Saturday 23 March - Home

Where’s Bertie? He’s sitting on our drive at home, where he arrived via Thursday night at Cite Europe (a large shopping centre next to the Eurotunnel Terminal by Calais) and Friday night at a Caravan Club site just off the northern terminus of the M23 (S of London).

Leaving Neufchatel-en-Bray, on Thursday morning, the SatNav was programmed to Wissant with the intention going for lunch there, before continuing on to Cite Europe. The Aire at Wissant is a much nicer overnight stop than the one at Cite Europe (the latter is not an attractive location and suffers from people coming and going all night long, as the only reason most people would stay there is due to a late or early Tunnel crossing), but there were a few things we wanted to buy and we wanted to see what the EuroTunnel queues were like in view of the on-going French Custom’s industrial action.

It was always going to be tight to get to Wissant in time for lunch, and en-route we abandoned that plan. Plan B was a quick visit to Montreuil-sur-Mer (which, contrary to its name, is not on the coast). We’d not been there before, having been thwarted mid-journey last November by a road closure with an excessive diversion.

Our visit was only a couple of hours or so, and not nearly long enough to do the town justice. However, we did see enough to tell us that we will go back sometime to explore further.

Onwards to our night stop and our final approach was a little non-standard (SatNav’s fault) involving the ‘oh gosh, this isn’t where I need to be!’ emergency exit from the Eurotunnel check-in area. It turned out to be a very fortuitous bit of bad routing, as it informed us that: a) the delays only affected freight (lorries were queued back onto the Autoroute); and b) the sneaky direct access between Eurotunnel and Cite Europe, which Mick had read about, really is feasible.

We used that route to great effect yesterday morning, followed by an efficient passage through check-in, customs and border control. The rest of the process didn’t go as smoothly as usual, and would have been off-putting had it been our first and only experience of the Tunnel, but we still managed to arrive back in the UK by 8am, slightly ahead of our booked arrival time.

It was on our way to pop in on a friend in Crawley that I decided that I couldn’t face the M25 on a Friday afternoon. Ten minutes later I’d researched and booked a Caravan Club site for the night. At £21.30, it highlights the difference in pricing between the UK and Europe (remember our entire week at Silves which came in at less than twice the price of one night here). It also highlighted that in future there’s no point in me booking a Friday morning Shuttle on the basis of price, if we’re then going to spend more than the saving staying in the SE so that we can drive north on the weekend.

My plans for what we were going to do with Friday afternoon went entirely out of the window in favour of lazing around, with the absolute highlight being use of the mains-water shower, with user-operated temperature control and which doesn’t involve a push-button or a payment meter. I had it unreasonably hot and stayed in there an unreasonably long time. Bliss!

That brings us to today, when we got about as early a start as is permitted (the campsite is protected by fearsome armoured barriers, only operational between 7am and 11pm). The early hour gave us an easy journey around the M25 as far as Byfleet, where we stopped for a parkrun*.

I can’t say much about the rest of the journey. I knitted and chose things for us to listen to. Mick drove. And here we are, back at home, where we were unusually efficient with the unpacking, having everything in the house within around half an hour of arrival. It will be a longer process to get stuff sorted and put away and to deal with the laundry mountain – probably just in time for us to be thinking about the next trip!

(* I can’t think that I’ve ever recognised anyone purely on their voice before, but when I heard a ‘Passing on your right!’ behind me on my second lap of the course, I thought ‘That’s Paul Sinton-Hewitt!’. He founded what is now parkrun and whilst I’d never met him before I have heard enough interviews with him to know his voice.)

Wednesday 20 March - Neufchâtel-en-Bray

Where's Bertie? He's at the commercial Aire at Neufchâtel-en-Bray, where he's been on a few previous occasions. It's still €12 with all facilities you'd expect at a campsite.
Weather: Foggy start, clearing to sunshine this afternoon.

Yesterday morning I woke up in Saint Genouph at 5.20am and with one heck of a start. The cause? A revving engine that was squealing like a stuck pig. It was an early start for our neighbour, whose van looked to be at least 30 years old and whose engine has definitely seen better days.

Before we hit the road ourselves (at a far more sociable hour!) I took a little bit of a stroll. The signage in the Aire perhaps summed the place up in stating the local highlights: free wifi at the Aire; walks starting behind the church; and a vegetable vending machine at the Mairie. When a vegetable vending machine is one of your main boasts, there probably isn't a lot to see - which is a good thing really, as I didn't have the best conditions in which to appreciate the place:

Indecision as to destination preceded our departure: to break the remaining journey into chunks of not-too-much-driving-each-day, or to have a big driving day followed by a day of being stationary? The decision made was that we didn't yet need to decide, as wherever we stopped it wasn't going to be more than a metaphorical stone's throw from our route north.

