Vamos a Malaga

We have been in Andalucia for nine weeks now so I thought it was high time to post another instalment.

Mar Menor and La Manga in the distance

On Monday 24th of September Harvey was packed up and we were back on the open road and heading for Caravanning La Manga near Cartagena. The journey was fairly uneventful and we arrived at the site on the banks of the Mar Menor in the middle of the afternoon. Our pitch was PQ11 which was about 2 minutes walk from the beach but about a kilometre from the front gate. There are around 1200 pitches on the site and they are mainly permanent. Walking amongst them we found everything from static caravans to log cabins and American 5th Wheelers. There were also a couple of American motor-homes similar to Harvey. After wandering around for a little while we headed for the beach bar and had a few drinks.

We were booked in for a couple of nights so on Tuesday we had a run out across the causeway that separates the Mar Menor and the sea. It is a very narrow isthmus but it is crammed with high-rise hotels and blocks of holiday apartments. The Mar Menor is a big water sports location and there were lots of sailors and windsurfers out on the lake.

On Wednesday the car was hitched up again and it was off down the road once more. First heading for Murcia and the A-7 then turning right at Lorca onto the A-91. At this point it started to rain and the weather got worse as we travelled along until the roads were running like rivers and you could barely see for the rain and the spray. Also the LPG  ran out about here so we had to switch over to petrol and hope that we could fill up in Granada. At the next service area we put a hundred litres of unleaded in which barely took the gauge up to half way.

The A-91 becomes the A-92N on crossing the border from Murcia into Andalucia and our next stop was the truck park at Dolar. Turning left at Guadix, where we saw our first cave houses, onto the A-92 we soon arrived at our destination. The truck stop was a bit basic but it was free and it had a café bar and a restaurant.

Malaga Monte Parc the view from our decking

We woke to the rain still lashing down after passing an uneventful night and went across to the café to get some breakfast. Tortillas (omelettes) and coffee set us up for the next leg of the journey which should see us on a site somewhere between Fuengirola and Marbella. Before that though there was the matter of obtaining LPG. We knew there was a Repsol depot in Granada that sold it so we stopped in a service area on the A-92 and off loaded the car. After driving around in the car for a while we found the depot but it had closed about a hour earlier, it had only been open in the morning. Back at the service area and after loading the car back onto the trailer we put another hundred litres of unleaded in the tank and once again the gauge only barely read half full.

Malaga Monte Parc looking South towards the mountain

There were three sites that we had short-listed where we were headed but we weren't sure if they would be able to accommodate us. Sure enough, on arriving at the first, Camping Cabopino, we discovered that the entrance was too narrow and it had low tree branches across the road so it was on to the next one which turned out to be at the end of a two kilometre single track road. I rejected this one because I didn't fancy reversing for two kilometres if we couldn't turn round at the end of the lane. The third one was no better than the first so we pulled into a big car park at La Cala and phoned Tricia's brother-in-law, Sam. He suggested we drive over to Coin and meet him in the car park of the shopping centre, La Trocha, which we did. No sooner had we parked there than the Guardia Civil were round to have a look. Sam explained that we were looking for a site and would be spending one night in the car park. They didn't seem that bothered and were more interested in having a good look at Harvey. We left the van there and went off with Sam to have some dinner with him and Tricia's sister, Jane, and have a council of war. Sam had found out about a site near Alhourin de la Torre and we knew of one near Malaga airport so it was decided that we would check those out the following day.

The lane beside Malaga Monte Parc and the Arroyo Hondo

We returned to La Trocha car park for the night and in the morning drove Harvey over to Villafranco del Guadalhorce, the nearest village to where Sam and Jane live, and parked it there for the day. It was then off to Alhourin de la Torre and Camping Malaga Monte Parc. This was a fairly new site and it had three RV specific pitches with water, electric and waste disposal on the pitch. It also has a bit of decking that you can put tables and chairs on for al fresco dining and lounging about. There were a couple of dozen static caravans and about forty touring pitches on the site. It seemed ideal but we wanted to have a look at the Motorhome Aire near Malaga so we drove over there and found that it was closed. The decision having been made for us it was back to Malaga Monte Parc to sort out a pitch and then we had to drive over to Villafranco and pick up Harvey.

The mountain behind Malaga Monte Parc

The drive back from Villafranco to Monte Parc was easier than it had been going the other way and we were soon set up on our pitch. It was now Friday and it just so happened that Friday night was food night at the “Hub”, as the locals call the little bar on site, so we decided to go along and meet some of the other residents. It was still quite wet, in fact the Malaga area had suffered flash flooding and some people had been killed, so everyone was huddled inside but that meant we soon got talking to the other residents. Most of the owners of the static caravans are English with just a few Spanish. Some, who are retired, live in their vans for the majority of the year and the others come out from England as often as they can.

