W e have been , we are, and I trust we always
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will be, detested by the French” – Duke of Wellington.
Wednesday
6.30am – We’re about to arrive at Renault Trucks Essex, where we will be picking up a brand new Renault Premium for a booze run to Calais. When I called the Renault Trucks press ofice and told them I wanted to blag a vehicle for a ‘booze cruise’, I was actually thinking of something along the lines of a 3.5-tonne Master panel van. They talked me into taking a Premium instead. I admit that I do like a drink, but not even I could get through a 13.6m trailer of beer and wine.
6.45 – Sacrebleu! It’s got a Union Flag livery! How can we possibly drive this into France? I think I’d feel safer wandering through the streets of Tehran wearing nothing but a pair of Stars & Stripes Speedos and singing Born in the USA at the top of my voice!
6.50 – T&D editor Colin
Barnett and myself have recovered from the shock, and have decided it will be an ‘experience’ .
7.00 – We have conducted the walk-round check, we’ve loaded our kits into the cab, and we’re about to set off. It’s slightly reminiscent of the opening scenes of Destination Doha, except this is a rather less exciting Destination Calais, and despite my co-driver’s dress sense, it’s actually 2011 and not 1977!
And like Destination Doha, we are going to be followed by a Range Rover, only whereas theirs was full of spare parts for the Leyland Marathon, ours contains photographer Tom Cunningham and several thousand pounds worth of camera equipment.
7.41 – As we head onto the M2 0 we discuss where in Calais we are going to go to buy the booze. We really haven’t given this project much thought, and it suddenly occurs to us that parking an artic at Cite Europe isn’t going to be very practical!
7.45 – Colin’s complaining. We can’t get
reception on the Premium’s radio, and he’s hungry for a Cornish pasty. But there’s no time to stop now. We’ve blagged a
free crossing on the Spirit of Britain, P&O’s new lagship ferry, and we’ve got to be in Dover in less than an hour. I calm him down by promising to buy him a fry-up in the drivers’ restaurant, just as soon as we are onboard. 7.57 – “Lithuania, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, France, Latvia, Bulgaria, Poland, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Bulgaria,” I say, spotting the trucks heading north on the M20. 8.03 – “There’s one,” shouts Colin, inally spotting a British registered artic.
8.08 – People are deinitely staring. If it looks out of place here, what’s it going to look like in France?
8.12 – I’m impressed with how quiet the cab is. I think I can even hear Colin’s stomach rumbling. 8.35 – We drive into the port and straight past an empty passport control booth. Hopefully, they’re a bit stricter about who they let in, or else we’re going to have a trailer full on the way back!
8.40 – Tom tries to get permission to take a few photographs in the port, but there are too many ‘jobsworths’ in his way. It’s as though we’d just asked permission to paint the white cliffs red.
8.55 – We are ready to board.
8.57 – On board we are the centre of attention. Foreign drivers gawp at us in disbelief, French drivers look in disgust, and British drivers smile in delight. “That should really p**s off the French,” says one. “I love it. But what a shame you couldn’t do it in a British truck,” says another. 9.05 – We are on the ground deck, so head for the lift. The doors shut, it moves about a foot and then grinds to a halt. I’m worried we’re going to be stuck in here for the
crossing, and Colin’s scared he’s going to miss breakfast.
9.10 – Finally, the doors open and we head for the stairs. It’s a long way up, and I’m pufing and panting by the time we get to the restaurant. I really need to get it and healthy...
9.12 – ... but we tuck into a full-English fry-up anyway! We are all impressed with the price and portion size. In fact, ignoring the lift incident, we really like the ferry – especially the name!
10.03 (11.03 French time) – We discuss the amazing reaction the truck has already had, and a plan starts to formulate. We decide to head for Paris ‘for a laugh’. If we are turning heads in Dover, just imagine how much fuss we’ll cause in the French capital. If we are going to annoy the French, we might as well do it properly. We’ll just have to buy the booze when we get back to Calais. 11.15 – We make a list of provisions we’re going to need and run to the ferry shop before it closes. They’ve got the road atlas and French phrase book in stock, but are all out of onion seller’s costumes. But we do pick up a copy of their best-selling book: 1,000 Years of Annoying the French. 11.35 – We disembark. Tom asks a French P&O employee, Monsieur
Eric Gratien whether we can take some pictures in the port. He not only agrees, but goes out of his way to help us. It’s a refreshingly different attitude to Dover. Every thing’s going well until I ask him about France’s terrible performance in the Six Nations. It’s time to leave!
