Friday 27th September to Sunday 6th October
Friday 27th September, the start of our second European road trip of the year, this time to France, Spain and Portugal, although we plan to rush through France in order to get to the winter sun asap.
First we had to get out of the marina car park.The almost unliveable amount of rain we have had over the last week has turned the car park not quite into a swimming pool but, most certainly, into a paddling pool.
Unusually we didn’t check the route the sat-nav had selected for us but simply followed it assuming it would go the one particular way, it is set to select the quickest route and on this occasion the two main routes took exactly the same time so it then choose the shortest route thus saving 16 miles. What it didn’t take into account was that instead of joining the M1 at junction 20 and leaving it at junction 19 for the M6 and the A14 we joined at junction 18 and kept on it till junction 6A put us on the M25. 50 odd miles on the M1 virtually all of which seemed to be a 50mph road works site, and the M25 isn’t known as “ . . . the worlds biggest free car park . . . “for nothing it was a very frustrating journey compared to what could have been a relaxed trip along the relatively empty A14/M11 and a far shorter section of the M25, still never mind we eventually reached Hunts Farm Campsite and have the well maintained and relatively quiet roads of Europe to look forward to.
First we had a family “do” to attend, middle sister Marion and her husband Syd were celebrating 60 years of marriage and we were invited to join them and other family members in a celebration lunch at the Marygreen Manor Hotel in Brentwood. It was a splendid celebration, we had, a magnificent three course meal with well matched wines and a catch-up with relatives we haven’t seen in quite a while – a great time was had by all. Thank you Marion and Syd and congratulations on 60 years together.
Discovered a bit of a problem just before going to the “do”, found we had no hot water. The heater had been on long enough, but no time to think about it then. When we got back Brian (as in Brian the Magic Roundabout snail – going everywhere with his house attached) was cold so we turned on the heating – nothing! I put the heating on to gas and thought🤔. I plugged in my circuit checker and discovered there was no power coming in, I looked out at the EHU bollard a red light indicated the power was on, the cable must have a fault. Out into the cold I went, the bollard end was securely plugged in but on opening Brian’s power locker door discovered the the cable laying in the bottom of the locker. I had unplugged it to move Brian a couple of yards earlier that morning and completely forgotten to plug it in again. The worst part is that it was totally my fault I have thought and thought but simply cannot find a way of blaming anyone else – stupid boy!!!!
Believe it or not we had a lay-day on Sunday, that is a day when we did very little and tried to prepare us and Brian for the long haul through France to, hopefully, sunshine. Despite having Brian for a little over four months we are still trying to find the best places to store all our kit, it will probably finally be completed the day before we sell him.
Monday morning, time to go. In the rain! Long term readers of this blog will know we are fair weather travellers who tend to stay put when it rains but when ferries and stop overs are booked . . . .
We were off to a pub stop – The Plough, a few miles from the Newhaven/Dieppe ferry terminal.
After arriving at The Plough we were sorting our bits and bobs for the ferry next day and realised we had forgotten to book a day cabin (Sue suffers from sea sickness and always spends sea time in bed) so I rang DFDS to book one. After I had given the lady the booking number and confirmed my name and date of birth I was told never to book DFDS on line again. I should look up date, departure time and price of the ferry I wanted to book on the t’interwaeb then phone their office and they would book after deducting a 20% over 60’s discount. She then added the cost of the cabin, £35.00 to the original cost, deducted 20% from that, and charged us just £6.80 extra.
We had a pleasant meal in The Plough (see my review here) but did wonder how cost effective pub stops are, the previous night we paid £25 for the pitch and probably less than £10 for a home cooked meal, last night the pitch was free but he meal cost £72.
At last, Tuesday morning time to tank up and head for the ferry, past experience has been that diesel in France is expensive while in Sainsbury, Newhaven it is only £1.35 per litre, we filled to the brim and should get some way south before we have to tank up at French prices.
We had not travelled the Newhaven Dieppe route before and were surprised at how small the ferry was, still it served it’s purpose and at 04.45pm we were driving off onto French soil and heading for our first night stop at “Aire Saint Benouville”
That night we had a long chat about our travel through France as our planned stopover driving times were quite short around two/four hours so we discussed pushing on quicker by taking out “no tolls” from the navigator and driving 4/5 hours per day which will get us through France much quicker.