The track up the mountain

We have done a bit of walking and cycling since we have been here and one day we walked part way up the mountain behind the site past the gun club (marked on the map). We walked up hill for an hour before deciding to turn round. Needless to say it only took forty minutes to walk back down again. We are going to attempt it again but taking a picnic lunch with us next time. We have also walked and cycled down the lane that runs alongside the Arroyo Hondo and down into the Arroyo Hondo too.

Last week we decided we should have trip to Granada because we had been told that it has some magnificent buildings and is well worth a visit. We went into a local travel agent in Alhourin el Grande and booked a couple of nights in a hotel near the city centre and tickets to see the Alhambra palaces. The next instalment will cover our holiday in Granada.

We have decided to knock the Portugal part of the tour on the head and stay here until February then return home by ferry from northern Spain.

¿Buenos dias, amigos, qué tal?

The fire devastated landscape over the border in Spain

After four days at the dealership aire at Latour-Bas-Elne we set off again and headed for the Spanish border. This was only about 35 km away but involved a slow winding ascent into the hills and then a long descent on the other side. Looking up and to our left we could see the toll road, raised up over the valleys and burrowing through the hills. A much flatter but more expensive way to travel. There were no officials at the border post and we just drove on through carrying on towards Barcelona. On our way down th mountain from the border the landscape for miles either side of the road had been ravaged by recent fires and totally devastated. It was quite saddening to drive though it looking as it did knowing that most of the fires are started deliberately or due to carelessness.

Dinner in a lay-by

Our stop that night was supposed to be Camping Can Marti, an aire (or 'area' in Spanish) on a holiday park near Tossa de Mar, but when we arrived at the end of a single track road the gates were shut and padlocked. A big sign said “closed 01/09/2012”; a bit of a surprise as our information had said it wasn't closed till the end of September. Tricia suggested we have some lunch and decide on a course of action. There was no way we could turn round and it would be extremely difficult to reverse the van and trailer all the way back to the start of the road. The only solution would be to take the car off the trailer, unhitch it from the van, tow it back down the road with the car, reverse the van back and turn it round then reattach car and trailer. As Tricia started to make lunch a man emerged from Camping Can Marti and asked if we would like to turn round in the park. We jumped at the offer and I was able to make a wide sweep round just inside the gate and then, after thanking the man, we drove a little way back down the road and stopped in a pull-in to have lunch.

First night in Spain near Arc de Bera

Continuing on after lunch to find another aire we could get into we drove for miles but there were none signposted. By this time it was getting quite late so when we spotted an artic' pulling-up on some waste ground on the other side of the A340 just after we had passed the Arc de Bera, a Roman triumphal arch, we decided that would do for us too. We turned round at the next roundabout and then tucked in behind the artic' for the night.

Odissea Camper Area, Denia, home for three weeks

The night passed uneventfully and we were soon off again and, bypassing Barcelona, we headed on towards Valencia. Instead of taking the A-7 motorway around Valencia and risk having to pay a toll when it became the AP-7 we decided to take the V21, which was a dual carriageway road that looked as if it circled to the south of the city on our map. As we travelled along the V21 Tricia spotted a Repsol petrol station that sold GLP gas (Autogas) so we managed to replenish the tanks, we had put some petrol in earlier at great expense and had been running on that for a few miles, having run out of gas. Continuing on we quickly discovered that the V21 did not skirt the city at all but headed right into it and somewhere in the city we had to make a left turn onto the V31. When the time came for the turn I was in the wrong lane with no chance of changing lanes so we were forced to carry on till we could find somewhere to turn round. The road was three lanes wide in each direction so wasn't really a problem but cars were parked along the side of the road with some sticking out farther than others. Most drivers had turned their mirrors in but one hadn't and that was the one sticking out as we came past. We then had to stop while insurance details were exchanged but after that we managed to find our way back to where we should have turned and continue on out of the city again. Next time we will pay the toll rather than risk ending up in city traffic again.

BBQ night with Ken and Jenny 

We arrived at Odissea Camper Area at about six thirty in the evening and were welcomed by Ruben who said they had several pitches that would be suitable for Harvey. We chose the one at the far end of the site because there was room for the trailer and the car and, once settled, we had a look around. There were toilets, showers, a washing machine and a drier and all the facilities were clean and well maintained. The waste dumping area was easy to access and there was drinking water available so we had everything we needed and quickly decided we would stay for a week.

There is a camp site next door to Odissea and it has a bar called Delfin which also serves food so a very pleasant evening was spent in there drinking wine and cervesa. The beach is only about 100 metres from the site so on we spent an afternoon there and had our first swim in the Med.

