Saturday 9 to Friday 15 May

Just a bit of a catch-up of where we've been, for my own memory-augmenting purposes:

Saturday 9th

Where was Bertie? He spent a night in one of the car parks at Spittal of Glenmuick at a cost of £12 for two days and one night.

Weather: sunny intervals in the morning, snow showers in the afternoon and evening, getting progressively heavier. 

On Friday I learnt that overnight parking of motorhomes is now permitted at Spittal of Glenmuick, thus our plan to attack Lochnagar from Auchallater (to the NW) was modified to doing it from Spittal of Glenmuick to the E - a drive of around an hour. We got an early start from Glenshee, getting out of bed and (almost) straight behind the wheel, arriving in Spittal of Glenmuick around 0715. 

The price of £12 to park there is something of a bargain, given that it costs £6 per day for a car, meaning that the campervan ticket is the same price as two car day tickets - and sure enough, our ticket bought upon arrival was valid until 2359 on Sunday. 

An excellent day was had going over Lochnagar and the nearby Corbett of Conachcraig, and a gloriously quiet night was had. 

Sunday 10th 

Where was Bertie? Ballater Caravan Park at a cost of £33 including electricity and wifi

Weather: Gloriously sunny start to the day, clouding in later (I think there were a few showers too). Jolly cold for the time of year!

After hanging around in Spittal of Glenmuick for the morning, we left at noon, timing ourselves nicely to arrive at the campsite at the earliest check-in time of 1215.

The last time I was at Ballater Campsite was in 2018, some three years after the devastating floods. I'm not sure if my memory is lacking or whether they've done much more work on this Community-owned site since, but I'm struggling to think of a better quality campsite. The grounds and pitches are immaculate and so is the toilet block. The showers were hot and powerful, had a bench, hooks and a shower curtain and it wasn't a push-button affair - everything you want in a campsite shower except the lack of a shelf for soap and shampoo. 

Their wifi was actually usable at all times too, which is a rarity, in our experience (usually campsite wifi grinds to a halt at peak times). 

We went out to the Alexandra Hotel for tea, and had a good meal, even if they did seem to be trying to break speed records in their serving times. 

I didn't want any pudding...
 

Monday 11th 

Where was Bertie? He spent a night in a car park next to Drumtochty Castle

Weather: unreasonably cold for the time of year (a high of 9 degrees)

After packing everything away and making Bertie ready to travel, save for the need to unplug him and remove him from his ramps, off to a local cafe we went for coffee, returning to Bertie in time to still get off the site before the 11.30 latest-departure time. 

Our first call was to a little car park SE of Strachan, so that I could recce the course of a 24-hour race that, unfortunately, I won't be taking part in this year. Part of the course is at an outdoor activity centre and I wasn't sure that the land there fell under Scottish access rights, so we just did the big loop section of the course and peered over a gate at another section. Back at Bertie, Mick didn't join me as I said I was just going to wander down the road a short way to see whether the paths around the loch were visible, so I could see whether they were surfaced or grass. At the entrance to the activity centre there are some grand gates and a security camera, however, there's also a board detailing a number of marked trails that run within the grounds, which, combined with the unlocked pedestrian gate, I took to mean I could go in and explore. 

So, I ended up walking the entire course (albeit not all in the right direction) save for a little bit where it passes in front of the house (and where there didn't appear to be a waymarked trail) and another small section where I was just too lazy to do an out-and-back. It's a good course that looks fairly hard (it's far from flat), and would be harder if midsummer's day fell within a wet spell and the ground was boggy. The recce hasn't put me off; maybe next year?

We might have stayed in that car park for the night, but I suggested that the merit of moving to the start point for my next hill would be that I could leave Mick in bed in the morning and nip up there early. So, down to the south side of the Fetteresso Forest we went. The final distance was on a minor road, and as we started along there Mick told me we were being pursued by another motorhome. We pulled into the empty car park one after the other and I feared how busy the place was going to get. It turned out that it was just freak coincidence that we arrived together, and save for the short stays of a couple of dog walkers' cars, we were the only vehicles in the car park the whole time we were there. 

