Friday 8 May - Glenshee Ski Centre

Friday 8 May - Glenshee Ski Area

Where's Bertie? He's in the motorhome parking area at Glenshee Ski Area, where it costs £15 including electricity, and use of the toilets/shower during the day.

Weather: Dry with plenty of sunshine. A bit cool, but we are at 650m.

I had identified two hills that I could possibly nip up today, one involving a 13k bike ride, the other being a simple up and down from the A93. My mind was willing, but my body (particularly my lower back) was not so sure. Given that Mick & I have plans to go up a hill together tomorrow, I didn't want to scupper myself with today's activities, so I passed on both possibilities, and we just needed to decide where to go today to position ourselves for tomorrow. 

Glenshee Ski Area fit the bill nicely and got bonus points for having a cafe. The only minor issue was that, from my understanding of their website, we could park in the car park for £6 during the day, or for £8 to include the day and overnight, and we could arrive at any time if we wanted to do that. The other option was to pay £15 for an electric hook up spot in their Aire, but in that case we could only arrive from 5pm (with the fee running from 5pm to 4.30pm the following day). As the website was so specific about times for each option, it looked like we would need to pay £6 for the day, plus £15 for the Aire (even combined, £21 isn't a bad price by current standards), or we would need to just go without electricity.  

No matter what the decision, we were going to the cafe for second breakfast and whilst we were being served, I checked my understanding of the parking charges, with the response that as long as there was a spot free in the Aire (there was), we could pay her and move Bertie straight away. 

The cafe was surprisingly busy. Almost full, in fact, mainly with motorbikers most of the time we were in there. As we left and wandered back over to the main car park to retrieve Bertie, it seemed that their next batch of customers also had their mode of transport in common - there must have been two dozen Porsches parked up. As we slowly made our way into the car park where we are now sitting (slowly because people were milling everywhere and were generally not willing to step out of Bertie's path), there were more Porsches, plus a Ferrari. The ones on this side of the road all had big stickers saying something like 'Grand Tour Scotland 2026' on them; I didn't notice the same on those in the other car park, so it's possible that two unrelated groups happened to have arrived at the same time. 

Manoeuvring Bertie onto his ramps to level him in the gently sloping car park, the next thing we did was to plug him in. "Are you going to check the polarity?" Mick asked. It's not something I ever do in the UK, as I think it highly unlikely that a UK electric hook up would have the polarity reversed (unlike on 2-pin EU connections where it's quite common), but I checked anyway and was so surprised to find that it was wrong that I checked a different socket. That is how we came to discover, after 9.25 years of owning Bertie, that the plug socket that we use to check his polarity (the one nearest the door) has been wired up wrong itself, so every time we have thought that we had reverse polarity and have used our corrective adapter, we have actually been reversing the polarity to the rest of the van (I assume it's the majority that are right and the one that's wrong; I must test when we are at home and I know the polarity to be the correct way around).   

With that sorted, I wouldn't have been adverse to spending some of the rest of the day by nipping up a hill from here. I knew I'd done the Marilyns, but wondered if there was an easily accessible Munro. A check of my blog and hill-bagging gave a surprising result. We did all of the nearby hills in 2013, but I had logged none of them on hill-bagging. That means that my 600th Marilyn at the end of last year wasn't my 600th. It also means that I finished today with my Marilyn count being two higher (and my Munro count 5 higher) without any physical effort at all. 

Aside from spending most of the afternoon typing (phew, I'm finally caught up on my blog posts!), we've also reviewed and modified our plans for tomorrow. More of that in my next post.  

Oh, and we went and used the shower at the Ski Centre, which wouldn't usually be an activity worthy of remark. In Park4Night, there's a turn of phrase often used by French reviewers about sub-standard Aires, which translates as 'It has the merit of existing'. We can say the same about this shower. 'Low pressure' doesn't really do it justice. It did spray, rather than trickle, but the width of the spray was about 3cm and the water dropped straight down about 3cm away from the wall. Added to that, it has a touch sensor on/off switch, and if you get too close to the switch, the water turns off. The only way to get under the water is to stand too close to the switch, which presented something of a challenge. The water temperature was probably warm enough, but there was so little of it that it would have been a wholly unpleasant experience if it wasn't for the underfloor heating keeping the room nice and warm. On the positive side, it was better than no shower at all, and it saved Bertie's gas in heating water for his shower.

