29.08 - Day 227 - UK to Epernay, FRA

Thursday 29th August - Buckingham / Chelmsford (UK) - Epernay, (France) (Day 227)

Departure day. 

After a relaxing 2.5 months across Buckingham, Chelmsford and Mynytho it’s time to hit the main road again. 

Everyone has enjoyed homely living and spending much more time than we’re usually afforded with parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins which has been very rewarding. 

But after 7.5 months away from Sydney, our country count is "only" 5. So on to Europe to boost that number a little whilst continuing our slower travel. 

Sienna and I are dropped at Milton Keynes station whilst Kate and Seb board their train in Chelmsford, we meet them at King’s Cross St Pancras, boarding the Eurostar to France. 

Kate and I both fall asleep before we hit the tunnel and when we wake up we’ll be in France. After snoozing on the Eurostar as we whizzed through the English countryside, we awaken in France. 

It’s a change at Lille for a direct TGV to Charles de Gaulle airport where, offsite, we collect our wheels for the next 80 days. A bit more than a usual hire car, I’m now the registered owner of our brand new Citroen C3 Aircross, and Citroen will ‘buy it’ back off me at the end of the hire period. It has 1 km on the clock. 

Two hours of driving past fields of wilting sunflowers and many many more fields of sweetcorn, we arrive in Epernay, in the heart of the champagne region at 8pm, collapsing into our compact room at Premiere Classe. The plastic bathroom / wet room is about the size found in our Western Australia Campervan, but Seb gives not a hoot because he’s snared the top bunk.