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Departure Day!
Leaving England’s Green and
Pleasant Lands
Early alarm call at our
Southsea Campsite … today was The Day! Alan drove the Laguna towing the
caravan and I tucked in close behind in the Vitara. We headed off to
Portsmouth Port where Alan caused his usual chaos – this time trying to make
sure I stayed right behind him even on the car deck of the ship. The first
officer, Roger Black, knew Alan well. He was directing the cars into their
proper places on board the Commodore Clipper, but waved me on behind Alan
into the caravan lane. I was surprised not to see the quay filled with
Commodore and Condor people making sure that Alan actually got on the ship
and left the shores of England! Perhaps they had already spoken to the crew
and given them strict instruction to make sure Alan got off the ship in
France?
Nigel, the Cabin Manager,
had kindly arranged for us to have a cabin – but there was little chance of
sleep with all the nervous energy bursting from Alan. I did have a doze
whilst he went to the engine rooms – I do have my limits! Martin, the Chief
Engineer, had worked closely with Alan for many years. They went down to
the car deck to check all was well with the cars and caravan. Martin patted
the Laguna’s bonnet sadly “I’ll miss the old grey lady.” The two of them
had travelled most of Europe together in the metallic grey car. With over
210,000 miles on the clock, and almost as many dents in her bodywork, it
seemed that this would be her last journey before being put out to pasture.
Little did Martin realise how accurate his prediction would be: the Laguna
now lies virtually buried under vegetation in a little corner of
Cencerrita. I have even offered to dig the lady a grave, but Alan insists
that her boot is too useful as a lockable cupboard ... hmm, or is it just
sentiment?
At one point Martin
pulled me aside to reveal they had cooked up a little surprise for Alan.
When he gave me the signal, I was to get Alan up onto the bridge … Needless
to say Martin’s timing was impeccable – Alan was halfway through his Sunday
lunch when I spotted Martin hovering behind the pillar of the mess room
waving frantically! How on earth do you speed up someone eating their
dinner without telling them why? I gobbled my food as fast as I could … and
then sat and waited for Alan to finish … Martin solved the problem by
getting the bridge to phone down saying they needed Alan up there.
Without haste, Alan
ambled up the flights of stairs. Then, for the first time since I have
known him, Alan was rendered totally speechless and so emotionally moved
that he couldn’t look at anyone. Against all odds the Commodore guys had
arranged for the second ship Alan managed, the Commodore Goodwill, to sail
past the starboard side. So stunned was he,
I virtually had to drag Alan onto the deck to wave whilst I filmed the
episode – this was a moment never to be forgotten. When the ships blew their
horns, tears rolled down his face. A truly touching goodbye from the people
Alan worked with.
At last we arrived in
Cherbourg. With many good wishes from the crew, we drove off the Clipper
onto French soil. Still staying tight behind Alan, we made our way to the
first stopping point … a petrol station to fill up! Alan had marked out a
route for us with meeting points if we should become separated. I must
confess I took little notice as I was determined that NOTHING would separate
us. We also had our little CB radios with us. Whilst virtually useless for
talking, we could beep each other necessary alerts. One beep to get the
other’s attention, two to stop now and three to stop next convenient place.
The receiver would then beep back to confirm message received.
 The heat of the sun
blasting through the huge Vitara windows made me realise my arm was going to
become badly burned if I didn’t do something about it. I tried beeping Alan
three times, but he only heard two beeps and pulled off the road in a crazy
place and rushed over to see what the problem was … sigh … When we
eventually got back on the road again, we pulled over at a services whilst I
sorted myself out. Apart from the obviously necessary sunglasses, I wore a
bandanna in an attempt to stop my hair from flicking constantly in my eyes
and a long sleeved shirt worn only over my right arm to prevent sunburn –
the left are remained unadorned for coolness. I did have a peaked cap for
the descending sun, but that kept flying off all the time. It was a while
before I got my bandanna positioned correctly, but when I did, it not only
kept the hair out my eyes, but also the wind out of my right ear!
The French motorway
service areas are very good. There’s always drinking water on tap and some
shady trees to park under. This is just as well as the temperature were
nearly unbearable when we were stopped. We pulled in for the night at one
of these services and I cooked some pasta for dinner before turning in for
the night.
Monday 4th August 03 (Colleen)
Old Grey Lady and Her Last Big Adventure
We had the most awful night. I have no idea what the
temperature was, but as we didn’t feel very safe where we’d stopped, we had
the windows and door closed. We lay naked in a pool of sweat on the bed
trying to relax enough to drop off to sleep. Alan likened the temperature
to the engine rooms of Condor 9 in Trinidad. Life with Alan has taught me
everything is worse/bigger/hotter on ships – fine, I’m glad I didn’t go to
sea as an Engineer! For my part, I was prepared to announce this night as
the worst of my life, when I remembered that night sitting in the car at Le
Havre in freezing temperatures – from one extreme to the other in France!
Even in the morning “coolness brought little relief. We had our cup of tea
and cereal, made with warm UHT milk – ugh! – before getting underway – at
least we then had the breeze created by driving.
