Friday, 6 September 2024: We’re off to the UK!
These holidays suddenly came very quickly after a very busy last two weeks. But we are looking forward to spending two weeks in England with lots of friends.
We set off at 9.20am and make good progress. An hour later, we cross the border into France in Basel and follow the signs to Strasbourg. We are only slowed down by a Lamborghini that is only travelling at 100 km/h despite the 130 km/h speed limit and simply doesn’t want to leave the fast lane. We’ve named it the LAMEborghini.
After Colmar, we leave the motorway and take the main road: our electric car LucY prefers to take a direct route with slower roads because it puts less strain on the battery. The drive through the vineyards and charming French towns is really nice. After a long tunnel, we finally cross the Vosges mountains.
We make our first charging stop near Nancy at 12.40 pm. The Superchargers are in the car park of a shopping centre. We go to the toilet and then search the supermarket for chips and snacks with flavours that are not available in Switzerland. But we don’t have long: LucY is calling! The loading process is complete and he wants to continue. Okay, okay, we’re coming. We eat the sandwich we’ve brought with us while driving.
We drive on alongside large wind turbines. And are quite astonished when a fighter plane flies over our heads. The military airport is probably next to the motorway.
At 16:00, we make a second charging stop at Saint-Quentin. The Superchargers are at the back of a motorway service station. I could lie in the grass here for a while later, I think. But when we come back from the toilet, LucY is already ready to drive on again.
Fortunately, it’s not too long now. We step on the gas and arrive at the Eurotunnel terminal in Calais at 18:00. While we wait for our train, we plug LucY into the Supercharger again. That is, when one finally becomes free.
On the way to the train, we observe how a bromance develops. A Belgian with a vintage Alfa Romeo wants to drive past the queue and meets a man from Fribourg with a vintage Lancia. The two then drive side by side to passport control. And I’m sure they spent the whole train journey talking about cars.
With the Tesla, we no longer drive into the double-decker section of the train for small cars, but into the section for large cars. And we’re the first to get in again. I clean the windscreen and then eat two more sandwiches while the train passes under the English Channel in 35 minutes. And soon we’re on the motorway in England.
Motorway? Roadworks rather than a motorway! That’s really tedious. Almost the whole stretch is one long roadworks site, with bumpy concrete slabs and an 80 km/h speed limit. No wonder we’re travelling so long. We make a charging stop at what is probably the weirdest Supercharger there is (the charging points are at the front, not at the back of the parking bays), where we met an English artist on the way to a Comic Con last time. Today we’re standing here alone. And fortunately not for long. It should just stretch as far as the hotel and a little further.
We stop at the Cobham motorway service station for a Nando’s snack. The chicken, chips and mushy peas are just what we need to energise us for the last forty minutes of the journey. We arrive at the hotel in Fleet at 10.30 pm. After some confusion about our booked room, we settle in and go to sleep shortly after midnight.