As it went, I did my hill almost immediately after arriving, and after doing that I suggested that we could move on again, to tomorrow morning's hill. That would have had the benefit of a better mobile phone signal*, but we decided to stay put - a beneficial decision, as just as Mick was closing the curtains, this chap(ess) came to see us and froclicked around in front of us for a short while before disappearing out of sight:

I was just cleaning my teeth when Mick called "Come here!" followed by "Quick! Quick!". As it went, I had plenty of time to grab my phone and get a snap out of the side window. I then just watched as it paraded in front of us and went into full 'meerkat' mode, standing on its back legs and looking around. I don't believe I've ever seen a pine marten in the flesh before.  

(*I made a quick 'how to' video for a TGO Challenger that evening, and even though it was under 100MB, and I positioned the phone up on the roof, it took the best part of an hour to upload to YouTube. The following day I made another video of almost identical size and, on a better mobile signal, it uploaded in a few minutes).  

Tuesday 12th

Where was Bertie: He spent from Tuesday afternoon until Friday morning in the car park of the Park Hotel in Montrose. 

There's forestry works going on somewhere behind the car park at Drumtochty Castle, and on Monday afternoon and into the evening, various vans, trucks and timber lorries came and went. All then went quiet, until at 0440 on Tuesday, when another timber lorry came past us. That's an early start, even by HGV standards!

Even with that early morning alarm call, staying in that car park had been the right decision for two reasons: firstly, the pine marten of the previous evening, and secondly, the high winds. The view point car park to which we went next, as the starting point for my next hill, was exposed (as view points tend to be) and it was windy enough that it would have been a disturbed night. 

It had been a cold night, and we were expecting a phone call at 9am, so we didn't hang around for breakfast, but rather got up and moved straight away - both warming Bertie without running his gas heating and achieving a phone signal for the call. The phone call got cancelled, so up my next hill we both went, before heading the few more miles to TGO Challenge Control in Montrose, arriving a day earlier than we needed to (bad planning on my part!). I actually have no need to be there at all this year, but Mick wanted to be there for a few days this week, as TGOC Easters set out, then a few days next week as they arrive on the east coast. 

We have, for years now, spent at least a week in May sleeping in the car park of the Park Hotel whilst working on Challenge Control. This year I felt a bit cheeky and conspicuous, not so much parking in the car park (as Mick has a valid reason to be there), but each time I nipped through reception to use the facilities or wifi. 

Incidentally, during this week our mobile phone count in Bertie has dwindled from five, to a more reasonable three. One has been sent to my sister, who is having traumas getting broadband connected at her new address, so that she can use it as a mobile router (neither she nor her husband use smart phones) and the other is now temporarily a Challenge Control telephone, after one of theirs developed a problem.

I forgot to mention that on our way to Montrose we stopped at Charleton Fruit Farm for second breakfast. The quality of their ingredients really is excellent, and whilst I wouldn't usually give myself half a strawberry with an egg and black pudding bap, I would rate it as one of the most extraordinarily tasty strawberries ever.  

Friday 15th

Where's Bertie? He's at Gardener's Cottage campsite in Fern, where he spent a couple of nights last August. Since then they've had toilet/shower facilities installed (£1 for a 6-minute shower). The price is still £20 including electricity. 

Weather: Sunny, but windy and still unreasonably cold for the location and time of year. 

As we drove into Montrose earlier in the week, I noted 'Montrose Air Station Museum' on the map. It only opens Friday to Sunday, so we couldn't stop by on our way in, but by virtue of still being in town this morning, we could visit on our way out. 

I would share some photos, except I took none. I can only attribute this to how cold it was - even the inside exhibits. After I completely lost the feeling in my fingers, we repaired to Bertie for a cup of tea, before visiting the final two hangars. 

As air museums go (and we've probably been to more than the average person), I wouldn't rate this one as outstanding value for money as it's pretty small with lots of written words, but not a vast number of physical exhibits (entry was £10 for me, £8 for Mick). That said, I would recommend visiting to anyone who has an interest either in the subject or in Montrose; it was interesting and I'm happy to have learnt some stuff, supported them, and heard about their expansion plans. We were there for 3 hours, but it probably would have been four had it been a nice warm day. 

From the museum we came straight to this campsite at Fern, a half-hour drive away. Tomorrow morning we've got another half-hour drive to get to the hills I intend to visit this weekend.  

