Expanding the travel horizons

Friday morning began with a brisk walk in the nearby bush with the dog. Then my host had a couple of errands to run and I took the time to go to the nearby shops. The day started to evaporate fairly quickly and my previous statement to the girl at the hairdresser’s nearer to the airport was forgotten in favour of going to one at those nearby shops. So well-forgotten, in fact, that I was still thinking of getting a haircut in Phoenix over two weeks later!
 
I did buy a couple of bottles of Australian Yellowtail wine (with a kangaroo on the labels) for the party that night and a couple of memory sticks for my photos to go onto. One for me and one they could keep after helping to recover the photos on the failed memory card. And shame on me, too, for neglecting to take photos during my time with these people Thursday afternoon and much of Friday.
 
While I’d met these people online, or at least the lady who provided the driveway to park my van while we were in Europe, the secondary link between the three households involved over this two days was their love of dogs. Big dogs. So as the end of the day drew near we all headed for the address where the party was to be held. The dogs were all there:
 

The dogs. A part of the bonding between the people I was with was their common love of dogs. Big dogs.
 

On alert. Something has got their attention. Not long after this there was a dramatic event which spoiled the evening.
 
As darkness fell an unfortunate incident took place in which one of the dogs attacked another and injuries were inflicted. It put a damper on the evening, it’s fair to say, and the party broke up a little earlier than it might have otherwise. Though one thing to come out of the evening was a contact with people I’d met on my 2014 trip.
 
Ashley and Elias were a couple I’d spent time with in Detroit and I’d lost contact with them. But, having mentioned this prior to flying out to Europe, there’d been some seeking-out going on and I was able to phone them that night.
 
When the party broke up I had another couple to get to know better, and we talked for some time about home, my trip and things pertinent to them. This couple had a German background and they were very interesting to talk to. Until, eventually, it was time for bed and I went upstairs for a comfortable night’s sleep.
 

 
I have to say that I was not all that inspired about going back to Niagara Falls. It was something I was prepared to drop from my first trip should we be short of time, but Janet was keen to see them. Then the second trip I had to go past there with stepson Ashley on board so he would want to see them. Now I had to go back because I promised Sandra I’d take home some fresh photos for her.
 

Road to Kitchener. I wasn’t on the freeway for the drive to Kitchener, but there wasn’t much traffic.
 
Of course I was taking notice of things along the way. This barn was nothing like anything I’d seen in Europe, for instance:
 

An old barn. Once again I was reminded of the way things get left to fall apart in North America. This barn looks like it had a lot of effort go into its building, too.
 
The van wasn’t running any better than when I’d left it, drinking fuel at an alarming rate but it started every time and got me where I was going. After stopping off to spend time with some more people at Kitchener I turned Southwards towards my day’s destination at the Falls.
 

Close to the game. Just about any movie about Canada involves ice hockey and Kitchener has its own arena for the game. Their team is the Kitchener Rangers. This is the closest I’ve ever been to such a game.
 
Along the road I spotted a large paddock full of cars. Interesting cars, a little local car show that was starting to break up after a nice sunny Sunday. Naturally, I stopped and looked at a lot of them, chatted with some of the owners and took some photos.
 

1933 Chrysler. Beneath that long hood is a straight eight flathead engine, but isn’t the air conditioning more important?
 

Sixties Chrysler. Another eight-cylinder Chrysler, but this one a V8. In the frame with it are a Camaro and a Saleen Mustang.
 

Chrysler Sebring. Like the car I’d hired in LA at the beginning of my 2014 trip.
 

Barracuda. A mid-sixties Barracuda leaves the party, but still in frame are a VW camper and the front of a Camaro SS396. I don’t know what the big wheel’s all about, either.
 

Studebaker. From the Raymond Leowy designs of the late forties, this 2-door Studebaker features a lot of glass around the back not seen on their sedans.
 

Challenger. Another one driving off, a Dodge Challenger looks like it’s trying to beat the El Camino to the road home.
 
I drove on then to Niagara Falls and found somewhere to buy some dinner on the Canadian side. The problem with Niagara Falls coming in from the Canadian side is that it’s just too hard to find your way to the bridge that takes you to the USA. In the course of looking, I started to take photos of the falls with the lights the Canadians shine on them, a nice colourful display.
 

American Falls. From the Canadian side, the best view of them, enhanced by the coloured searchlights adding to the spectacle.
 

Canadian Falls. Or Horseshoe Falls, which carry most of the water tumbling to the lower level.
 
I then crossed the border and wandered around in the darkness getting further photos…
 

Destined to fall. The turbulent waters heading for the American Falls, much more dramatic at night than in the daytime.
 

Canadian Falls from US side. Combining the massive water flow with the mists and the lights shining upon them, it all makes a spectacular scene.
 
