Blogging at midnight on Tuesday 12th April from intended overnighting spot: N 49.33685°, W 00.46402° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:49.33685%2C-00.46402
It was as bad as feared. We were just about the last vehicle off the ferry and border control was intense. Hundreds of cars were backed up at the immigration checks and nothing at all was moving: except for freight trucks.
Well, we were in a truck, so one stealthy chicane through some cones later saw us in a line of artics passing quickly - and with zero border controls - out of no-mans-land and into France. Maybe that one will eventually come back and bite us with a term of imprisonment, but I reckon it saved us at least an hour. Worth it.
But then it did indeed get harder. Small French towns and roads are tricky enough in daylight but in full darkness and through the fug of fatigue they are genuinely wretched. We lost count of the number of 'it may or may not fit through here' incidents and then, when only a couple of miles to our potential overnighting spot, we came upon the almost inevitable 'Route Barrée' sign. I've moaned about the ruthlessness of French road closures before - they're very effective and you're very much left on your own - you can positively sense the Gallic shrug. Tiny roads became improbably tiny roads accompanied by a ever-increasing quantities of swearing.
Patience eventually won the day, though and after what seemed like an age saw us arrive (very tired) at the spot shown. We've been here before to visit the Canadian memorials / war museum at Juno beach and I'd remember it as a nice little spot that just might make for a quiet kip.
It looks like it'll be OK. As we've previously encountered, outside of major settlements the French are far more inclined to reserved behaviour and are far more inclined to just plain keep themselves to themselves; and not constantly spill out England-like in drunken yobbery or more generalised nefarious shenanigans.
If we were in England in similar surroundings there's no way I'd try to kip here. It would be noisy and there'd be the omnipresent threat of casual malevolence. Not here, in spite of the proximity of town and residential areas we've seen absolutely no one and you could hear a pin drop.
It's just plain civilised. And pleasingly dark. Pleasing in a very-little-light-pollution kind of way. More somewhere down the line on this one...
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