Saturday 19 March - Bergues

Where's Bertie? He's at the free Aire in Bergues. It's his fifth time here, as it's a handy stopover pre- or post-Channel crossing.
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine. A bit of a cool breeze, but lovely when in the sun and out of the wind.

Mick and I stepped out of Bertie together this morning, but he soon trotted off ahead of me whilst I maintained a fast walk. 3.5km in I started introducing short (60s) stints of running, and when after another several kilometres that hadn't caused an adverse reaction, I started to increase the runs and decrease the walks. Then the top of my quad started complaining. Harrumph! I think this is a clear lesson that I am now at the age when I can't neglect strength and conditioning work for 2 months.

Our route went around two ponds/lakes (when does a pond become a lake?), and the 'moat', which included going under the Menin Gate.

I cut short my outing to 2 hours. Mick was back in 3. Showers, breakfast and stowing the huge amount of stuff that had spread itself around in the short time we had been stationary, and we were on the road - good timing for the motorhome that arrived a minute later, to find a single space now available. 

Immediately after the French border, we pulled into a petrol station, where we successfully refuelled with diesel (184.5 - odd how that suddenly seems like good value, having seen prices at 229.9 two days ago), but found the LPG pump to be out of order. Not to worry, the station next door also sells LPG and their pump was working ... but once again it refused to fill Bertie's tanks. I'm not sure what the problem is; it's something we've encountered a number of times before, but never multiple times in a row at different stations. We've still got over a week's worth of gas left, so it's not urgent, it's just that it's gas stations are far more prevalent in Europe than the UK, so we usually go home with full tanks.

Onwards to Bergues, where we found there to be plenty of capacity. There's even more now, as people have left during the afternoon. A contrast to our summer visits when vans have taken to parking in the middle of the large dirt car park, as all sides have been full.

As we've ambled around the town before, this afternoon I took myself for a walk around the outside of the walls. It's a nice place, particularly on a day as fine as this one.

That's pretty much it for this trip, as we're on the Chunnel early tomorrow morning. After two years spent mainly sitting in one place, a two-month trip sounded plenty long enough. In reality, it went in a blink of an eye, and I'm sure we could have amused ourselves for much longer in Spain (although, if we want to grasp a silver lining, the weather up here is much better than in southern Spain just now). Fingers crossed that circumstances don't conspire against our summer plans to return in this direction (before which, plans are afoot for some UK trips).

Bonus snap for Conrad, after tree-related content on his blog a few days ago. Maybe in summer I would have thought "That's a mighty fine tree", but at this time of year it wasn't clear what made it worthy of the award.

Friday 18 March - Ypres

Where's Bertie? He's in a commercial Aire at Ypres, where he's been at least once, maybe twice*, before. It costs €9, including electricity. Water is available at an extra charge of €1.
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine, but with a chilly easterly wind. Somewhere around 12-14 degrees.

I'm not sure if it would have changed how we packed for this trip, but we didn't know at the outset that it would end with us visiting a motorhome dealer to present them with a leak that would require them to access Bertie's two large storage areas: the wardrobe and the garage. Last night I started what felt like a major reorganisation exercise to get as much stuff out of those areas as possible. This morning I put the finishing touches to that exercise, culminating in removing the bike from the boot and chaining it to a fence. Fortunately our dealer is relaxed about working on vans full of stuff, unlike the UK dealer we visited last year, who required Bertie to be *completely* empty.

Based on significant previous experience (Bertie certainly had his problems in his first couple of years; this one, at five years old, is a surprise), we went into the dealership at 9am, for our 1-hour appointment, armed with enough food and drink to see us through to mid-afternoon. They surpassed expectations, and we were on our way again by half past noon, with not only his damp test completed (whatdyaknow - he failed! The good news is that they were able to find the source of the leak), but also with his dodgy door catch replaced. The latter was a surprise, as we'd only pointed it out to them to make sure they didn't slam the door when the catch was in the wrong position, but I'm certainly not going to object to it being fixed. He will be returning for his leak to be fixed, which will be a 2 or 3-day job, in the summer.

Via an Aldi store in a tent (where I was one of only two customers wearing a mask; it seems that Belgium is no longer a mask-wearing nation), we headed to Harelbeke - a location we've stayed for more nights than I can remember over the years. I was optimistic of getting one of the eight spots there, even though it's a Friday, purely because of the hour of day. We found it full.

"Plan B!" I declared.

"What's Plan B?" enquired Mick

It only took me a few moments thought to come up with two options: Kortrijk or Ypres (both would have been repeat visits). Mick chose the latter.