Then I located a quiet spot not too far away, and in which I wouldn’t be too conspicuous, to park and sleep for the night. The bed in the back of the van was familiar and comfortable and I slept easily…

Time to depart from Europe...
 
I had to take care of a few small things on the morning of June 23, 2016, before I headed for the airport and the TT CAR Transit office nearby. This is the agency through which Peugeot and Citroen lease cars, other makers have the same setup, Renault’s ‘Eurodrive’ for instance.
 

 
Repacking completed, the interior of the car cleaned out, I headed off for breakfast and then to return the car. It was here, six and a half weeks earlier when we picked up the car, we saw the crazy man on the roof of another car and various people connected with the agency trying to get him away from there. It felt like it could have been years.
 

TT Car Transit. They were happy enough to get the car back clean, but surprised at how many kilometres it had travelled.
 
I was due to fly out at 11:00am on Air Canada flight 881, due to land at Toronto at 1:00pm after an eight-hour flight. When I arrived at TT they sent a man out to inspect the car and note any damage, the mileage etc. I watched as he noted that I had taken the original 8kms on the odometer to 18,205kms, he raised both eyebrows over that!
 
He duly looked at the scratches on the right hand mirror, another mark on the rear bumper where I’d backed into a post near Pescara and noted them down on his clipboard. I pointed out that I’d removed the restrictor gate in the fuel filler pipe and told him it had fallen into the tank when I did that. Apparently they sell these cars to government departments after just one leasing, I don’t know what level of repairs they receive beforehand. There was no excitement over these things, just things to be noted down for repair (or to ignore?).
 
From there, with no further problems, they took me to the airport, just a short drive away, in a people mover and I went through all the formalities. Find the right gate, show the appropriate papers, ensure there’s nothing in the carry-on bags to upset the scanners and x-rays, shoes off, put mobile phones and coins in the tray… shoes on, return mobile phones and coins to pockets… work your way to the loading gates and be ready to board when the 777 is ready.
 
Of course I had booked a window seat, so this meant that when we taxied down to the end of the runway I was in the right place to get a pic of the Air France Concorde that’s embedded in the airport precinct:
 

Remember when? Through the fifties and part of the sixties, the dream was for supersonic air transport for the masses. The Concorde was as close as it ever came.
 
And the massive Airbus A380 operated by Air France on their busiest routes rolled along the runway across from us:
 

The realisation. Economically transporting hundreds of people at a time became the norm instead.
 
It’s incredible to think that just four years and three days later these aircraft would go out of service with this airline.
 
Soon it was our turn on the runway and that powerful rush was felt as we accelerated to take-off speed and lifted into the air. Soon Paris would be left behind…

Putting Paris behind us. The great metropolis spreads out behind as we head a bit to the North.
 
And the flight was underway:
 

 
We’d see some of the French countryside as we headed somewhat to the North…
 

Farms and forests. The diversity of the French countryside was our view for a short while.
 
…which put us on a trajectory to enable me to photograph the White Cliffs of Dover!
 

White Cliffs of Dover. Finally I saw them in the daylight!
 
This is a bit further along the English coastline, the towns of Hythe and Sandgate are in view…
 

Along England’s South coast. As we travelled at over 30,000ft these towns became tiny to us.
 
The long stretch over the Atlantic was all in daylight, of course. I had now, obviously, left Europe behind. But the magic of preparing this narrative of the trip has enabled me to learn even more about the places I visited.
 
To explain that, I have had to go back and ‘find’, via Google Earth and Street View, many of those things seen. I had to locate where many of the photos were taken. Some countries had no Street View, among them Germany, but for the most part it was all available. Where it wasn’t I could still access some individual photos (called ‘photosphere’ as they are 360° views) which did help a little.
 
Just to give an example, I mentioned in the last post that I hadn’t taken any photos after leaving the Amiens area. Not until I got to the carwash. But to make this story complete I needed to know where that carwash was, and so I went to Google Earth hunting down such places between Amiens and Paris. I had some clues as I looked at each using Street View.
 
My memory told me it was on the right side of a street which headed towards Paris, that it was in a relatively small place but not too far from Paris. Across that street were everyday houses (Memory, you will see, can fail you…) and that the wash itself was approached from behind the service station to which it was attached. Not so secure in my mind was the thought that it was a Total establishment.
 
I also remember that it wasn’t too far from a Hotel Formule 1.
 
There there were the clues in the photo itself:
 

Carwash clues. I had to look closely at this photo to eventually be able to nail the location.

The apartment building opposite, but apparently not facing the street where the carwash was located, then there was the brick wall alongside the carwash, with that protruding timber beam supporting the eave painted in an obvious white. Note also that you can ‘see through’ the carwash and that there’s no roof to it.
 
It’s not always easy finding such things, and I regret that there have been a number of photos I took which I couldn’t locate at all. This one absorbed several hours of diligent hunting, but then came a glimmer of light, after rejecting dozens of them as impossible because of the detail of the wash itself. Instead of looking for the carwash, I scoured the background of my picture and started looking for an apartment block like that opposite one.
 
