So, up at 6:30am and out the door by 7:00 to be at the Jersey ferry at 7:10 or thereabouts. That sounds fairly early for an 8am sailing, but there was some malarkey about checking passports prior to departure.
Unfortunately, it was pitch black at 7am and we got lost on the way. Not so much lost as followed the clear signs that said ‘ferry this way’, only it wasn’t that way, and we had to backtrack. Then a bridge opened on us and we had to patiently wait for a boat to pass and for the bridge to be closed.
We rocked into the ferry terminal at 7:24am and were told off by the French lady doing the ushering. She ushered us over to the luggage check in, where another French lady told us off for not having the bags checked in an hour before departure. That definitely wasn’t in the fine print.
Then we went through immigration to some disapproving looks and through into the next hall – where stood every passenger who had got there in good time. Turns out we weren’t so much late as ruthlessly efficient. We were all loaded and underway at 8am, so I’m not sure what the fuss was about.
The ferry ride was uneventful, as they should be, other than for a French girl, serving food in the cafeteria, spotting my shirt and asking if I was from Mount Isa. “Yes”, I said, wondering if she’d ever actually heard of it. Turns out she spent seven months working on a cattle station at Cloncurry and knew it well. Small world.
Short walk from the ferry terminal to our accommodation. Except it wasn’t. We should have gone through the tunnel but elected to take a slightly longer but flatter path around the port. Except it wasn’t. More stairs and a steep hill later and we found it. Some of the language from my travelling companion is getting quite colourful.
Once we’d off-loaded the luggage and had breakfast we walked back down to the city centre, the way we should have come. It was surprisingly short.
We looked through a small maritime museum, which was a bit underwhelming, and then caught a taxi out to the airport to pick up a hire car.
With car and unfettered travel, we went off to have a look at the German underground hospital complex, built by slave labour. This is pretty much the same thing as we saw on Guernsey last year, but this one has been better done. The Guernsey one was a series of very large caverns, which required a bit of imagination and no phobias about being underground.
By contrast, Jersey have built a lot of displays into its tunnel complex and you walk through a retelling of the occupation period, with a timeline on the wall. This was fairly engaging and very informative. It’s also better lit than the one in Guernsey, so you don’t feel like you might wander off and never be seen again.
And that’s that for the day. we’re here until Saturday, so we’ll do some serious looking about tomorrow and Friday.
The hotel is fine, but straight out of Fawlty Towers. Manuel is Bulgarian in this version but everything else is on point! We had dinner in the restaurant. They asked if we had booking. No, but they managed to squeeze us in. Place was empty, literally. Another pair of diners turned up before we left, and ‘Basil and Sybil’ also dined there. Other than that, empty.
Stephen and Michelle.
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