The view from Coll de Rates

On Thursday we drove into Denia nad then followed the coast road to Les Rotes where we stopped for an iced coffee and to admire the view. Tricia spotted a guy climbing out of the sea onto some rocks with out his trunks on and we thought this was a bit odd till we found out this peninsula was popular with naturists!

Ruben had given us a map of the local area when we arrived and pointed out where the local markets were held and where the nearest supermarket, Lidl, was. So we got on our bikes and cycled up the road and found that there was Chinese supermarket just before Lidl and it sold absolutely everything. Checking out the items for sale in the middle of Lidl (they are all laid out the same which makes finding things really easy) I came across push bike saddles for 15 Euros. Cycling was big at the time because the Spanish equivalent of the Tour De France was on. The saddles looked really good and more comfortable than our original ones so we bought them.

Beer can recycling in Benigembla

Looking westward from the site there are some really interesting looking and very craggy hills so we decided to take a run in the car and do a bit of exploring. The first foray into the hills was a short one because we had to get back to the van for a previously arranged Skype call. This had whetted our appetite, however, and we decided to come back for a proper look later in the week.

On Wednesday we decided we would stay for a second week and on Thursday we saw Ruben and another guy erecting a gazebo on two of the pitches. When we asked what it was for we were told it was for a meet of a motor-home club and as Motor-home Facts was mentioned I assumed it was them. Ruben asked if we would like to join in as they were going to have a BBQ on the Saturday night and a Paella on the Sunday afternoon. We were a bit reticent at first but when we found out that other campers on the site, Germans and Dutch, were going we paid our 12 Euros. On the Friday Ken and Jenny turned up from Motor-home Facts and then I found out that the meet was really for a Spanish club called AC Pasion (pronounced Athy Passion) and Ken was a member of this group also. Over the course of the weekend we found out that Ken and Jenny live near Torrvieja, which is close to Benidorm, and Ken had organised a couple of meets for Motor-home Facts members previously at Odissea in Denia and at their sister site in Calpe. The BBQ was a bit of a let down because, although the food was good, we didn't get to eat it until about 10 o'clock. Spaniards eat late anyway but everyone was seated and waiting from about 20:30. Still, we had drunk a few cervesas and sangrias by then and were in good spirits. Sunday's Paella, on the other hand, was really terrific. There was so much left over because of the amount that had been cooked that people were putting it in Tupperware boxes to take home and we got enough for two more meals.

Will it or won't it? Castell de Castells

We went to the Delphin that night with Ken and Jenny and got some good tips for places to stay around Torrevieja. After that weekend we decided to stay a third week.

On the Tuesday of our second week we packed a picnic lunch and set off into the mountains; heading for a village called Castell De Castells because I thought it had an interesting name. First stopping at a view point at Coll de Rates for a photo opportunity. When we got to Castell de Castells, we drove into the village looking for a somewhere to stop and have lunch, a park or a square with benches to sit on. We didn't find any and the streets were so narrow we were in danger of getting stuck with our little Corsa. In the end we had to retrace our steps and beat a hasty retreat. We carried on to Benigembla, where there were murals of Spongebob Squarepants characters on the road through the village, but still couldn't find anywhere suitable for a picnic.

After driving around a bit more, still hunting for a picnic spot, we decided to check out a beauty spot that we had passed previously and meant retracing our steps back towards Castell de Castells. We found the road and followed it for more than the marked 4km, with it getting narrower and more like a farm track, without seeing whatever it was that was being advertised. However, we found a nice spot under some fig trees and had our lunch. After lunch we continued along the road, which suddenly improved, and ended up at Vall de Ebo where we saw a sign for the Cove de Rull and decided to investigate. The cove was similar to Cheddar Caves or Wookey Hole with spectacular stalactite and stalagmite formations; some had quartz crystal in them that sparkled in the lighting. After leaving the cave we continued on to Pego and then back to Denia.

The road to Vall de Ebo

Odissea Camper Area has another location a bit further down the coast at Calpe which Ken and Jenny had said was much nicer than Denia so we decided we would go and have a look for ourselves. The new site is in a residential area quite a way back from the beach but has been really nicely done with good access to the services area and nice modern toilets and showers. Having said all that, after a look around Calpe beach front we decided we preferred Denia.

Another Brit couple turned up on Friday and we decided to make their acquaintance. They were Welsh and had been motor-homing in Spain for about six years. Terry and Natalie were making their way around the coast to Cadiz and had decided to stay here until the Monday because they liked the beach. I got some good website URL's from Terry and we took them to the Delfin for a beer on the Sunday night, which turned into a late night/early morning session.

