The hustle and bustle of finally leaving the UK. The ferry seemed pretty straight forward. This time however we weren’t stopped by any officials, whether that was a sign of things to come, we know not yet. Anyway, having lost the Garmins a few days earlier, we left Calais slightly apprehensive and not quite sure where we were heading. So what do you do when lost, head for Paris, of course.
On our first night, on our way to Paris, we happened upon a lovely forest campsite. Nice and cheap at only 8.90 Euros per night, we were like, yes please, we could get used to this. Also I sorted out the new Garmin with our weypoints and maps. Hey shoo!! On the Tuesday we headed out nice and early in the direction of Paris. We headed for a campsite in Paris via the shortest route, which we soon decided against. Paid 5.80 Euros for the Toll Gate from the middle of somewhere and headed on the straight road to Paris. The tollgate is a very simple system of push the button, get the ticket, go through the boom and pay when you want to exit. Simples! Price according to distance travelled on tollroute… Believe me, time is money…
Paris, well Paris indeed. We arrived at a campsite in Paris which was very expensive. Neil and I thought we would excercise our God given right to shop around. Well 24km and 3 hours later, we were back at the original campsite. We then reasoned that the attractions were near enough to walk (6km) thereby no travel costs to balance out the cost of camping. The problem was by the time we set out it was already just past five in the afternoon. We managed to walk the distance see the lovely Eiffel tower by night with all the lovely sparkling lights. We lay under it, wishing for nothing more… ever… little did we know that we would be wishing for a cloak of invisibility a little later on and a garmin with a battery that could last a little longer…
It is funny to see how the cloak of darkness changes ones perspective. The picturesque walk throught the forest in the day, turned into Paris’ very lively red light district at night. For every 3 birds by day, each tree had now 3 ladies of the night, standing around it. We will never look at a woman with white boots in the same light again… We reasoned that they wore these white boots so that the prospective clients could see them in the dark forest. To make matters worse, our Garmins battery died just at that crucial point where you weren’t sure if you had to go down this lane or head straight into oblivion. Not for the faint of heart, but trust the Rautenbachs to do it the interesting way.
Our next day in Paris was uneventful as far as night time activites went. Although we had a fabulous time at La Louvre, no lines whatsoever. Oh and who said that driving the Arc De Triumph is hard. We did it twice and didn’t even break a sweat. We put it down to our extensive experience driving in London. Now the reason we drove it twice is that we sort of were lost the second time around. It was really funny though and we felt priviledge to be nailing the Arc for the second time in a half hour.
All kidding aside, Neil and I decided that we are definitely country muffins and cities only lead to tears and frustration. If anything always find out if there are strikes or demonstrations being held where you want to be. Three hours in a traffic jam is not cool. At least we’ll have first hand footage of Paris on the Eye Data system.
From Paris we were relieve to be heading for the country side. We threw caution to the wind and decided to wild camp on the way. Note this isn’t exactly legal in France and Germany, needless to say, we didn’t know this at the time. A little about that night… Well, it started well, we found a lovely secluded place right next to a forest and Neil promptly jumped up onto the car to sort out the tent. I was waiting down below organising sleepwear and such. It didn’t take long before I realised that I didn’t exactly agree with the noises coming out of the forest. The final straw was when Neil slid the ladder into place with a loud click and something bounding off into the forest. No light need and I straight in the car, jumped over the handbrake to slam the driver side door shut and shut my door and hit the central locking button with another leap over the handbrake promptly locking Neil, who was still on top of the car, out. I had to open the sunroof to get Neils attention and realised his silence wasn’t silence at all, but he was laughing his hiney off at me.
Well at least we slept well. Also the tent setup and foldup is getting easier all the time. Next stop Germany.
