Trails and Trials and Tribulations.

We’ve had all of ‘em over the last 2 days – we’re now Thursday 29^th June. I think it was 2 days ago that I last tried to upload something but the connection was iffy and the word processor crashed before I managed to save what had taken an hour to write, so I think I gave up. I can’t check, actually, to see what I achieved since the wifi at our present site can only be connected by walking 200 metres up the hill. That little trek will have to wait until the bar opens, I think.

We’ve stopped early today since our nerves are shredded and we’re physically knackered after 2 days of quite demanding driving and navigation. Last night was cold and wet and packing up this morning took longer than we’ve become used to as all the covers were cold and wouldn’t fit anymore. By the time I’d spent 40 minutes crawling about on the roof, trying to zip up and tie down all the stuff, I was soaked. Last night we had another thunderstorm. The pattern appears to be a clear morning, getting up to about 22C by early afternoon, then getting increasingly cloudy until about 4, when the thunderstorms begin. My Granny used to say that “thunder is the noise God makes when He moves the furniture around in heaven”. If this is true, then he was throwing all his pianos downstairs last night.

Yesterday morning brought us to the hardest, rockiest uphill track we’ve found so far, and the first time The Navigator had to dismount to see me safely over the boulders and gullies. These are noted in The Book with warning triangles such as “Ornieres Profonde”, “Ornieres puis Piste Cassante” and “Gissante par Temps Pluvieux”, all of which can be summed up as “bloody tricky ground – go slow!” The recent rain probably hasn’t caused these deep ruts but the overnight rain hasn’t made them any easier to negotiate, particularly as the earth is a sticky-but-slippery red clay. 

At the time it seemed like real knife-edge stuff but I’ve just had a look at the video and some “after action” photos and you’d be forgiven for yawning and asking what the drama was about. They really don’t do the situation justice but we had our heart rates raised by quite a bit. Maybe like the fisherman’s “one that got away” story, but we’ll never convince anyone of how it feels to be halfway up a mountain, committed to going forward because we can’t go back and expecting a nasty mechanical crunch at any second which will bring us to a shuddering halt with a major problem to solve. On our own. Over the last 3 days we’ve hardly seen a soul while we’ve been away from tarmac, which has been most of the time. Progress has been measured in single figures per hour for most of yesterday and today but we still appear to have no major damage.

There’s a lot of cosmetic wreckage but I’m sure it’ll polish out….In addition to the scratches there are a few bent bits and some dents, a lot of mud and some shiny bits on the chassis that weren’t there a week ago. I’m really glad that I put the bush cables back on as the foliage we’ve bashed through over the past 2 days would’ve done some damage otherwise. Today I caught the whiplash of an overhanging deadfall pine as it sprang back through the window, luckily missing my eyes. Windows up halfway from now on. Lotsa fun, though! Nothing appears to have fallen off. Yet.

Elly has had her share of tribulations, though. I mentioned the fuel leak –the second one – and we fixed that with a short bit of fuel hose and an M8 stud tightened down with a nut.

The original “modification” involved a valve cap, bodge (that is, “duck”) tape and a jubilee clip to hold it all together. Dead professional and presumably done by the people who rebuilt the chassis although I think I recognise the handiwork of PITA again. It might be fine for the wild terrain of Haywards Heath but F*ck All use in the conditions we’ve been driving in. Or anywhere else, actually.

The Demented Budgie that’s taken up residence in the engine room is proving hard to trap. I thought it was the bearing in the belt tensioner, but having applied some 1^st Order Mechanics to it, I might be wrong. The squeak is getting worse, so pretty soon I’ll just have to change it “on spec” to see if that cures it.

The electrical power to the back end – the kitchen – failed completely one night and this needed me to get access to the fuse box. I’d hidden this out of harms way but accessible – but in accordance with the Engel fridge plan.