A detour of less than 100m from the main road gave us this view for our lunchbreak.

We went short in the end, parking up at Nonancourt early in the afternoon, giving us plenty of time for a leg-stretch. The last time we were there was the first week of November 2016 and neither of us had strong recollections of the place, although our memories were jogged as we walked.

Looking along one of the two water courses that separate Nonancourt from its neighbour.

Just one of the half-timbered houses. In a nearby street there's a whole higgledy-piggledy row of them.

I'd intended going for a run around Nonancourt this morning, but waking up to a chilly start I talked myself out of it on the bases that it would be busy with people going to school/work, it was cold and it was foggy. It suddenly made far more sense to have a quick breakfast, drive 2 hours up the road and run when we arrived in Neufchâtel (the Aire sits right across the road from a disused railway line leisure route), so that's exactly what I did.

Tomorrow will see us take our final hop up to Calais and on Friday morning we'll cross back to the UK. Within a day or two we'll then be at home, whereupon I'll be able to find out if the running on this trip has cancelled out the cakes, such that I can fit into my posh frock for a do we're attending at the beginning of April!

Talking of cakes...

^{(The only point of note on today's journey (noteworthy for my own reference; I appreciate this is likely not remotely interesting to anyone else) is that it's not worth taking the toll road for the 12 kilometres preceding the free section south of Rouen. The €3.30 charge saved us (per the SatNav) 3km and less than 8 minutes. At least now we know.)}

Monday 18 March - Saint Genouph

Where's Bertie? He's at an Aire in the small settlement of Saint Genouph, which sits around 4 miles to the west of Tours. It's free to stay here with free water, waste and wifi. Exact location: 47.37686, 0.60185.
Weather: Sunny intervals this morning, followed by a showery afternoon.

We'd not long arrived at a lake on the outskirts of the town of Châtelleraut this morning (only about 6km from last night's Aire) when Mick, in reaching into Bertie's garage for a bottle of water, asked why it was wet in there. A few minutes later and we had the entire contents of the garage spread over the two adjacent parking areas and a significant mopping-up operation was in progress. We've ruled out a couple of possibilities as to where the water came from and think (and are very much hoping!) that it was the result of a spillage from not putting a lid on one of the bottles sometime over the last few days, rather than a leak.

With everything dried as best we could and re-stowed, it was just a little later than intended when I set out for my run. I could have run from where we spent last night, but that would have involved little roads. By relocating to the lake, I had a forest full of trails at my disposal. In fact, so many trails that it took quite a bit of navigating to find the ones that formed the particular route I was trying to follow. That route (which is also a Strava Segment, which is how I found it) is 7.5 miles long, but parking on the other side of the lake from the start point, then doing a couple of circuits of the water at the end, brought it up to 10 miles, which I adjudged to be enough for today. Running around a forest may be conveniently traffic free (although I did have a bit of excitement with logging operations), but with a lack of views there's not much by way of visual distraction.

There are a lot of junctions to be navigated in that forest!

Looking across the lake towards Bertie

It must have been approaching the middle of the day by the time we pointed Bertie north to come to Saint Genouph, and there was a necessary stop at a supermarket en-route. I can't report on whether it's an interesting village that's hosting us tonight. The tiredness I was suffering before this morning's run was not improved by the exercise and this afternoon's showers have provided further excuse to do nothing. Thus I have not stepped outside of Bertie's door since we arrived and if I do so later it will only be to venture as far as the bin or the drain. On that basis, I would say it wasn't worth us coming here, except that it did move us a further hour and a half towards Calais, which is where we need to be by the end of the week.

Sunday 17 March - Chezelles

Where's Bertie? He's at a small Aire in the village of Chezelles, which sits between two rivers to the south of Châtellerault. Exact location: 46.76638, 0.51061.
Weather: Rainy start, then sunny intervals with the occasional shower. Getting increasingly breezy and relatively cool at a max of 10 degrees.

After yesterday morning's ParkRun at des Dougnes, followed by coffee with les runneurs, we headed north for a two hour drive to the house of a chap called Simon, an ex-colleague of Mick. The last they saw each other was 30 years ago and whilst social media may have its negative side, they would almost certainly never have met again if it hadn't been for Facebook.

