Saturday 25 March - Home

After a few lessons learnt about driving around the M25 during the week, these days we usually try to arrive back in the UK early on a Sunday morning. This time we made it a Saturday, so that we could visit younger (step)son and grandchildren on the way, following which we were going to head off to the Ridgeway for a couple of nights.

The visiting plans suffered a late cancellation due to a positive covid test (not us!), and if we weren't going to Reading then the Ridgeway plan no longer made sense. We would head straight home instead...

...or not quite straight home, because the late cancellation meant that we were at leisure to make a little detour en-route. Wendover Woods is a Marilyn that I've not been in a tremendous rush to visit, because we usually pass reasonably close to it at least four times a year, but equally it has remained unvisited because when we're passing we're always on our way to or from seeing friends or family, and spending time with them is more important than nipping up a hill.

Bertie was settled into a convenient car park at Halton and, after a quick lunch, it was a 5.5km route from there. I convinced Mick to join me, even though the weather looked threatening and he'd far rather have sat and read his book, on the basis that he needed some exercise so he may as well achieve that by coming along. His verdict at the end: "It wasn't very interesting!".

The location believed to be the summit pre-2021, complete with boulders bearing a plaque saying this is the summit

The current summit, following a survey in 2021, found after thrashing around in the woods for a good while, bloodying my legs on dead undergrowth. You may notice that we could have driven to within metres of the summit, had we so chosen.

Just a couple of short light showers caught us on the way up. It was dry on the way back, but within two minutes of getting back to Bertie the heavens opened. Excellent timing!

More driving saw us home. But for how long... 

Friday 24 March - Wissant

Where's Bertie? He's unmoved at the Aire at Wissant.
Weather: Mainly sunny, with just a few light passing showers. Windy.

The rain that came last evening was heavy and went on into the night. Per the forecast, the wind peaked at around midnight (50mph said the forecast and I certainly got disturbed by a few mighty gusts), and the rain finally gave way to showers. We woke this morning to blue sky above us, at least until the next shower came through.

Often (although not always) we have used Wissant as just a convenient night stop. With no driving to be done today we were able to do more than just sleep here, so just before 9am we headed out to do a 13.5km circuit that would take us north across country towards Cap Blanc Nez (sibling of Cap Gris Nez, which sits to the south of us), before returning along the cliffs then the beach.

The outward leg was good, but we'd come to appreciate how strong the wind was and that it was coming from behind. We approached the coast (where we were to turn back south) with trepidation, knowing what was to come.

Outward leg

It was brutal! It was an effort even to run the downhills along the top of the cliffs. When we got to the beach* the sand was perfectly firm, but the wind often had us battling forward at a walk. It was a relief to finally reach Wissant and be able to turn away from the wind, and into the shelter of the roads.

The return leg

Back at Bertie, by the time the water heater had done its job, we'd showered and dried down the shower, it wasn't long before we were heading out again to hit opening time at Chez Nicole Café. It's not a venue with an extensive menu. The choices are: moules frites Oú jambon et frites. That's it.

We've been there before, and our selection was the same as last time.

Before (nearly) and after

A minor side trip followed, to buy some bread for teatime (lunch out = excuse not to have a cooked tea), then back to Bertie for the rest of the day.

I took the opportunity to knit the last few rows, and graft the toes, of another pair of socks for Mick. When I made him the first pair earlier in this trip, I accidentally mismatched them - everywhere with mottled light grey on one sock was mottled dark grey on the other. So, I made a second pair with the exact same 'flaw', giving him two perfectly matching pairs. Of course, when he comes to pick two socks from his sock drawer, he won't notice the subtle difference, and it will be pot luck whether he wears a matching pair or not (and there's not a chance that anyone other than me will look closely enough to notice), but at least I can be happy knowing that I've provided him with two matching pairs.

Now, do I cast on something else, or wait until we get home, where I have a jumper that is about 98% complete? (Thinking about it, the only reason I didn't bring that with me to finish off was because it seemed a waste of space and weight to carry around a jumper for 2 months that I was going to finish within days and wouldn't need to wear in Spain. As it turned out, it's been so cool, I probably would have got plenty of wear out of it.)

^{(*This route isn't possible at high tide, and we certainly wouldn't have been able to do it when we first arrived yesterday. Fortunately, low tide this morning was at a perfect time for our purposes.)} 

Thursday 23 March - Wissant

Where's Bertie? He is, once again, at the Aire at Wissant, just a few miles along the coast from Calais.
Weather: Increasingly sunny as we travelled north and warmer than forecast at 17 degrees, but windy. Rain from 1630.