Now that we’ve decided to use the Waeco fridge which sits on top of the fuse box area….not so easy and required a major unload. Anyway, the culprit was a broken earth connector inside the box so I swapped it for one that wasn’t and lights and water pump were restored. This will have to be rethought at home and a decent fuse/CB panel built in to replace the present Oriental item. Still, that’s what “shakedown trips” are for, innit?

More importantly, we lost a lot of our braking power when the friction pad on one of the front brakes broke off. The nasty graunching sound – and a grinding feeling through the pedal – was a bit of a clue that things were suddenly Not Right. We were about 5000 feet up a very windy track when this little snag was discovered. We limped down the mountain in Low box, using the engine as a brake as much as we could, until we arrived at the main road. Alongside this was a goat shed and goatherd. We explained the problem we’d got and asked for the nearest garage. Now, I’ve often had to drive to the next town, or even city, to get spare parts or work done on cars, but never to the next country. The nearest “help” was in Andorra, an hour away, he explained, and with generous gestures indicated the dangerous, downhill, hairpin-bend nature of the journey. He obviously thought we wouldn’t make it….but not only could we get new pads, we could get another flag sticker for the scoreboard!

Well, with a bit of help from our family IT consultant/International search engine back home we limped into the Jaguar Landrover dealer in Andorra la Vella just in time to see them bugger off for a 2 hour siesta. We spent the time camping in their carpark, bedding hung out to air, looking like a couple of Pikeys and attracting a lot of sniffy looks from the Mercedes franchise next door. The Navigator got the phrase book out and wrote down an appropriate form of words so we were at the desk seconds after the doors reopened. We left with a brand new set of front pads, “pastilla de freno” if anyone ever needs to know, while they took possession of 103 of our Euros…I could’ve bought 3 sets for that money at home. Which is probably what PITA did and the reason they fell apart.

It being well after 3pm we decided to make for the nearest campsite to get Elly sorted out but, as we had to pass the biggest supermarket we’d seen in Europe on the way out, it wasn’t going to be a quick exit, was it? We also took the opportunity to refuel now that it wasn’t all going to spill out and found that the price of diesel in Andorra is about 87 cents a litre – about 2/3rds of the price just over the border. This might explain why the parking lot was chokka with “E” plated cars.

The job on the brakes took about 90 minutes and was interesting for what it revealed about the condition of the brakes on the “good” side.

When I took those pads out the inner one just fell apart in my hands. I’d checked these before we left and I estimated they’d got about half their life left. Hmmm. The outside half of both sets were still barely worn, so something’s not right there. The NS disc is quite scored too, which isn’t surprising given that we’d been forcing the bare metal backing plate against it for most of the day, so that’s another job for back home. It’ll do until then.

While I was working on the brakes I had one eye on the weather, particularly some very threatening looking clouds that were building up.

This is the underneath of a Cumulo Nimbus cloud, and is the first one I’ve ever watched “boil up” from almost nothing right before my eyes. From a few puffy clouds, this monster appeared in about 15 minutes, bringing with it a really violent squall. No booming thunder or flashing lights, though, which made it all the more threatening, I thought. Luckily everything was re-assembled and tools stowed away before that happened.

Finally, at least on the list of woes, the steering has developed a nasty wobble at about 50mph. Fine at slower speeds and last night I jacked her up and had a really good wiggle of all the joints and checked the wheel bearings with no obvious culprit found. It feels just like an out-of-balance wheel and only made itself felt after I’d done the brake repair, so maybe if I turn the wheels a bit on the studs, or swap the back wheels for the front…? I’ll do that tomorrow before we leave. I don’t fancy having to drive 1000 miles home at 45mph.