Via a detour for LPG (pump out of service; we're not having much luck on this quest), and via some concrete-slab roads of shocking quality, to Ypres we came.

I think that the last time we were here was during the 'Beast from the East'. Was that 2018? It was certainly cold when we walked into the town on that occasion.*

Today we enjoyed glorious sunshine that felt surprisingly warm when out of the wind. I even got down to my shirtsleeves for most of the outing. However, we didn't go into the town, instead choosing to walk around half of the 'moat'. Mick will be running around the entirety of it tomorrow.

(*With my memory failing me, I did a search of this blog. We've been to this Aire twice before, for a total of three nights, all in March 2018. We also stopped by the adjacent lake for a run in 2019, on our way to Izegem.)

Wednesday and Thursday 16/17 March - Chateau Thierry

Where's Bertie? He spent last night at a commercial Aire at Chateau Thierry, where it cost €7.50 plus 61c each in tourist tax. That included use of toilets, shower and service point. Electricity was available at an extra cost. (Exact location: 49.03645, 3.38333)
Tonight he's outside the motorhome dealership in Belgium where he's spent many a night before.
Weather: Overcast but dry until around the Belgian border, when we drove out from under the cloud and into clear sunshine.

Bit of a disturbed night on Wednesday, as it turned out we were within earshot of a girder* factory where they move stock at intervals through the night. In general I'd rather sleep on a skanky piece of wasteland where it's quiet than in a visually appealing place with loud clangs nearby.

Away at 0830, our first move was to backtrack by a few hundred metres for a fuel station (a branded one) selling Diesel cheaper than we'd seen since entering France, and the cheapest we ended up seeing all day (€1.92/litre).

Our next stop was a Lidl a while later, which was the first place where we really noticed cars covered in Saharan sand. Since then it's been prevalent everywhere we've been, including up here in Belgium. So, that strong wind we had a couple of days ago blew sand all the way up here, yet somehow missed Bertie.

Our lunch stop was in another supermarket car park in Sens, chosen because I'd hoped to buy some specific tea bags there (they're a flavour of Lipton tea that I have only ever found in big Carrefour supermarkets in France; they're not generally available, other than via Amazon, in the UK). They didn't have the tea bags, but I made use of the stop not only to cook us some lunch, but also to decide where we were going to end our day.

I can't tell you how many times over the last week I've run the search of 'My location' to 'Campirama NV' in Google Maps, checking and double checking routes, distances and places through which we will pass. I did that again, chose a place along the way, and looked for somewhere to spend the night.

Free places to stay are easy to come by in France, but we opted to pay for an Aire again, for the convenience factor (it was barely a stone's throw out of our way, and right next to a river for Mick to run along). I duly programmed it into the SatNav and told Google Maps to take us there, and off we went for our final two hour drive of the day.

The day had already involved mainly little yellow D roads (as depicted in the road atlas, not literally yellow! 100km had been on motorway, the rest of the day was on yellow roads), but they'd been fine. Much of the time they'd been straight, had barely any traffic and, inexplicably to us, had a 90km/h speed limit that didn't even reduce to 70 for junctions.

Straight and wooded

Straight and not wooded. Oooh look, another vehicle!

The afternoon's yellow roads were a different proposition, wiggling, poorly surfaced and sometimes on the narrow side. It was only when I handed over the wheel to Mick, and checked where we were that I had a 'Why are we here?!' moment. A bit of playing with Google Maps revealed that when I put in a long route with the destination being Belgium, it was giving me route options along trunk roads. However, when in Sens I'd given it a destination 120km ahead, it had decided to ignore its own advice for the longer journey and routed us along little roads. Something to be aware of in the future!

On the plus side, it was a shorter route, so saved some pennies on fuel.

Arriving in Chateau Thierry off we headed for an early evening stroll up the river:

I think its colour comes across in this snap. It's quite a greeny hue.

We returned to Bertie toting a case of 12 boxes of tea bags after a chance spotting of a Carrefour. Yay! Tea bag success! Hopefully we'll be back in France to replenish long before they run out.

This morning Mick headed off for a run whilst I set out at a walk, my adductor still grumbling away. My outing turned into a speed-walking sightseeing tour, taking in a visit to the castle:

Being in no rush to arrive in Belgium, back at Bertie coffee and second breakfast was preceded by showers. The fact that the shower was on the cold side of tepid was ameliorated by the big fan heater in the room that had turned itself on when I entered.

There's nowt to say about the rest of today. We drove a lot, failed to buy LPG despite a detour (the pump delivered 1 litre to Bertie's tank and then refused to give us any more), and arrived here at 1600. The cost of diesel now seems to be falling, so hopefully by the time we next fill up (probably on Saturday in France, as it's more expensive in Belgium) it will be cheaper still.

