Day 14 – Reims to Ashford
Compared to some of the other day’s drives, the drive to Calais was relatively short. This afforded a bit of a lay-in and a leisurely breakfast.
Car 49 was experiencing a minor problem, nothing that the service crew couldn’t fix and we were soon all back on the Autoroute heading north.
We arrived at Calais in time for an earlier ferry and sailed through customs really not wanting to unload the car.
We had a snack on the ferry and soon the cliffs of Dover came into view and we were back in good old Blighty. After a very short drive, we were in the Ashford International Hotel and decided on a couple of beers before a short nap in preparation for the evening’s entertainment.
The gala dinner was superb and followed by a video of all the crews showing various photographs, with an appropriate soundtrack and tongue-in-cheek comments. Amazingly the video had been made in the back of the organiser’s car by Ken on the trip home through France. Great fun to watch and a fitting end to the tour.
Awards followed, as there was a serious side to the navigational element of the event and the much-coveted Golden Dipstick award, for the car the service crew had had the most trouble with.
It seems in 2017 no one car really stood out as being the bane of the service crew’s life, so the choice was tricky. After consideration, the award went to John and Bev in car 26, mostly for the number of fuses replaced due to overuse of those awesome, bordering on annoying, air horns.
In recognition of a superb meal the chefs made an appearance, however, all was not as it seemed. After a round of applause then burst into song and shortly had all of us up dancing. A cracking segue from eating to leaping around.
The evening continued with much merriment and eventually, bleary-eyed and a bit wobbly, some more than others, we retired to bed.