 

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.) 

 

Wednesday 4 March - Berastegi

Where's Bertie? He's still at Berastegi

Weather: Sunny and warm, but a bit breezy

Just as I was about to put tea on the table last night, Mick nipped out to put a couple of things in the recycling bin, about twenty paces away. After a while I wondered if he'd failed to notice the big bank of bins almost next to us and had gone on walkabout, but it turned out that he was just chatting to our Dutch neighbour. His tea may have been cold by the time he got back, but it was a fortuitous chat, as he received a recommendation that the Menu del Día at the bar in the village was excellent. A plan was thus formed: I would get up early(ish), head out for a 4-hour run/walk at 8am, then we'd go for lunch about 1pm, after which we would either get on the road for the shortish hop up to France, or we'd stay here another night. 

I'd downloaded three possible routes for my outing and ended up doing a mishmash of two of them, taking in six summits (the highest being 860m) and amassing 900m of ascent over the course of 19km. 

The first summit didn't have much merit, and I felt like I'd trespassed to get there (I have no idea what the access laws are, but my observation in Spain in general is that if there's a track and it's not marked as private, then it's fair game. On this route, however, I'd left a track to walk up a field and into a felled forest, which felt a bit dubious. That said, just about everywhere that someone may want to cross a field boundary there seemed to be a gate or some sort of a cobbled together style, so maybe access is accepted even off-piste hereabouts). The second summit had a trig point and good (if slightly hazy views) over a magnificent looking ridge that still had some small patches of snow. 

I opted to bypass the next couple of nobbles along the ridge (they felt even more like trespassing to me), but detoured to the next couple. Then came the highlights of the outing - a couple of summits topped by rocky tors. The first one was easy to navigate and technically the second would have been too, but it was a scramble with some big chasms in the rock, where a fall would have serious consequences, so I erred on the side of caution and made do with getting within metres of the cross on the summit. 

My final high point (811m) was accidental. On a path through another grassy field (where I was confident I was allowed to be by the fact that another chap was following me, and four came the other way - I feel like I saw more walkers on this outing than I've seen in the last month combined) was indistinct on the ground and I wasn't sure which side of a fence I needed to be. Having crossed the fence I decided I was on the wrong side of it, by which time I thought I may as well re-route over one final top. 

Setting off back down the hill, I thought I was going to be late for my lunch date, but it was a speedy descent and I actually arrived a few minutes early, and not alone, as Mick had walked out along the road to meet me. It had been a thoroughly enjoyable route that I'd happily do again, although I'd probably choose to do the PR111 next time, and to take Mick with me. 

Back at Bertie, it was a quick shower and change, then out to Ategi Taberna, where I was pleased to see that the menu was written in Spanish, not Basque. The food was good, and the place was reasonably busy for a Wednesday. It seemed a little odd, just after being served our main courses, that our puddings were put down on the table next to us, but it wasn't just us. A couple that came in after us were still on their first courses when their mains were delivered, and their puddings arrived just after they started their mains. It's obviously just the way they do it, and as everyone else seemed to be local and regular customers (everyone seemed to know everyone else), it's obviously just accepted. It does make for a rather fast lunch, though. 

Given how close this place is to the route that we've now many times driven through Spain, we'd happily pop by again, even if just for a lunch stop.  

We could have driven on into France after lunch, but given what a nice spot this is, and that it's free and quiet, we decided to stay another night. That gives us three days to get from here to Calais, so we'll be in full-on driving mode from tomorrow. The only potential fly in the ointment is that on the TV news in the bar there were reports of queues at petrol stations in Spain due to the attack on Iran. If that escalates into large-scale panic buying and fuel shortage, that could be problematic to our journey. It's not something we can control though, so no point worrying about it.  

I'm liking the variety of field boundaries hereabouts. No one seems to go in for manufactured fence posts - any piece of straight-enough local tree will do.  

   

Dry stone walls are prevalent too

 If you can look past me and the trig point, that's a fine ridge as the backdrop. The map tells me its high points are around 13-1400m.

I passed a lot of hunting/shooting infrastructure (and I'm sure some of the paths I took were created solely to cater to that activity). I don't think the scale comes across here - the scaffolding tower atop which sits a the shooting but, in this snap, was hugely tall. No way would you get me up that ladder!