Sculpture of the day.

(*I have no knowledge that it was actually a girder factory; that's just what it sounded like to me.)

Tuesday 15 March - Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule

Where's Bertie? He's at a free Aire on the bank of the river Sioule at Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule. A service point is available for a fee (exact location: 46.31349, 3.29600).
Weather: Overcast but dry. 18 degrees at destination.

The wind really got up last evening and into the night and with it coming side-on to the pitches, Bertie's broad side took a walloping that caused us to pitch and roll. Even so, a good night's sleep was had.

I was unusually quick this morning in deciding where we were going to end the day, and once I'd seen that it was to be 18 degrees and sunny here this afternoon (although only the former prediction proved to be accurate), we made haste to leave Sainte-Eulalie-de-Cernon. Our haste was such that we were prepared to defer our runs until the end of the day (the wind speed may have also been a deciding factor...), but wasn't such that we were prepared to forego the showers that were on offer at the Aire. They were push-button you-take-what-temperature-you're-given jobs, but at that hour of the morning the water was verging on too hot, which was perfect in a cold shower block.

I've only two observations about our driving day (which consisted of: drive, stop for coffee, drive, stop for lunch, drive, arrive): 1) this route through France, which we've never driven before, is remarkably undulating; there didn't seem to be any flat road, it's all either up or down, mainly steep enough for warning signs about the gradient; 2) In view of (1), it's a great bonus that the strong wind was coming from behind - it's not the sort of terrain where we expect to see our average MPG increasing, as we did today.

The Aire we've come to is a good one. Seventy five demarcated pitches laid out either side of a track that runs parallel to the river, with the pitches on one side of the track being right on the edge of the water. It's a shame that we're only here for a night-stop.

Having foregone our runs this morning, the second thing we did on arrival (after a cup of tea) was to head out along the river. Alas, after two days of sitting still, my left adductor wasn't happy with the activity and only made it 4.8km before tying itself in a knot. Walking in circles whilst Mick did another lap of the riverside park, it did gradually ease off, but it's not happy. Let's hope some dedicated stretching soon has it back happy.

The only photo taken today.

(*Mick has reminded me that there was one other notable thing in our drive today. The motorway rest area at which we stopped for morning coffee was chosen purely because it fell at a convenient time, but turned out to be a viewing point for the Garabit Viaduct, built by some chap called Eiffel in the 1880s and opened in 1885. It was, apparently, at the time, the largest viaduct ever built. Mick took this snap of it:

Monday 14 March - Sainte-Eulalie-de-Cernon

Where’s Bertie? He’s in a commercial Aire at Sainte-Eulalie-de-Cernon. It costs €9.50 to stay here, including electricity, showers, toilets, wifi and a service point. Exact location: 43.98521, 3.13897.

Weather: Wet and increasingly windy.

The plan: drive to Carcassonne and spend two nights. That plan fell due to this chart of French weather warnings:

Rain plus 70km/h winds is not conducive to sightseeing, and if we were going to drive out of our way and spend €15 per night on a basic Aire, then we wanted the trip to be worthwhile. So, like Roses, Carcassonne has waited since 2016, and will have to wait some more.

After far too long spent staring at a screen, combing various resources and frustratingly failing to find an obvious answer as to where to go (stay in Spain for an extra day? Nope, weather’s wet and windy there too, so we may as well make headway into the 1225km we need to drive by Thursday evening), I finally settled on La Couvertoirade where for €4 we could park in a car park adjacent to a medieval walled village.

First, though we had to exit Spain, via the cheapest fuel station I could find (via komparing.com) – a 2km detour from the motorway for fuel at €1.76/litre (versus the general prices of €1.90/litre plus or minus 5c).

Next came the French border. Had we crossed on the motorway, I’m sure we would have driven straight through. As it was, we got stopped and a man bearing a machine gun stood next to Bertie’s window and requested to see various documents. One of those was my driving licence, which I keep it in my wallet. As I never carry my wallet with me (money and cards sit loose in a pocket), I keep it secreted in a safe place. It was so safely secreted that even though I knew where it was, it took what felt like an age to locate it – the pressure of an official bearing a massive firearm!

They inspected in detail my driving licence and the stamps in our passports, scanned our Covid passes (lucky we both had a good phone signal, as we’d not thought to download them in advance), asked us we had any cannabis or firearms on board, and finally requested details of our itinerary for the next few days. We were then waved on.