I forgot to mention something yesterday. When we planned our journey home from Badajoz ten days ago, the key feature of the plan was to visit Chartres on the way. Every time we've driven past (which is quite a few times now), I've looked at the cathedral that stands so prominently, visible from many miles away, and said that we should stop by for a closer look. However, each time we've been driving south we've been in a rush to get somewhere (usually to the sunshine) and every time we've been heading north we've also either been on our way to an appointment or the weather has not been conducive to sight-seeing. On this trip we only scheduled part of a morning for the excursion, but I'd located somewhere we could stay and, being generally bad at visiting cities, a couple or three of hours would give us time to see the cathedral close-up.

Yesterday evening we were to arrive in Chartres and this morning we were to do our sightseeing. Tonight we would travel on to Neufchâtel-en-Bray.

So, what happened? I'm a fair weather tourist! Including Turquant and the troglodyte houses into our journey home had put Chartres a tiny bit out of our way, but not enough to worry about on its own. However, if you combined the extra distance with a poor weather forecast, then it became significant. Did we really want to take a detour to find ourselves walking around Chartres in the rain? No, was the answer. Chartres was thus left on the 'must visit' list.

Today's plan was also modified due to the weather forecast. Was there any point in doing a 2-hour drive today, to sit indoors whilst it rained, then doing a 2-hour drive to Wissant tomorrow? We may just as well get to Wissant in a day and not have to drive anywhere tomorrow, we thought.

The drive here was uneventful, save that 35km from our destination I realised that I'd forgotten that we were meant to be filling up with LPG today. LPG is hugely more available in France than in the UK, but even so, I feared that my realisation had come too late, and our Chunnel on Saturday morning is too early to get some at Coquelles en-route. A quick interrogation of the 'mylpg.eu' App showed there were two stations between us and Wissant. I chose one, but our mission was a failure (unmanned petrol station, but LPG pump has no Pay at Pump terminal. Tried to pay at the adjacent pump but got 'Card type not accepted' message even though Mastercard was a listed card type*). The other gas station was a little out of our way, but by far less than a LPG-chase in the UK would involve. No problem filling up there and the only problem with paying was that the drive-through payment kiosk was not designed for a vehicle of Bertie's size!

Arriving in Wissant a short while later, we wasted no time in going out for a walk. It was difficult to believe, as I took this snap along the beach, that rain was forecast in an hour's time:

By the time we got back to Bertie, clouds were starting to appear...

The capacity here must be around 40-50. We've arrived on a Wednesday in low season before and found not a single space to be had. Yet today we brought the number present up to 5.

...and at half past four the rain started. It's now decidedly wet out, with a gusty wind buffetting us. We'll not be venturing out again today. (later: except that Mick had to nip out to take the dish water to the drain. It's not far, he wore a waterproof jacket, and came back dripping. He decided the rubbish can wait until tomorrow to go out.) 

^{(*Yes, that's the third time this week our card has been declined, including the two failed payments with the same Autoroute operator. I'm convinced it's not a problem with our card, as we're using it to pay for other things with no problem.)}

Mercredi 22 Mars - Verneuil d'Avre et d'Iton

Oú est Bertie? He's in an Aire in the town of Verneuil d'Avre et d'Iton. Exact location: 48.73943, 0.93095.
Weather: Not a bit of sun to be seen. Some rain. Topping out in the mid-teens.

It was another day that started with a drive, but a very short one today, taking us from Turquant to a car park just 3.3km along the road in neighbouring Souzay. From there started the route that I'd chosen for my exercise today.

First, however, we were going to follow the 'Parcours Troglodytique' through 'Rue de Commerce' - a troglodyte shopping street, that was (according to one of the information signs) still in use at the start of the 20th century.

An interesting little excursion, although it didn't take awfully long to have a poke around and read the information signs:

Entering

Walking through. The ivy is trying to claim the place.

Not sure these snaps are particularly illustrative of the nature of the place.

Heading past the chateau, once owned by Margaret d'Anjou...

It extends backwards into the cliff

...the route I'd downloaded said to turn left. There was no waymark, but we believed the route, were led through some more caves, at the back of which a steep incline took us out the other side, and onto the margin of a vineyard that didn't feel at all like a right of way.