For those of you who say France is a beautiful country and ask why rush through? I would reply that since we have been here it has not stopped raining and the further south we get the more chance of dry weather we have.
We actually set off on Wednesday with “no tolls” still ticked in the navigator and had a very pleasant run until we hit a closed road with no clue as to how to bypass it (as all else failed I have since read the navigator “how to” instructions), and no clue how to get back on track. Eventually we stopped unticked “no tolls” the navigator immediately found a route around the blockage on a toll road and just under an hour later we turned into the E Leclerc supermarket carpark where we were staying the night.
Staying in the supermarket carpark worked well, we got some shopping in the gigantic supermarket, it made the Tesco superstores in UK look like corner shops, we have never seen such a big store with such a wide range of merchandise, and did the laundry in the small self service laundry in the car park just a few yards from where we were parked.
There was a downside, a French motorhome arrived around 10pm and in a carpark almost as big as the store parked within one metre of us, If you are that nervous OK . . . but did he/she need to run the engine for an hour after they arrived? Being childish I started Brians engine before 8.00 next morning and ran it till we left.
Being on the road early enabled us to get to to our overnight stop by 1.30pm but not without incident. We had forgotten to tick the “no tolls” button in the navigator and for the first hour all was well then, before we realised it, we were turned onto a motorway and were at the pay booth but instead of getting a ticket we were forced to pay to continue. We thought that would probably take us the 150 kilometres to our destination but no! The road was good but hardly motorway standard for a few kilometres then we were at another row of toll booths with no opportunity to avoid them so took a ticket and drove another 96 kilometres where on feeding our ticket into an auto toll booth we were charged a further €21. To rub salt into the wound shortly after starting the last 50 odd kilometres on the free road I got confused by the plethora of speed signs and thinking that the 90kph sign was for the heavy trucks I continued at my cruise control speed and got flashed with a speed camera – Oh well!!
The “Aire de camping car Le Pontil“ we are in is purpose built, has space for 7 motorhome plus additional space in the car park next door, there is black and grey water disposal, potable water and rubbish disposal and all for free.
Friday morning we were up bright and early looking to get 400(ish) kilometres to the French/Spanish border to a campsite we have used several times in the past and where the restaurant has a good reputation, Camping Larrouleta. The restaurant was as good as its reputation. We enjoyed goats cheese in filo pastry served with a green salad for starters Basque style minced veal Tagliatelle as mains and a local Basque blackcurrant tart with cream to finish – fantabulous.
Saturday, another 400km day planned which would take us half way across Spain to another campsite we have used before, El Astral.
This site was chosen not only because of its first class restaurant but because of a wine bodega in the town from whom on our last visit we bought some fabulous wine and were given a tour of the caves under the shop where the wines produced from their own grapes at their own winery are stored. We were told by the receptionist that the wine shop was still in town and thriving.
There was a “medieval Market going on in the town so after setting up and having a quick cuppa tea we toddled to the market. What a magnificent event! Every trader was dressed appropriately and selling stuff that could have been modern or medieval. We didn’t buy any thing but we did find the wine shop and bought nine bottles of Mvedra Wine which, if the previous wine we bought here is any indication, will be great wine. Fortunately we had to carry what we had bought back to the campsite or our nine bottles could have turned into a couple of dozen or more.
That night we ate in the site restaurant and it was as good as we remembered, we started with a Planche de la mer, shrimp tortillas, prawns in batter and hake delicacies. This was actually a main course but we shared it as starters then followed that with Goulash de joue de bœuf (ox cheek goulash) the whole was great and washed down with a botella de vino tinto de la casa or house red, which turned out to be from Mvedra Wine and very good.
A fabulous end to our first week, next week (tomorrow) we plan to travel the last few hundred kilometres through Spain and into our destination country Portugal.
Just a few photos (click to see a bigger version) in the gallery below to accompany all these words but we have been travelling long and hard, I will try to take more pictures and write less words next week.
