A quiet day today and sorry no photos. We took the bus into Cheltenham (£3.50 each return), had a look at some of the Georgian architecture and the shops. Bought a few bits and pieces and had a nice lunch. We arrived back at the campsite just as it started to spit with rain. The rain came down heavier in the early evening.
We had a lazy morning and slowly got everything packed away between the showers and left at about 10.45 back to the outskirts of Wallingford and then followed the signs towards Oxford and the A40. The Oxford ring road was very slow with nose to tail traffic not helped by the heavy rain that was now falling. We followed the A40 into the outskirts of Cheltenham and then followed it out towards Gloucester. We decided to stop at the Asda store that was near the campsite but we couldn’t find it as it was poorly signposted. We found B&Q but that was the best we could do. We made our way to the campsite and checked in at 12.30, it was still raining heavily and made our way to our pitch, shortly after we parked up it stopped raining. We took the respite of the rain to take a chance and gave the van a quick wash down as it was filthy with all the rain.
We set up and had some lunch. After lunch it was decided that we would do some washing so we set what we thought was the washing machine but it turned out, when we went back after an hour to take the washing out, it was the tumble drier, oops. We then put the washing in the machine and decided to walk to Asda having been told where exactly it was by the campsite staff. We walked there in just over 10 minutes and did some food shopping and then walked back towing the trolley. After a beer we took the washing from the machine and put it into the drier. For dinner we used the BBQ for the first time this holiday.
This campsite is probably the best one we have ever stayed at. Our pitch has a concrete van parking area, alongside a gravel area for our awning followed by a grass area before the next van. The pitch has water, electric and grey waste and fast free wifi. The central wash block is modern and heated with piped music. There are even plugs in the sinks and even plate drainers in the pot washing area. With bus stops right outside the gate for Gloucester or Cheltenham and with the A40 and M5 close by it couldn’t be more conveniently located.
A good nights sleep and we got up this morning to some light rain. George and Harry were early morning visitors and they had a great time playing with all the controls, trying out the the beds, opening cupboard and generally being young boys. As a result we left a bit later than expected at 10.40. We stopped in Yateley for some fuel at a reasonable UK price and then routed across country towards Reading and then onto the M4 for a few miles and then onto the A34 heading North and then turned off into Didcot. We parked up as planned in the council car park and met up with Mike and Sue. After coffee and a chat we adjourned to a local pub for lunch.
After lunch the four of us collected the motorhome and made our way to Bridge Villa campsite by the Thames in Wallingford. We all walked in to town and had a look around the shops and bought some food and a few other bits including a new dress for Ingrid. Mike and Sue caught the bus back to Didcot and we returned to the campsite. We sat in the sun for a while and then we had a heavy downpour just after dinner.
After a disturbed nights sleep, our fault the temperature dropped and we didn’t have appropriate bedding on the bed, we had breakfast and packed up and left at about 9am. We followed the rough local road out of Chauvigne and made our way to the D40 and then onto the N175. As we were early we stopped for a long coffee and croissant break at a large service area. On out way through the car park back towards the motorway we found the grey waste disposal point and so stopped and emptied the grey water tank. We rejoined the motorway which was by now the A84 and followed this all the way to the Caen ring road and then followed the local road to Ouistreham ferry port. We passed several groups of immigrants looking for opportunities to get to the UK. We checked in at the ferry port at 11.45 and the ferry was already in. The van was checked for stowaways by the police. We were eventually called through to the loading waiting area where we were held until right at the end of loading, there were only 2 other motorhomes behind us when we got onboard. On this relatively short trip we saw so many Adria motorhomes it wasn’t true including one other white Sonic and also there were several Adria caravans too. We were also parked next to an old AdriaTec A class motorhome in the queue for the ferry.
After an uneventful crossing we arrived in Portsmouth 5 minutes early at 7.10pm. Again we were one of the last to leave the ship but were put in a short lane for border control. Even still it was after 8pm when we eventually left the port and started our journey to Pauls’s. We joined the M275 and then the M27 and turned on to the M3. We stopped at the first service area to put a splash of expensive diesel in the van. We continued on the M3 to junction 4a and turned off past Minley barracks and this was by far the worst road surface that we have travelled on on this whole trip. Into Yateley and then I reversed on to Paul’s drive arriving at about 9.15pm, the motorhome just fitted.