 

 View from Bertie's door. What you can't quite see is the piles of rubble and various rubbish just out of shot, or the areas of piste bashers and snow making machines. The surroundings are great, but the car park itself is a bit of a mess.  

 

Tuesday 5 May to Thursday 7 May - Scotland

Tuesday 5 May

Where was Bertie? He spent another night in the pull-in near Shap that he has used many times. 

After a somewhat frantic morning of packing Bertie and running some errands, it was early afternoon before we got on the road and then we needed to stop for fuel and at a supermarket. There was still plenty of time to make it up to Shap at a reasonable hour, and the traffic was kind to us.

It was as we were approaching the M55 junction that we belatedly realised that there were people we could see on our way north and that in the midst of our disorganisation, we had contacted none of them. A quick phone call and Al & Nicky didn't seemed fazed at the prospect of visitors appearing on their doorstep at half and hour's notice, the day after they got back from a holiday. Thus a detour along the M55 was made.

Retracing tyre tracks back to the M6 a couple of hours later, we reconsidered our overnight options. The problem with where we park near Shap is that it's busy with HGVs and there was the danger that by arriving at nearly 8pm, there wouldn't be room for us. There's another spot near Tebay that's good, but it requires a bit of a detour and backtrack from the motorway junction to reach it, so I came up with a fall-back to the north of Shap and we aimed for our usual spot. There was a HGV already in residence, but we were small enough to fit in front of him. A short while later, a Dutch HGV arrived, who tried to park next to the original occupier of the spot. Many words were exchanged, some of which we caught and few of which were friendly "You're not parking next to me - go and find somewhere else!" was the final bit I caught and soon after the Dutch vehicle departed again. The rest of the night was perfectly quiet until our neighbour started his engine at 0530.

Wednesday 6 May

Where was Bertie? He spent a night in the car park in Broughton

We nearly topped up Bertie's LPG tank at the start of the day. A detour from the motorway at Penrith, and a search around took us to a pump hidden amongst some industrial units, but there we found a sign saying that if we bought less than £10 worth of gas, we would have to pay an admin fee of £5 (so if you can only fit £9.99 in you have to pay £15, rather than there being a £10 minimum charge? Seems a bit odd!). Ordinarily we would easily spend £10 on gas, particularly at the price they were charging here, but this was only a relatively small top-up just to be sure that we could run the heating without worrying this month (there being few LPG stations in rural Scotland), and our tank gauges aren't fantastically accurate, so we couldn't be sure how much we could fit in. So we passed and will just have to hope that our supply lasts out.  

Excuse me if I now introduce the rest of the day by repeating what I said in a post on my walking blog: 

In our hasty packing for this trip, whilst also trying to decide on where we would be going and what we would be doing, I belatedly decided that I needed to include my mountain bike, to ease access to one particular hill in the Braemar area[...]. Other than 'a few hills in the Braemar area', we left home without a plan, so this morning over breakfast [...] I found there were a few hills along the A701, between Moffat and Edinburgh that I haven't visited yet, and as the first one I looked at lent itself to being accessed by bike, it became my objective for the day. It was a bonus that it had such an excellent name - Gathersnow Hill.

The hill was duly bagged (it was a lovely glen that I cycled along, and the top was a good viewpoint), thence on to the village of Broughton we went for a late lunch. I'd identified an overnight spot quite a few miles further along the road, but I'd also become aware that there was another Marilyn not far away from Broughton that I could easily access using the bike. I wasn't wildly enthusiastic about going out for the second time in the same day, particularly after a 6.5 year gap since I last used a mountain bike, but it also seemed too good an opportunity to miss, as I so seldom pack my big bike. 

It was tea time by the time I got back, and I'd passed a wood-fired pizza van in a layby on my way into the village. I wasn't in the market for a pizza, but I knew that Mick would be, and thus the decision was made that rather than continuing up the road to the park-up I'd picked earlier, we would stay the night in the village car park. Had the location been in Park4Night, I probably wouldn't have been willing to do so, as it's the sort of location that could annoy locals if it was overused (as places in Park4Night in Scotland often are, although I don't think the A701 is on most tourists' radars), however, as we weren't within sight of houses, it was just us, and there were no prohibitory notices, we decided to stay. Nobody scowled at us. Some waved in a friendly manner. 