A few minutes later I pulled over to let Mick drive whilst I contemplated the road atlas. The result of those contemplations (combined with the information gleaned by taking a photo of the toll chart as we entered the motorway) was that we stayed on the toll road all the way to Beziers (from where our route was a free motorway). It cost €18.10, but when you take into account the slightly shorter distance and the extra fuel efficiency the real cost was, I reckon, somewhere between €13 and €15 for an easy drive and the saving of an hour.

It was around 1330 when we left the motorway for our night-stop, towards which we proceeded for all of 200m before I called for an about turn. We were in dense fog and there was snow lying at the side of the road* – what was the point paying €4 for a car park without services if we weren’t going to be able to see anything, were going to be cold, and were going to fill disinclined to spend time looking around the place? We retreated to the service station we’d just passed for a bite to eat and to consider some more. Within minutes it was raining too.

So, here we are, in an Aire with electricity, next to a walled mediaeval village.

It rather blends into the background, doesn’t it? I’ve manipulated this snap to make it stand out more

Here’s a zoom shot

Once the rain let up mid-afternoon, we grabbed the opportunity for a look around. Donning a ridiculous amount of clothing, including full waterproofs, hats and gloves, to the village we went. It’s a perfect place for these weather conditions, in that we’d walked all of its streets, and read all of the information signs we spotted, within 15-20 minutes. We then walked some roads outside of the walls, and made it back to Bertie just as the rain started in earnest again.

We’ve visited a lot of historic French towns and villages, many of which come across as a bit Disney. This one just felt like we’d stepped back in time (except for the cars in the main square!)

Per the forecast, the wind has picked up too (with some gusts alarming enough to suggest a poor night’s sleep), although it’s not forecast to be as bad here as further west.  

I’d also read on Meteo France that there’s a flooding incident ongoing near Beziers. We bore witness to great swathes of flood water both sides of the motorway as we passed through. 

(*The problem with looking at Google maps or the road atlas is that you can't see the contours of the land, so it's not obvious when I've picked a destination that's at altitude. It turns out that our original intended nightstop was at 750m. The next couple of places I looked at as options were at 900m and 1050m. The place we ended up is only just over 500m, but most of the descent was after we left the motorway, so Bertie will have to haul us back up there tomorrow.)

 

Sunday 13 March - Sant Gregori

Where's Bertie? He's in a free Aire in a dirt car park on the edge of the small town of Sant Gregori, just west of Girona. Exact location: 41.98513, 2.75935.
Weather: Rain until early afternoon, then dry with sunny intervals.

I always like seeing little egrets or storks when out for a run, but both of those bird species are trumped by flamingos. This morning I had the joy of flamingos.

We also had a pretty good sunrise

First, though, we'd left Camarles and driven the 5km to L'Ampolla, to allow me to run along the coast without having first to tackle a pavementless road. The only reason we hadn't stayed there last night was because I was working on the principle that if the authorities have been so good as to provide official (and free) motorhome parking in an area, then they would probably prefer you to park there, rather than in random car parks. However, within minutes of trotting off from Bertie in L'Ampolla I started to regret that decision. L'Ampolla looked to be a much more attractive and interesting place to spend half a day.

Sculpture of the day, the first thing of note I found on leaving Bertie

I'd had to dodge the waves as I made my way along the far section of promenade

By the time I'd got off the promenade and made my way a distance along the ensuing track of firm sand, heading back into the Ebre Delta Natural Park, the rain that had been falling since dawn had all but stopped, so just after I paused to snap the flamingos...

...I stopped again to take my jacket off.

Coming back along the track. There are a lot of flamingos, and other birdlife, in the second snap.

It wasn't long after I'd turned to retrace my steps that the rain forced the jacket back on. Had I returned directly, I would have avoided anything other than a moderate pitter-pattering. However, I was a few minutes short on my time, so I passed the turn to the car park and headed up a little hill. I was almost at the top when the rain really started to come down. I returned to Bertie to hang dripping gear in his washroom.

As soon as I'd second breakfasted, we hit the road. Our destination (chosen purely because it was an Aire with good reviews that wasn't much of a detour from our route north) was 3 hours ahead of us, and we tackled them in a single stint, accompanied by various BBC radio programmes (courtesy of the BBC Sounds App) and an audiobook.

With it being well after 1pm when we arrived, I was rummaging in the fridge within 20 seconds of the handbrake being applied. Twenty minutes later I served up a quick homemade Fabada-esque dish*. That hit the spot nicely.

By the time we'd eaten, we'd decided we weren't going to stay put. The Aire was in a railway station car park. It wasn't an attractive location, and it seemed likely it would become busy with slamming car doors early on a Monday morning (we spent last night next to a train line, and proved again that we're very good at sleeping through trains, but I know that I'm not good at sleeping through car doors).