As for the scenery, you’d be forgiven for thinking that we’d stopped looking at it, which certainly isn’t true, although what’s happening 6 feet in front of us has held the attention a lot recently. We’ve done a lot of climbing up on rough tracks to get views like these:

Looking back to where we were 5 minutes ago

And driven a lot on narrow roads that, back home, would be little used farm tracks but here are obviously major routes between villages, most of which are isolated and perched on impossible slopes or pyramid-hills. An example was Pesonada – a true One Horse Town and it was away on its holidays. Actually nobody ever seems to be at home, horses or otherwise. A few of the tracks have passed through these places and the Road Book helpfully suggests that we should “follow the main road through to the other side”. The main road, though, bears little difference to all the others which can be side streets with dead ends or impossible corners. All are barely wide enough for us to negotiate, generally steep, of mediaeval dimensions and with no way to see around the next corner to predict what lies ahead. Several times now we’ve finished up in someone’s back yard and had to make a very slow and careful retreat to the sound of angry dogs, and GPS is no help either. Our Garmin, if we choose to use it, doesn’t seem to know where most of these little places are, let alone that “Main Street” can only be accessed by passing under an archway that is quite a bit lower than our roof is high. We really must make an effort to stop and explore some of these but so far we’ve happened on them late in the afternoon when the focus is on finding somewhere to stop for the night, which is often more of a problem that we’d expected. Generally solved by the use of several sources of information, but our electronic “devices” are beginning to play games with us so perhaps we need better maps….some old story, eh? “Yer can’t beat the Old Ways….”

Into Each Life, A Little Rain Must Fall.

...and over the past 2 days we've got pretty wet in more ways than one.

Elly has yet another fuel leak.....

Our choice of campsite last night (Monday) could've been better but we had little choice after a long and extremely enjoyable day out. The tracks had been quite mixed and, at times, very challenging for navigation, driving technique and potential mechanical damage to the truck and contents. We appeared to have made it through despite, during the morning, some extremely "knarley" tracks that we've only experienced the like of in Morocco. The difference here is that they're inclined at 1 in 7 to the horizontal. This doesn't sound much but it's quite a climb when combined with hairpin bends and a surface made up of 12 inch boulders with sharp edges. Unfortunately the photos don't tell the whole rattling story, but here's a few anyway.

Generally only wide enough for one vehicle we were glad that no-one was doing The Book in reverse!

 The views, once the trees thinned out, were stupendous but not really apparent here as it was still quite hazy as the mist and fog from the overnight rain burnt off. Quite often the drop from the track on the "outside" was vertical although it was masked by the vegetation. This,as far as Sue was concerned, was A Good Thing since we sometimes only had about 2 feet of clear road to work with.

One or two bits needed a little more care than others, but generally the going was straightforward even if, at times, we were worried about our tooth fillings. The vibration and general thumping and banging went on all day despite us only doing about 10mph at best. I don't think I've ever spent quite so much time in Low box and 3rd gear.

Eventually the track became a little smoother as we reached the meadows and pastures of the higher cols. We had lunch at a very respectable bistro at the "top" of the route:

The Management had thoughfully provided comfortable seating and even set the fire. This was a refuge similar to the mountain bothies back home, but without the usual rats and graffiti.

At over 6000 feet the air was quite definitely thinner.....sorry, running out of battery...more tomorrow.

A Wandering We Will Go.

I can hear a tune from The Sound Of Music somewhere in the background, with cow bells and the smacking of leather-clad thighs…Well, maybe not the last bit, but certainly our journey through the back roads and tracks of the Pyrenees has that ambience about it. 

 

We got away early from Capmany after a night of thunderstorms which have cleared the air somewhat as the temperature is now down to a more comfortable level. We had no real idea how fast progress would be so the early start was a bit of a trial. After some initial faffing about which was solved by The Navigator’s intuition, we got onto the road book route and had an enjoyable day going up and down the hillsides, zigging and zagging through hairpin bends. The tracks were rough but dry, linked occasionally by stretches of concrete or even tarmac. We passed through a couple of very pretty country towns -  more big villages, really, but although we felt like stopping there were no real parking opportunities in the narrow streets. No bulldozing of stuff to make way for the modern here; we got the impression that all that’d happened to the real estate for the last 300 years was a few new windows and a bit of repointing, and the streets were sized to allow the free passage of farm carts, not Landrovers.