Bingo, I found this:
 

Apartments which match. The blue and brown railings, the recessed balconies, the gaps between them and what appears to be the air conditioning on the roof.
 

How can this be the same carwash? The mystery deepened as I reverted to viewing the carwash.
 
Comparing it to my photo, there was plenty to go by, including that red steel framework which is actually a part of a cinema and I had taken it for a part of the carwash structure in my photo. But then looking at the front of the carwash on Google Earth…
 

It’s all different! Not one but two bays in the carwash and that fence around the top, it sure had changed by 2019.
 
…the carwash had two bays, a high front wall and couldn’t been seen through! Then I looked again, I had to be sure. And I found that the Street View here was dated from May, 2019. And then, as I looked more closely at the apartment building and moved myself into that street, I noticed its Street View date was July, 2018. I swung around towards the carwash from that spot and saw that they were building the new structure for the carwash while the main service station building remained…
 

Expansion in 2018. Construction is under way in this picture from 2018.
 
…and a look at the other end of the service station showed that the roof detail and brickwork were the same there…
 

Same building. Every detail of the eaves and wall matched my photo.
 
Curious, I then moved to the roundabout up the road and found that a part of it had pictures from September, 2010 and another part from 2017, which gave me these two views of the carwash as it was when I was there, including in the 2017 view the advertising on the street light signs also visible in my photo:
 

2010 view. As it used to be, not a good view, but from further around the roundabout…
 

2017 view. …it’s even more familiar to me as things were evolving. The background here also includes the regular housing I remembered across the street.
 
The really interesting thing about this little ‘investigation’ is that I got five (yes, five!) differently dated views of the carwash. The two of it as now completed were both from May, 2019, but apparently from the Google Earth camera travelling up and down the street in different directions! Which is why one view shows one door open, the other shows two.
 
But back to the trip to Toronto. The magnificent aircraft in which I sat was chasing the sun and not keeping pace with it. Eventually Canadian landforms came into sight:
 

Lots of islands. Sighting land as we came from being over the North Atlantic to over Canada, we saw lots of islands.
 

Lots of lakes. Further inland we saw the opposite, lots of lakes dotting the countryside.
 
And soon we were over the outskirts of Toronto. Seeing new housing estates there…
 

Outskirts of Toronto. Like most big cities, Toronto is expanding, freeways giving easy access to the city.
 
…and a golf course or two:
 

Golf course. Golf courses stand out pretty well from the air, the greens and fairways, the trees between them and the little lakes.
 
We were coming down gradually as we saw these things, as the photos show, and it wasn’t long before we were on the ground experiencing that magic deceleration as reverse thrust was applied and the brakes came on hard. Another safe landing.
 
After all the formalities at the airport, I was duly picked up and taken to my van, into which I loaded my bags and then I followed the people who’d picked me up to their place. As the lady at whose place I’d left the van lived alone, it was not appropriate for me to stay there the night.
 
I was shown to a nice room in a nice modern house, introduced to another dog, and tried to sort out all the things I had to do. One of the primary ones was trying to solve the problems with the van and I fiddled with the fuel pumps but got nowhere. A serious task was retrieving those ‘lost’ photos from my phone’s memory card and my host, who works from home, offered to help with that.
 
The plan was to stay the night here, and spend most of Friday here also, then there was a party on the Friday night at the home of another of their dog-owning circle further to the West, they would host me for the night Friday before I left.
 
But I still had Friday to work through…

And so on to Amiens...
 
I awoke to a quiet morning in Northern France. I knew full well what I had to do this day and I started driving towards Amiens. The job list included cleaning the surplus bits and pieces out of the car, food leftovers, wrappings, unwanted local maps and so on, and towards the end of the day getting the car washed.
 
But seeing another circuit was to give the day direction and I got some breakfast and headed along some secondary roads following the GPS with ‘no tolls’ selected. I got on the road early, as can be seen from the pics. This is the path I took:
 

 
Mostly the countryside was open with villages and crops. Through Grandvillers was fog-free and shortly after that I stopped to throw out some rubbish in a roadside bin. I thought the bountiful crop on the side of the road was worthy of a photo, as was the background:
 

Crops growing well. I feel sure this is barley and it provides a nice foreground for a photo of the gently rolling slopes with more barley and some other crops in the background.
 
And there was more nature to see, too, though given that I was in France you could just about suggest that this fellow was leading a dangerous life…
 

Snail in danger. The bin which had lured me to pull up had this surprise for me. No, I didn’t take the snail home – or eat it!
 
Though much of the road was fairly straight running, from time to time there were changes of scenery…
 

The road North. A stand of trees, a bend in the road leading into a valley, a nice change from the long straight roads.
 