Talking of not climbing things, this is the summit I didn't quite reach. Technically straightforward enough, but grykes were of man-eating size and a slip would have ruined more than just my day. 

There was active felling going on just to my left (two trees fell in the short time it took me to cross this section). In the UK there would have been signs prohibiting me from proceeding and warning me not to approach machinery, not to mention not to climb on timber stacks. There was not a single sign here, and do you know what? I applied the exact same degree of caution as I would have if there had been signs.

Three courses, including a bottle of wine, for €14. When we'd ordered the first item on the 'Segundo Plato' list had been rabbit.

 

 
 

 

Tuesday 3 March - Berastegi

Where's Bertie? He's in a small Aire in the village of Berastegi. Exact location: 43.12372, -1.98324

Weather: Disappointingly overcast, against a forecast of sunshine, but warm this afternoon (17 max)

We woke up to the sound of light rain on Bertie's roof - a surprise as there was no mention of it in the forecast and it must have continued for around an hour. It was still overcast as we set out, but based on the forecast we expected that either the sun would win through, or we would drive out from under the cloud. Unfortunately neither happened, although the afternoon did warm up as predicted even with the cloud cover. 

Our initial journey was a short one, to a petrol station (€1.266/litre), then a supermarket, in Tudela, where our trolley, along with some groceries, included 18 bottles of wine and 24 cans of beer. It's a long way to haul it home from Spain, but Mick knows some of the wines he likes in Spain and the prices are so low that it makes it worthwhile (our entire shop, including the food, came in at €82).

It was then a 2-hour drive up to Berastegi. If we had been solely chasing the weather, we would have continued on another hour or so to Capbreton, but I've run around the Capbreton area a few times now, and fancied something a bit different and hillier, so an Aire within 3km of our route and in a typical village in the Basque Country fitted the bill nicely.

Once again, lunch was our first priority on arrival, then I sought out a route for us to go and do this afternoon, settling for one that did a circuit around the outside of the village (6.8km, 225m).

I don't think we saw a single thing that didn't scream 'Basque Country' at us. The landscape and buildings are so distinctive that using the 'if I was abducted by aliens and abandoned here' test, I don't think I'd struggle to know where I was.  

Final remark of the day: we are parked right next to a church (a disproportionately large one in such a location, I would say) complete with a chiming clock. The chimes aren't the loudest, but I wouldn't be surprised if they continue all night. 

 

Views

 

We saw a few fields with lambs and not recent ones either.

 

We also saw more than one field containing miniature horses. Do they have a purpose?

 

 

  

 

Monday 2 March – Zaragoza and Mallén

Where’s Bertie? He spent last night in the motorhome parking area in Zaragoza and tonight he’s in a little Aire just outside of the village of Mallén.

Weather: Yesterday: sunny and warm. Today: overcast first half of the morning, then clearing to sunshine and gradually warming up to around 17 degrees.

We weren’t in any rush to leave the Aire at Morella yesterday morning. Having paid for 24 hours, we thought we may as well tarry a while and take advantage of having electricity. We weren’t entirely successful in our tarrying, and just before 11 we got on the road to Zaragoza.

We’ve driven past the city a few times now, so thought that on this occasion we'd stop by to have a look at the place, killing two birds with one stone by also making our mandatory trip to a Decathlon store. 

The motorhome parking area is on the north side of the city (we usually pass to the south) and we arrived* to find it busier than expected, but managed to nab one of two empty spaces (out of, I think, 50, although there were plenty of motorhomes parked elsewhere in the large car park too).

Being gone 1pm by then, lunch was our first priority, then I mixed the dough ready for a fresh loaf of bread. Once that was done, we thought it was a bit late to be heading off into town, so instead we filled a backpack with laundry and walked the 1.3km to the nearest laundrette.

The smallest washing machine they had there was 13kg. We had a 5kg load with us. Bit of a waste, and possibly the most expensive wash & dry we’ve ever done in Spain (€10 for one wash cycle and one dry cycle). Arguably, I should have just continued to wear my smelly running gear, and bought a few more pairs of pants!