Calpe sea front

After waste dumping on Tuesday morning we went for a cycle ride after lunch to Oliva. We cycled along the coast road past the very imposing Oliva Golf Hotel and along to a beach front camping site called Eurocamp. The caravans and motor-homes were parked in the dunes just back from the beach and we thought this would be a good place to bring Harvey until we realised that we would probably take up three pitches.

Castillo de Denia

Yesterday, Saturday, we cycled into Denia and spent the day site-seeing. The castle was quite impressive; entry was only 5 Euros for both of us and the views from the battlements are pretty spectacular. After the castle we found a street with several cafés where we sat out and had Tapas for lunch. After lunch we chained our bikes up near the port and had a wander round the old town then headed back to Les Deveses, where Odissea is situated. On the way back we checked out a “fixer-upper”, a house in need of some remedial work, with a large piece of land but it didn't appear to be for sale.

Today we have been very lazy and just sat in the sun reading and pottering about. Tomorrow we will be busy again packing everything up and getting ready for leaving on Tuesday; when we will be heading for a proper camp site, Camping La Manga, at Cartagena.

St Thibery's shady olive groves

My sleuthing in the Departmental Archives, in Carcassonne, turned up an almost total blank so I'm not convinced that my family came from this part of the world despite an ancestor, Guilhaume Ferrier, giving Belcaire as his home town, on his marriage certificate, when he married in Edinburgh in 1758. I might come back and have another go next year.

The Plane trees of the Canal Du Midi

The site we were on was only a short cycle ride from the Canal du Midi and the tow-path is lined with Plane trees making it a very pleasant cycle ride through dappled shade. Plane trees are everywhere with many roads lined with them and it is said that these were planted by Napoleon to provide some shade for his marching armies. They shed their bark in odd shapes and the trunk looks a bit like a surrealist painting but they are very pleasing to look at. Along the tow-path we stopped at a mooring for a boat hire company and viewed the boats whilst drinking iced-tea. The boats were fantastic, some accommodating up to 10 people in relative luxury but they are very expensive to hire.

Eating Cassoulet at Camping La Pujade

Leaving Camping La Pujade was bit traumatic and involved Harvey's right front wheel being on the very edge of a drainage ditch that ran down the side of the road as I tried to avoid the trailer grazing a large boulder that had been placed at the entrance to the site. The trouble did not end there because after turning off the Carcassonne to Narbonne road on to the Bezier road at Trebes I had to negotiate a narrow bridge with a ninety degree turn at the end and just to make it more difficult a large truck was sat on the other side of the bridge waiting to cross. The trailer did clip the kerb that time. The road between Trebes and Bezier must be the worst I have ever driven on causing us to shake, rattle and roll the whole way.

When we got to Bezier I missed the turn onto the ring road and started heading into the city. Realising my mistake I took a left turn with the intention of turning round in the entrance to a building site, however there wasn't enough room to get the trailer to change direction so after going backwards and forwards a few times I was in a bit of a quandary. Luckily a lady, who spoke perfect English, came out of one of the houses on the other side of the road and told us that there was a turning circle at the end of the road. By this time a car was noisily announcing its intention to turn into the building site and a tipper truck was trying to leave so I managed to back onto the road and continue up it until I found the turning circle. It had been designed for cars and was in the form of a square so I had to mount the kerb on every corner but eventually managed to head back the way we had come.

St Thibery Motocross track

We arrived at St Thibery Moto-cross park in the mid afternoon only to be told that there was nowhere to dump our waste water. The tanks were full because there had been nowhere for us to dump at Camping La Pujade so things were a bit dire. We enlisted the help of a German family, whose daughter spoke fluent English and French, and finally got it agreed that we could use our macerator pump to empty into the chemical toilet disposal point. That done we set ourselves up on the site. There were no pitches as such just a large expanse of gravely hard standing in an olive grove with some electric and water points scattered about. The olive trees providing a bit of welcome shade for the motor-homes.

Our German neighbour was a bit concerned when he saw our air-conditioning units and went to some lengths to explain that they would trip the electric for the site and we would have no hot water for the showers. I managed to assure him, taxing my limited German to the extreme, that we knew this and only used the electricity to boil the kettle but I didn't mention the microwave oven. Having seen a moto-cross bike in his trailer I asked him about it and was told that he rode in the classic events and had had an accident cracking some ribs which has put him out of action for three months.

In the evening we headed into the village and found that a Jazz Festival was in full swing in the square in front of the Mairie and it was on all weekend. There were tables and chairs filling the whole square and it was heaving with people. Food was being served, a shame we had just eaten but we indulged in some crepes, and the wine and beer was just €1.50, the cheapest we had found so far. The normal price for 2.5cl of beer is between €2.50 and €3.00. The music was pretty good too, so we determined to come back for another look and some food on the Saturday or Sunday night.