This was by no means a long drive, it’s less than sixty miles from Rouen to Amiens. But I did run into some morning mists, quite heavy in places.
 

Wind generators in fog. The need for power has seen a lot of wind-farm construction through the whole area. These are on the Route Nationale 1029 in the Morvillers-Saint-Saturnin area East of Digeon.
 
Watching the blades of the generators dipping down into the clear air as they turned, I thought, made for interesting photos. I also wonder what nature lovers might say about the blades turning in the fog as birds are flying about. Or do birds stay out of fog?
 
Quickly enough I got closer to Amiens, the road widened for a while:
 

Closer to Amiens. A couple of extra lanes were provided, I guess for heavier traffic near the major city I was approaching.
 
But I was actually heading past Amiens city, for the old circuit was to the South-East of the city and more or less centred on the village of Boves. Here’s Oscar Plada’s nice map of the circuit:
 

 
The circuit is very much in the pre-1914 mold, long straights and through various towns and villages, such circuits being seen both in Europe and in the Americas at places like Le Mans, Savannah GA and even, I’ve just learned, San Diego. Also later in Australia at Phillip Island in the twenties and thirties and just once at Victor Harbor in 1936.
 
I joined it at Boves and headed through under the railway line, but quickly established that the Western end is no longer able to be found, obliterated by modern Autoroute construction. So I turned and headed down the long straight, originally over five miles long, and could see it disappearing into the distance:
 

Long straight. Disappearing into the distance, the long straight towards Roye isn’t quite straight as it climbs the distant hill.
 

Hidden village. The village of Domart-Sur-la-Luce is settled into a low point along this straight.
 
How quickly would the cars have been going through this main street of the village? A long straight, a downhill run into the village, the winner of the race averaged 72mph and fastest lap was almost 77mph, so one would have to assume the many spectators who gathered on the sides of the road here saw them going quicker than 100mph.
 
Just to give a bit of an idea of what it was like, here’s a newsreel about this race:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft9gpp8Ha0k
 
Apart from the ‘sharp end’ section now overtaken by the Autoroute, there was one other section of the circuit I couldn’t drive on, or at least in the right direction. Modern traffic volumes has led to the Eastbound lanes being sent to a parallel road through this town.
 

Diversion. It’s one-way the wrong way on the actual path of the old circuit through and after Domart-Sur-la-Luce and the road heading East diverts to a parallel path to the right.
 
Once the crest of the distant hill is reached, it’s a simple turn to the right and then there’s a few swerves before the downhill run into Moreuil:
 

Curves before Moreuil. These swerves might have got exciting on the tyres of the day and the 1913 road surface.
 

Down into Moreuil. Moreuil is a larger town and the right turn here is approached down hill.
 
Fences were erected each side of the road here, and there were temporary spectator bridges to allow people to cross the road during the long event. The race lasted almost eight hours and the winner covered almost 917 miles, so it was a real feat of endurance for drivers, cars and spectators.
 
From the climb out of Moreuil…
 

Exiting Moreuil. Climbing from the tight intersection in Moreuil, the cars boomed between the houses as they prepared for the long sweeps of the road to Boves.
 
…the road went through long sweeps and stretched over the hills…
 

Long sweeps. Plenty of chance to open out the cars here, and test the primitive tyres.
 
…to descend on the village of Thennes…
 

Village of Thennes. Another quick passage past homes, people probably travelled between Thennes and Domart-Sur-la-Luce during the event to get different views.
 
…and then continue to Boves:
 

Hills. Fast running up and down hills, it would have been exiting for the riding mechanics.
 

Straights too. With Boves almost in sight the road straightens out here before the S-bend under the railway bridge.
 

Into Boves. After the rail underpass the cars went between the houses, again fences were erected and temporary bridges thrown up.
 

Long drive through Boves. As much of Boves fits between the railway and the river, it’s a long town to traverse.
 
After Boves there’s a stretch where the river is closer to the railway and the road is a bit hemmed-in between them…
 

Closing in. This stretch is in a narrow section between river-bank and railway embankment.
 
…before we get to the next railway underpass…
 

Right under the railway. Astute readers will have noticed that the railway bridges have been renewed in the 100+ years since this race.
 
…and then the part where the Autoroute has precluded following the circuit properly. A large roundabout leads to the long straight and the next underpass, this time under the offending Autoroute:
 

Back to long straight. The long straight is duplicated today because of traffic volume.
 
Having completed my lap I started to have a look around at things in the immediate vicinity.

And to continue looking around...
 
Another war cemetery really surprised me, not that it was there, but that it was basically located in a creek:
 

Cemetery in creek. I wondered how the soldiers who died here would have felt about being buried in such a location.
 
And I wondered about this sign on a renovation being done just near there. The name of the insulation specialist is almost identical to the name of the driver of the winning car in the Grand Prix held here – Georges Boillot.
 

The sign. Even if the spelling is a little bit different, I have no doubt that people other than myself have noticed the coincidence.
 