Carelessly, I didn't take a photo of Mick's pizza (and typing this reminded me, two days later, that we still had some of it left in the fridge - that has become tonight's starter course), but it was good. 

We had a delightfully quiet night, and not as cold as we had been expecting (Shap had been a bit nippy, with the heating kicking in at 3am when the internal temp got down below 7 degrees). 

Thursday 7 May - Perth and Cray 

Where was Bertie? He spent another night in a pull-in off a quiet B-road by Cray. 

Weather: A few showers, a bit of sun. Quite cool.

Broxden Park & Ride in Perth (where we have stayed a number of times, even once in Erica when the A9 was closed for snow and flooding as we travelled north a couple of years ago in late December) conveniently has a motorhome toilet emptying point, so we swung in there on our way past, before parking for a couple of hours in Tesco's car park. Some admin was done, taking advantage of the good phone signal, followed by a quick nip into the store for a few items, including tea towels. They are an item on our packing check list, and I duly ticked it off, feeling sure I'd packed some along with our big towels and hand towels. I discovered on our first night that we only had one on board. We now have six, which is perhaps a little excessive. 

With Bertie's fuel tank topped up, we set out to get closer to Braemar, but with no plan as to where we were going to stay. Deciding on somewhere was my first task during the journey, and the obvious choice was a pull-in by Cray where we spent a couple of nights last October. There was already a sizeable motorhome in residence, but we pulled in parallel to the road, thus leaving plenty of room for any cars that came along wanting to park. None did.  

On another occasion we likely would have headed out for a stroll, but with the combination of rain and a very sore body, I was happy to just rest and start catching up on blog posts. 

 

   

 

Monday 20 to Wednesday 22 April - Hayfield

Written retrospectively on 8 May, as my final catch-up post before getting up to date on the current trip.

Where was Bertie? He spent two nights on a no-electric grass pitch at Hayfield Camping & Caravanning Club site. At a total cost of somewhere around £32.

Weather: Some rain on Monday, but otherwise gloriously sunny, but cool and really windy.

After carrying my full backpack around on various outings over the last month, I wanted to spend a night in the tent, to check everything was as it should be before embarking on the TGO Challenge. Seeing that it was something of a bargain for Mick to pitch at Hayfield for a couple of nights (£19.60 for two nights just for him, because he qualifies for the old geezer rate), I planned a route on the Pennine Way that would see me walk to a pitch I used a couple of years ago by Laddow Rocks, before returning back almost the same way the following day. 

I was actually going to be staying in Bertie with Mick for the first night, but I couldn't work out a way of making a booking on that basis, so I booked just for Bertie and on arrival at the campsite we said that we also needed to pay for me. The person on the desk at the time didn't know how to do that on their brand new system, so she said we could sort it out later.

Other than a stroll up the road and back during the afternoon, at which point it looked like it might rain at any moment (it held off until we were back), we sat around and did nothing all afternoon. It rained through the late afternoon and into the night, but per the forecast Tuesday dawned sunny.

It only took a walk over to the toilet block and back for me to realise that looks were deceptive and this sunny day was quite breezy. There was nothing remarkable in the forecast about wind, so I didn't think much of it, and soon after we both set out towards Kinder, although we weren't together for long as Mick was heading up William Clough, whilst I was aiming for the top of Jacob's Ladder.

I fought the headwind the whole way up that climb, and when I got to the top I almost immediately got blown over. This was not ideal! By the time I met Mick (who was to descend via my ascent route), 6km into my route and 8km into his, I was decided that it was going to be no fun camping in that wind*, particularly in my intended spot at 500m or so, so I warned Mick that he was likely going to see me again in a few hours. (*I've enough experience of camping in high winds, so it's not something I feel any need to practice just for the sake of it!)