A day of chatting, followed by an evening of being sociable with a whole room full of strangers at Simon's friend's birthday party, followed by a late night, saw us feeling a little on the tired side today.

Thus, on the one hand what I really wanted to do with today was to sit quietly and recharge; however, I also saw that we were about an hour away from Poitiers, and if there's a good day to park near to a city centre and have a good look around, then Sunday is it.

To Poitiers we therefore went, heading straight for the only car parking option that looked appealing for a potential night-stop. It was the furthest one away from our route in, and we got there to find it temporarily closed for construction works. We'd passed another couple of options on our way in, but aside from not really feeling inclined to backtrack, both looked busy and tight (probably because the big car park just up the road is currently out of action!), so we gave in to the laziness, drove straight on through to the other end of town and rejoined the D910 north.

Half an hour later, we were here in this small village and after contemplating the options over lunch, we decided to stay.

A little stroll has, of course, featured in an otherwise-quiet afternoon. There's an historic ruin visible from Bertie's side windows, so we headed over for a look, guessing from what we could see at a distance that it was an old abbey. We were close (not!): it's the remains of a Roman amphitheatre:

Friday 15 March - Cubnezais (France)

Where's Bertie? He's at an Aire (with no services) in the small village of Cubnezais. Exact location: 45.07533, -0.40938.
Weather: Overcast with a few showers.

Having a few hours of driving ahead of us, plus the need for a few stops, we were on our way not long after 8 this morning, although our first leg wasn't far - to a couple of fuel stations before we left Spain. The first was at a supermarket for diesel, the second the adjacent Repsol for LPG, both of which fuels are significantly cheaper in Spain than France. The saving easily made up for the extra €1.34 we incurred by pulling off the toll motorway then rejoining it at the same junction.

A couple of hours later we got charged both on leaving and rejoining the toll motorway to nip to a Lidl to the east of Capbreton (France), but here the junction layout was such that in so doing we missed out the toll booths on the main carriageway, and I think the exit and entry charges between them added up to the same as the single charge had we gone through the main toll plaza.

Having had elevenses in Lidl's car park, we could possibly have made it through to our destination without stopping again, but that would have made for a late lunch, and we weren't in any rush, so into a nice wooded motorway rest area we pulled. Just before and just after that we tested my belief that one can avoid the tolls along this entire section of motorway by leaving at the junction before the toll plazas and rejoining at the junction after*, taking the road alongside the motorway between those two points. I was just as surprised that it worked this time as I was when a previous SatNav directed us to do that a few years ago. For a saving of €11 it was a worthwhile detour which probably added less than 10 minutes to our overall journey.

Our destination for the day was the car park for tomorrow's ParkRun at Les Dougnes (30km N of Bordeaux), and we duly positioned Bertie into the same spot as he has occupied the previous twice that we've done that run. We have never stayed there overnight before, for fear of it being the sort of location that one might get boy racers and ne'er-do-wells disturbing us into the night, but this time we thought we'd give it a go. It probably would have been fine, but having parked Bertie on top of what was clearly the location where a car had been burnt out, and having taken a walk that took us past another such site, a rethink was had. Whilst certain that car burning's are not a nightly occurence, why take the risk when we know there are official motorhome parking areas in nearby villages?

Our plan to go to our previous overnight spot in the village of Cavignac, but on spotting that Cubnezias was closer, we came here instead. We have rows of grapevines on two sides of this large car park and the village on the other two. We could have stayed at the free Aire (including electricity) at the vineyard that is about 300m in front of us, but I would have felt it rude to do that and not buy any wine. We're happy enough with the car park Aire, and instead we've spent our pennies in the local Boulangerie/Patisserie:

^{(*A63 J11-J12 and J17-J18. Except for those short sections, we took the motorway for the whole of today's journey at a total cost, including the extra charge for leaving/rejoining for fuel, of just over €17. A reasonable sum, we felt, as the free-roads route on this section takes a good couple of hours longer than the motorway.)}

Thursday 14 March - Tolosa

Where's Bertie? He's all alone at a 12-place Aire in the town of Tolosa in the Basque Country. It used to cost €1/24 hours to stay here, but is now free (including services). Exact location: 43.13394, -2.08394.
Weather: Glorious but cold start, but overcast by the time we arrived in Tolosa. Max temp today around 11 degrees.

I was on a mission today: to arrive at our destination early enough to go for a final Menu del Dia before we leave Spain tomorrow. That led to a bit of a rush this morning, as before we left Torquemada I/we needed to:
- wait until the heating had warmed Bertie enough for me to feel inclined to get out of bed (it got down to -1 outside last night, so it was a frosty start);
- go for a run;
- have a shower;
- have breakfast;
- find a suitable destination;
- empty and fill Bertie at the service point.

