{"id":6129,"date":"2025-05-23T17:39:57","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T17:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=6129"},"modified":"2025-12-24T21:50:53","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T21:50:53","slug":"1-ferry-to-santander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=6129","title":{"rendered":"1. FERRY TO SANTANDER."},"content":{"rendered":"

Before we catch our boat to Spain we have some stuff to do.<\/p>\n

Three months in Australia has left one of us with a bit of washing and ironing!<\/p>\n

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… and another one of us with a pile of paperwork!\u00a0 Actually four piles – nicely sorted by our house supervisor.\u00a0 Thank you Rob!\u00a0 We have: “circulars and unsolicited mail”; “magazines and general guff”; “actual communication letters”; and “stuff in brown envelopes”.\u00a0 We have asked the postman not to deliver the fourth category, but he does slip a few in occasionally.<\/p>\n

We have eighteen clear days before we ship out to Euroland.\u00a0 That might be an inappropriate use of the word “clear”!\u00a0 We pick up our new caravan four days after climbing off the plane from Singapore.\u00a0 We have four osteopath appointments, three hospital visits, a four day shake-down trip in the caravan to see Jeremy and family.\u00a0 Plus visits from two sets of caravanning friends.<\/p>\n

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There were also two haircuts and a choir morning in there somewhere!\u00a0 There was a “to do list” as long as … well three pages long anyway.\u00a0 The storage of the caravan needed sorting.\u00a0 We have 73 people to see.\u00a0 A visit to the local National Trust property was needed as a break from activities.\u00a0 The automatic watering system had to be set up and a failed component ordered from Mr Amazon, and fitted.\u00a0 The caravan storage needed re-sorting and re-sorting several times – and then packing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Departure date comes round pretty quickly really!<\/p>\n

Arriving at Plymouth docks in plenty of time, we shuffle through the emmigration checks and find ourselves at the very front of a queue of caravans.\u00a0 Promising!\u00a0 But as we know there is a rule that says loading is at the discretion of the load-master – and he is known to play tricks!\u00a0 First trick – we are held for an hour looking straight at the loading door.\u00a0 Then we are called forward.\u00a0 After four metres or so, they change their minds – reverse us back into the queue between closely packed rows.\u00a0 Second trick.\u00a0 But good practise!\u00a0 In the end we find ourselves in almost exactly the same place as last year – about five units from the front doors.\u00a0 Right beside the door to stairwell B.\u00a0 That’ll be good for a rapid exit later!\u00a0 So he’s run out of tricks at last!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We set off on a very peaceful, calm crossing.\u00a0 No whales spotted.\u00a0 Several pods of common dolphins were seen by others, but the nearest I got to spotting an aquatic animal was a gannet – and I’m pretty sure they don’t count.\u00a0 Every year we notice a reduction of service.\u00a0 It wasn’t that long ago that wine and canap\u00e9s were served in the Commodore lounge.\u00a0 Now they don’t even lock the door to the lounge.\u00a0 That’s a clear message saying “not much free in here!”\u00a0 Apart, that is, from a coffee machine.\u00a0 And that’splumbed and wire in place!\u00a0 Still, the beds were comfortable once I had worked out how to increase the room temperature from -5\u00b0C to a respectable level.\u00a0 Local management was determined on that point!\u00a0 Our free breakfast came …<\/p>\n

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… and went – as did a couple of slices of fruit cake for later.<\/p>\n

Then it was time to disembark.\u00a0 The lift to level 3 from 8 (too many stairs) put us at the very front of the queue waiting for the car-deck doors to open.\u00a0 Which they do automatically when the ship is docked.\u00a0 Or in this case didn’t.\u00a0 For an hour!\u00a0 Third trick!\u00a0 Luckily we had the cake and water with us, but sharing this with all the other happy campers stuck in stairwell B meant we only got a few crumbs each.\u00a0 In the 60 minutes there were about 10 announcements saying that there was a “technical fault” and “escape to Spain would be delayed!”\u00a0 No s*** Sherlock!<\/p>\n

Suddenly.\u00a0 Click, clunk, squeal.\u00a0 The doors to the main car-deck sprung open and we were in.\u00a0 The front door – the way out in front of us – started to open.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Then stopped part way!\u00a0 Three or four times!\u00a0 Trick four?\u00a0 This might not be funny!\u00a0 There was a lot of banging from a team of escape engineers on the outside tasked with getting us out into the daylight zone.\u00a0 After another frustrating hour and many more announcements to the effect that reaching dry land was going to be delayed, we got to trick five.\u00a0 The big one!\u00a0 The captain was going to turn his ferry round to allow us into Spain out the other door.<\/p>\n

But first, in order to meet safety requirements, everybody had to clear the car-decks and go back up to floor 7 or 8.\u00a0 Excellent.\u00a0 Anyway, the ship reversed out and redocked the other way round.\u00a0 We went back to our cars.\u00a0 The rear doors opened as they should.\u00a0 And we started to disembark.\u00a0 Very slowly.\u00a0 Backwards!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The cars were OK.\u00a0 Once a bit of space was generated they just turned round and scarpered.\u00a0 Even the campervans were fairly OK.\u00a0 \u00a0But the caravanners had to work a bit harder!\u00a0 That’ll teach us!\u00a0 We eventually got going three and a half hours late and there was still half of the main deck to clear before the cars on level 4 could be released.<\/p>\n

Immigration was a doddle.\u00a0 The briefest of passport checks and 50 staffers waving at us frantically to keep going.\u00a0 They had all been briefed on our likely state of mind.\u00a0 “They’ll have short fuses, get them out of the docks area!\u00a0 ASAP!”\u00a0 No checks for the import of milk and other dairy products, meats, sandwiches or marijuana.\u00a0 We could have had a field day – but you just can’t predict things like that.\u00a0 So one of our first tasks will be to go shopping for SOME of the banned items!<\/p>\n

The 70 km trip to Camping Colombres went swimmingly.\u00a0 No dramas.\u00a0 No road closures.\u00a0 No missed turns.\u00a0 Boring really.<\/p>\n

Our pitch at Colombres …<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

… had wonderful views of the northern edge of the Picos mountains.\u00a0 From our bed …<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And as the sun started to set on our first day in Spain …<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

… we were ready for sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before we catch our boat to Spain we have some stuff to do. Three months in Australia has left one of us with a bit of washing and ironing! … and another one of us with a pile of paperwork!\u00a0… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain-france"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6129"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6157,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6129\/revisions\/6157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}