It was at this point that Mick turned back, although only because I was about to burst into a jog and he was only to be walking today, so he opted for the riverside as his venue.

On Google Maps, one of the reviews of the Parcours Troglodytique said that the reviewer had tried to follow the advertised 16km route, but hadn't been able to due to poor waymarking. They weren't wrong! I had no problem (navigating from a route downloaded onto my watch), but it was a surprise as I exited that first set of vineyard paths to find that I was indeed on the right track. The waymarks were ridiculously far apart, even when multiple junctions were passed in between them.

I can't say it was a good route either, although I'm sure the grey sky and almost constant light rain didn't help. I saw lots of vineyards and a good chunk of muddy woodland too.

Curtailed view

Back at the start I revisited the sign that advertised the route, to see what points of interest I should have seen on the way. I noticed none of them.

Mick had been similarly uninspired by his outing.

(Hmmm. I've made it sound like Turquant and Souzay were bad choices of places to visit. They weren't! There was plenty worth seeing, but in grey murky conditions the walking routes were lacking compared to others we've done recently. I think we've been rather spoiled with interesting routes lately.)

Onwards!

I usually spend far too long surveying nightstop options and reading reviews. Today I clicked on this Aire at Verneuil, read the headline and a couple of reviews and decided it would be our destination. If only I could be that decisive and efficient more often!

The drive to get here was slow (D roads, rather than N roads, for all bar the last few kilometres), with a pause at Decathlon in Le Mans for lunch. The shop didn't have in stock the item I wanted to look at, but we achieved the lunch part of the stop in their car park, during which time the sound of racing cars from the nearby circuit started up.

Finally, via a quick stop at an Intermarche petrol station (176.9/litre = far cheaper than we've seen elsewhere in France), at just gone 4pm, we arrived at our destination. First priority: walk the 5 minutes to Lidl to pick up some meat for Mick's tea, having failed to get any out of the freezer earlier in the day.

Whilst buying diesel and using a supermarket does contribute to the local economy, I thought it would be reasonable to also visit a local patisserie, so we came back via the town centre.

No two adjoining houses of the same style or age. Lots of half-timbered buildings.

By the time we got to the main square, and we'd still not found a patisserie, I was wondering what sort of town this was, but surely there must be one somewhere by the church?

Excuse the cars in shot. The middle of the square is the town car park.

Success! A well stocked shop with its goods looking home-made, not bought-in. A quiche got added to the cake order too, and it was a feat of restraint that we didn't buy four cakes.

We got back to Bertie with the makings of a remarkably quick and easy tea that would create an uncommonly small number of dirty dishes. Only the steak needed to be cooked:

The makings

Not many minutes needed to get it on the table

And pudding*

^{(*After taking the snap, we decided to just have the Tart Myrtille between us tonight, keeping the other for tommorrow. Based on the quiche and the Tart Myrtille, it will be good.)}

Tuesday 21 March - Turquant

Where's Bertie? He's in a small Aire in the town of Turquant. Exact location: 47.22375, 0.02879.
Weather: Fine, but cool start (6 degrees), drizzly middle, then sunny intervals at destination (15 deg).

A quiet night was had in Montguyon, until sometime just pre-dawn when the local cockerel decided it was time for us to be awake. At 0645 the church bells went into crazy mode too, just in case anyone had slept through the crowing. We weren't too upset; our alarm was set for 7 anyway.

We'd expected to spend the night alone at the Aire (the main road from the N10 being closed at the moment), but at some point we had been joined by one other van. No idea how late they arrived, but they were showing no signs of life as we left.

Given the option between run/walking a route from Montguyon (main feature: a dolmen), or driving 14km along the road for a route from Guizengeard (main feature: flooded quarry pits), we opted for the latter. It looked from the map like the Montguyon route would involve too much tarmac. We have no idea what we missed in making that decision, but we were very happy with what we got.

At first I had misgivings. The paths had lots of protruding roots and, worse, small tree stumps, and in places they were rather waterlogged.

Initial bit of path

Then we we got to the second flooded quarry:

It really was this colour

Others were various shades of dull turquoise, but only this one (of the few we passed) was this startling shade

Some forest tracks, then field boundaries through green countryside, looped us back to Bertie.

There's Bertie, patiently waiting for us.