Glorious morning, but I ran along the narrow village streets before the sun had chance to make it over the buildings, so it was a bit nippy.

All things considered, we did well to get away at 10am. That left us no time for stops en-route, and it was around 1320 when we did a tour of the car parks here in Tolosa before finally finding the allocated motorhome parking in the least attractive spot, behind the car parks (we were misled at first by many motorhomes in the car parks, but it looks like they're locals' vans, using the free parking as storage).

View from Bertie's front bumper (across a couple of car parks containing lots of in-storage motorhomes). That's an impressive hill over there.

Donning warm jackets, we were soon on our way into town in search of an eatery. Given the time and my level of hunger, my tactic today was to eat at the first place we saw that had a Menu del Dia displayed outside (provided it contained something suitable for both of us).

First blackboard we saw. Yep, that'll do!

The bar didn't look too appealing as we entered, but we stuck with it and had an excellent lunch. In fact, there's not a single thing about either meal that we could fault.

Understanding none of the options reeled off to us, pudding was a pot luck affair. Mick caught the word 'chocolate' and we both went with it, landing ourselves incredibly rich chocolate fondant puddings. Yum!

As for the town, on the bits we saw, it looked a good place for a walk around and I would have done precisely that on another day (preferably one about 10 degrees warmer!), particularly as there are numbered information signs dotted around, suggesting there's a cultural tour route. However, today's only objective was that big lunch, so afterwards we were happy simply to waddle back to Bertie for a quiet rest of the day.

An attractive town, with avenues of trees to provide shade in summer

Wednesday 13 March - Torquemada

Where's Bertie? He's looking at the churchyard wall*, at an Aire in the village of Torquemada, just to the north of Palencia (not to be confused with Plasencia, where we were yesterday). Exact location: 42.03709, -4.31602.
Weather: Glorious start and finish, but a bit of high level cloud during the latter parts of the drive.

We've been blessed with a whole string of night stops that have been away from any significant road noise, but that run came to an end last night. I can't say it disturbed me as such, but when I did come to, I noticed it.

The other thing we noticed both last night and this morning were multiple tannoy announcements. I pictured one of those cars going around with speakers on the roof and wondered how important the message was. It was Mick who was observant and, on our way out for this morning's run, spotted that we were parked opposite the bus station.

Mick had a successful run. I didn't, abandoning after half a mile due to a painful cramplike pain in my hip. Hopefully just a spasm that won't recur. After grabbing a fleece and gloves, I made do with walking smaller circuits whilst Mick ran four laps of the perimeter of the park.

There then ensued a few hours of driving, broken only by a lunch break at a motorway service area. I should have taken the wheel after that break, but given the choice between driving or knitting, I chose the latter to pass the time, whilst Mick happily did chauffeuring duties.

Glorious sky, but snow on that there hill (we climbed quite a bit today, which combined with the headwind wasn't good for the fuel consumption stats).

Until about 20 minutes before arrival, when I reset the SatNav to Torquemada, Palencia had been our destination. We've been there twice before and, because it's a bit of a detour from the motorway, there was no time difference between going there or coming here, but here put us further north.

This afternoon's walk was based on recceing a running route for the morning (fingers crossed for that!), but it also served to give us a reasonably thorough tour of the village.

In the main, it's a tatty place with a semi-abandoned look to it. The street nearest to Bertie had us wondering about crime hereabouts, with just about every house having armour-cladding on their doors and windows:

These houses look to be in much better nick than most, so my guess is that the armour was applied when they were being renovated, then work ground to a halt and they've been left this way for protection against vandals/thieves/squatters.

The village centre, near to the main square, is perhaps a little better presented...

 ...but even there, it only takes an about turn to reveal some real quality construction:

Then the far end of town is an odd mix of run down and cheap-looking housing, right opposite a number of huge new(ish) builds.

What is easy on the eye is the historic bridge over the river and the adjacent mill(?):

 As for the weather/season, whilst our walk was undertaken entirely under blue skies, it is clear that somewhere along the way today we drove out of summer and into spring. It's no longer shorts-and-tshirt weather out there and the forecast says it's going to get down to 1 degree tonight.

^{(*We made like Goldilocks and tried three spaces, in various orientations, before we settled for the corner slot, nose-in. It means we haven't a view (not that there's much of one if we were facing the other way) but we're level.)}