It was only a 20 minute drive to this place, which is more attactive, if you ignore the piles of branches and, beyond them, construction site detritus, on the other side of the car park.

A stroll through the town this afternoon didn't reveal any individual thing of great interest, but I did note that if I'd been abducted by aliens and abandoned here, I wouldn't think that I was in Spain. I know we're now in Catalonia, but we've spent time in this region before, and I'd never before noted such a marked difference in the architecture from the more southerly parts of Spain.

As for our plans for the next few days: Roses has now been dropped from the itinerary. Mick's been hankering for a return since we were there in 2016, but with a lack of time on this trip, we decided it wasn't worth the detour for the single night we would be able to spend there. Carcassone is next on the agenda, but we need everyone to do a 'better weather' dance in view of what is currently predicted during the time we have allocated there.

Just up the road from Bertie tonight. As churches go, this one is lacking in architectural merit. 

^{(*Three flavours of sausage (one ordinary pork, one chorizo, one blood sausage) in a white bean stew. The white beans were from a jar. The veg was diced small so it would cook quickly. Definitely not the traditional dish, but it was reet tasty.)}

Saturday 12 March - Camarles

Where's Bertie? He's in a free Aire just on the edge of Camarles (exact location: 40.77921, 0.67537)
Weather: Rain until about 9am, then a few light passing showers for another hour, then sunshine, warming up to around 19 degrees. Windy.

At around 11.30 last night I cursed the Norwegian couple next to us for thinking it an appropriate time to repeatedly open and close all of their doors, including their noisy sliding side door.

Woken again at 3am by talking and more door banging I began to wonder if they had a problem. The rain was still coming down - perhaps they were trying to sort out a leak? On my way between loo and bed, I peeked out the side window to find, to my surprise, that a car and caravan had just arrived and squeezed in between us and the Norwegians.

At 7am, I got up to make our first, pre-run breakfast, and had to nip outside in search of the washing up sponge (ooops - it was still in the bowl when I emptied the water last night). Opening the door it was a surprise to find there was a little VW van squeezed in between us and our neighbours on the other side. It must have been their doors that had first woken me. The Norwegians were, I think, entirely blameless in my disturbed night. Why did both vehicles feel inclined to snuggle up to Bertie and his neighbours? Must surely have been the offer of wind breaks.

After a slow start, it was 0830 by the time Mick and I headed out of the door in nice-smelling running gear (Spanish laundrettes tend to come with laundry detergent and softener included. This isn't a good thing in my view, as I never use softener, and I don't always like the fragrance used. This one met with my approval, and was a vast improvement over how those same clothes smelt 24 hours earlier.). Thanks to yesterdays perambulations, the route to the river was well known to us, and once there we had four options, with a bridge ahead of us and cycle routes running along the river on both banks. We opted to turn immediately right (east).

The first bit of the run was completed in the rain. Then there were a few edges of light showers. Then, finally it came good to sunshine (which, according to all forecasts I'd looked at, including the Spanish met office, was what we should have had since dawn). Alas, the predicted death of the wind did not accompany the sunshine, so when we found the way blocked 8km in (due to wild boar or, I suspect, their hunting, as the closure only applied until tomorrow) and turned back, it was into the wind we went. 

Variously hemmed-in path and track, but both quite pleasant, even if we didn't often have a view of the river

On the exposed sections of path, that wind was brutal. It was a relief, just past our start point, to find that the cycle route to the west was well protected by reeds and trees. We are this afternoon parked next to a weather station, and the adjacent white board tells us that the wind speed this morning was up to 46.7km/h.

Huge river, and notably choppy.

Back at Bertie a while later (21km for Mick today, 27k for me, so Mick was back first), we reviewed our intentions. The plan had been to travel a couple of hours north today, but when we considered that we needed second breakfast, showers, shopping and lunch before we travelled, and that the time was rapidly approaching noon, there was an argument for just nipping out to Lidl, and staying put another night.

A quick look at maps and resources, and I found this Aire, only a few kilometres distant. So, to Lidl we went then onward the whole 10 minutes to here.

A brief recce this afternoon has suggested the route I intended to run from here tomorrow morning isn't ideal, but another drive of a few kilometres will take us to a car park from where I can explore another bit of the Natural Park before we make concerted efforts northwards.

Historic point of interest, a couple of minutes walk down the road from the Aire in Camarles.

There's enough room in this Aire for hundreds of vans. There's masses of room. Yet after we parked this Italian van decided that Bertie is an irresistible magnet. (I think he looks further away from Bertie in this snap than he is in reality).