Outline route and key stats

Once Bertie's nose was pointed northwards again, and he'd negotiated two sets of roadworks and some small roads of varying quality, I had a look to see if there was a convenient supermarket with laundry machines in its car park, that was right next to our route north, and that we would pass after about 2 hours of driving. Incredibly, I found exactly that, and at 1pm on the dot we drove a couple of hundred metres from the motorway, parked right next to the laundrette, and were thus able to multi-task having lunch whilst doing laundry. 

Lunch and the laundry ended at about the same time, and within an hour of stopping, we were on the road again.

I have pins all over Google Maps, some of which have notes that say 'ExPAWers', with a little description as to why I pinned it (the ExPAWers = couple with a YouTube channel; they go to a lot of places we like the look of, so I make a note for future reference). One of those pins was in Turquant, alongside the Loire, which was close enough to our route north for us to include it in this trip.

We arrived early enough for a quick look around today:

Troglodyte houses, built into an escarpment that sits a few hundred metres away from the river are the main attraction hereabouts

We're also only a few minutes walk away from the S bank of the Loire.

We will explore further tomorrow before continuing our way north, but based on today's short excursion this place deserves more attention than the short time we're going to be able to give it on this trip.

Monday 20 March - Montguyon

Where's Bertie? He's currently all alone at an Aire in the small town of Montguyon (NE of Bordeaux). Exact location: 45.21774, -0.18307
Weather: Sunny and warm.

It was just before 10am when we got on the road this morning. Not the most efficient start to the day, but at least we were still at the Aire when the bread van came around, so I finally got the chocolatine that I wanted yesterday.

The intention for the journey from Badajoz to Calais was to split it into roughly even 200km sections, and whilst we've already deviated from that, I'd started my day by looking for somewhere that was roughly that distance ahead of us. Montguyon is where I settled on, although having looked at walking routes from here and from another town around 20km away, we may well choose to move on before exercising in the morning. We still came here, on the basis that it has an official motorhome parking area.

The plan was nearly scuppered. Once again, Google kept reporting increasing delays ahead of us, and when I looked at the detail there was a 55 minute delay to get around Bordeaux. The benefit of having your house with you is that you can change your mind about where you're staying at the drop of a hat, so we pulled into a car park just by J18 of the A63 for lunch, and possibly to stay the night if the road situation didn't improve. The next time I looked the delay around Bordeaux was improving, but the N10 (the road we needed to take north of Bordeaux) was closed.

As I served up pudding (strawberries and ice cream; a step up on our usual post-lunch biscuit or strip of chocolate), I checked the road situation again: all delays/closures had cleared. Excellent timing.

There's not much to Montguyon. It's a small and quiet town (I know that mid-afternoon is not the best time to judge these things, but there were quite a few empty shops, few others were open and people were scarce)...

If abducted by aliens and abandoned here, you'd not struggle to guess you were in France.

... but it does have a castle, dating from the 11th century, and not in fanctastic condition:

From by the Aire

Close up. It was closed, but we stopped to read the sign about its history.

Looking down from the castle. Bertie's down there.

With nothing else obvious to see or do in the immediate vicinity (and it was now gone 4pm, so we weren't after much to do), we retraced our steps to the Patisserie.

Purely in the interests of thanking the town for the Aire, not because we're cake fiends...

Sunday 19 March - Capbreton

Where's Bertie? He's splashed out on another night at Capbreton.
Weather: After heavy rain overnight, it was drier than forecast today, with plenty of sun and just a couple of fleeting light showers. Cooler than of late (low teens).

I went for a trot around Cannock Chase this morning. That's what it felt like, with the only notable difference being that underfoot the tracks and paths were sandy, rather than gravelly. Otherwise, the number of similarities was incredible.

The Cannock Chase of Capbreton

I even got a trig point selfie!

Part of the route was called 'Tuc des neuf eglises'. A lengthy staircase led me up onto the sharp ridge of what was once a sand dune (well, I suppose it still is; it just has trees and various other plants growing on it now), where three wooden viewpoints had been constructed, each with an information sign. They explained that from the vantage points it was possible to see a total of nine churches. That was possibly true when the viewpoints were installed, or at some point in the past, but now trees have grown in front of the platforms, removing those views.

Not the most, nor the least, obscured viewpoint

All very enjoyable, and suitably undulating, but by the end my legs were feeling the effort on top of yesterday's ascent and descent. I was also hungry, despite having had breakfast before setting out and snacks as I went. It was a blow to return to Bertie to find that the bread van hadn't been (presumably it doesn't do Sundays at this time of year) and thus we didn't have fresh croissants or chocolatines for elevenses.

