Carry on Camping (from the French / Spanish Border back Home)

Friday 20 – Tuesday 31 January 2023

Our plan on Friday morning was to leave Peralada in Spain and cross the border into France, staying overnight on the coast so as to make the most of the Mediterranean weather before continuing our journey further north.

We had out first mishap before we even left Peralada. Mark stepped out of SOK with his binoculars in his hand, caught his foot in the strap, and dropped them. He’s not sure yet whether they’ll be repairable or not.

Onwards and upwards…..

We crossed the border and headed to a motorhome aire at Saint-Cyprien, just up the coast from Argelès sur Mer where we had stayed on the way south.

Overnight: Saint-Cyprien

I specifically remember taking photos of the aire at Saint-Cyprien and the boats in the marina, but they’re not on my camera.

The camera has had a couple of funny turns since (card errors, “battery communication” errors), so this may be a sign of trouble to come. We’ll just have to see what happens….

Anyway, back to Saint-Cyprien.

The aire there wasn’t quite what we’d expected. It IS next to a marina as advertised. From the description, we’d expected there to be more nearby (shops, cafés etc) but there was nothing really. We think that Argelès sur Mer, just down the road, definitely had more to offer.

The weather wasn’t quite what we’d expected either. It was very chilly (6°C). At least it was bright and sunny.

Saturday morning brought our next little episode. We found that we couldn’t get out of the aire as the barrier wanted an exit code and we didn’t have one. Mark had to reverse away from the barrier in the end as a French van also wanted to leave.

The French bloke kindly stopped and asked what the problem was. It turned out that rather than just the credit card receipt that the machine had spat out when we arrived, it should have produced a second receipt with an exit code at the bottom. Ah….

There seemed to be no way to get the machine to “re”print the code and of course no-one was answering the “emergency” phone number on the machine.

The kindly French bloke suggested that we just tailgate him out through the barrier – fast. So we did, Mark flying out at the wheel of SOK while I hung onto the raised barrier in the hope that if it did start to come down, a bit of resistance might make it think twice.

Mission accomplished, the French chap tooted a cheery goodbye and drove on. We gathered our thoughts before doing likewise….

We didn’t have too far to drive on Saturday as we’d decided to visit Béziers, which was only about an hour and a half away.

Overnight: Béziers

We arrived at the aire, got set up, had some lunch and then set off to walk into Béziers. It was another crisp but sunny day:

The cathedral was interesting. We had a look inside and Mark was very pleased to find that we could go up a very narrow winding staircase (169 steps) to get a panoramic view from a terrace high up on the cathedral tower:

We’d planned out a triangular walk; from the cathedral we went back down the hill and across the 12th century Pont Vieux (seen in the photos above and below), then straight on to the Écluses de Fonseranes, a flight of nine locks on the Canal du Midi. From there we could walk back along the canal to SOK.

We learned that the Canal du Midi was built between 1666 and 1681 and is one of the oldest canals still in use in Europe. The locks seem to be a much bigger tourist attraction than we’d envisaged, with huge car parks and a visitor centre.

On Sunday, we set off north up the (free) motorway towards Clermont Ferrard, turning off at Millau as usual to trundle through the town rather than paying the €14.20 toll to cross the viaduct.

The weather got colder as we drove higher onto the Massif Central, falling to -6°C.

There was snow at the side of the road as we did the non-motorway section to miss out the Millau Viaduct:

Back on the motorway, we were soon down to one lane:

….and then there was fog….

By this point, we were starting to wonder whether our planned overnight stop at Brassac les Mines would be a good idea. It was 7 km off the motorway and we didn’t know what state the roads were in.

We decided to give it a go and just turn round if things started looking iffy. Thankfully no snow was forecast overnight.

Overnight: Brassac les Mines

We made it OK; the only really snowy bit was the little lane down to the site entrance.

After 300 km, mostly on the motorway but not in the best weather conditions, we were glad to arrive.

We got set up for the night, Mark putting the windscreen cover on and connecting us to the electricity, me sorting out the interior and putting the kettle on.

Mark came in from the cold looking glum.

“I think we might have a puncture” he said.

One of SOK’s front tyres looked soft (it’d looked fine that morning) so he’d checked it and it was down from 52 psi to 30 psi.

Bugger.

We dug out the compressor and pumped it up, then Mark headed out and checked it a couple more times over the course of the evening. It was fine. We kept our fingers crossed that it’d still be OK in the morning.

So there we were, having a quiet evening in SOK, when at 10pm there was a knock on the door. It turned out to be a German motorhomer who couldn’t get the barrier to let him in and was looking for assistance. Mark kindly lent me his coat. After a bit of fiddling, the barrier finally decided to co-operate and let the poor guy in…

First thing on Monday morning, the tyre pressure was still fine. We decided to go and get it checked out anyway, so drove the 20km to the nearest town, Issoire, stopping to check the tyre on the way. All good.

The young lad at the tyre place (Savi Pneus Profil+) was great. He took the tyre off and checked it carefully (no puncture) then refitted it, all for the princely sum of €20.50.

We had a rear tyre lose pressure in the summer without having a puncture and refitting that one did do the trick, so we were confident that the front tyre would now be OK.