I could still walk the distances I'd intended on both days, so I continued on along the Pennine Way to Wain Stones on Bleaklow before turning around. I'd hoped the wind would have less of an impact on the way back, but I was still fighting it the whole way. Even when it was behind me it would catch one side of my backpack or the other and I was constantly having to course-correct and I got blown off the path countless times. 

I used William Clough as my descent route from Kinder and there were some nice sheltered pitches down there, but it was far too early for me to want to be so indiscreetly pitched, and by then I'd confirmed to Mick that I would be back and I assumed that he would have gone and paid for my stay on the campsite. 

It turned out Mick hadn't yet settled up with the campsite, but I found the manager and he did know how to use that aspect of their new computer system. The result was that I paid £12 (and a quantity of pence that I can't remember) for my stay. I think they only charged me for one night, even though I'd declared a two night stay, but as I wasn't offered a receipt, I couldn't see what they'd actually charged me for, so I hadn't been given any reason to question the price.

Even though I'd ditched the camping plan, my intention had been to go back out and walk another circuit on Wednesday. However, I woke up in such a state of exhaustion that I couldn't drag my weary body back out the door, even for a low-level amble. Instead, we packed away, went out for breakfast and were home far earlier than expected. 

At this point I was already thinking that my current levels of fatigue were too great for me to enjoy walking across Scotland. The nail in the coffin was the five migraines in the week before the Challenge started. So, the day we were due to start out journey up to my Challenge start point, I withdrew from the event, with the revised plan being that I would just do a few hills during this trip, with the opportunity to get plenty of rest in between them.  

 

Such deceptive weather! 

 

My turn-around point, at Wain Stones. The buff was to keep my hat on my head. I was also wearing a long sleeved Merino baselayer and a fleece under that windshirt and had winter mitts on my hands. I finally got warm enough to take the fleece and mitts off as I made my way down William Clough at the very end of the day.  

 

Monday 13 to Wednesday 15 April - Cannock Chase

Another retrospective post, catching up on trips taken since my last live blog post in early April. 

Where was Bertie? He spent two nights at Tackeroo Campsite on Cannock Chase at a cost of £18 per night.

Weather:  A few showers, and one night with some rain, but otherwise dry with plenty of sunshine#

After a busy month of house renovations, I wanted to get out with my backpack on three consecutive days to make sure I was in a fit state for the TGO Challenge, a month hence, having only been out for local day walks with it thus far. Options as to where we could go were contemplated, and I plotted a linear (but not overly inspiring) route from Uttoxeter to somewhere north of Ashbourne. Then I decided that, taking the price of diesel into account (I can't remember how much it was at the time, but somewhere over £1.80 a litre, after a recent and rapid rise), Cannock Chase would probably be the most sensible option, with the added appeal that it would allow Mick more freedom to get out for some long training runs whilst I was wandering in a big circle with my backpack.  

I'm not a fan of Tackeroo campsite. Having stayed there before I know that it's not private or secure at all, so there are people walking through the whole time (in fact, last time we were there, a mountain bike coach was giving a lesson on the hardstanding next to where we were pitched). Effectively you are paying purely to avoid doggers and boy racers in the car park opposite (and to use the water and waste points, if you need to, which we didn't; there are no other facilities). They also operate dynamic pricing, but fortunately this week was quiet enough that we got pitches at the cheapest price they offer (there were three units there on both nights of our stay, including us).

The weather forecast wasn't too bad, with a fine Monday, then some rainy spells on Tuesday and Wednesday. Fortunately, as is so often the case, it turned out far better than predicted. Monday was warm and sunny, Tuesday saw a shower hit when I was paces away from Bertie for my lunchbreak, with another hitting shortly before I went back out for the afternoon, and Wednesday was dry until the last 1km, when it rained on me. 

Arguably unexcitingly, I walked fundamentally the same 30km circuit on the three consecutive days. Mick ran an 18k circuit on Monday and Wednesday, and joined me for the final 9km of my route on the Tuesday (I was doing around 21k in the morning, then the rest after lunch).

I don't think there's anything else to report from the trip. It went well and my confidence was boosted that my TGO Challenge route was achievable. (Spoiler: that didn't last. I withdrew from the Challenge a few days before it started, not due to lack of fitness, but lack of health.) 

