Revisita España 2014 - Day one (Claire)

We left home  just after 9.30am to fill up with petrol at Ashford Tescos.  That done we joined the motorway en route to Poole.  We had a short stop at Cobham as my hip was playing up. It was too early for more painkillers but a short walk around seemed to help and we rejoined the slow moving  traffic.  I think from there to Poole we were filtering through the the traffic.  It was amazing how many cars there were on the road.  We stopped again at Winchester services on the M3 for another hip stop and bite to eat.  From there on it was touch and go if we would actually get to the ferry on time due to the slow moving g traffic. By this this time we had caught up with at least 4 other bikes filtering through the traffic but I could tell Paul was getting frustrated as they were not in much of a hurry.  We finally arrived in Poole about 14.15 in time to nip into Asda to grab a few snacks and drink for the journey. Arriving at the port it all seemed quite a primitive boarding system compared with Dover.  There was one booth open checking cars pulling boats or caravans and vw campers etc.  As we got to the booth they opened another one and we were despatched straight through to join some other bikes. Not being stopped for the search by the security staff.

We finally boarded and grabbed our overnight bags while the staff tied the bikes down.  We then had to climb an incredible 4 or 5 flights of stairs. With 2 bags each and wearing bike gear it was exhausting ! Then we had to walk down a long corridor before finally arriving in the reception to be given our cabin keys.  For me it was such a relief to arrive without too much pain in my hip!  The cabin was quite spacious and comfortable.  Even supplied towels which I started to worry about whilst sitting on the back of the bike!  I had not considered that. Still we had no space for them even if I had thought about it!  The boat is really quite small compared to the cross channel ferries but comfortable. Food was good too.  The only downside was the number of children running around with no parental supervision. We were unlucky enough to have 2 young girls in the cabin next to us  screaming and what sounded like throwing themselves off the bunk beds on to the floor.