Up at 3000 feet the air was now noticeably cooler, the views superb and progress leisurely. Nothing seems to have fallen off, broken or bent and we still seem to have the same number of possessions we started with. We haven’t collected too many souvenirs yet, either, apart from “very pretty” pine cones and a few postcards. There’s anoticeable squeak from the engine bay when we start in the morning but this disappears fairly quickly. I know it’s not going to fix itself and a quick investigation suggests it’s coming from the belt tensioner bearing. Hard to be sure but the other likely culprit would be the water pump; as this is almost new I don’t think so. I’ll have another look when there’s time.

After 30 miles we arrived – somewhat surprised - back at Capmany via a dusty track which had taken us up a densely wooded hill to a restaurant – closed- and back down again in a large circle. The road book doesn’t have a detailed map of the actual ground track, so it was only reading the detail in the individual sketches that we realised that we’d basically doubled back on ourselves. This wasn’t a problem though – the drive had been worth it and although the aim is to traverse the mountains, we’ll do it in Vibraction style.

A picnic lunch in a field at St Llorenc de la Mouga and a smell of diesel – again. Close inspection of the area around the tanks revealed yet another pipe sealed off with plastic tape.

This is beginning to be a little predictable. It seems TPO  - let’s start calling him PITA – might have given me a longer list of bodges as well as “you might want to check the battery..” My fault really, I suppose. Anybody recall the line from “Animal House”? …”It wasn’t our fault. You fucked up – you trusted us!”

Lots of opportunities to stop and explore. There are a lot of interesting old buildings, a lot of which seemed to have been abandoned centuries ago.

We paused for a minute to examine the old chapel of  Santa Maria de Requesens and if we hadn’t we wouldn’t have seen the family of wild pigs  - Mum, Dad and 5 stripey-pyjama’d youngsters – cross the track just yards ahead of us. These weren’t the only animals roaming the hills. Cows seem to have free range and have bells to, presumably, give away their location at milking time. We saw a lot of very good looking horses too, all apparently running around loose but no sheep and only the occasional goat.

But no people. Hardly a soul, all day, apart from in the villages and not many of them either. There are supposed to be bears and the odd wolf up here too, but the only chance of seeing those would be to wild camp, and we get the impression that isn’t an option. Even the apparently remote high altitude meadows are clearly not there for the enjoyment of people who don’t own them. Every point of access is either barred by a chain or a length of electrified wire. This is a pity but we get the impression that private property in Spain is exactly that, and nobody gets a free pass. Obviously, everything is owned by somebody wherever you are, but in Spain they make a statement of it.

The flora was close around us all day and we were glad we’d put the bush cables on. The branches hung low over the tracks with the weight of the overnight rain and gave us a bit of a bashing as we forced through. After all my effort at trying to get a decent shine on my DIY spray painting job – and I thought I’d done pretty good job – Elly’s flanks look like they’ve been given good rub down with a yard broom. Still, that goes, quite literally, with the territory.

Come 3pm we were pretty tired and were lucky to have a campsite right on the route at the right time. Another superb place with an excellent bar and restaurant and wifi that, for a change, didn’t require us to sit in reception or climb a tree to get a signal. I managed to complete “Week One’s Blog” and shot that out into the ether and there was enough juice left in the laptop to sort out the photos we’d taken today. With a bit of luck we’ll find a similar site tomorrow and keep on top of the “journalism”. As ever, though, with bandwidth as wide as a razor blade, uploading the pictures may take a little time.

The sun’s broken through the overcast now and we’re back to heat and, more importantly, fuel for the solar panel. Who needs the grid, eh?

Vamos a Espagna

Unfortunately the connection is too slow to let me upload any photos, so these will have to follow later. ....