The afternoon was filled with our final TGO Challenge route vetting of the year, which was interspersed with looking out of Bertie's windscreen at the people who would suddenly fly up from the beach (attached to a kite, paragliding, sort of 'wing' (eeeh, I know all the technical terms...)) and appear over the top of the towering dunes that stand between us and the beach.

 

Taken from the beach viewpoint

It was the knowledge that we would be spending a chunk of the afternoon at the laptop that had us decide to stay here a second night. Pushing on northwards today would have given the benefit of quiet Sunday roads, without lorries, but we're already ahead of schedule.

We will be moving on tomorrow, but not to the location we originally put on our itinerararary home.

Saturday 18 March - Capbreton (France)

Where's Bertie? He's back at Capbreton, where it currently costs €10.50, including electricity and wifi.
Weather: Warm and sunny intervals for most of the day, then rain from 5pm.

A quick breakfast at 0700 then a fifteen minute drive to Tolosa, finding as we left Beasain that all the Aire spots had filled up at some point during the night. We hadn't noticed them arrive - even the one right next to us.

Why the early short hop to Tolosa? Because having looked at walking routes around Beasain I was struggling to find one with the right profile*. So, we took the short drive to where we had originally intended to spend last night.

I'm glad we didn't go there last night as planned. A couple of reviews on Park4Night in December or January (can't remember which) mentioned the circus being in town. I thought it'd be long gone by now, but no, the car park next to the Aire was taken up by a big top. So we didn't park in the Aire (last time we were there it felt rather out the way, even without being hidden behind a big tent), but in the next car park along, where plenty of motorhomes are in storage, so Bertie didn't stand out as an oddity.

Twenty minutes after arriving we were gently jogging towards the town, then out the other side, before finally making the turn up towards the hills. Then we turned back, having met a firmly locked gate across the track. We suspected we needed to go along what looked like someone's driveway, through their garden and continue on the other side, which we later confirmed as we looked back from the road we took instead, but in the absence of any waymarks, we weren't going to chance it. It wasn't long before we were back on track, and the rest of the route was navigated without issues.

We followed the gorgeous burbling stream during the initial climb

Then we gained enough height to have views, but only through the trees

Then we got open views

Before starting our descent, a chunk of which had been deforested.

The intention had been to do the circuit twice, but I didn't fancy repeating the initial road section, so during our 'slam-dunk a cup of tea and eat a chunk of tortilla' break back at Bertie, I looked up and downloaded a figure-of-eight route that used the tiny roads and paths immediately behind our car park.

More snaps from the outing. A rural idyll.

Outline of routes and key stats

Back at Bertie for the second time at 1330, it was too late to get washed, changed and back into town for lunch (our main reason for opting to revisit Tolosa), and we didn't fancy spending the night. Capbreton, only an hour north if you take the toll roads, became our destination.

Our first intermediate stop was only just over 5km away, where we left the motorway, drove right to the very back of an industrial estate and around the back of the last unit. There we found the one-pump diesel station (that being all they sold) and for the bargain price of 149c/litre the attendant filled Bertie fuller than he's been in quite a while. By the number of artics on the industrial estate, we think the fuel station primarily exists to serve them, but is happy to sell to the general public too.

The next stop was a Lidl. The shopping list was short, but I couldn't resist picking up lots of things that I know to be cheaper in Spain than France. What was supposed to be a little top-up shop ended up costing more than our usual weekly grocery bill.

Finally then we made for Capbreton, with the only hitch being that two of the toll booths declined our credit card. We've had the issue in the past on this toll road, but the same card was accepted when we headed south, so no idea what causes it. I hope we don't have the same issue further north, where the tolls will be more. I was able to dig out coins for a couple of €3 payments, but the coin bag was already depleted.

Being tea time by the time we had Bertie settled and plugged in, that was our priority on arrival.

I'm pleased to say that a chap has been around to collect our payment since we arrived. No need to fashion an envelope and write a note to put in the letterbox with our payment, as we did in January!

I thought Conrad would appreciate this gate. Tubular steel outer frame welded together, cross-supported by rebar, partly welded, but also sporting great quantities of hairy string - including as the closure mechanism.

^{(*The ideal at the moment is around 400m of ascent per 10k, but with an undulating profile. Around that area of Basque country most of the routes seem to have a single climb of 700-1000m, then a single descent of the same size.)}