Tarascon-sur-Ariege

20/05/2010

Highlight of trip so far. In the morning we drove the short way into Cahors. Warm and sunny, perfectly cloudless day. Cahors is set in the loop of a river so is relaxed in the way that towns are that don't have any through traffic. We popped into a patisserie and had a pain-au-chocolat (C.) and croissant (G.) respectively and then sat down in the sun for a cappucino. Bliss. Afterwards, we found an indoor market and purchased: a bottle of red, 4 euros, ridiculously good at the price (almost gone now), apples, onions and half dozen sausages. All very cheap and top quality. Many other things reluctantly bypassed. These were the first markets we have been to on the trip, and satisfied me greatly. I love markets.

We've stopped tonight in the Pyrenees. One more thing that I learnt about in highschool and now I'm actually here. Totally brilliant!. We are well in the mountains now and there is still snow on a couple of them. Our pitch is literally right next to a very fast flowing alpine river (the Ariege) and the outlook is incredible. We had a leisurely stroll around town after arriving, to take a few photos and to look around. On the way back we stopped at a bar and have a cheeky drink and picked up a few essentials at the supermarket. Back at camp, we sat outside next to the river, reading, taking it easy, then dinner of snags and onions before going inside the van at 8, when it got cooler. Fantastic day.

Gouffre de Padirac and St-Pierre-Lafeuille

19/05/2010

Today we set off for Gouffre de Padirac which, for the uninitiated, is a mother-of-God great big hole in the ground. Thanks to N. from TTL for suggesting to go and see this.

You can take stairs or a lift and descend 103 metres down this huge hole and then enter and smaller cave to take a guided tour along course of an underground river. Along a large stretch of the tour, the river takes up the entire passageway and the only way along it is by boat. The boats are paddled along by a tour guides, and I couldn't help but think of this experience as a kind of bizzaro Venice. The water at some points was over 6 metres deep, but so clear it looked to be only about a metre. I imagine it was pretty cold but didn't stick a hand in to find out. The cave is spectacular. One of the stalactites, still active, is over 75 metres high and the roof at the highest point is 95 metres from the floor. Over 40km of caves has been explored so far and still more yet unexplored. Recommend to anyone.

After Gouffre de Padirac, we decided not to go back go Montignac, even though we had already paid for a 3rd night. The cost in fuel and extra time in backtracking made it more worthwhile to just keep going on. We headed on and eventually pulled up at a campsite, just outside St-Pierre-Lafeuille, called Quercy Vacances. No one seemed to be around in reception, although the door was open. We could also hear a very loud, intermittent, whirring, buzzing sound coming from somewhere very close by. We eventually noticed a whiteboard sign saying that the managers were temporarily out, but to find a spot and come back later. We came back 5 times over the next few hours but never found anyone about. The campsite was pretty dodgy anyway. There were only about 5 or 6 sites occupied and the toilets/showers were down a set of stairs around the back of a building backing on to woodland. Not particularly safe and the whole site was a bit isolated. Quiet though. (NB: the next morning on the way out we finally met one of the campsite managers and paid him. We found out that the whirring, buzzing noise was the reception's computer. The guy kept kicking the computer to stop the buzzing but, not surprisingly, it eventually just crashed. Probably need to invest in a new one, mate)

Montignac, Lascaux and Font de Gaume

18/05/2010

At Lascaux, you can no longer go into the actual cave where the paintings are, the exposure to air and the the diseases brought in by visitors having a detrimental impact on the paintings. However, you can take a tour of Lascaux II, which is a reproduction of the cave where the paintings are located. I wasn't optimistic, but it turned out to be pretty good. Apparently it took about 10 years to construct the replica cave, including 5 years for one woman to reproduce the paintings. Probably nearly as good as the real thing. It's quite exciting seeing the cave paintings, albiet reproductions, that I learnt about in history in school when I was 12.

After Lascaux, we moseyed along to Font de Gaume, another cave with prehistoric paintings. Unlike Lascaux, and although not as spectacular, these were the real deal. The cave paintings here date from 16,000 years ago.