Onward and upward…. to the Carrefour supermarket and fuel station in Issoire for food, diesel, and a top-up of Adblue.

We travelled another 200 km north on Monday afternoon, which took us to the small town of Bruères Allichamps. Confession time: we cheated and cut an hour off our journey time by spending €19.90 on a motorway toll. There are times when you just want to get where you’re going before dark and, if possible, without incident.

Bruères Allichamps is apparently one of a handful of French towns which claim to be right in the middle of France. We suppose it depends how you define “middle”.

It’s also just up the road from Saint-Amand-Montrond, where we stayed on the way south. We really liked the aire at Saint-Amand-Montrond, but it was far too cold to be jogging round a lake and the aire at Bruères Allichamps only cost a few euros extra but had mains electricity.

Overnight: Bruères Allichamps

We had a very quiet night. The aire here is a former Camping Municipale just outside the town by a river and Mark decided that he’d really like to stay here again some other time when the weather is more favourable.

Tuesday was uneventful for once…. 260 km on the same route we’d followed on the way south. This time we were headed north via Orléans and Chartres to an aire on the outskirts of Dreux.

Overnight: Dreux

The aire at Dreux is in an industrial estate and won’t win any charm awards. It was perfectly functional, though, and very quiet at night. Mark noted that we weren’t far from Nonancourt, where we’d stayed on the way south and liked. Once again, though, the mains electricity at Dreux won the day.

(if you’re wondering about our sudden affinity for mains electricity, we think that our leisure batteries are running out of steam after 5 years and we’re not entirely sure how well they’d stand up to running the electric fan for the diesel heating for hours on end. It’ll be new leisure batteries for SOK when we get home).

Another feature in Dreux’s favour, apart from there apparently being plenty to see in the centre of Dreux itself, is that you can get a free bus to the local station for a day out in Paris. There may be better aires near train stations to use if you do your homework, but it’s a great idea.

Our plan on Wednesday was to get up towards the coast, within striking distance of Dieppe. We were then going to spend Thursday and Friday nights at an aire in Dieppe, which would enable us to look round the town on Friday before getting the ferry on Saturday.

The journey was uneventful and we arrived at a little village called Flocques, about half an hour to the east of Dieppe.

Overnight: Flocques (3 nights)

We ended up spending 3 nights at Flocques.

We drove to Dieppe on Thursday to do our “big French shop”, then had a look at the aire we’d been planning to stay on. It was pretty dismal-looking, and there wasn’t a single other motorhome there. It also turned out that the electricity only comes on at certain times (and you’re only supposed to use it for 2 hours). We decided to return to the luxury of Flocques and fire up the electric fan heater!

We also changed our plan for Friday, visiting the nearby town of Le Tréport rather than driving back into Dieppe.

We parked at the top of the cliffs on the site of the Trianon Hotel (the photo is from WW1, hence the tents):

The hotel was apparently demolished by the Germans during WW2 as they thought it would be a useful landmark for the RAF. Hmmmm. We figured that the RAF could probably recognise most places on the Channel coast anyway….

There’s a good view from the top of the cliffs down over Le Tréport (foreground) and Mers les Bains (behind):

We used the free funicular to get down to the town centre and have a look around. This is a modern version; the original was opened in 1906 to enable guests at the Hotel Trianon to easily get down to the beach.

Le Tréport was a lot smaller than I’d expected, and everything was closed with the exception of a few bars and restaurants. It’s another place that we can tick off our list, though.

This is the former Town Hall. Nowadays it houses a museum (which was, of course, closed):

After another quiet night at Flocques, we headed back to Dieppe for the ferry on Saturday morning.

The crossing (4 hours to Newhaven) was incredibly smooth and we had a remarkably traffic-free onward journey to East Preston to visit Mark’s rellies again (it’s their own fault for treating us so well on our outward journey!).

Overnight: East Preston (2 nights)

This time, we camped out on Mark’s Auntie Brenda’s drive, which is perfect for SOK. We all had a chinese takeaway at Brenda’s on Saturday night, then on Sunday we went out with Mark’s Uncle Keith then went back to Keith’s for a magnificent feed of spare ribs, rice and salad.

Our jaunt out on Sunday took us to Lancing College Chapel, which is absolutely incredible. It’s the largest school chapel in the world and the 4th tallest church building in Britain.

I think we can probably safely say that if you need to ask how much the school fees are, you can’t afford it.

St Botolph’s Church nearby was on a much smaller scale but was really impressive in a different way, with parts of the building dating back to Saxon times:

Rather than driving home in one go from East Preston, we broke the journey in two and spent Monday night in the Midlands. We’d discovered a listing online for Kenilworth Rugby Club and wanted to check it out for future reference.

Overnight: Kenilworth Rugby Club

£5 to park up overnight? Just the job…..

Tuesday took us home and back to reality after our 3 months in SOK-land.

First stop on the way was Tesco for Mark to buy some beer at English prices (take that, Welsh Assembly Government!):

Then it was home via a hospital, where one of our fathers had managed to get himself admitted on Monday night. Talk about back to reality with a bump!

We’re not sure how soon we’ll be travelling again, but our ferry is booked for the Isle of Man in May…..