It's now 24 hours later and we've a faster connection so I've added some photos and done a bit of updating. The next instalment will have the details of the second day "on the Book" together with yet more trials with Herself - "Elisfor". But for now, we'll do some catching up....

…via Hay-on-Wye, Plymouth, Roscoff and the length of France.

Our first week on the road, and a lot of miles behind us to get to Capmany in Catalonia, where we’re having a day off the road to catch up with the housekeeping and sort out the photos. Maybe that’s the curse of digital cameras; I used to be a bit selective in when I pressed the shutter on those expensive and time consuming wet films, but I think I got better results in the end. Anyway, a lot to sort out and the laptop battery isn’t going to last long, so best I get on with it, eh?

We left home in the rain last Thursday and made it tour first nightstop near Kendal without any problems other than I noticed another water leak – I thought I’d got ‘em all – when my right foot felt colder than the left. Generally it doesn’t matter what shoes you wear when driving but I guess wellies would be the safe option in a Defender. Not desert boots. Blotting paper in foot shape…

Tracking down the campsite wasn’t easy either since The Navigator couldn’t remember how to put a postcode into the satnav and had been relying on it to get us there. A lesson learned, and not for the bloody first time, either! Anyway, after phoning the site and getting directions from the motorway exit which wasn’t the one we’d used, The Driver elected to use the Reversionary Plan: get the map out. This of course should’ve been the Primary Option, but …

The following day saw us in Hay-on-Wye. We had some time to kill before heading up the hill to the HUBB meeting at Baskerville Hall, so we wandered the town’s winding streets and gawped in the bookshops of which there are quite a few, as you might expect in a town famous for them. A drink in a real pub was a pleasant change from the more commercial drinking establishments north of the Grampians, especially as we could sit outside in the sun for a change. The forecast for the weekend is heat- lots of it – with more to follow so our shakedown of the tent etc should be a lot more pleasant for that.

The HUBB (Horizons Unlimited Bulletin Board) – meeting is an event we’d planned to visit last year but had to cancel the trip at the last minute, so got a free entry to this year’s event. The weather was glorious and the campsite full of folk who, like us, prefer to “travel than to arrive”. A bit like an upmarket gathering of Gyppos, I guess. Lots of interesting people to talk to, notes to exchange and experiences to feed off. The organisers – Grant and Susan Johnson – had managed to get a large number of people to share their expertise and knowledge across several days of lessons, talks, presentations – call them what you like – which gives the event some focus as opposed to the usual “trade show” feel that some venues might have.

That said, some of the most interesting talks were held on the Friday and since we’d only had time to book a weekend ticket we missed out on these. We did, though, make some new friends and sympathised with the trio of bikers who'djust braved a week inthe Irish rain - and it rains there like Borneo in the "Wet" - and didn't chicken out into a hotel once, despite damp crotches and saddle sores, I'll bet. Good to meet you Nick et al. Maybe see you north of the border one day...where it's wet and bug-infested too!

 The the Sunday programme could’ve been a lot busier and if the Friday presenters could’ve been persuaded to move to the latter part of the weekend they’d have had some appreciative audiences, I’m sure. As it was the event wound up at midday with the campsite still very active.

We left at about 2pm to wend a slow way through the Black mountains to the Severn Bridge and the motorway to Plymouth. Our ferry to Roscoff and the delights of La France wasn’t leaving until 2200 so we had time for a leisurely tootle in what was now proper Summer temperatures. In fact the thermometer showed 32C at one point which is Proper Hot for the UK.

With 2 hours to kill in the ferry queue cos The Navigator likes to get in line early, we cooked dinner to the interest of our fellow travellers.

 We began to move at 1945 and an hour and a half later were still on dry land with other cars still arriving. Next time, we’ll join the queue a little later. Once on board, though,we dumped the toothbrushes in the cabin and made for the bar. A couple of beers later and The Driver made the comment, it being nearly midnight and knowing we’d left the docks at just after 10, that the sea seemed very smooth. In fact, we couldn’t even feel the throb of the engines. Most impressive …until we looked out and saw that we’d only gone about a mile then dropped anchor with Plymouth still very much visible. Presumably waiting for a fair wind for France?