Montignac

17/05/2010

We pushed on down today to Montignac, which is right near the caves at Lascaux. We arrived mid afternoon and, after checking in at the campsite, wandered around the town for a while looking for the supermarket (Intermarche). It was actually quite hot and we were quite parched. Eventually, I asked at the tourist information to ask where it was. The expression on the lady behind the counter didn't give me much hope. 'Exusez-moi. Non parlez Francais. Er.... Intermarche?' Confusion. 'In-ter-mar-che?' The woman drew herself up in her seat, sucked in a great nasal hiss and haughtily exclaimed 'Ong-tair-mar-shay!'

Oui. We got directions.

Anyway, the campsite was pretty nice, althought wi-fi was diabolically exspensive. 3 euros per hour. We are booked in for 3 nights to give a us 2 full days to explore the area.

Ballen-Mire

16/05/2010

Once again a new day brings a different outlook on things. While not exactly in high spirits, they're at least slightly above average with good prospect of increasing.

We received some excellent advice from our friend T. (our goto guy for all things mechanical) about the ejecting spark plug and decided just to drive Skippy and the hell with the consequences. If he breaks down again, we're still covered. At least we can ask that RAC take him to garage for a more comprehensive repair.

Today we went to Chateaux Villandry and D'Usse. Villandry we went inside. While not that spectacular compared to others, it had wonderful gardens, lake and a moat. Plus it was a lovely day to enjoy it.

D'Usse is like a fairy tale castle to look at: all white stone walls and blue turretts. However, it was 13 euros to go inside so we contented ourselves with a walk through the village, stopping at local produce centre where we picked up a very cheap and very tasty bottle of rose. The shop also had a map on the wall that you stick a pin into to show where you were from. Happy to say that we were the first from Paraburdoo and Bundaberg, respectively.

Tomorrow: further south, heading towards Lascaux.

Ballen-Mire

15/05/2010

Today was not a good day. Again. We are back at La Mignarderie after picking Skippy up this morning. Old mate who drove the tow truck yesterday was at the depot to hand the keys back to us but because of the language barrier we couldn't find out 1. what the problem had been, 2. what they did to fix it and 3. how they managed to so quickly fix what seemed to be a major problem. With benefit of gestures, it seemed all they had done was to clean the spark plug and screw it back in. On top of that, Skippy seemed to be backfiring slightly. Not having realiable transport now, on top of all that has been needed to be fixed already, was almost unbearabley depressing.

So with no idea what had happened or if it was likely happen again, we bought breakfast from the supermarket and drove the couple of kms back to La Mignarderie. The mood was not good. One of us may or may not have said, 'I just think this is the end'. That person also may or may not have bought a 4-pack of pain au chocolats. If it was to be the end at least it'd be a tasty send off.

Don't really know what to do now. Possibly could take Skippy in on Monday for an inspection but, with the language difficulty and nothing obviously wrong with him, explaining what we want done will be difficult.

Not much else to say about today, apart from thatwe did some washing and went a for a walk.

Chinon

14/05/2010

After such a lovely day yesterday, we set off towards Chateau D'Usse in good spirits. However, about 10km from Ballen Mire disaster once again sprang from the dark corner that it constantly lurks in. Along a straight stretch of road, doing about 80km/h, Skippy's engine made a hell of a bang followed by loud rattling, thumping noises and a horrible burning smell. I may have said something like, 'My jolly goodness, that doesn't sound too good, does it, what?'.

Luckily we were very close to a little space at the side of the road where we could pull over. I had a look under the bonnet but couldn't see anything obvious. It had sounded bad, though, very bad. Thank goodness we had breakdown cover. After callling RAC and arranging for a tow, we made use of our fold up chairs for the first time (a positive) and sat outside to wait. The driver got lost finding us, despite my excellent directions. He didn't speak any English and our French is very limited so communication with him was a bit difficult. He did discover what had happened and that is that a spark plug had decided to eject itself from the engine. It was still intact but just dangling from the lead. So up on the tow truck with Skippy. Pulling a 2.8 tonne vehicle up a slope seemed to put an incredible amount of tension on the tow cable and I was tensing up in anticipation of Skippy's rusty old tow hook disintingrating and the tow driver being cut in half by the cable whiplash. Thankfully that didn't happen.

Maybe it's a French thing, but the driver seemed to blissfully nonchalant about hurling a truck through narrow one way village streets, while carrying a very unstable campervan, while smoking. And talking on a mobile. Oh, and the truck had no seatbelts.

