn't easy to find. For a while we found ourselves on deck with no clear idea of where to go.

Apart from the Triumph owners and truck drivers coachloads of German schoolchildren made up the rest of the passenger list. Considering no-one appeared to be in charge they seemed to be reasonably well behaved but did tend to congregate in large groups and the constant buzz of their conversation made it difficult to hear announcements.

We did though manage to hear that:

1. the journey would take one and a half hours, as scheduled, but

2. because of adverse weather conditions we would then have to wait 2 hours outside Dover before being allowed to dock.

In fact we waited two and a half hours outside Dover and then there was a further half hour delay before getting to our vehicle. We'd booked a campsite in Abbey Wood for the next four nights and we eventually arrived there at 7 p.m. If we'd been an hour later we wouldn't have been allowed on the site but banished to a 'late arrivals' area outside the gate.