This 1913 French Grand Prix, by the way, was held to a formula which was intended to slow the cars down after the speeds they reached in the previous year’s Grand Prix at Dieppe (and other races) when Peugeot started on their winning streak.
 
The French company had built their 7.6-litre 4-cylinder L76 model for the 1912 races, it featured four valves per cylinder operated by twin overhead camshafts. Like a lot of road cars today. It was victorious but rising speeds caused the race organisers to introduce a fuel consumption limit. This led to smaller engines, the Peugeot EX3 being a mere 5.6-litres. It still had the four valves per cylinder and became a successful car over the next few years in America, where the likes of Dario Resta raced them while Europe went to war.
 
Leaving behind the race and the circuit, I had to take a photo of this little bridge, with flowers on the railings:
 

Flowers on bridge. A bridge decorated with real live flowers is not something I see very often.
 
And as I headed off towards Roye, where I would get some lunch and turn South towards Paris and the flight back to Canada, I saw yet another war cemetery…
 

Last cemetery. Neat as many of them are, neater than some, this cemetery is the last resting place for another thousand young men.
 
…which is no surprise given the history of this area. Villers-Bretonneux, the site of a huge cemetery and memorial as well as being a kind of a Mecca for Aussies who take a deep interest in these things, is only a few miles north of Domart-Sur-la-Luce. Battles between the Germans and the allies in both WW1 and WW2 have left this area very badly bloodstained as they wasted hundreds of thousands of young lives.
 
Here’s the path for my personal retreat from all of this:
 

 
I guess I was tiring, though it wasn’t all that far, less than sixty miles. I didn’t take any more photos as I covered this stretch at all. The next matter of urgency was to wash the car for its return to the Peugeot leasing depot and so I started to look for a car wash. I found this at Fosses, which was almost on their doorstep.
 
The carwash was attached to a Total service station and I had to wait a short time as another car went through the process ahead of me. Then the little Peugeot was fed into the wash:
 

Washing off the dust. All the ills of 18,000 kms and 21 countries were washed from the exterior of the car here for a few Euros.
 
Next order of business was to wrap up the day with a meal, but first I booked into the Hotel Formule 1 at Saint Witz, not far down the road from Fosses.
 

A bed for the night. A bed and a (communal) shower was to prepare me for the flight back to Toronto.
 
The hotel was abuzz with young people moving backwards and forwards, I was happy to stay out of their way and settle into my room, use the wi-fi and repack my bags for the flight out.
 
Again it was a case of making sure everything was in the right place, that I didn’t leave anything behind and that the car was fully prepared for its return. I did feel I had now seen enough of Europe that I didn’t need to go back there, the exception to that being that I hadn’t seen the Norwegian Fjords I’d been told about back in the eighties.
 
With such thoughts I settled into the bed and slept comfortably…

After the ferry ride to Dunkirk, the next step was to find somewhere to park and sleep for a while. As I did so there was some rain falling again, so the roads were wet as I set off towards Rouen. I soon knew I was in France as the French cars became more commonplace.
 
Cars which sometimes had unpronounceable names…
 

Citroen Xsara. How should it be pronounced, I ask?
 
Mind you, the model name is okay, even it it doesn’t paint a picture:
 

Picasso. But would Pablo roll in his grave if he knew his name is used this way?
 
And so the trip for the morning was laid out before me:
 

 
Not a difficult drive at all, a major transport route in fact. Autoroute all the way. I snapped a couple of pics along the Autoroute:
 

Wildlife bridge. A wildlife bridge to enable animals to travel risk-free in a forest between Bouillancourt-en-Serv and Fontain, South of Calais.
 

Descending towards Rouen. The French countryside, as green as England’s, spreads out beneath clouds shared by the two countries.
 
On reaching Rouen I found it has plenty of topographical challenges. It’s downstream from Paris on the Seine and the river has carved the country here so there are many areas with steep hills.
 

Steep. The extremes of Rouen’s hills haven’t daunted the builders, who have created homes to suit and retaining walls to cope.
 
Driving into the town I wandered around trying to find somewhere to get a map to enable me to find the Rouen L’Essarts circuit of the fifties and sixties. In the course of my wandering about I learned that some of the streets aren’t very wide…
 

Narrow streets. The children still play, though the streets are narrow and the houses old.
 
…and the buildings are usually centuries old. Ultimately I parked in a spot alongside the river to get my bearings as I looked for the tourist office. The GPS wasn’t leading me to it…
 

Along the Seine. Google Earth provides this view of the area where I parked.
 
…and I was forced to walk a long way. Asking for directions as I went, of course, and generally not finding the place easy to locate. If only I had asked for the cathedral, which is both famous and located directly across from it:
 

Tourist office. Across the square from the cathedral, the tourist office was located in the grand old building beyond the pharmacy.
 