We were the third vehicle off the boat at Roscoff since we’d been made to wait to be loaded onto the lower deck due to our extra height. This put us at the right end of the ship and if the public school occupants of the minibus in front of us had been anywhere nearby when the doors opened, we’d have been the second off. Presumably they were having a late breakfast. We didn’t bother but headed for the nearest pretty village having bought croissants from a roadside baker on the way.

 It’s this first stop along the road which always starts the holiday for me, and we ate our breakfast in the village square at Henvic, silent but for the church bells and notable – by our scruffy British standards – for the complete absence of litter of any kind. Not even a matchstick. That said, there was no evidence of any living thing either, so maybe nobody lived there to drop even a fag end? An impressive display of civic pride, we thought, and a pity it wasn’t the habit a few miles north.

And it was hot. 34C and got hotter as we moved south along the coast. We tried as much as possible to avoid the main routes and motorways, instead using the back roads, the “blue highways” of rural France, where it’s possible to see a lot more of how the country lives. In fact, the trunk routes are of no interest at all except to get somewhere in as short a time as possible. Since this isn’t the point of the trip, we took the slow roads – even if this means constantly on the lookout for speed restrictions and working the gearbox a little harder for the numerous rond-points in every town and village. At least these leave no doubt about who has priority at the former crossroads. I recall my Dad getting quite paranoid during my schoolboy holidays “abroad” when a lot of the roads joining from the right had priority – “Priorite a Droite” over the traffic on the main highway – and they didn’t stop to look either. The blast of the horn in protest, directed at a flat-capped Frenchman at the wheel of an ancient 2CV, Gauloise hanging from his lip, would produce nothing more than a shrug and a scowl by way of explanation as to why this bizarre practice hadn’t been outlawed when the internal combustion engine had been invented.

First stop was just north of St Nazaire, reached via Pleyben and its spectacular church,

Carnac and the “fields of stone”

–        prehistoric monoliths arranged like the terracotta warriors of China, but far more mysterious and thought provoking.










A short stop for lunch at a really unpleasant spot, as you can see….

At 1300 the temperature was 35C and we just dripped our way along the coast roads to eventually track down a campsite near St Lypharde. In fact, we were dripping more than sweat:

The spill pipe from the reserve tank to the main was pouring diesel from a split right at the outlet. I’d inspected this before we left home and thought – wrongly as it turns out – that the 2 jubilee clips were providing plenty of security for this important connection. Had I got a bit more surgical in my inspection I’d have seen that the pipe was, in fact, broken and had been “repaired” with black plastic tape, presumably electrical insulation tape and the extra clip was just camouflaging the break. Once we’d filled the tanks to the top (for the very first time ever), the leak showed itself as a constant stream of smelly fuel which we’d noticed on returning to Elly after the all-important wine-and-bread run to la supermarche. The locals weren’t going to be impressed with the mess, so we legged it Toot Sweet and found a quiet layby a few miles out of town to sort out the problem. The pipe’s a bit shorter now and needs to be replaced, but it’ll hold for now. It took 20 minutes to scrub myself clean with wetwipes.

The rest of the minor snags are nothing more than we’d expected but with one notable exception. The black box that should allow 240vAC to power the fridge doesn’t. It passes 12vDC like a standard ciggy plug but the important changeover function to let us use the campsite mains has packed up. I had my suspicions about it a couple of trips ago but it appeared to have sorted itself out and I put the snag down to my electrical ineptitude. Probably out of warranty too, of course, so we’re now topping up using solar power which certainly isn’t a problem with the weather the way it is. It does need some careful management though – getting the fridge really cold or even freezing when there’s plenty of sun means we have remember to take out the stuff for lunch and supper before it gets too solid, and it’s a real downer to look forward to a cold beer at day’s end only to be presented with an icetube. In 38 degree heat, a cold bottle does have it’s uses though:

The zip on the tent cover needed some repair as the glue that someone had used to repair it in the past didn’t survive first use.