The fountain in Agde - Tricia with Sid and Laurie

We had arranged to visit our friends in Agde on Saturday morning not thinking about it being change-over day and the roads being like a UK bank holiday. Only allowing ourselves about 20 minutes to travel the 11km meant that we ended up spending about 45 minutes in a queue on the main road before deciding to take to the back roads. Once Vias market had been circumnavigated we found it was quite easy to get into Agde by the back road and find their house.We had a lovely afternoon and evening in Agde, had a dip in their pool and ended up staying the night and travelling back to St Thibery after lunch on Sunday. Laurie and Tricia went shopping to the supermarket in the morning and checked out if the filling stations sold GPL. One did but as usual getting Harvey in and out was going to be interesting. It was so hot that while we were shopping in Hyper U we bought an electric fan.

A meal with the Glanfields

On Sunday night we went back to the Jazz Festival and had calamar (squid) and a pork escalope with frites which was pretty good for €11.00 for the two of us.

It was Laurie's birthday the following Tuesday so we arranged with Sid for us to come over for a surprise visit. The four of us went for a walk around the town in the afternoon, stopped for a café frape in a café near the river and saw some remarkable murals. After a cooling dip in the pool we went out for a meal together at the Poivre Rouge.

Remarkable murals in Agde

It was market day in Agde on Thursday and we had arranged to go over and have a wander round in the morning and go to the beach at Cap D'Agde in the afternoon. Tricia managed to buy some shorts and a dress and I got a fairly masculine looking man-bag for 3 Euros (not a wrist strap in sight).

The beach at Cap D'Agde was mobbed of course so we had to pick our way amongst the bronzed bodies in order to find a postage sized patch of sand and then expose our, still white, skin (OK then, my still white skin as Tricia tans really quickly).

Laurie and Archie having a dip in the pool

There was a good view of Fort Brescau, out in the bay, which brought back memories of a previous visit to Sid and Laurie in Agde in 1993 the upshot of which was that a not so good day became known as a Fort Brescau day. OK, on that previous occasion we took a boat trip out to the fort to discover we had arrived just as it was closing for lunch and the boat returned for us just as it was reopening. We had to spend two hours on the beach with no shade and no swim things or lunch.

Cap D'Agde beach with Fort Brescau in the distance

Before we left the UK Tricia had been told about a fantastic bridge that was somewhere in the Herault region and, on asking our friends about it, we learned that it was a viaduct on the A75 about 40 minutes north of Agde so we decided that we had to go and see it for ourselves. Tricia also liked the look of a mountain village with a châteaux called Najac so we determined to do both together. There was a visitors centre at the Millau Viaduct where the whole process of the construction was explained and even Tricia found it fascinating. It is an amazing feat of engineering considering that they built the bridge deck from either end sliding it out a few centimetres at a time until both halves met in the middle.

Tricia with the Millau Viaduct in the background

 We climbed a path up to a viewpoint and took pictures looking down on the bridge and the valley. I also got a few photo's of an eagle that was circling above the valley.

It was a bit further to Najac than we had calculated from the map so we didn't arrive until mid afternoon and the climb up into the village in the blistering heat just about did for us so we had a look in the church, which was lovely and cool, and then headed back down to the car and hit the road back to Millau. Since the toll on the bridge was €8.30 we decided to wend our way down into the valley and go through the town instead. Stopping for a coffee in a little café  where we watched the para-gliders flying off a nearby crag.

The Châteaux of Najac

On Wednesday we went to St Guilhem-Le-Desert which is a quaint mountain village that had built up around an abbey. We left the car down below in the park and ride and the bus took us up the narrow, twisty mountain road. After wandering round the village and the abbey for a couple of hours we had lunch on the beach, that is, on a sandy bend in the river below. After lunch we headed for Agde where we spent the night. Our friends were in Spain for a week but left us the key to their house so that we could use the pool. The following day Tricia did some shopping in the market whilst I spent time in the library using the free WiFi. I was planning our onward journey into Spain and looking for Aires that might be suitable for a motor-home the size of Harvey. After a last dip in the pool it was back to St Thibery and the roar of motocross bikes. The local club must be practising for a competition at the weekend.

The Abbey at St Guilhem-Le-Desert

We took Harvey to the Blue Elephant, a self service jet-wash, on the Friday to see if we couldn't spruce it up a bit. That was fun, we got soaked but managed to get a lot of the accumulated road muck off and Harvey is now looking much better. I even spent some time with the Autosol, later in the day, polishing the wheel trims to a mirror shine, while Tricia scrubbed the fly screens.