God knows how but we managed to get to the depot with both Skippy and ourselves in an extant state. While unloading Skippy, the driver at this stage became a bit more talkative and referred to himself as a 'froggee' and to us as 'ros-bif', which of course we vehemently denied and managed, with the aid of kangaroo impressions, to convey to him that we were Australian (ros-bif=roast beef=English).

Getting a mechanic proved to be difficult as yesterday was a public holiday and a lot of businesses were closed today as well to make a 4 day weekend. However, the RAC cover is excellent and they arranged for us to have at least 3 nights in a hotel until Monday when a garage would be open. They also arranged for taxi to take us to the hotel which was in Chinon, about 35km way, as there was no available accommodation in close by Tours. Thankfully the 85 euro fare was also covered by RAC.

By this time it was about 3pm and, making the best of things, we went for a walk to in Chinon and in particular the tourist office to see how could spend the next couple of days. We then walked back to the hotel for a rest up before heading out to dinner at a Tex Mex we had spotted.

Unexpectedly, we received phone call at about 6:45, before we'd left for dinner. It was the RAC, letting us know that Skippy had been fixed at the depot and was ready to pick up in the morning. Great news, although a little disturbing that what had seemed to be a major issue had been fixed so quickly.

Ballen-Mire

13/05/2010

We are in the Loire valley at campsite called La Mignarderie. Not as flash as the Yelloh campsitein St Aubin sur Mer but quieter and surrounded by woodland. Today we visited a couple of Chateaux, firstly Chenonceau which was really spectacular and then Amboise.

The most striking thing about Chenonceau is that it's built right over the river Cher and you can cross from one bank to another by walking through the chateaux. Amboise is more like a medieval fortress set on a rocky outcrop. We didn't go into it as we a bit over walking around and the entrance fee was diabolical. Lovely town though. Charming even.

Bayeaux

11/05/2010

Bayeaux is a charming little town. Lots of little French villages seem to invite that description. Driving Skippy along the narrow cobbled streets is not so charming. We ended up in the centre of Bayeaux and did a few loops of the same streets looking for a park before finally finding a spot a long way up a steep street about 10mins walk from the tourist office. We were there of course to visit the famous tapestry, so that was first port of call. It (the tapestry) looks like it was done by primary school children, although if that had been the case, the abundance of genitalia and decapitation depicted probably would have quickly resulted in a parent/teacher interview. Just for those of you who don't know and can't be bothered to google, the Bayeaux tapestry depicts the Norman invasion of England by William the Conquerer, culminating in the battle of Hastings in 1066.

Nowadays the tapestry it's stored in special temperature, humidity and light controlled conditions but it's had a bit of a rough ride over the years and is in surprisingly good nick considering it's approaching 1000 years old.

St Aubin sur Mer

10/05/2010

Today we did a tour of D-Day beaches. The remains of the Mulberry harbour at Arromanches make the landings seem very real. The Debarquement museum was very interesting, showing lots of detail about how the harbour was constructed and other information about the landings. We saw a couple of films, showing footage from the landings, which were very powerful.

Further up the road at Longues-sur-Mer we visited some German artillary batteries. There are about 4 close together and are the only ones to have kept their guns. The guns are huge and it's easy to see what kind of devastation they caused. I wouldn't have liked to be the Germans stationed there, however. It was bloody cold and must have 10 times worse in the winter.

Afterwards we went to Omaha Beach and visited the American Military Cemetary. Seeing all of the graves lined up (nearly 10,000) makes you realise that war is a very, very stupid thing. Not a very original observation, I know, but it really hits home when you read some individual stories of people who died.

Today has been very blowy, overcast and noticabley colder than yesterday. I'm still waiting for my French summer moment.

Tomorrow we are off to Bayeaux. Really looking forward to it.

St Aubin sur Mer

09/05/2010

Today has been a much, much better day. For one thing, I slept in. Even though I had to get down the ladder to let Catherine go to the shower, I valiently climbed back up again and slept some more.

The good news is that the door is fixed! Hooray! The handyman attached to the campsite gave us a hand with his drill and the door is now once again attached.

We had decided that today would be a day of not going anywhere. Resting, repairing and recuperating, mentally and campervanly. So we got a few jobs done, had some more camembert and cider and generally didn't do much. Then garlic bread and pizza for dinner.