Its position assisted Claude Monet, apparently, as he took a room in the building and used it as his studio as he painted eleven works featuring the cathedral.
 
But my keen desire was to get a map that showed where the circuit was. And it took a while to get that through to the young man at the counter who seemingly didn’t know that motor racing had ever taken place nearby. Ultimately, though, I found it on one of their maps, that is I found the roads which formed the familiar shape of the lower end of the circuit, and walked back to the car.
 
I got something to eat as it was by now time to do that and then struggled for a while to find the right roads to get to the circuit. And along the way I got a nice surprise.
 
Recall that I didn’t see the White Cliffs of Dover? Well here, because I’d not found the short way to get there, I did find some white cliffs:
 

White cliffs. Here by the banks of the Seine were white cliffs, the area bearing the name ‘des Roches.’
 
For several kilometres they were there alongside the road, with homes built in their shadow. This area is about 185kms due South of Dover and I wonder if there’s some relationship between these cliffs and those famous ones in England.
 

Standing out. One cylindrical form of the rock stood out from the walls, looking a little perilous.
 
The first confirmation I had that I was in the right place was a bus stop!
 

Bus stop. After finding that nobody knew anything about the circuit, here was evidence that somebody does.
 
So I set off to do a lap. I realised that a section had been cut off by a freeway and other roadworks, but the main parts were still driveable. But with bollards in place for some reason.
 

Down the hill. The first section after the start, which was at or near the bus stop, runs downhill through some very fast and tricky bends.
 

Circuit map. Oscar Plada’s map of the circuit, with kilometres marked on it and the start/finish shown by a small arrow and chequered square.
 
Some really heroic driving through this section was seen through the decades the circuit was in use, but the most memorable to many, beautifully caught in photos, was Juan Manuel Fangio’s effort in the 1957 French Grand Prix in a Maserati 250F. There have been bad days here too, Jo Schlesser losing his life in a fiery crash in an experimental air-cooled Honda in the 1968 Grand Prix.
 

Fast curves. Fast and downhill, a combination requiring judgement and skill.
 

Right and left. The downhill rush continues…
 

Last one. …to culminate in this left hander before the braking area for the hairpin.
 

Noveau Monde. The famous hairpin which every photographer seem to love.
 

Cobblestones. The hairpin was cobblestones, which was a rarety in Grand Prix racing in the sixties.
 
So that was the stretch down the hill. It was a main road, hence the width, while the road back up the other side was a lesser road and not so wide.
 

Hairpin exit. The start of the climb, with the encroaching trees – which weren’t so pronounced in the day – giving a different atmosphere.
 

Sweeping uphill. This easy sweep to the right led to…
 

Right kink. …a gentle kink then a run to the first left-hander.
 

Esses. Slight banking of the bends was helpful, this is the bend halfway between the 2km and 3km marks on the map.
 

Easy right. After the tight left and right, this right isn’t flat out.
 

Tight bends. Then there’s this tight left ahead, which gives one the impression it’s a part of a hillclimb rather than a circuit.
 

Climbing exit. This is at the 3km mark, with the next right well in view.
 

End of climb in sight. Or is it? At least the road is straightening out a bit, but still climbing.
 

Accelerating hard. This short straight leads to the bend which is followed by the crossroad in the map.
 

Signs ahead. Those signs relate to the crossroad. Not important from 1955, but before that it was time to take the road to the right.
 

Top of the hill. At last the climb is over and it’s a fast straight for some distance.
 

Freeway bridge. That overbridge is just before the 4km mark on the map, there was no point going further as too much has changed.
 
So I went as far as I could tracing out the circuit of the races I’d taken an interest in. But there were two variations because of the new roads and freeways. So we’ll go back to that crossroad:
 

Turn onto old straight. Prior to 1955 this had been the link back to the starting area, giving a shorter circuit of 5.1kms. You can see here that this straight has a couple of rises and falls in it.
 

T-junction. This, then, was the final turn in that original circuit, which was used for the 1952 French Grand Prix.
 
Graham Hill had a camera strapped onto his car for a full lap in 1962, this You Tube clip of that strings it all together and shows the parts I missed out on seeing because I got there too late:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl9uGLVcnfQ
 
After I finished my lap, I was a bit amused because a bunch of young blokes were mucking around along this last straight. I don’t know what they were doing, but they stopped when I came on the scene. I stopped and took a photo of one of their vehicles, which had me a bit entranced:
 

Chatenet. Readers might recall that we saw a car of this make back in Italy when we went on our little exploration drive from Avezzano. Engines of less than 600cc give them tax advantages, but could it carry anything worthwhile in the cargo area?
 
The day was getting on by this time and I had to work out what I’d do next. I had a bit of spare time I hadn’t yet budgeted for anything, the logical thing for me to do was work out what other open-road French racing circuit was somewhere I could reach and still get close to Paris by the end of the next day.
 