A street in St Guilhem Le Desert

Despite having spent two weeks near Carcassonne we didn't get a chance to visit the medieval city so we decided to go back there on the Monday of our last week in St Thibery. We had been there about 20 years ago but it would be interesting to see it again. It is an amazing place but unfortunately it is extremely commercial with every other shop being a café, a restaurant or a tourist tat shop. The entrance fee for the châteaux had gone up a bit too so we decided to give that a miss.

La Cite Medievale, Carcassonne

We left St Thibery on Thursday and headed down the coast, partly on the A9 to get GPL, to Latour-Bas-Elne which is just south of Perpignan. As usual gas is non-existent off the auto-route but even in the services getting to the pump can be tricky. There was a dangling height barrier of 3.3 meters designed to set off an alarm and stop trucks from entering the small vehicle pumps. As Harvey is 3.4 meters it would have set off the alarm so I drove round and parked by the adjacent truck pumps while Tricia went and asked if we could go under the barrier. She came back and said that we couldn't go under the barrier but we could enter the pumps from the “out” direction go around them and turn back again inside the barrier. This turned out to be much easier than it sounds, and several cars were doing pretty much the same as we were, so we managed to fill up both our road tanks and our domestic tank.

Now Harvey is parked on an Aire that is part of a motor-home dealership which has electric hook-ups and dumping facilities but no toilets or showers, so we will have to use our own. This will be our last stop in France for a while, the next will be near Barcelona and we will be heading that way on Monday.

Languishing in the Languedoc

The Bastille Day celebrations were a bit subdued, we had expected bands, fireworks, lots of dancing and drinking and the like but all there was was a brocante, a bit like a car boot sale, which went on for most of the day.

On Sunday evening there was a splendid fireworks display that we knew nothing about until they started going off. Lots of people had gathered on the other side of the harbour to watch and we stood outside the van with other camping-caristas (motorhomers) and we all went ooh, and ah, together.

The WWII submarine pens in Bordeaux harbour

Having checked out Laverie Automatique (launderettes) on the Internet and finding that the nearest were in Royan it was off in the car to do the laundry. When we got to the area of the first one it could not be found but we surmised that it had closed down and was now a clothes shop. After wandering round for a while and doing a bit of shopping in the indoor market Tricia asked in a dry cleaners and was told that there was one near a big supermarket a couple of miles away. There was no difficulty finding the supermarket and to our amusement the launderette was outdoors. Four washing machines and a tumble drier. We bunged in the laundry then went across the road for a burger while we were waiting.

Port Cailhau - Bordeaux riverfront

One of the reasons to revisit Mortagne was to be able to explore a bit more of the area around Bordeaux and I was hoping to get to see the submarine pens in Bordeaux harbour. So it was off to Bordeaux and after sometime spent searching for a suitable LPG service station for Harvey we found a park & ride on the outskirts of the city with a tram link that would take us to the centre and to the harbour. It was a bit of a hike from the tram-stop to where the sub pens are and by the time we got there Tricia was hot and bothered and totally underwhelmed by the whole experience. You can only enter the pens by appointment so I took a few photographs and we headed back to the tram-stop and took a ride into the city centre. The next couple of hours were spent wandering around taking photo's like a couple of Japanese tourists and stopping for a drink in a café in a little square. This was followed by a wander down to the riverside and then back back towards the centre to catch the tram back to the car park.

The Donjon overlooking the square at Pons

Tricia's brother and sister-in-law have a holiday home in Mortagne and they mentioned that a particular wine was pretty good and could be obtained for a reasonable price from a supermarket in Gemozac. The run to Gemozac was through fields of sunflowers which seems to be the main crop of the regions in the south but the town itself was a little drab and uninteresting so we carried on to Pons. Pons is a very attractive little town with a spectacular Keep dominating the town square with its modern fountains, just the place to sit in the sun with a cool drink.

We didn't think that we had gone very far east of Mortagne, down the Girronde towards Bordeaux, on any of our previous visits so when Tricia suggested we visit Blaye we thought it was going to be a new experience. Imagine the surprise then when we got into the town and found that we recognised the huge fortified citadel. The citadel has an enormous earthworks and several walls that would have had to be assaulted before getting into the town but luckily someone left the gate open and we just walked in. The town inside is quite quaint, with narrow streets, but, like a lot of these place, the buildings are no longer dwellings but are occupied by shops selling all manner of craft produce and tourist tat.

