travels with our van: Road trip Spring 2010

Left Birmingham 14:00 Thursday 23rd April travel to Dover caught ferry to Calais cost on Sea France £206 for 7 metre van and trailer plus top box, with amendable ticket. Can get cheaper, but with no flexible travel times.

discovered stowaway as about to depart

Normally park on Carrefour Cite Europe for night, but this time parked on channel tunnel dog check in car park, so you could say we spent the night in the doghouse, this seems a secure place to stay plenty of light, other travellers stopping night and port security nearby, and of course its free.

Next morning we set off for Epernay in the Champagne region.I find travel in northern France above Paris is a bit monotonous wide open fairly flat agricultural regions. Possibly better off on the motorways up here, but we do not use motorways, mainly main and secondary roads, sometimes even back roads. There's a lot more to see travelling this way and you can keep the speed down rather than being swept along in the hurly burly plenty of picnic areas and lay bys and nothing like the amount of traffic there is in in England.

Spreading the word about sbmcc, for those reading who don’t know The Self Build Motor Caravanners Club www.sbmcc.co.uk

We normally go to the camping municipal in Troyes when were in this area its an excellent site and very popular, but we

had travelled far enough for our first day in France, and had no targets or deadlines to meet. So Arrived Epernay camping municipal, nice site on the river bank average amenities English speaking staff.

We left midmorning heading south towards Challon de Champagne decided to stop at Arnay le duc , found camp site camping de l’Etang de Fouche large municipal site new amenities. Lake on site with numerous activities.

Using Alan Rogers campsite guide loaded into Garmin Nuvi satnav to find sites off the beaten track, this guide is highly recommended and will load into most sat navs as POI’s. Rained all day and night so next day continued South

only aim was to be south of Lyon before stopping for the night. Decided to head for camping Castlelet at Tain le Hermitage a site we have stopped at before nice clean site above average in site fees though. Spent a pleasant afternoon and night.

Weather still unsettled so decided to keep moving South. Felt clutch slip a couple of times. Disaster on the horizon. Stopped at Camping Municipal Lupin highly favoured by the Dutch and only 11 euros a night. Weather now a lot better .

Had been running a freezer off inverter during trip and it is working perfect with minimal drain on batteries even when run for 24 hours with no engine charging the batteries, also virtually silent cannot hear it running, which is one thing I was worried about as the fridge freezer at home is quite noisy, anyway back to the trip.

Set off next morning direction Beziers South West France

Travelled another 2 hours and stopped in the Carmague at Camping le Fun, not Fun at all very poor site, run down has seen much better days. Got bit by a dog in the morning nothing serious but drew blood. Keep well clear of Camping Le Fun. Tanks emptied batteries charged and ourselves refuelled time to push on its only a short run from here to the Spanish

border. So crossed the border parked up and strolled back into France walked around the shops very popular with the Spanish and the French as various articles cheaper than elsewhere in there respective countries. Walked back into Spain which was fortuitous as the Spanish police had closed border to vehicular traffic and were examining all vehicles this does not happen very often , but can be quite a holdup when it does. Had lunch and carried on into Spain,

MY SENTIMENTS EXACTLY

Arrived at camping Solmar Blanes Costa Brava mid afternoon 15 euros per night large swimming pool 2 bars 2 bar restaurants tennis courts basketball football excellent toilet blocks large supermarket will probably stop for some time .