We’re getting quicker at setting up and taking down the tent now. After a week’s practice it’s up in five minutes and packed in about ten, mostly due to the need for great care with the zip. Luckily we’re not having to bother with the mattress sleeve or the extra cover for the tent cover (a cover for a cover? What a faff!) and this adds another five minutes each way. The fact that the cover is warm from the sun probably helps by making it more flexible.

..and the ceiling tiles have begun to come off.

Surprisingly it’s the insulation sheets at the back, protected by the tent, that have come unstuck. Since we’ve experimented with various methods of fixing these, I can now confirm that heavy duty double-sided carpet tape isn’t as effective as we’d have liked. In fact, it’s crap.

On Tuesday 20^th we decided to bypass St Nazaire due to the increasing hour (our late start) and decreasing interest in the heavy traffic which would be part of an exploration of the town. It looked pretty industrial from where we saw it but the spectacular bridge over the Loire would’ve made a great picture if there’d been anywhere to stop. The view from the cab doesn’t do it justice.

Tuesday night was spent at the municipal site at Marens. A typically well set up arrangement run by the local council and overseen by the French equivalent of Hinge and Bracket, the twin sisters of TV notoriety. Mademoiselle Hinge was obviously in charge and directed Mlle Bracket to do everything requiring physical effort, including counting the money and opening the barriers, of which there were several, all controlled with a different keypad code. We welcomed the extra attention given by Ms Bracket since Ms Hinge had halitosis to knock a camel down.

Wednesday 21st. From Marens to Brocas les Forges, south of Bordeaux.

We found this little gem of a site by using the satnav suggestion.

Because our Garmin hasn’t had an update since 2006 some of the info is a little out of date, to put it mildly, and we really should get a new one or a new database if it’s available for our somewhat ancient eBay bargain. Using it for anything other than a GPS position –why I bought it – is asking for a frustrating time if navigation is critical for on-board relations, if you know what I mean. On this occasion, though, it came up trumps with a site in the middle of the huge pine forest of Landes de Gascogne in Aquitaine. No warden on site, tucked away at the edge of the village in a grove of oak trees and with electricity, hot water and showers.

 If you wanted an example of thoughtful hospitality this would be hard to beat. Not a scrap of litter, no noise, dogs or motorbikes and open for anyone to use. Back home I’d give that sort of facility about a week before it was trashed or taken over by “travelling folk” who do anything but, once they’ve found a freebie.

Sharing our spot was a group of guys from Lewes in Sussex who were cycling to Spain to raise money for Alzheimer’s Disease research.

Nick Walters and his pals were doing 50 miles a day, starting at 0600 to avoid the worst of the heat but had been caught out the previous day by reaching what they thought should be a bridge crossing of a major water feature, only to discover it was actually a ferry, and they had to wait for nearly 2 hours for the next one, putting them on the move again as the sun was at it’s highest. I guess glitches like that can turn a pleasant pedal into an endurance event. If you want to support Nick’s cause, he gave me this link:

 https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/nick-walters4?utm_medium=email&utm_source=ExactTarget&utm_campaign=20170621_96877

Thursday 22^nd.

Leaving the site at just before 0900 we met the guy in charge of the loos who invited us to make a donation to the upkeep of the place. In fact, there was a scale of charges displayed at the unmanned information kiosk and we were scratching our heads to work out whether we were supposed to shove the money under the door so he arrived at just the right time. A few minutes earlier and he’d have made some cash from Nick’s support crew too, but he’d already left. The charge for the night was a princely 8 Euros, which puts the £22 we were charged at Kendal for similar amenities but without the ambience into perspective.

