Finally, back in England

For those of you outside the immediate area of the channel tunnel, I should explain.

The channel tunnel is exactly what it says a tunnel under the English Channel connecting Folkestone, England to Calais, France. It takes about 35 minutes to cross under the Channel this way and we had never used the tunnel before so I thought it would be nice to use it on our trip. There were 2 main advantages to us, one being how quick it is and the second being that our beloved pups would stay with us in the car throughout the crossing. For any new readers, on our trip to Spain we used the overnight ferry and this is what Brinkley wrote about his experience.

http://2littlepuppies.blogspot.com/2008/05/weve-moved-to-spain-and-its-brill.html

Not one we wanted to repeat.

We had to keep an eye on the electronic boards around the car park which would tell us when we were to proceed to the holding stage of the terminal and we saw the lights change just before midnight. Suddenly there was a dash by all the cars parked nearby. We were happy to follow others as we didn’t know where we were going and we were channelled towards a kiosk where a guy checked our tickets and sorted us into the right lanes, cars, 4x4 cars, cars with top boxes, caravans, coaches and lorries all needed to be sorted. We were behind 2 mini-buses and we all sat there waiting for the time to tick away. Boarding would begin at 12.10.

Finally, the time arrived for us to start our engines and move forward. We followed the 2 mini-buses and then came a bit of a shock, when the marshall at front held up the 2 buses and waved us ahead. We didn’t know where we were going. We followed the lane around a corner and looked for signs of where to go. Suddenly we realised that we needed to drive down a very steep slope. As we approached the bottom of the slope we could see another marshall way in the distance, with a clip board and we headed towards them. As we got closer we could see there was an opening on the left hand side ahead of us and the marshall waved us into it. Getting a car in isn’t a problem but I can imagine some of the larger lorries and coaches having problems. Apparently, they have one chance at it and have to get it right or they can’t get straightened up to drive along the train.

We started our drive along the train and the front seemed so far away I began to think we were actually going to be driving the whole way under the sea. Eventually, we arrived at the front of the train and switched of the engine. Within a few minutes everyone was on board and we set off on time. There is no sense of movement because there are no windows to see out of. There is a little noise but nothing much at all. We could get out of the car and walk alongside the cars if we wanted to but the dogs had to stay in the car, not that it was a problem, the dogs were extremely settled. They had the back seats all to themselves and they had found the whole journey perfectly comfortable. They sometimes slept a little but mostly they stayed alert, not wanting to miss out on any excitement.

Before we knew it, we were driving off the train in Folkestone. We had done the passport control bit as we went through the terminal in Calais so we were straight out onto the roads and off looking for our hotel. This time our directions were spot on and within 10 minutes we were checking in for the night.

We were in Folkestone, back in England.