France to England via Calais EuroTunnel

The morning we left Calais there was no news about new attempts by migrants to enter the tunnel. Once we got to England the local news papers in London were reporting that another 700 people had managed to get into the tunnel. There were no deaths reported. Many of the French officers deployed to the tunnel seem to be staying in our hotel;

There were four alleys of vans, cars, trucks and motorcycles parked in the secure parking lot of our hotel.

Our journey was very smooth. We checked in more than an hour before our travel time because we were worried about issues with brining the dog. I really appreciated all the advance information from EuroTunnel and the clear signs for the dog check-in. It was easy, smooth and without problems.

The pet check-in

All labs in line, one should have been chocolate!

The French had no one checking the passports of folks leaving, but the British had a full compliment of officers checking passports. Again, very smooth.

British customs

Then the loading of the train, simple, smooth.

The debouchment at the other end was a bit fraught - all of a sudden you are driving on the wrong side of the road and you are within moments on the M20 motorway. There are no motorway services to speak of, no way to take a moment of calm reflection to say to oneself; 'keep left'.

We were very early, because I'd forgotten there is an hour difference from France to England. We stopped briefly at Leeds castle, only to be informed that dogs were not allowed either in the park or in the car. Onward Christian soldiers! The speed of these little roads is shocking. 97km/hr on a skinny two to one lane road. The road is slimmed by the corners of houses encroaching (which I realize is because the road grew, not because the house moved) and single lane bridges, and parking on the edges. I had to close my eyes a few times, but Christopher was astounding.

After motoring along in heavy but smoothly moving traffic we entered the conurbation that is greater London.  We were finally moving at a slow enough pace that when I spotted an open pub door ahead my fast acting driver (Christopher) was able to stop and pull into the parking lot. I staggered in an asked for a pint to steady my nerves. It was a welcome stop. We had a great chat with the barmaid (who'd just returned from Paris) and others in the pub. We got a recommend for lunch and were generally a lot calmer once we got back on the road to our eventual stopping place in Camberwell.