Rouen; Sunday, 08 July, 2018

I had a very long lie in and a late breakfast. It meant that by the time I’d packed it was almost midday and less than 2 hours before my train to Dieppe departed.

I decided there wasn’t time to see something and then come back and pick up my luggage so after checking out of the hotel I took my bag with me and went for a bit of a wander along the banks of the Seine, crossing over by the bridge nearest the hotel and taking in the views from the opposite bank. From here there are some excellent views of the Cathedral, and also on a really warm and quite muggy day, it makes for a pleasant place to walk along.

I eventually made it to the tram stop after about 45 minutes very slow walk, which is about what I was aiming for, so I hopped on the tram all the way back to the station – the advantage of having the bag with me paying off.

I got back to Rouen station about 30 minutes before the train was due to depart and pretty soon afterwards they put up the platform, so I was able to go and sit on the beautifully air conditioned train.

Everything ran to time and a little before 3 we pulled into Dieppe station. With 90 minutes to spare before check-in for the ferry opened I decided to pop into the centre of Dieppe for a late lunch. I had a bit of a wander down the main street until I found a nice place in the shade that was serving omelettes and beer, so I decided to stop there for a while.

Lunch completed I headed back through the town and out on the walk back to the harbour. It was difficult to imagine that it was less than 36 hours earlier that I’d been doing the walk in the opposite direction.

Back at the ferry terminal I was able to check-in and after a 30 or so minute wait we were invited to board the bus to take us to the ship. About 15 minutes early the boat pulled away from the dock and headed out into a choppy English Channel.

Everything appeared to be running smoothly, and Newhaven was pretty much in sight when the captain came on the radio to say that there was a fault with the loading ramps at the terminal in Newhaven, it couldn’t be fixed and therefore we wouldn’t be able to land. The only option we had was to return to Dieppe, which he promptly then did. And so, it was another near three hours of sailing back to where we’d come from, to then start an even longer journey back home via the Calais Dover route.

The original plan had been to have buses meet us when we arrived, but that plan was quickly scrapped in favour of keeping the foot and cycle passengers on board with the hope of sailing in the morning, so with nothing much else to do I retired to my cabin for the night and got some sleep.