The cafe in the square at Pons

The ramparts of Blaye citadel

After spending ten days in Mortagne Port it was off to Toulouse. The town of Agen had been earmarked for the next stop over and a couple of suitable Aire's had been selected unfortunately we couldn't have got into the first one and couldn't find the second. After running out of gas and driving around for ages we found a picnic Aire and stopped for dinner and in the Aire was sign for a camping site nearby that accepted Camping-cars. So, despite it now getting late, we got the car off the trailer and went to see if we could find it. We drove around for a while and couldn't find the site that was advertised but we found another that would do so we went back to collect Harvey and went in convoy to the camp site. Camping Paradis at Montech was right on the canal bank and cost 5 euros a night in the car park outside the gate with no facilities or 10 euros a night for a space inside the gate with water and dumping (grey water only) but you could use all the other facilities. They had a toilet and shower block and a swimming pool so we decided to spend that night outside and move inside for the following night.

Leaving Camping Paradis near Montech

The next day a run out had to made to find an LPG service station and we had decided to reccy the next planned stop at Villefranche-de-Lauragais. On the way down to Villefranche there were no LPG stations and when we got there we found the Aire without any problem. It was in the back yard of Paul and Arlette Berniere and there was room for about six motorhomes comfortably although at one point he had nine or ten in. When we told him that we had an American camping-car he said he had had a Winibago and he had all the facilities we needed for a short stay. On the way back to Montech we took a run up the Autoroute, which was a toll road (peage), and found a service area with gas between two junctions and just down the road from where we were. Going through the entry toll barrier to the Autoroute we had forgotten about the bikes on the roof of the car and the ticket came out of the machine at the higher point, meant for truck drivers, so I had to jump out and reach up to grab it. Paying didn't seem to be a problem because you could do that at the upper or lower point. We then headed back to the site and a swim in the pool before dinner.

Aire de Camping-car Berniere

The following morning we headed for Montauban and the Autoroute between there and Toulouse and getting onto the Autoroute didn't pose any problems but when we arrived at the service area the LPG pump was on the far left, just before the petrol pumps, and our filler is in the right hand side of the van. We thought about for about ten seconds but the overriding criteria was that we couldn't afford to keep running on petrol so I turned around and pulled up to the pump facing the wrong way. After filling the tanks with 220 litres, and waiting till there were no cars coming in, I quickly drove round to the HGV pumps and the exit back onto the Autoroute. The next hurdle was the exit toll plaza and the toll for that section was 4.60 euros which we had in change the problem was the there was no change slot on the upper point only slots for cards (obviously truckers don't pay cash) so I had to lean out of the window to the point where I was almost falling out so that I could deposit the money. It took so long, however, that the barrier lifted before I had deposited the whole amount so we diddled them out of 60 cents. The rest of the run was fairly uneventful and we arrived at Villefranche in the mid afternoon.

Canal du Midi at Gardouch near Villefranche-de-Lauragais

The reason for us hanging about near Toulouse for a while was so that I could have a go at researching my family roots. Someone I had been in contact with had traced the family tree back to 18^th century Belpech and Belcaire so I wanted to corroborate what they had discovered. We had a trip to Belpech and a wander round the cemetery but didn't find any of my ancestors. I then decided to find the archives of the parish registers and found that this was located in Carcassonne. So we had a run down there one day and spent the afternoon in the archives looking at records of births, marriages and deaths or rather images of the microfiche of the ink splattered and moth eaten books. They were very difficult to decipher and I was going to need a day or two to do them justice so we needed to move closer to Carcassonne.

Camping la Pujade near Carcassonne

We had another Aire reccy day a couple of days later but didn't find anything suitable until we were heading back to Villefranche. We had seen the advertising signs on the way down and had earmarked Camping Le Pujade for checking out and it turned out to be a little camp site on a winery. The site is about thirty minutes from the Archives so is really convenient so we booked in by email (good old Google translate) and turned up yesterday (06/08/2012). Today I spent the day in the Archives and will be back there again tomorrow. Tricia plans to cycle along the tow path of Canal du Midi while I'm out.

Map of our progress reposted

Here is the map again as requested. I will try to find a way to keep a link to it on the home page. I am also trying to add photographs to each location but that may take a bit of time to master.



View Harveys Quest in a larger map

Finally Setting Out on the Big Adventure

We spent over a week at Ridge Farm caravan site, in Steep near Petersfield which included the Diamond Jubilee holiday weekend. We had a very busy time catching up with family and friends, some not seen for quite a number of years. We had a really good time and thank everyone one we saw for making it all so enjoyable.

Kennet & Avon Canal - Bradford on Avon

After Petersfield Harvey had to have a service and a couple of jobs done so was booked into Gold RV at Alton. We spent a couple of nights over at Poole with our friends, Kay and Kevin while this was happening and picked Harvey up again on the Wednesday lunchtime. It was then off to Marsh Farm near Trowbridge for a couple of weeks. The site was just a short distance from the Kennet & Avon canal so we cycled down the towpath into Bradford on Avon, which was about four miles away, a couple of times and had some walks along it also.

