Another day, another breakdown- quel dommage!

Nice relaxing start, in the car at 9am to set off for the Cherbourg ferry and thunk! the accelerator cable snapped. That’s one spare I don’t carry. At least it happened outside the hotel. And we do have Breakdown cover.

So missed the ferry but a breakdown truck took us to Caen for a later ferry. Which by coincidence was the ferry that the main group were on.

The truck pulled up in the queue at Caen, I jumped out and knocked on Val’s car window which did surprise her a bit! After a bit of discussion and a £52 surcharge from Britanny Ferries to change crossing the truck took us to the ferry and (gratefully for the driver) dropped us off.

The Britanny Ferries manager suggested we start the car to get it on board. After a push start it got going but I was driving it on full choke at 3500 rpm with the only control being the clutch. The Lima has a quirk that as the choke goes in it needs a blip on the accelerator to bring the revs down, which of course I couldn’t do. So when I was put at the back of the lorries and switched off all the unburnt fuel backfired with a huge bang! Not what you want with terrorist alerts…
Getting off the boat, we were left to the end, started the Panther on choke but this time had a clear run and a breakdown truck was waiting for us 100 yards from the boat then took us to a local hotel.

Meanwhile Steve and Irene arrived in Calais early after a seven and a half hour drive non motorway and 57 roundabouts, Irene stayed awake to count them. 

Geoff stopped to get some wine and Steve thinks missed his ferry.