It was now Tuesday, I had Wednesday to do this, but I was also aware that I had to clean up the car before I headed for the airport on Thursday morning.
 
Settling down with the internet, I looked at the options and decided I’d go to Amiens. This was a circuit of 30kms used only once prior to World War 1 and so I headed generally in that direction and found somewhere to eat and somewhere to park safely for the night to go to sleep in the car.
 
I also started making phone calls relevant to my return to Canada, letting people there know when I’d be flying in and making arrangements with them.
 
I’d been in touch with Virgin, or actually Flight Centres (through whom I booked) repeatedly since Sandra went home trying to get them to let me use her luggage allowance as there was no refund on her tickets. I now had to also make sure I didn’t have too much to take with me as there’d been no help in that quarter.
 
Nevertheless, with just one full day to go in Europe I was still enjoying myself…

On my last day in the UK…
 
Almost the last of the European part of my 3-month ‘adventure’ too. I was booked onto the ferry to Dunkirk late in the evening so I had a lot of day to do whatever I wanted to do. But a keen desire to not be late for the ferry.
 
Awakening at the B & B I found that the nice weather of the past two days had been replaced overnight with some light rain. I was in e.mail contact with people at home and took some photos out the windows of the B & B and sent them off to them:
 

A wet morning. This one of the pics I sent off to Sandra’s grandchildren that morning. Looks dull, doesn’t it?
 

No better out this window. The rain was spoiling the good weather I’d enjoyed for a couple of days, but I’m told England is like that.
 
Before long, of course, I partook of the ‘& B’ part of ‘B & B’ and loaded the car for the next part of the trip. I set the GPS for and address in Duston where Glen and Carol were staying with Carol’s parents, Joe and Carol. Glen and Carol are the parents of my stepson, Ashley’s wife.
 
Again I marvelled at the way you put the postal code into the GPS and it takes you to the right address, here’s the morning’s trip:
 

 
Properly fed, neatly dressed, keen to get on with the trip, I headed off. The first little town was Tealby, only a mile or two from the B & B and it looked typical of so many villages in England…
 

Wet and narrow roads. I would enjoy quite some distance without much room on the roads on this path, between these houses in Tealby was just a start.
 

Even narrower. See what I mean? That sign on the wall is a street name for the street between these two houses. I wonder if I was getting homesick?
 
About fifty miles into the drive, which was about 90 miles all up, I reached the M1 motorway and it got all easy and familiar. Not quite so wet now, I closed up on a Series 3 Morris Oxford cruising along in the regular traffic. You can tell the Series 3 from the Series 2 by the little tail fins and the scallops it has in the bonnet (hood) and it’s the model the Indians copied and produced as the Hindustan Ambassador from 1958 to 2014. British production ceased when they were replaced by the Farina-style models, the Series 3 coming out late in 1956 and being superseded in 1959.
 

A rarity. A Morris Oxford Series 3, probably the only old car I saw on British roads all the time I was there.
 
One thing I really liked about these models (I owned the similar ‘55 model Series 2 once... actually, twice as I sold it to my brother in law then bought it back a while later) was that they had decent suspension. No lever-arm dampers, proper telescopic Girlings, so they coped better with rough roads.
 
I duly arrived at the street in which Joe and Carol live. It was an estate which was probably thrown together in the sixties or seventies, there was a lot of cars parked in the street in front of very plain brick single-story homes.
 
Squeezing into a parking spot I went to the door and was greeted by Glen. Poor Joe had deteriorated quite a lot in the fifteen years or so since I last saw him during a visit to Australia. I’d been on the road for a couple of hours so a cup of tea was most welcome along with a bit of cake. The two Carols were out shopping and we went for a bit of a walk up a pathway between the homes which led to a small park area which was pleasant.
 
Poor Joe was slipping in the memory department and showing real signs of going downhill, so we didn’t stay out very long, though we had a brief conversation with another person out walking their dog. At least it was a little sunny by now and when we got back to the house Carol and Carol were returning and another cuppa was dished out.
 
I had some British currency I wouldn’t need as I was heading for the ferry that night so I sold that to Glen for good old Aussie dollars, we had a discussion about what I should do to fill in the hours and miles between Duston and Dover and the suggestion was made that I go to the Cotswolds.
 
More setting of the GPS and here’s the resultant path I took to there and then on to the ferry:
 

 
I drove on without much thought for much except to enjoy the view, to soak in the old world charm and to continue to wonder who it was who collected all the rocks. Sometimes things would jump out, like this wheely-bin in front of a house:
 

Wheely-bin. Things are slipping when this could become the subject of a photo on a trip like this!
 
A few years ago we had a bit of discussion about these on a forum I use, it was between ‘condor’ (whom I met the previous Sunday) and the Canadian 'Ford Prefect' who’d never heard of them. I’m guessing they’ve got them in Canada by now as that discussion was at least 15 years ago. And it was the flowers which led me to take this pic, something to show Sandra when I got home…
 

Houses and flowers. I did try to take pics of things Sandra would like to look at when I saw her again.
 
