trapped

[joeby]

at 10.30PM last Wednesday we left on the Ferry for Dunkerque ,allthough it was very cold when we left it was nothing to the nightmare that was to come , we arrived at Dunkerque and drove off into a snow blizzard roads were covered in snow visibility was bad ,we pressed on towards Paris the snow eased off as we neared Paris ,things were looking up as we went through Paris and stopped at about 6.30 for a sleep ,had a few hours ,when we looked out of the window ,there was nothing but whiteness ,put the car into 4 wheel drive and headed onto the motorway ,the best every body could do was to follow in the tracks of other vehicles , a lorry had jacknifed a bit further on and crashed into the back of another lorry 2 cars were in a ditch ,a 100 yards further on a transit van had crashed and another car in a ditch ,but at least the traffic was still moving ,at about 4 o clock we pulled into the services for the night ,pulled around to the caravan parking area and parked against the kerb the place was empty ,got out and looked at the van the front had 4 inches of snow stuck to it ,the grab handles and lights had dissappeared ,the wheel arches were solid with snow ,so i cleaned as much as i could off ,and settled down for the night , i awoke about four hours later and looked out of the window ,and i could only see what looked like a wall near our window ,so i opened the window and reached out ,i could not believe it ,i was touching the side of a lorry without my elbow passing the caravan walls ,next i tried the door it would only open about 9 inches ,then i realised we were trapped , in the end i got a small stepladder out from under the bed and opened a side window and lowered the ladder outside and climbed out then pulled away far enough to let my wife out the door ,i was lucky a lorry could not get the other side of us , we pressed on to Clermont Ferrand where the snow eased a bit , but not for long now the snow was freezing on our wiper blades making them innefficcient so we had to stop at every service station to clean the ice off ,it was only about 50 miles from Montpellier that we got rid of the snow ,as we pressed onto Barcelona there wasnt any snow but it was minus 8 ,in the end we we pulled into Vilanova park ,as we pithced up lumps of frozen snow was falling off the legs as i lowered them , but i will say this for the French they kept the traffic moving

 

[Gafferbill]

Joby......you were brave choosing that route although the 1000-meter section of the A75 appears to have kept clear of snow.

I have been looking at the webcams and I have not seen any hold-ups on that section.

It sounds as if what should have been the worst bit was ok.

Anyway you made it..well done!

I see it is 13degC in Barcelona today (1degC here in Sussex and snow on the ground)

...Enjoy your Christmas.

 

[xtrailman]

Shame the french arn't to hot with tunnel trains, perhaps the snow was too wet, or maybe too white?

 

[SteveW77]

As someone who has been without gas & electricty for 4 days, I don't think that we we can start pointing the finger at the French.

Steve W

 

[xtrailman]

Why not, its probably supplied by a french company?

 

[SteveW77]

The companies may well be, but judging by the broad Anglo Saxon used by the work force trying to repair the damage, they certainly weren't.

Steve W

 

[Garfield]

Seems like a few of us have had "interesting" journeys across France. About 11-12 years ago we were driving overnight down to Andorra in January (without caravan), about 50 miles across France staying on the RNs we noticed the few French cars on the roads travelling very slowly so I eased the handbrake on to "test" how icy the road was, to find we were on virtually sheet ice, about 500 miles of driving on totally untreated roads of sheet ice, past tankers and numerous cars in the ditch the roads thawed as we approached Toulouse which is about 3 hours from Andorra.

Normally you only need chains about 1 day in 10 to get over the highest 10 miles of the road but we were less than 1 hour out of Toulouse at Foix before everyone ground to a halt and had to chain up. Unbeknown to us, our car, a 100,000 mile Peugeot 405 diesel had a partially clogged radiator that had given us no problem untill we started to climb, when the radiator fans and the heater motor also packed up!.

We were travelling on roads cleared by a snow blower with 3' walls of snow either side of the road so almost no-where to stop without stopping everyone else, so whenever we did manage to stop, as the temp guage went into the red it was up with the bonnet and fill the engine bay with snow.

As the road goes up the valley it does a sharp left - right as it goes under a railway bridge so being a uk RHD car I had a better view through the bridge to see a huge snowplough approaching at speed, my wife soon found out what I was screaming about as it missed her door by inches as I bounced the car off the snow wall at my side!.

At some point after this one of the wipers succumbed the the weight of ice and fell off. As diesel is much cheaper in Andorra we entered the principality needing fuel but having filled up in one of the fuel stations at the top of the pass I shut the car door for it to bounce back open, the lock had frozen up, so 20 mins later we finally got enough de icer in it for the door to shut.

We reached our apartment with no further mishap but a few days later we checked the car to find there had been stowaways in the bags of logs we had taken for the stove and the mice were turning the passenger seat into a nest!.

 

[ShadySadie]

We've done caravanning snow and blizzard trips.

Travelling in bad weather Joby, did you not consider taking a more westerly route rather than head inland towards Paris. A few extra miles I know but less snow most of the time.

I wouldn't have been going to Paris and central France in the weather conditions last week on route to Spain.

My daughter was working in Paris last week and had a fun drive home to Brussels.

 

[joeby]

yes we did consider a westerly route ,but as we were on route we did not know how far the snow extended ,but once on the route to Paris it got better and better ,once we were going through Paris it was none existant ,we just thought we would get the snow around the Pyrinees ,it was only after waking up at the services and we saw how bad it had become ,but we could see the traffic still moving ,so we decided to press on even so it was only single lane driving ,except for the odd lunatic lorry driver overtaking in the snow ridden lanes ,and it did improve as we approached Clermont Ferrand ,but allthough the snow was a blizzard 2 lanes had been cleared and driving was a lot easier ,as we approached the bridge at Millau all you could see was just whiteness every where ,as we neared Montpellier it cleared , but we still had temperatures of minus 8 to within 20 miles of Barcelona, we are staying at Vilanova park and we have had 4 days of rain