The whole purpose of the trip was to visit the Tank museum in Saumur. The local crew met up in Station Garage and then on to meet the second crew in Sarn motorway services on the M4 at 2pm, Then on to Portsmouth to catch the overnight Ld Lines ferry to Le Havre arriving on the 19th at 07.30 hrs where we all regrouped outside the ferry terminal me issuing the guys with the route map of where we were staying for the week, which was in a village called Vieux Viell just a few K's from Pontorson.
We all left Le Havre presumably with full tanks of fuel only to be told by one of the boys that he forgot to fuel up the night before, this was only just before we were about to cross the big bridge over the Le Havre, So a small detour ensued where 16 of us went looking for fuel
for this little honda550, Five petrol stations later and we were back on the motorway just about to cross the big bridge where our breakfast stop was going to be Pegasus Bridge and coffee was awaiting. Suitably refreshed we a little chat and some of the boys wanted to make they're own way down to the digs. Some wanting to go straight there, some wanting to go the scenic route with myself and others. The unfortunate thing about this is that being split up god only knows who is actually going to make it to the digs by the afternoon. Any how we left Pegasus Bridge heading on the D9 towards Caen then on the D13 where we turned left onto the D572 for our lunch stop in St Lo. When we eventually got to St Lo we lost a few stragglers en route so we waited around for an hour or so taking in some of St Lo's sites and sampling some of the local dishes. Leaving St lo on the D999 we we got split up again thus leaving only 5 left in our party headed towards Avranches, on the D975 where we stopped for some coffee and fuel top ups. By this time it was around 6pm with around 16kmts to go before we got to base camp. On Thursday morning 12 of us went to the tank Museum in Saumur on the D89 and D155 to Fougeres The on to D798 and D30 to Saumur which was approx 220kmts from base camp,and sat nav saying a travel time of around 3hrs. we got to the Tank museum at 1pm ish,and stayed untill around 5.30 pm, what a fantastic place to visit, all sorts of tanks from all eras . you can find more info here.(WWW.musee des blinds saumur) On the way back we took a different route just to make things interesting taking in some fantastic roads long sweepers and fast straights. One or two of the boys got flashed by speed cameras on the way back but fortunately the were forward facing and no harm was done.the rest of the time we were in France we explored the local area finding some unusual routes through country lanes and popping out in some fantastic villages where if we spent the time on major roads we would have not seen the real France and its local people. Leaving Vieux viell on the 23rd we headed north up to the Longues gun batterie and on to Arromanches for a spot of lunch before heading back to catch the 17.30 ferry to Portsmouth.