The birds woke us early, but that was no problem as we had to be off by 8.30am to catch the ferry to Calais. We went with DFDS, and although some people had commented that the facilities weren't up to much, we found it fine – and its only 90 mins anyway. We were delayed for half an hour on the dockside due to a problem unloading the incoming boat (no idea what) but we had a smooth crossing and arrived in Calais safely.
 

We had decided to try and get to Switzerland toll free (on the recommendation of people on the Caravan Talk forum) using the route through Belgium & Luxembourg, and as all their autoroutes are free and actually shorter than through France, it seemed like a good idea...
....until we hit roadworks near Ghent, and on choosing to use the inside lane, sat completely still for the next half hour. It was really frustrating as we’d chosen to avoid the route through Lille due to THEIR roadworks – no idea why we just sat there, as the other 2 lanes were still flowing, but nobody could get out so we just gazed forlornly at the back of a Czech lorry. This happened twice more before we finally got going again. This delay then landed us on the Brussels ring road at teatime...suffice it to say the air inside our car was fairly blue.


 We had decided to stop at Neufchateau, just off the E411, and what a good choice our site was: Camping Val D’Emeraude. Its in the ACSI book and only costs €12 a night; it was a great stopover, or nice to stay in for any length of time really. The site is level with mown grassy pitches, with older but very clean facilities (take your own loo roll) and there are birds and flowers everywhere.
 
 


 There is a bar/restaurant run by the owner, a very friendly Dutchman who also did the cooking, so after a longer than expected day, we pitched up then went for a beer and a meal. It was excellent too: chicken, steak or salmon served with piping hot fries and a tossed salad, all washed down with bottles of Jupiler, the local beer. Yum.