Whilst it had been a semi-overcast start to the day in Morella, we’d driven out into clearer conditions, enjoying wall-to-wall sunshine and a warm afternoon in Zaragoza. With the forecast being the same for today, we were looking forward to good sight-seeing conditions…

…we awoke to a heavily overcast morning! Perhaps, with hindsight, we should have lounged around for most of the morning, but we didn’t think to do that, so it was only just gone 0930 when we donned warm jackets and gloves and wandered the few paces to the tram stop. The trams run frequently, and we had no wait at all - just as the ticket machine spat out our tickets, a tram pulled up; ten minutes later we were in the city centre. 

First on the agenda, having walked past some of the city’s Roman remains, was the Basilica, which is a mightily eye-catching building from afar. It had a good smattering of bling and features inside too, but wasn’t one of the most awe-inspiring interiors I’ve seen.

Next was the Goya museum, except it turns out that it’s closed this year for complete renovation. Harrumph! We might have gone to the city museum instead, except that is also currently closed. So we wandered around a bit, saw another church and the adjacent mansion, wandered around the market, then ducked into a bar next door for coffee (and to warm up – it was somewhere between 8 and 12 degrees out, depending on which display you believed).

At that point, we decided we’d seen enough of Zaragoza. It’s a bigger city than either of us had realised, and although we only saw a bit of it (we probably saw more of the suburbs than of the centre, with our walk to the laundrette yesterday and our further wanderings whilst the washer was washing), we liked what we saw.

We walked back to Bertie, via a big shopping centre that housed Decathlon. There we were restrained, coming away with just a new fleece for each of us.

The sun had won through and we were overheating in our jackets by the time we got back to Bertie, whose interior was also toasty warm with the sun on his windscreen. We might then have sat around for the rest of the afternoon, to move on tomorrow morning, but the Aire is neither attractive nor in the quietest location, being metres away from a busy road, along the middle of which runs the tram. Thus, after a quick lunch, Bertie rolled back out of the car park and came, via a detour to a Lidl, to Mallén, which is just a stone’s throw away from the motorway.

We’re just outside the village here, but it’s only a 1km walk to the church, so for another leg-stretch as much as anything else, we wandered up to see it. As with almost all churches these days, it was locked, and the outside wasn’t interesting enough for me to trouble to take a snap. However, we did get the impression from our walk there, together with an information sign we found showing the location of five or six mansion houses, that this used to be a prosperous place. On the street we walked, we noted some very grand historic buildings, with their lower walls bulging outwards, other old houses in a similar but worse state, intermingled with far newer buildings that have obviously replaced some of the former category. It made me wonder whether there had been an earthquake hereabouts to cause all the structural degredation and such an extensive programme of replacing the old with new (rather than the expected renovation of the old).

 (*As we arrived in Zaragoza there was a marching band practice in progress in the car park where the motorhome parking is location. I feel that if there was to be a bingo card of things that we often encounter on a trip to Spain, a marching band practice in a car park where we're staying is one of them.)

We got to see Morella under a blue sky before we left yesterday morning

The basilica in Zaragoza. It's not short of domes and spires. 

Fountain of the day

Roman remains and a wonky tower  

Saturday 28 February - Montegordo, Tirig & Morella

Where's Bertie? He's in a Camping-Car Park in Morella at a cost of €12 including electricity.

Weather: Mainly overcast and cooler (although partly because we've spent much of the day at altitude)

A couple of days ago Conrad (conradwalks.blogspot.com) commented that the prominent hill in this photo looked inviting:

I agreed, and it was a focal point for a chunk of our outing around a smaller local hill yesterday. Examining the map, I found that it's called Montegordo, that it stands at 837m, and that there's a path all the way to the top. From where we were parked, it would be a round trip of 12km. It also lay in the path of our onward journey, so I asked Mick whether, if I nipped up it first thing, he would come and pick me up from the nearest road, saving me 2.5km uphill on tarmac to get back to Bertie. Mick readily agreed, and thus at 8 this morning I set out to visit its summit.

After weeks of sunshine, I managed to pick an overcast day, and although there were more patches of blue sky around than I expected, at the relatively early hour, the very top was shrouded. I could only hope that the cloud would rise quicker than I did. 

