The Trip … (Part 1)
Well here we are … The first day after the trip to Nice
Several of the guys were sensible and booked the day off .. the rest of us weren’t quite so sensible and find ourselves sat at our desks this morning.
This time yesterday we were sitting on a beach in Nice, enjoying the sunshine. Now we’re sat here at the office with it all seeming like it was a lifetime ago …
The trip was only 4 days, but it seemed more like a couple of weeks. Not due to boredom or frustration (well there might have been a bit of that when trying to read some of the maps .. but we’ll get to that later) but because we crammed so much into those 4 days.
For those reading this for the first time the idea was simple 5 teams had to purchase a car for under £200 the only condition was that the car had to have tax and an MOT to cover it for the duration of the trip. We then had to drive those cars from our office here on the outskirts of London to Nice in the South of France a distance of about 900 miles.
As mentioned in a previous post the car belonging to myself and my brother failed to make it to the start line .. this turned out to be due to a blocked fuel line somewhere between the engine and the petrol tank. It could have been fixed but it wouldn’t have been ready in time for the start.
The other 4 teams “trusty steeds” made it to the start line though .. in various states of working order. We had the following teams making the trip …..
“The Underhills” driving a red VM Golf with alloy wheels worth more than the rest of the car. This one was a turbo diesel .. although the turbo had been removed, meaning it topped out at 85mph …
“The Tuesdays” driving another VW Golf (a bit older than the other one) that had a slightly dodgy gear box .. but they did have a mechanic in their team.
“Team: Whatever!” had a Mazda 323, nicknamed “The Smurfmobile” as it was blue (just). The poor thing looked like it would fall apart if you looked at too harshly.
“The Griswolds” had a Renault Laguna Estate, nicknamed “Churchill”. This car had more “quirks” than the rest of them put together .. the most troubling being a petrol gauge that didn’t work.
My brother and I jumped in with “The Griswolds” to get a lift down to Dover so we could get across the Channel to Calais where our rental car was waiting for us. Not quite the machine we should have been taking part in but we were still going to make the journey, and due to the reliable nature of the car we’d be getting we offered to be a “support car” for the rest of the guys.
The trip down to Dover turned into a mission in it’s own right when our driver decided to avoid chancing the M25 on a Friday afternoon and cut across London in an attempt to get the drop on the others. Sadly this plan failed in spectacular fashion as the M25 had turned out to be clear !!!
The other 3 teams arrived at the meeting point in Dover a full hour and a half ahead of us !! Giving them time to have a decent meal before heading to the check-in for the ferry. We on the other hand had to make to with a rushed bowl of chips .. Tasty … but not quite what I’d class as a good meal.
We trailed off in convoy to the ferry port to check-in, sealing our journey across the waters to France. Once queued the teams set about the task of tagging their cars with GB plates and headlight adjusters ready for driving on the continent. This turned into be a mission itself for “The Griswolds” (you might spot a trend forming with these guys … ) that ended up with all 11 of us standing around the front of their car trying to work out where the beam benders were supposed to go on the lights. I still don’t think we got the positioning quite right after all that ;0)
The ferry crossing itself was uneventful .. bearing in mind it was the last crossing of the night that would have us docking in Calais at some ungodly hour on Saturday morning (I think it was about 01:00) this wasn’t really surprising.
We managed to all get off the ferry in one piece .. Just … as the “Smurfmobile” managed to “gently nudge” the bumper of “The Tuesdays” Golf. The Golf was undamaged but the fan belt on the Smurfmobile” was squealing like a pig with it’s tail caught in a gate which caused much embarrassment.
The trip into Calais itself to find our hotel was surprisingly quick and trauma free considering a large number of our contingent had never driven on the continent before. The problem started at our hotel (see you knew it was going to smoothly didn’t you) which was closed when we arrived. Even though the sign on the outside said it was 24hr, there was no-one at the desk and the door was locked. We tried all the doors we could find. We banged on all the windows but we got nothing for a good 20/30 minutes.
Eventually a couple of the lads wandered off round the corner to see if there was anywhere else that could put us up for the night. They located a Holiday Inn round the corner but they were fully booked, the very helpful chap on the desk though informed us that there was actually someone there and that we just had to keep ringing the bell. So back we went and did as we were instructed (we almost ended up taping the bell down). Eventually a very grumpy fellow in his slippers appeared and let us in.
The French speaker of our party took over at this juncture and sorted out our accommodation (yes out of the 11 of us there was only 1 person who had a conversational grasp of the French language .. the rest of us we trusting in “The Force”) which turned out to be less then, shall we say, fresh. It transpired that the hotel had no running hot water at all, so it would be cold showers in the morning, they did give us a free breakfast as a consolation though. We got up to the rooms and they all turned out to be horrid. The sheets weren’t clean, the decoration was grotty, there were weird stains and more but it was now 03:00 and we were all shattered so we closed our eyes and tried to blot out any thoughts of a continental version of The Bates Motel.
The next morning (which was only about 4 hours later) it was time to get ready and get moving. My brother and I needed to be at the car rental place at 09:00 to pick up our steed, so we started getting ourselves sorted out. This meant it was time to shower .. Now I know they said that the water was cold, but what they didn’t tell us was that the water was being piped direct from the Arctic bl**dy circle !!! I turned the shower on whilst it was pointed away from me and the icy vapor that was coming off it was enough to cause certain parts of my anatomy to recoil in horror at the thought of coming into contact with it. So forgoing the shower we washed “the essentials” as best we could and headed out into the world to get our car. It turned out that it was only about a 20 minute walk to the Avis place at the port, which was pleasantly surprising. What wasn’t pleasantly surprising was the fact that there was no-one manning it when we got there !!! Turned out that the chap was out on a delivery … with him eventually arriving at around 09:40.
10 minutes later, we’d filled in the paper work and acquired the keys to our motorised carriage .. A Ford C-Max Tdi .. hardly a sporting thorough-bred but it was a veritable luxury car compared to the rest of the guys cars, after all we had air-conditioning and decent acceleration (which would come in very useful later on)
And so with our bags stowed and the iPod connected we headed back to the hotel to see if everyone had left ….
And with that I’ll finish the first instalment of the trip. Stay tuned for more exciting adventures .. Same bat-time …. Same bat-channel
