Honfleur

Who would have thought that a simple journey to Newhaven ferry could be so complicated! All started so well, leaving home ahead of schedule for the 9.30 ferry at 7.20 and an easy drive to 2 miles before Newhaven. There we joined a very long queue to reach traffic lights around road works. Once through that we proceeded to the port only to shouted at from the other side of a high fence - not round there, thats all closed down! Ok, already nearly half hour late to check in, finally reached the booth and told to join the lane. The gate closed behind us! But there we stayed on the end of the queue for another hour and 20 while they tried to get all the huge articulates [probably redirected from dover] on the boat. Who cares about delay when we are on holiday! Not long settled in our seats when appeared a familiar face - Jane who I first knew when visiting Mum in her nursing home and now as Centre volunteers. They had won a free trip and 1 night in Dieppe.
Most enjoyable voyage then a fairly short drive to Honfleur - quite a favourite spot of ours. Found a parking place for the night on the Aire de Camping Cars - very busy but peaceful - and cheap. Enjoyed the walk into the beautiful town, answering clues to a geocache on the way. Found them all and proceeded to the little cobbled lane where the final cache should be found. But this was to be our first DNF (to those not into geoccaching this means did not find - might have quite a few of these over the weeks) despite examining every nook and cranny of the said wall! So off to look at all the menus! Found a lovely little restaurant overlooking the harbour basin - I wont go on about the scrummy salads and crepes, but they were pretty good! And then the sunset over the river on the way back "home" was rather spectactular.
This morning was bright and sunny so off into the town again for a walk along beside the river. A couple approached us and asked if we were off the cruise ship! They were, you see, and had the day to visit Honfleur before returning to Southampton tomorrow. Happily the geocache in the trees in the park along here was an easy find. We needed to place a geocoin we had had in our possession for some weeks - it was called Big Things and required one to log a photo of a big thing near one's home, but our fountain in Horsham has been surrounded by scaffolding for ages(!) so here was the perfect opportunity for a photo - the coin balanced on the sea wall with a background of the "Black Watch" cruise ship and le pont de Normandie. Left Honfleur at midday en route for ....