I found a migrant perched under the cover of our Atera DL3 cycle rack.
We were parked on a very busy car park near Sword beach Ouistreham, Friday evening awaiting the ferry.
We left the van for 45 min when we went for a walk.
Had to tilt the rack as the fridge was on gas, otherwise I wouldn't have found him.
He would have been found at the port, as they thoroughly searched the van.
As soon as I found him he ran away. It was a bit unnerving.
So do check under cycle covers.
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That's really scary. A good reminder to us all to check before moving off.
They looked in our van before we left France on the Tunnel, and in the water/gas cupboard. But we never leave the van unattended.
It was a situation that you don't expect to happen to you. There were lots of people around as it was a warm evening. We cooked a meal in the van and went for a walk along the seafront.
It was pure luck that we left the fridge on gas otherwise we wouldn't have found him.
I Will Always check in future.
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It's rather sad when you have to exercise such vigilance on your holiday journeys, but it really is necessary, and far better than being caught at the port by security, or worse still British security if they got to our shores!
Never yet taken the caravan abroad and had that particular risk, but been countless times with car and tenting gear. The ordinary cars are less of a worry as relatively secure, any intrusion being obvious, and little external scope for a stowaway. The old Land Rover was another matter, inherently insecure as door locks were a joke, full length roof rack had scope, even hanging under chassis was not without some scope, but the packed to the roof interior was our main worry, if they removed some of the 'baggage' they could hide inside and would not be easily visible to a casual inspection. Strangely on the occasions when we took the horse box as a 'camping trailer' we put seals on all the openings for our own reassurance, but the security forces were equally at ease that the trailer was still secure and as we packed it, only a casual inspection. We never left the vehicles totally out of our sight, and always gave them a 'look over' after being parked, before heading to the port.
Maybe when they were scanning for likely target vehicles they figured a vehicle with 4 or 5 really VERY big burly blokes was not a good one to abuse! Thankfully we've never had a problem, but certainly aware of specific cases were illegals have got on board. Can't be a nice experience to find an intruder, and no certainty what lengths or actions a desperate individual will go too when caught! Glad to hear you had no more than a scare, bad as that was.
Certainly whilst queuing in the port at Ouistreham, all likely vehicles seem to get a good inspection by staff and sniffer dogs, reassuring IMHO, much rather the French found an intruder that the UK forces!
We had people trying the caravan door and peering into the car a couple of years ago. We were parked at Auchan in Coquelles. They hadn't realised that OH was in the car while I had gone shopping. They scarpered once he told them to clear off. They would have come very unstuck actually, as we were going south.
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Prefer not to use our cover if the weather (forecast) suits, for the journey, but it's not unheard of for me to put it on, so thanks for the timely reminder to check and double check on that journey back towards La Shuttle (in our case).
Can imagine it's a little unnerving to come up against something like this.
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Topic: Unexpected Passenger
via mobile 30/9/2023 at 10:22am
