I rather underestimated the leg of the journey from Opa Tony’s house to Cardiff.
With more than a tinge of sadness, we left Opa Tony’s around 11:00 and headed south on the N11 to Rosslare. In spite of a slew of slowcoaches on the single lane stretches, we made fairly good time and were able to stop off on the way in Ennischorthy (Inis Córthaidh) for lunch.
Our 15:00 sailing from Rosslare became our 15:45 sailing from Rosslare. I should have checked the sailing times before we left. Still, it wasn’t a major delay.
The boat arrived in Fishguard at 18:00 instead of 17:00 and we were one of the last cars off, due to having been boarded in the last nook of the boat that could have a car stashed in it. The catamarans may be faster than the normal boats, but they’re much less convenient for loading cars.
Anyway, we rolled off the ferry around 18:15 and began the drive to Cardiff, which was a good couple of hours away to the east. I began to wonder about the wisdom of my decision not to have us simply overnight in Fishguard.
Lucas, as is so often the case, gave our driving plans short shrift. With both lungs, he gave loud voice to his objections, forcing us off the road in Llanddewi Velfrey for a pub supper.
Rather unusually, Lucas wouldn’t settle after dinner, so it was a very unpleasant, teeth-gnashing, mouth-foaming, white-knuckle ride, rife with interruptions, all the way to junction 33 of the M4, where our lovely Travelodge room lay waiting within the confines of the Moto M4 services area. We finally arrived at 23:00 with both children finally asleep.
Travelodge: I can’t really recommend them. I would say you get what you pay for, but they’re actually not all that cheap, so you don’t.
The plumbing of the shower, when turned on, made sounds like a battle-weary submarine taking on water. There are no toiletries provided, either; a fact that didn’t actually catch us unawares, as I’d read their FAQ when I made the booking.
The room was inexplicably hot and the window didn’t open more than a slit.
Our family room was a joke. Eloïse’s bed was a lousy, uncomfortable sofa that didn’t even pull out into a makeshift bed. Sheets and a duvet were provided, though, so we quickly made it up as a bed for her.
Mercifully, our bed was actually very comfortable, so we did get a good night’s sleep, which is the most important thing after a day like the one we’d had.
A notice on the bathroom door informed us that we could opt to leave our used towels on the rack instead of on the floor if we were staying multiple days. This would be taken as a sign that we were happy to reuse our towels and didn’t require new ones.
Tempting, though it was, to stay multiple days and explore all of the many attractions vying for our attention at junction 33 of the M4, we elected to continue our onward journey as planned.
Travelodge offers no breakfast, but it’s just as well really, when you think about it. Besides, having slept at the motorway services area, we were ideally situated to choose between all kinds of other really bad food from renowned purveyors of haute cuisine such as Burger King and Costa Coffee.
Breakfast was predictably poor, but therefore also not a disappointment.
It was to be another lamentably bad driving day.
Lucas was not going to grant us the miracle of a multi-hour nap, the way he had when we had driven from Cornwall to Cardiff many weeks earlier.
The weather was bad, too; quite atrocious, in fact. It was to rain without abatement for the entire day. Not one moment, throughout the entire journey from Wales to the far south-east of England, did the rain let up. This made motorway driving conditions less than ideal at best, and really quite hazardous at various points along the way.
Somewhere just inside England on the M4, some tosser had jack-knifed the caravan he had been towing, leaving his car with its back end raised in the air and his caravan on its side with all of its windows smashed.
That little episode landed us in a traffic jam that took 50 minutes to clear, adding the better part of an hour to a journey time we already knew would be long.
Suffice to say, that there were to be many encounters with rest-stops, motorway services and petrol stations, all under the umbrella of Lucas appeasement.
We eventually rolled into Folkestone at 17:25, Lucas finally having slept for the last 150 km of the drive. Any doubts I might have had about whether we should have tackled the drive from Fishguard to Cardiff yesterday had long since dispersed, as I realised what a long day today would have been if we had also had to do that leg on top of everything else. I don’t think any of us, least of all Lucas, could have dealt with the extra driving. Poor fellow.
Seven hours after our arrival, it’s still pouring with rain and there’s a strong wind blasting at the windows of our room. I hope things improve tomorrow, but the forecast gives little cause for jollification.
The Channel Tunnel is just 5 km from here. We’ll take that in the morning and drive up towards Amsterdam in the afternoon.