Knowing we were going to be in Trowbridge for a while we had arranged to meet up with an old colleague of mine and his wife in the local pub. Pub was a bit of a dive but it was great to see Norman and Carole again.

When we left Marsh Farm it was to go to an RAF reunion in Weston-super-Mare for ex-members (and one serving member) of 12 Signals Unit in Cyprus. This was celebrated by having a Meze in a Greek restaurant. It was good to meet up with people I had known well and not seen for years and I'm looking forward to next years bash. Hope it will be in Cyprus.

From Weston it was back to Alton to get a job done that had had to be postponed and an overnight stop in the car park of Gold RV, then on to Deal in Kent. The day of the ferry was fast approaching.

In the queue at Dover

A few nights were spent at Deal, about forty minutes from Dover, to say cheerio to Emma, Charlie and Jon and also Dave and Debbie. Then on Monday at 10:00 it was off to join the queues waiting to board the ferry. Watching the artic's going up the ramp and dragging their rear ends gave us a bit of trepidation but when our turn came we were directed to the lowest deck so it was a fairly flat run in. The crossing was very uneventful as was the disembarkation and I remembered to drive on the left leaving the docks. Tricia managed not to be seasick!

Tricia on the Ferry

Aire de Service - Le Crotoy

The next step was a short run down the coast to an Aire at Le Crotoy which was right on the estuary and very spacious. As we were out of LPG we decided to stay two nights here and spend Tuesday searching for a service station. One was found quite quickly on the A28 just south of Abbeville which would do the job. so we returned to Le Crotoy and spent the afternoon looking round the town. It has a nice beach and a quaint steam railway link to Noyelles sur Mer and Ault.

Steam Train at Le Crotoy

We liked Le Crotoy even though it was a bit touristy.

Relaxing with a beer at Le Crotoy

Thankfully our LPG adapter worked and we managed to fill the gas tanks and then make good time down the A28 as far as Rouen. Circumnavigating Rouen had been thought to be a bit of a nightmare but, despite not heeding Tricia's instructions, we managed to get onto the A13 and turn onto the N138 without any bother. The Aire for the night was at St Pierre-Des-Nids, south west of Alencon, and it was full of road mending materials and plant. However, we managed to unhitch the trailer and park the van, and headed into the town for a beer/wine. After chatting to one of the elderly locals, who recounted her war experiences and told us how happy everyone had been to see the English liberators, we popped into a little bar for a drink. Tricia managed to practice her French on the lady tending the bar and another of the locals.

Aire de Service - Saint-Pierre Des Nids

The following morning, awakened by the road crew arriving, the car was hitched up and we headed for Poitiers via Le Mans and Tours, arriving at where the Aire should have been at Jaunay Clan only to find it blocked off. A place to park was found in an out-of-town shopping centre's unused overspill car park. Luckily the 2.2m height barrier had been left open, and we walked over to the bar in the centre to get directions. The young chap tending bar explained how to get to the Aire de Futurscope, which would have been our next choice and we found this with no problem. The Aire was inside the Furturscope theme park and the ticket barrier was a bit of a tight squeeze both in width and height but once inside there was plenty of space for us to turn round and park with the trailer still hitched up. The tariff was only 2 Euros but the down side was that we had to be out by 08:00.We returned to the bar and thanked the bartender for his help.

The port from the Aire de Service - Mortagne-sur-Gironde

Up at 06:30 and ready to roll by 07:30, back onto the N10 and onwards to Angouleme, Cognac and Pons before striking out on the D6, a yellow road, for Mortagne-sur-Gironde. I had decided to approach the port from the east to avoid having to negotiate the town and the steep winding road down to the harbour so we turned onto the D730 for a short way and then onto the D245, which turned out to be a single track road. Luckily we only met one other vehicle coming the other way and managed to pass without any trouble. Unfortunately, after following the winding road for some two or three kilometers I took a wrong turn in Mageloup and ended up heading into Mortagne from possibly an even worse direction than the one I was trying to avoid. There were a few heart stopping moments as we drove up a very narrow street with cars parked partly on the pavement and partly on the road. Having negotiated that, though, it was a fairly easy run down the hill to the port.

The Bastille Day Brocante (Car Boot Sale) - Mortagne-sur-Gironde

One of our neighbours, the Storks

Saturday was Bastille Day and there is a fair on the approach to the Aire and there were stalls all along the road where we are parked so it was fortunate we arrived when we did and won't be leaving for a while.