It was a nice cool 23 degrees this morning, we packed up and stopped at reception as it opened at (am and collected our fresh croissants. We then followed the route back out of the campsite to the N1141 and then on to the D939 heading north. This was a country road through villages and past fields of sweetcorn and sunflowers. At a roundabout we came across a small supermarket with a single petrol pump at ‘only’ €1.40 a litre for diesel. I did a top up of 43 litres and hopefully that will be enough to get us to Portsmouth where we can top up with some cheaper fuel. After fuelling up we continued and just after 10.15 we joined the A10 toll motorway heading north.
We stopped for coffee at a nice but expensive service area and ate our fresh croissants. We re-joined the A10 and then turned on to the A83 heading for Nantes. We ran into some showers of rain along this section of the motorway, it was dirty rain and so it made the motorhome a bit grubby. It was also quite windy in places with the van moving around and the roadside trees and bushes were taking a battering, with leaves being blown across the road like snow. We stopped at the toll booths just before Nantes and had the same ‘camping car’ conversation and so the toll fee was €27.40 instead of €38.80. Once around the ring road we joined the N171 heading for Rennes. Just after the junction was a service area but I missed the signs and we sailed past. We started looking for somewhere else for lunch. The next service aire was marked as having coffee but there was none there so we continued and eventually came across another sign but this lead us off the motorway and then there were no more signs so we had to re-trace our route back south to the previous junction and round the countryside to get back onto the motorway heading north. The next one was also sign posted as off the motorway so we decided not to bother and have something when we arrived at the campsite.
We went around the Rennes ring road and on to the A84 for a few kilometres and then turned off onto local to lead us to Chauvigne to La Maison Nueve campsite arriving at about 3.15. This is a working farm with gites, a restaurant and a campsite. The young lady on reception spoke no English and my school boy French is decidedly lacking now we have lived in Spain for so long. €14 for the night with electricity was not expensive and we had large grassy area where we could choose where to park. They also had fresh home-made jam for sale not cheap but it is really tasty. As we were having dinner on board the heavens opened and we had a real heavy downpour with some thunder.
After a quiet night at Beau Rivage we got up this morning to some dew on the van which was a pleasant surprise. We packed up and dropped our grey waste and left at 9.30. After yesterday’s windy roads we decided to take things a bit easier today and to take the motorway where possible even though it meant paying the tolls. Even still we had a long drive from Navarrenx to the motorway. We went through the village and then on to the D947. The road wound through some small narrow villages and then through open farm land with lots of fields full of sweet corn and others full of sunflowers. The French certainly seem to like their roundabouts. If we went through 10 today we went through at least 50. There was one narrow section through a town with bollards in the centre and I ended up scraping the rear tyre against the kerb, luckily there was no damage. At one roundabout there was a red car right in my blind spot in the roundabout but luckily Ingrid had seen it and we didn’t have a coming together. We eventually joined the A63 motorway heading north as we were passing an HGV it flicked a stone up which has put a chip in the windscreen. We decided to stop for coffee and pulled in to a rest area to find it was only a parking one.
We stopped at the next service area for a coffee and a croissant, very expensive in comparison to Spanish motorway service areas. We re-joined the A63 heading north towards Bordeaux and I comments that we hadn’t seen many Adria motorhomes going the other way and then the next one was an Adria, typical. We saw lots of motorhomes on today’s journey and many of them were Adria’s. There was one tolls section on the motorway and we pulled in to the toll booth and it said 15.50€ but it should have been less so I called up on the intercom as mentioned on Facebook and said ‘Camping Car’ and the toll was promptly reduced to 5.50€.
When we were about 25km from Bordeaux we suddenly stopped and then we crawled for at least 20km until we came across the scene of an accident on the opposite carriageway, the holdup was caused by the rubber-neckers. We continued to the outskirts of Bordeaux and then on to the E7 ring road, the queue to the accident was at least 20km long in the opposite direction. We turned off the A63 and on to the N10 in the direction of Angouleme. This was mainly a 2 lane 110kmh motorway. We stopped for a snack for lunch and then pulled in to the campsite in Angouleme at just before 3pm and checked in to the overnight ire parking that was fully serviced for only 14€ a night. It was 38 degrees when we arrived with clear blue skies and not a breath of wind so it was scorching. There was also an Adria Sonic 600 parked on the site, the first we have seen on a site for quite a while.