12.45 – We are well on our way and the livery is attracting
a lot of attention. Some British trucks heading the other way are lashing their lights at us, while the occupants of every car that passes stare at us.
12.49 – We approach a steep
hill between Calais and Boulogne, and the Premium romps up it.
Then again we are carrying fresh air – good old British fresh air that is!
12.53 – We queue for a
ticket at the peage. While we’re waiting, we switch the Premium’s speedometer from mph to km/hr.
13.01 – We pull over at a rest area (by a wind farm) for a
break and to study the fold-out map. It’s free to park, there are plenty of spaces to choose from, and not only are the toilets clean, but they are of the civilised western world variety!
13.07 – We notice the aerial is touching the cab, so
adjust it and now we’ve got a perfect reception on the radio – but everything’s in French. We turn it off.
13.31 – We start to fold the map away.
13.36 – We are still attempting to fold the map away. 13.39 – The map is now folded. We now know why they built a wind farm here.
14.35 – Out of the window it’s lat and boring.
14.55 – It’s still lat and boring.
15.25 – We think we spot something interesting – but it’s a false alarm.
15.45 – Northern France has got to be the most boring place on earth. No wonder half the population is prepared to climb into/onto/underneath British trucks to get out! It suddenly occurs to us that we don’t have a lock on the trailer doors.
16.00 – We stop for a comfort break, and tuck into a tasteless jambon and fromage sandwich, and a machinevended coffee. And there I was thinking this country prided itself on its cuisine!
16.50 – We’ve come off the Autoroute and are heading
into Paris on a route nationale.
17.02 – We are heading
through a town when an oncoming French-registered car starts to lash its headlights. I’m about to give the driver the ‘Nescafe wave’ when we realise he’s warning us about the low bridge we are approaching. We aren’t going to it. I’d like to think we would have spotted it on our own – but I can’t be sure. We revert to the map and ind a detour.
17.35 – As we approach the outskirts of Paris, the trafic gets worse. Why didn’t we it a Fresnel lens? All of a sudden we’ve got a bit of sympathy for the drivers of left-hand drive trucks in the UK. 17.45 – We ind ourselves on the
Peripherique, and it’s no fun. I thought the M25 was bad. Lane discipline is appalling.
17.55 – We made a few phone calls earlier,
and have found a haulier who will let us park-up for the night in their yard. They’re somewhere in the industrial area of Gennevilliers, but we can’t ind the place for love nor money.
18.06 – We’re still lost.
18.35 – Well and truly lost.
19.13 – At last, we’ve found it.
19.14 – Ou est le bar?
20.30 – Over a well-earned beer (or two) and a cremated steak and cold frites, we decide to take the truck into central Paris the next morning. We toss a euro to decide who will drive, and Colin loses. Result!
22.30 – Tom dares me to use the words “cheese”, “eating”, “surrender” and “monkeys” when writing this feature, but I refuse!
Thursday (day two)
9.15 – We are just about to set off when Colin complains that he’s hungry, and croissants don’t hit the spot. “I’m not eating any more of that foreign muck.” But there’s a lack of British greasy spoons in the area, so we have to wait 15 minutes while he prepares a boil-in-the-bag all-day breakfast. 9.45 – We set off. Ten minutes down the road, it occurs to us that we don’t actually know what the length and weight limits are for central Paris. Are there any restrictions? Can you really take an artic around the Arc de Triomphe? Not
wanting to get in trouble with the gendarmes, we decide to drop the trailer in a nearby layby behind a rather ‘attractive’ Italian-registered trailer.
10.00 – We revert back to being schoolboys and apply a
FairFuelUK campaign sticker and a well-positioned hand print to the back of the Italian trailer.
10.05 – None of us have got a clue about the geography of Paris, so we enter
‘1 Champs Elysees’ into the sat-nav and set off, again.
10.15 – Bloody French! It’s like driving in New Delhi. There are kamikaze moped drivers everywhere, and I’m incredibly relieved that I’m in the passenger seat. 10.23 – We keep stopping to get photographs on our way into Paris, and the locals aren’t happy with the chaos we’re causing. Oh well! If we weren’t getting a lot of attention before, we certainly are now. Everyone is looking at us. 10.28 – We’re on the road again when suddenly there’s a horn from the passenger side. We swerve to the right and a Renault Clio emerges, window open, ist waving in the air. Another Frenchman annoyed! We really need a Fresnel. 10.41 – We pass a group of school children, and they all
stop dead in their tracks and stare. Some take photos.