The cloud did not rise one bit, so I didn't get to enjoy the views from the summit, although it was clear for most of the way up and down, giving me sight of a most pleasing landscape. The ascent gradient was easy enough, so the only slowing factors were a few rocky steps and the combination of the narrowness of the path and the spikiness of the scrubby bushes lining it, which saw me finish with scratched and bloody legs. Mick and I timed our rendezvous perfectly, both arriving at the pick-up point at the exact same moment.

Our onward route to Museu de la Valltora, involved a relatively narrow and very winding road, just wide enough for Bertie and a car or small van to pass (fortunately, it's not a heavily trafficked road, which kept stress low). The subject of the museum is cave art, and it comprises four main rooms with a couple of other minor exhibits in the entrance hall, but the main attraction is a visit to one of the caves to the see the art. The latter has to be as part of a guided group, the tours are only in Spanish, and they happen at 4 different times during the day. We were timed nicely for the 11am tour, but after consultation with Mick, we decided we weren't that fussed about it. Having visited a cave in France to see the art, it was difficult to see what we would get out of another similar visit, particularly when we would likely understand almost nothing that was being said.

I did, however, understand most of what the chap on the reception desk explained to us about the museum, then we set about seeing the exhibits. Interesting stuff - if only we could more readily have understood more of the explanatory text. I started learning Spanish on Duolingo a little over 6 years ago, have missed two days in all that time, and have almost finished the course, yet still I've not met my objective of being able to understand exhibits in museums. 

Leaving the museum, the question was 'where next?'. One option was the Aire at Tirig, and we did pause outside its entrance and consider going in, but the final decision was to continue another 45 minutes to Morella. 

The reason I wanted to visit Morella is because this is its striking appearance when you drive past on the N232...
 

...which had caused me to put a pin in Google Maps when we drove by last year, reminding us to visit. On our outbound leg this year, the Aire was marked on Park4Night as being closed for renovation, but I'd since seen that it was still possible to park here, but the Service Point was out of action. 

So, we drove to the Aire, to find that as of 3 days ago, it has had a barrier installed and is now part of the Camping-Car Park scheme, taking it from a free stop-over with a service point, to a €12 per night stop with electricity and a service point. That feels rather expensive for what it is, in rural Spain, but it is in a tourist hot-spot. We deferred the decision as to whether to stay by driving up towards the town car park, but nabbing a free spot by the aqueduct on our way.

Wrapping up warm (11 degrees feels awfully cool after the last few weeks of warmth), we headed off for the city walls, thence to the castle. Having taken the trouble to do that, I thought it was worth the entrance fee to go inside. It turned out to be slightly cheaper than it should have been, as having asked for one adult and one senior, I was sold two senior tickets. I didn't complain, but was also slightly insulted.

It proved to be worth the admission price, and we wandered around at some length. Unfortunately, the App advertised on various signs around the place as offering an audio tour no longer exists, but there was a good smattering of tri-lingual signs. I approved of how brief they were - using very simple language (I could even understand the Spanish!) they just gave a sentence of explanation about each feature. Incidentally, the (literal) high point of the castle stands at 1070m; when I topped out at 837m on Montegordo this morning I had absolutely no expectation that I would be walking up to an even higher point today, although granted our starting point was somewhat higher this afternoon. 

On leaving the castle, we dropped down to the far side of the town before walking all the way back around to Bertie, thus seeing a fair smattering of its streets. 

By now the afternoon was marching on rapidly towards teatime, and a swift decision had to be made: to fork out for the Aire that was a 2-minute drive away, or to continue another 45 minutes to Alcañiz. If the Aire here hadn't had electricity, we would have driven on, for a lower altitude and a warmer temperature, but if we're paying €12 for electricity, we are darn well going to run our electric heater!

Montegordo, with cloud just capping its summit. The outward leg started with 2.5km of road (avoided on the way back by Mick picking me up on our way to our next stop). 

Views. That olive orchard contained cows with clanging bells.

In places the path was nice and open...

...but most of the time spiky things wanted my blood

 

On the way down, a bank of cloud on the left, clear on the right.

Summit selfie

Next stop, cave art (reproduction, in the museum)

Next stop, Morella (taken from half way up the hill, where we parked Bertie)

 

Looking down on the town from the castle

 Walking through the town, back to Bertie