And there was the green of the early Summer in the English countryside, not to be ignored:
 

Dull countryside. Spoiled by the dullness of the day, the green was still unlike a lot of what we see in Australia.
 

Brighter countryside. With the sun shining in the distance, this looks a bit more appealing.
 
Still the roads were narrower than I’m used to, not much room to move on a lot of them. But smooth and well-marked, it was pleasant motoring even from the driver’s seat on the left side of the Peugeot.
 

Country road and taxi. An oncoming taxi was probably and unusual sight out in the country like this.
 
And still the problem of the rock collection persisted. The fence here has plenty of them, while the house (or houses) certainly involved the collection of even more:
 

Big house. An imposing structure, no matter how many dwellings it encloses. Another typical English sight.
 
At one point I noted that I was looking over a village tucked into a little dip between some nice green hills…
 

A village in the country. A pleasant sight, no doubt better if the sun was shining, this village was well-treed and surrounded by farmlands.
 
My meanderings, following the GPS, took me through a village…
 

Village street. Another village, another stone fence, but so neat and clean.
 
And I reached Bourton-on-the-water. The ‘water’ is the River Windrush and its neatly stone-walled edging borders some parkland with pleasant shade trees. Apparently it’s famous for the ducks which swim in the waters of the Windrush and, I’d say, come out onto dry land to pester park visitors for food.
 

The River Windrush. This is a pleasant sight, the calm waters, the people in the park, the old-style homes and nice shade trees.
 
Now I seemed to be in a place where there was some kind of party, the flags flying on strings across the river and a few people out enjoying the afternoon’s weak sunshine. Once again I’m reminded of the words from Dorothea Mackellar, “Brown streams and soft, dim skies, I know but cannot share it, my love is otherwise.”
 
I was wondering about just how few people were present, but I was forgetting it was now Monday. Over the weekend there had been a village garage sale, but there was none of that here, but the flags probably give a clue. Brexit! The flags represented a desire to come out of the European Union.
 

Another stone bridge. A few people were out enjoying the afternoon, while the ducks were doing their thing too.
 
And a closer look at the ducks:
 

Ducks and drakes. While just one of their number was out for a swim, see the previous pic, these were out looking for booty at the feet of people in the park.
 
Now it was time to move along. The now-familiar green scenery rolled by. My path was to take me past Oxford and the Chiltern Hills, then South of London yet again:
 

Green country. Crops growing under grey skies, windbreaks and small stands of trees, it was all there to see.
 

Hills and dales. The hills add to the setting, more crops and more trees spread to the horizon.
 
Naturally enough, the day was running its course, the grey of the skys was hastening the declining light and there would be, as always a sunset. I still had some distance to go, of course, but I had time to finish that drive in the dark.
 

Darkening sky. Just the tiniest bit of this scene is getting sunlight as the clouds and the day close in on this fertile and ancient land where Lords once had serfs to do all the work.
 
Yes, this country used to work on a system where the ‘landed gentry’ had families doing all the work for them, living out their lives in a condition of being ‘owned’ by the Lord of the Manor and working from dawn to dusk to produce for him. How they would be amazed at today’s system of freedoms and paid work, not to mention modern farming machinery such as the one which left that track across the picture!
 

Sun’s display. The clouds broke at times to let the lowering sun come through in patches, shining in this case on a patch beyond a crest, but still showing the beams which bring light, warmth and energy to the world.
 
The drive from Duston to Bourton-on-the-water had only been a little over fifty miles or eighty kilometres, now there was a drive of about 177 miles (285kms) to the ferry terminal. I wasn’t due there until quite late once again and soon I was back onto motorway to make it quicker and easier…
 

Back on the motorway. Monday evening traffic heading around London, the moon in the sky showing that the clouds were now clearing up.
 
I stopped and got something to eat as the skies darkened to night and duly arrived at the ferry terminal in time to line up. I had time in hand, but others had still got there ahead of me but it didn’t matter. I had all night, after all.
 

On to the ferry. we were ushered up the ramp and then to leave the huge truck deck to the trucks and sent up another ramp.
 
The ferries load and unload like this all day, so efficiency is at a high level and it doesn’t take them long to fill the respective decks. At this hour, however, there aren’t as many travelling, one of the reasons I chose to make my ‘sea journeys’ late at night.
 

Orderly on the deck. Clear directions from the crew had us all filling the deck in an orderly manner, after which we went up to the passenger lounges.
 
What I did miss out on was seeing the White Cliffs of Dover. Had there been a brighter moon perhaps I would have done, but the moon was far from bright. The journey across took me to Dunkirk in just a couple of hours, then I was ready for my last two full days in Europe.
 
How much more could I achieve there?