11.05 – We are driving around the Arc de Triomphe and
it’s horrible. We lose track of how many times we drive around it while Tom takes pictures. We count 21 car horns – all aimed at us!
11.11 – Beginning to feel dizzy, we inally
come off and ind ourselves on the Champs Elysees.
11.18 – All eyes are on us. Carla
Bruni-Sarkozy could have been doing naked cartwheels down the Champs Elysees and nobody would have noticed!
11.22 – We pull up outside the
McDonald’s on the Champs Elysees (surely Paris’s busiest road) for a McP*ss. We stay there for 30 minutes and nobody attempts to move us on. Imagine trying to do that on London’s Oxford Street?
11.52 – “Look, there’s the Blackpool Tower,” says Colin,
pointing at a tall metal structure on the horizon. We head in that direction.
12.01 – Two lanes are merging into one, but the bloke driving a VW Golf on our nearside either hasn’t noticed or doesn’t care. We get there at the same time, and we’re bigger, so we win! He scrapes the entire length of his car against our step. He gets out of the car, shouts a few expletives (we assume), waves his ists, then jumps back in his car and drives off.
12.05 – We phone the Renault Trucks’ press ofice to explain the damage. They’re ine about it. We hope we don’t
need to call them again.
12.45 – Colin’s hungry again, so we decide to ind a café for some lunch. We park-up between the Champ de Mars and the French Military Academy, in the shadow of France’s tribute to the Blackpool Tower. Within seconds, two gendarmes have wandered over. We expect to be moved on, but they just want to talk about the truck. 12.50 – We ind a restaurant, and order some lunch.
1.05 – The waitress forgets half of our order.
1.15 – We ‘forget’ to leave a tip!
2.35 – We come close to losing the roof delector in a low underpass. According to Tom, who is travelling behind us, there’s just an inch to spare. The unforgiving pillars in the middle of this underpass look eerily familiar. 3.13 – Driving around Paris is beginning to do our heads in, but Tom’s still not happy and wants some more pictures. We reluctantly agree to another hour of it. Colin thinks driving a right-hand drive truck around downtown Paris is the most stressful thing he has ever done. 4.35 – Tom has inally taken enough pictures. We contemplate driving back to Calais, but can’t be bothered. We decide to head off early tomorrow morning instead and book ourselves on the noon crossing.
7.00 – Dinner is over-priced, under-cooked and stinks of garlic!
Friday (day three)
5.00 – We put Calais into the sat-nav and set off. 5.05 – Colin is hungry. He’s had a tip-off that there’s a decent English breakfast at the irst services after the peage on the northbound A1.
5.30 – We ind ourselves in Central Paris again. That’s when we realise the sat-nav is taking us to Calais via the Champs Elysees!
5.55 – We’re inally on the right road. 6.45 – The breakfast doesn’t live up to our expectations. Since when do potato cakes and a mufin qualify as a full-English?
7.15 – Northern France is even more boring the second time around. 9.15 – We pull into a service area about 20 miles south of Calais, just by the peage booths. There’s only one other truck there, it’s Irish-registered, and the driver has the trailer doors open and is shouting inside at the top of his voice: “Get the f**k out.” Eventually he slams the door, locks it, and walks over to us. He says he woke up to feel the truck swaying, and realising that it wasn’t windy, immediately guessed he had some unwanted guests in the back. 9.20 – He walks off in search of the police.
9.25 – He returns with two gendarmes who make it very clear that we are not to take any photographs.
9.27 – Four young men of Middle Eastern origin step out of the trailer and are led away. They are in high spirits, clearly used to being caught. One of them glances over at our truck and smiles. “See you in London,” he says. 9.28 – We take a photograph.
9.35 – We suddenly notice that we are almost out of diesel, and pull over to ill-up. While Colin ills the tank, I keep an eye on a group of potential stowaways who are taking an unhealthy interest in our trailer. My credit card takes a hammering, and I’ve only got enough budget left for one case of JP Chenet’s inest!
11.00 – We arrive at the port, and Customs wants to look in the back of the trailer. They can’t believe we’ve just carried a trailer full of fresh air to Paris and back. 11.05 – We pass through two lots of heartbeat monitors and scanners – the irst is operated by the French and the second by the Brits. According to the UK Border Agency, a scary number of stowaways aren’t detected by the French one. Our truck gets the all-clear. 11.30 – We board the ferry and head straight for the drivers’ canteen again. Fantastic – British food! We each tuck into a plate of chicken tikka masala! ■