The Old Grey Lady pulled the caravan without a single
problem all the way down through France. The heat was simply tremendous –
neither of us wanted to stop because the scorching sun seared above us
throughout the whole the day. When we stopped, so did the breeze. At one
place in France, I soaked my sarong in water and wrapped it around me in an
effort to cool down. A Frenchman walking past me, on his way back to his
air-conditioned car with its engine still running, remarked: “A lee-tle
hotter than England, no? It is 43° here.” I smiled and waved an arm at his
car in which his wife was slumped in the back seat. “Thank you, I’m just
fine” At least I wasn’t collapsed in a heap!
The journey was fairly uneventful, apart from the furnace
outside the car that is. Our drinks we had in the car were actually HOT –
you almost felt you could put a tea bag in them and have a cup of tea. As
for hot cola … well, I drank it in desperation, but it’s something I
wouldn’t advise! The apples we’d brought with us to munch were good, but
the chewing gum was disgusting – it tasted slimy in the heat.
The tolls provided stopping points to adjust bandannas
and change the music over. We did upset a toll booth lady as we crossed over
the French border into Spain – we each paid for our €1.25 toll with a €50
note … Oh the English! I listened to music I haven’t heard for ages: Val
Doonican, Andy Williams, My Fair Lady and other gems. For some reason I had
no CD’s with Bon Jovi or Queen in my CD wallet. Odd that. Alan was no
doubt enjoying Led Zepplin at full blast!
We had trouble finding anywhere to stop for the night on
the toll motorways in Spain. We did try to find a campsite, but had no
luck. In the end we stopped at a services on the A1
 between
Junctions 4 and 5, some 88 kilometres before Burgos. It wasn’t too
bad, it felt a lot safer than the awful night before, so I opened all the
windows, and just locked the door. Instead of cooking in the caravan,
we ate tuna on baking hot bread (heated courtesy of the sun). Alan
then gave me the best present I could ever want (well, at that particular
moment) – he rigged up a shower for us. We filled up the 40 litre
water container from the little ice cream booth (sadly sold out of
ice-creams) on the other side of the service area and had half each – though
I suspect Alan didn’t dare use his full quota in case I was left short!
Pure heaven.
Tuesday 5th August 03 (Colleen)
Me and my Shadow
We slept pretty soundly – so much cooler than the
previous night. We enjoyed breakfast in the relative freshness of the new
day – took a few moments to update the diary and check our route before
setting off again.
We stopped at a nice little place where we had an early
lunch of a bocadillo
followed by a pastry, accompanied by two delicious cups of café con
leche each. Spain at last!
We had to go through Madrid as all the major motorways go
through there. I felt very nervous, but simply determined to stick as
closely as possible to the Laguna. Mostly I was so close Alan couldn’t even
see me in the rear view mirror, he was just aware of a shadow in his wing
mirrors following him the whole time. We had arranged to meet at Dos
Barrios if we should be separated, but I knew there was no way that was
going to happen. At one point there were about 6 vehicles between us, but
as the Vitara is high and the caravan was taller than most vehicles, I could
nearly always see where Alan was.
After the plains of middle Spain, the climbing started in
earnest. One long, long incline of 6% brought the red overheating light on
in the Laguna for the first time ever – fortunately it was at the brow of
the hill, and we could keep going. The Vitara got a little hot sometimes,
but I was finding it very impressive how the little 4 x 4 was coping with
everything – whether asked to race along at 70 mph, or dawdle up a long slow
hill behind the caravan, it managed it all without problems.
Alan passed an interesting fact on to me, I still have no
idea if he was pulling my leg or not, but he said if the car should start to
overheat just put the heater on full blast and it would take the edge off
the engine temperature. Hmm, I wonder. I did actually did this a couple of
times but I felt very silly, not to mention hot, was it a joke? Answers on
a postcard, please ...
There were some pretty stiff climbs where, as Alan termed
it, the Battle of the Lorries took place. Depending on the load and power
of the lorries, sometimes Alan would overtake them, only to be overtaken
himself down the next hill. He was rarely out of 2nd gear, and
sometimes in 1st. There were also huge concrete sections being
transported by road – we think mostly likely for the high speed train link
project going on in Andalucia.
Deciding we didn’t want to arrive in Malaga very late in
the evening, we decided to stop at a campsite in Santa Elena in the Jaen
area. It was a great site under the pine trees and earth underneath, with
large pitches and your own water tap which cannoned out horizontally,
absolutely soaking the uninitiated – great! Sadly the pool closed at
7.30pm, so we only managed a ½ hour swim – so deliciously cool. In fact, I
would go so far to say that when we got out the pool, with the cool breeze
on our wet skin, it was positively COLD! Wow!
Afterwards we ambled over to a restaurant we had noticed
on arrival through the village – it was perched up on the side of the
valley, giving you a commanding view of all the lorries struggling up the
hill as we had done not so long ago. It got dark pretty quickly, but then
we could see the headlights instead. It felt surreal, as if it were a
computer game in which we had to pick off the lorries with a laser gun ...
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