Routing close to the coast had put us further south than the original plan but we reasoned it might be a little cooler there, so now we had to strike inland via Toulouse en route to Perpignan and the area of the start point of the Vibraction traverse of the Pyrenees. We’d intended to drop in on a contact living somewhere between Limoges and Perigeux but we were now too far south to make this a reasonable detour so the tea bags we’d promised to bring are still packed “upstairs”. Marc, if you read this, we’ll drop them in the post the next time we get to the right side of the border!

So another hot, sticky day but with interesting scenery on the minor route to Toulouse. The down side of this leisurely progress is, of course, the lack of forward progress if the traffic gets slow. After a morning of farm carts and gangs of cyclists we were unfortunately forced to accept that we needed to get a move on. The peage that would take us all the way to the border was a reluctant choice but a necessary one, and we found a site just north of the Traverse start at Collioure. The solar panel was now providing all our “static” electricity and kept everything at full capacity when we were moving, supplementing the engine alternator. I upgraded Daphne’s alternator to cope with extra loads like windscreen wipers, heater, lights etc for “normal” conditions and it would be interesting to see if Elly’s standard electrics would cope with the same demands. Probably not, so I’ll put the 100A kit in when we get back.

At last, we arrived in Collioure and dipped our feet in the Med.Actually these photos were taken about 2 miles up the road as we couldn't find anywhere to park in Collioure proper. It's areally picturesque little town with a great seafront but bugger all parking for something like us with the turning circle of the Queen Mary, so we did the next best thing. Found a supermarket with a sea view.

A few minutes in the Lidl carpark were needed to explain the use of the roadbook and the tripmeter..

and it would’ve been nice to start the trip from the carpark on the seafront a la book, but the place was rammed. We decided to grab a quick picture on the way past as The Navigator hit “reset” to zero the trip.

The route begins at the rotunda (round thing)in the middle distance. We decided against blocking the carpark entrance and exit and instead just hit "go" as we passed by....

Predictably, we got lost after 400 metres when the expected turning didn’t materialise. After going backwards and forwards a couple of times The Navigator spotted the “Route du Temple” which got us going the right way out of town. Actually it’s not surprising that we missed it – twice- as it appears to be not much more than a very steep footpath up the side of a shop and you’d normally not even register it was even there. This, I think, is what might be called “getting in the zone”. Now we understand how the descriptions in the book need to be taken literally – my “mind’s eye” image of what this first turning point would look like were completely wrong, which didn’t help to find it.

Thereafter, following the roadbook – akin to rally pace notes- was pretty straightforward as long as we took care to restart the tripmeter at the right place and stay ahead of the game by a few yards.

 We missed a couple of turns by failing to identify the features in the sketches even though the trip log was correct, so the usual method of using at least two confirming bits of info would’ve stopped  us missing these points. As it was the mistakes were soon very obvious and easily solved by backtracking a few metres. The Vibraction team - both of them - have obviously spent a huge amount of time and effort putting these guides together and,while it would be possible to drive the route without the guide, it'd be a very "hit-and-miss" venture and take at least several average holidays to even get close to what's on offer here. We paid what we thought was a high price for a "book", but you're not just buying the paper but the weeks of effort involved in getting it right.

The road surface varied from quite rough tracks to quite good tarmac, but much more of the former and all very narrow and sometimes deeply rutted. We’ll put the bush cables on for the next legs as the trees, which are overgrowing the tracks in many places, will do some damage otherwise.

That’s all, folks. We’ve decided to loaf about at this superb site until tomorrow (Sunday). When we got here yesterday we were made extremely welcome and we were even presented with a current copy of the ASCI guide to help us find our next overnight stop. The fact that it’s in Dutch doesn’t matter – it’ll save us a lot of Garmin-induced searching for long extinct campsites. Once parked we did what we’ve never done before – headed straight for the swimming pool…..

The manager of Camping Les Pedres was helpful, welcoming and had more travelling "war stories" then Ernest Hemingway.