(Photos are in a Blogger-decided random order)

 

It could be Scotland, couldn't it? 

When I'd driven across Cannock Chase a week or so earlier, the herd of banded coos, with their young, were all in a panic, running along the road. Shortly afterwards a flashing police car came towards me, presumably to control traffic whilst they were returned to where they were supposed to be. I'm not sure this is where they were supposed to be as there are no fences between here and the road (some areas of the Chase were fenced off a good few years ago, specifically for cattle to graze, in a land-conservation sort of way). 

 

25k through the first day, happy to be in such pleasant surroundings.

Mick running away from me after starting out together on Day 1.

 

Saturday 7 May - Calais

I thought I'd drafted a blog post about this day, but if I did, I now can't find it. This is what (2 months later) I can remember about the day. 

Where was Bertie? He spent the night at the large Camping-Car Park in Calais at a cost of €15.25 (including electricity).

Weather: Foggy and cold

Our destination was supposed to be Wissant, where Mick was very much looking forward to going out for moules-frites for lunch, but as we drove north through the fog, and with the thermometer stubbornly in double figures, I checked the weather forecast. It was going to top out at 10 degrees in Wissant, and the fog wasn't going to clear. There is now some electric hook up at Wissant, but there must have been good reason that I convinced Mick that the Aire at Calais was a better bet, and after a poke around on Google Maps I promised him that he could have his moules for lunch.

There are 102 spaces at the Aire, and almost all were full when we arrived, but Bertie was slotted into a free one not far from the entry/exit and I doubt that we were there for long before we walked off into town, with me whinging the whole way about how cold it was. 

Lunch was good but expensive, particularly when there was a confusion in our coffee order that resulted in Mick receiving an Americano cocktail (€9.50) rather than a coffee (far too used to the terminology for order black coffee in Spain rather than in France). The waiter was prepared to put the mix-up right, but in my opinion it was entirely our mistake, so Mick had to make do with more alcohol. 

I would like, at some point, to have a look around Calais, but a cold and foggy day didn't inspire us to do so on this occasion and the sun was showing no signs of fighting its way through, so we went to the museum instead.

We walked a different route back to the Aire, but visibility was so poor that I can't say much about it. Let's hope that next time we find ourselves in Calais, it's a nice sunny day!

We had an early Chunnel crossing on the Sunday, so we were away at around 6am, had smooth passage through the check-in and border process and were back in the UK half an hour before we were due to leave France, having made it onto an earlier shuttle.  

 

Friday 6 March - Neufchâtel-en-Bray

I'm belatedly posting this on 8 May, although I wrote it back in early March. I wonder if I can find a post that I wrote about the final day of that trip?

 
Where's Bertie? He's at a commercial Aire in Neufchâtel-en-Bray, where we've been many times before, but I think the last time was in 2020. I haven't checked whether the price is still €14. I guess we'll find out when we come to leave tomorrow!

Weather: Sunny and warm

There is little to say about today, another driving day.

There was a pause in the village of Monnaie, where I dashed across the road to a boulangerie for croissant (Mick) and an escargot (me), then we drove a few minutes further to the first suitable layby to eat them.

A couple of hours later, it was feeling like time for a break, and noon was upon us, so I opened the Park4Night App to see if there was any parking area nearby (we were on the N154 at the time, which doesn't have regular service/rest areas), to find that we were within a kilometre of a suitable looking spot that was about 100m detour from the road. It was a good find, and the best part of an hour was frittered there (I say frittered, but I did get a loaf going for tomorrow, feed the sourdough starter, make cheese toasties and a pot of coffee, as well as refreshing our travel mugs and eating lunch).

I tried to magic up a better way of getting around Rouen, but there isn't one, so we took the usual route, somewhere along which Bertie's fuel light came on. I was all for stopping, Mick was confident we could get to our destination, 64km away. Fuel was our first port of call on arrival although only enough to get us to Tesco in Ashford on Sunday, as diesel is currently significantly cheaper in the UK than France (we paid €1.959 today; most stations we've passed have been at €1.999). 

It was a surprise to see the Aire here in Neufchâtel so busy, and we took the penultimate space and it wasn't many minutes later that the last one was taken. Good job we didn't tarry longer at any of our stops during the day!