After a hot and sticky night at Zaragoza I got up at 7am and it was already 24 degrees. We had breakfast and stowed everything away and left the campsite at just before 10am. We followed the sat nav route on to the ring road around Zaragoza and then on to the A23 in the direction of Huesca. Some of the A23 road surface was excellent and some of it was terribly rutted. Following Mike’s suggestion we pulled just off the A23 in Huesca to the Carrefour shopping centre and filled up with diesel for €1.18 a litre, much cheaper than Carrefour in Ondara and some of the cheapest fuel we have seen recently, not looking forward to the French prices. We rejoined the A23 and stopped for an expensive cup of coffee a bit further along the motorway. We passed a few fields of sunflowers and lots of fields of corn that were being heavily watered. We hadn’t realised how high we were until we started to drop down fairly steeply towards Jaca. The road was a bit twisty and subject to some extensive road works but as it was Sunday there were no delays.
We were surprised that today the vast majority of the traffic on the road was Spanish registered vehicles. We passed a lot of motorhomes heading south but very few like us heading north. We went through the Somport tunnel and that was also very quiet and then wound down the narrow twisty road in to France. This section of road downhill was over 20 kilometres in length and we were glad that no lorries are allowed on the the French roads on Sunday otherwise it would have been interesting. It was a slow journey with some of the road subject to 30kph speed limit. In France again there were lots of corn fields close to the road. we followed the sat nav into Navarrenx and over the bridge over the river and then it wanted us to do a hairpin turn on to a narrow road which I wasn’t keen on. After a bit of shunting supervised by Ingrid I decided to approach from the opposite direction, as I went further up the road I saw more signs for Camping Beau Rivage straight on through the village, I then remembered the advice on the booking to ignore the sat nav. I went back and picked Ingrid up and we then followed the signs through the village to the campsite arriving just before 2pm. We had to wait for them to reopen after the siesta and were then allocated our pitch which was nicely shaded by large trees. We had a late lunch sitting on the grass on the edge of our pitch. A nice site that we will definitely revisit and spend longer at in the future.
We loaded up and set off at about 9.15 this morning and it was already 28 degrees. Ran down to Ondara and then joined the AP7 heading north for Valencia. The motorway was surprisingly busy and a majority of the vehicles seemed to be French registered cars heading north. We had an uneventful journey on the motorway up to the toll booths near Alzira and typically I chose the wrong lane and got stuck behind a French driver who took ages to find his wallet and then wanted a receipt then we just breezed through with the toll tag. We left the AP7 and joined the A23 heading for Teruel and Zaragoza. The A23 had some lovely smooth sections and then some very rutted sections needless to say the 3 usual cupboard doors came open, luckily the drawer stayed close so it looks like I may have fixed that. We stopped for coffee at the same service area we first stopped at in our Spanish trip in June, this time it was busy but luckily not as bad as last time and we actually managed to get served this time.
After coffee we re-joined the A23 and continued north towards Zaragoza. Along the A23 there were a mixture of French and Spanish cars all heading in the same direction as us. We saw 3 Adria motorhomes going the other way. We also saw more caravans than motorhomes in both direction on this section of the journey. We stopped at the 202 services for lunch and just had a snack as neither of us could face a full meal. I bought a litre of very expensive 0-30 synthetic oil for the motorhome at the garage by the restaurant as the new Ducato engines have an appetite for oil. It was a good job that I did as the dashboard warning came up to check the oil, I had been unable to buy any from the auto recambios in Ondara last week.
We rejoined the A23 and continued to Zaragoza and arrived at the municipal campsite at 3pm. They had our reservation and so that was good and we were allocated a pitch right opposite the toilet block. Free wifi but quite expensive at over €30 for one night. It was 38 degrees when we arrived and so the air conditioning is getting a work out.