A much better day. (Now if only we can work out what's causing that nasty knocking noise in Skippy's engine)

St Aubin sur Mer

08/05/2010

Another day, another incident. It's really difficult to get into the swing of holidays and really enjoy it when things keep going wrong. Both of us are down in the dumps and in no small way, would like to just turn around, go back to England, sell Skippy and go home.

Today, passing through one of the innumerable toll booths, I drove a just a little bit too close to the left hand side barrier. There was a hideous metallic screeching and tearing sound, a brief silence and then one of those 'Oh crap!' moments. With another awful crunch we continued through the toll and pulled off to the side of the road. I jumped out to inspect the damage. It didn't seem too bad at first until the side door fell off in my hands. This was the last straw. On top of all the things that had gone wrong up to this point with the van, all of the extra money that we'd had to fork out, all of the problems and set backs that we'd encountered over the entire trip, from the months and months delay with my visa to the freezing house, to the repairs on our house back home, the debacle that was bringing Max over and having to send him home again, the dodgy Subaru, the crap jobs, this was it.

Our collective mood was almost unbearable. Appalling.

After managing to jerry rig the door with some spare wire and praying that it would hold while driving on the motorway, we limped into St Aubin sur Mer.

It had started out such a good day too.

It was late-ish on a Saturday, and given that Sunday was a holiday, finding the tools and/or equipment to fix the door didn't seem very likely to happen until at least Monday. We checked into a campsite, bought some cider and had a very depressed night. Why are we on this trip? Why aren't we back in Brisbane, in our own house, where it's warm and things are good?

France!!

07/05/2010

We are sitting in Skippy (campervan), having had dinner and washed up. It's still very light outside, although overcast as it has been all day.

A few minutes ago, we watched a couple of goats sitting on a lump of concrete across the little stream running right in front of our campsite. And they watched us. Malevolently. If if hadn't been for the stream acting as a barrier, we wouldn't have stood so close. After a while they got bored and started headbutting each other until a farmer appeared on the other side of their paddock at which point they bounded off towards him in hope of a feed.

The campsite is called Le Source and is set between a woody hill and the stream. It's a very tranquil setting, much needed after a day of travelling and drama. This morning we left our campsite in Folkstone and beetled down to Dover. We left earlier than we needed to, just to be sure we were in time for our ferry and, as it turned out, we were so early that we managed to catch the 9:15 ferry instead on the 10am that we had booked. The ferry was huge, and sitting on board in the coffee lounge, it was hard to believe that we were on a ship.

Arriving in Calais, we were surprised by two things: one, no one wanted to see our passports, and two, how much easier than expected it was to drive on the right hand side of the road. We're still not sure why it is that we got from England to France without any border control, but it turned out that highway driving is not a substitute for 'real' driving on the opposite side of the road of what you are used to.

We had a bit of trouble, you see.

Things may have turned out ok, if not for a massive let down from the satnav, or Denise, as we've come to know her (it's a woman's voice, she just sounds like a Denise, ok?). We only bought her two days ago and she'd been super reliable up to this point.

We'd programmed in our intended campsite for the evening, several kilometres west of Dieppe, after getting off the ferry. However, getting into Dieppe and blindly following Denise's instructions, we wound our way into the middle of Dieppe until, halfway along a very busy road, Denise announced, 'You have reached our destination'. Well, no, we hadn't. Much hilarity ensued (not). After much swearing, u-turns, despair, winding around back streets, consultation of maps, tension headaches, reprogramming of Denise, more swearing and near misses we kind of ended up going the way we thought maybe we should have been going...ish. We never made it to where we wanted to go, but passed this campsite were we are now, way after we'd had enough of driving. By this time it was 5:20 and, after getting up and 6:30 and having been on the go all day, it was time to stop.

There's no better way to end a stressful day than a short refreshing walk to the local store for some local goodies: in this case a bottle of very drinkable vino at a very juicy price of 1.80 euros, along with a baguette and some local camembert. Bliss, absolute bliss.

Addendum:

We've sorted out our directions issues from today. A combination of not knowing how to program Denise correctly, and an epic fail on the part of Caravan Club by placing the campsite we were headed for 200km further east than it actually is. I'm going to write a letter!!!