With Bertie settled on his pitch, I soon had my running gear on and Mick and I headed out at the same time - me for a run, and Mick for a walk into town. We were both gone for the same length of time, and thus arrived back onto the site together, with Mick carrying a pattisserie box. If anyone was paying attention to our comings and goings, they must have wondered about my dress sense for a walk to the shops. 

Just a short (2-hour) drive tomorrow, then back to the UK on Sunday. 

Elevenses was excellent. 

 

The goodies with which Mick returned from his walk into Neufchâtel  

 

 

Thursday 5 March - Naitré (France)

Where's Bertie: He's in a small Aire in a little settlement just outside of Naintré. Exact location: 46.76639, 0.51090

Weather: Some sunshine but mainly lightly overcast, but warm (20 degrees max)

Make northerly miles whilst the wind's southerly, as the famous saying goes, so we set out early today. It wasn't yet light as we rolled out of Berastegi. 

With fuel being so much cheaper in Spain than in France, a 700m detour from the motorway was taken to fill Bertie's tank (135.6c/litre), with a slight delay as the fuel station was just putting 'not available' signs on certain of their fuel types. Happily bog standard diesel was still available. 

It was only when we went through the next toll plaza that I realised that because of how this motorway charges, when we left the road to go to the petrol station, we paid for the bit of road we'd used to that point, then when we went through the next toll plaza we paid for the entire section of road, including the bit we'd already paid for. However, given that the toll in question was €1.61 and the fuel was 63c/litre cheaper than France, the saving was still worthwhile. Oh, and when I say that we 'filled up' we still haven't had Bertie's leaky-when-full fuel tank fixed* (hey, it's only been 6 years...), but on this occasion we pushed it and went to 7/8th full. We know he doesn't leak at 3/4 full, and even when he does leak it's a slow drip, so 7/8th seemed a worthwhile gamble given the price differential.

Our next stop, well into France, was supposed to combine lunch with filling LPG. That didn't go well as we found ourselves in a HGV area due to a 1.8m height barrier for cars. Having to mingle with HGVs isn't unusual, but in this case we had to go through a ticket barrier, with the ticket telling us we had a maximum of 1-hour to leave. That would usually be plenty of time for lunch, but when we couldn't find the LPG pump either (it was definitely there somewhere!), we opted to move on. Lunch was had in a rest area a couple of junctions further along the road and we were later successful in our LPG mission, albeit at 5c/litre more (and Bertie's tanks were as low as we ever let them get, with just 12 litres remaining). 

The question over lunch was 'Where are we going?'. The furthest south we could afford to spend tonight, in order to get to Wissant/Calais in time with comfortable driving days, was at Castets (where we stayed on our way S), but had passed there before 10am. The next likely candidate I'd identified was by the failed LPG stop, which was also too early. So, we found ourselves in this Aire, north of Poitiers. I've no idea why it exists, as it's in a tiny community, with no shops to benefit from visitors. There's a full bespoke service point here, but (it appeared) only room for two vans, and we were the second to arrive. We have since been joined by an absolutely massive bus of a motorhome, who has proved that we were short-sighted in thinking that the place was full. 

After a chat with our Belgian neighbours, we took ourselves for a leg-stretch along the road and back, and to the river and back. At the latter we witnessed a man throwing sackfuls of very mouldy baguettes into the water, from where they floated off downstream. Why he was discarding them in a watercourse, rather than a bin, is anyone's guess, but I assume he knew it wasn't an acceptable thing to do, as with our presence, he quickly emptied the bag he was holding, then left with the other two sacks in his boot still full. I wonder how long the ones he discarded took to sink, as I can just imagine someone standing on a bridge downstream when a couple of dozen blackened baguettes bob by.  

(*Bertie's leaky fuel tank: we have taken him to a garage, with tank all but empty, for it to be fixed. When we picked him up they said they couldn't see the problem and needed to drop the tank to investigate further, which is exactly what we'd asked them to do and why we'd taken him with an empty tank. We didn't book him back in. At some point I'm going to remove the flooring in between the two cab seats and hopefully find there's an access hatch to the top of the tank, whereupon we may find that an issue that has taken us years to address is a really easy fix.)