France and Germany 2017

A relaxing day today. No plans to do any driving. We’d thought about maybe doing a shop. There’s a sign near the site entrance for a Carrefour within 3 minutes’ drive (so the sign says) but seeing as though we didn’t surface until 10:00 and seeing as though those shops that actually open on a Sunday shut at 12:30, we didn’t bother.

Weather was a bit overcast and eventually it started to rain – and it became quite heavy. We had breakfast and just spent some time chilling.

We watched the report of the Tour from yesterday – getting quite excited now about seeing it – then watched the start of today’s stage. Plan was to watch a bit of the Tour and then watch the Moto GP – but that plan was blown out of the water when BT Sport reported that there was no satellite signal. The assumption is that if the satellite dish locks on, then you can get all of the channels but it doesn’t work out like that.

We needed some water so we drove to the service point and ended up using the new expanding hose that we’d bought before we set off. Pleased to report that it did expand which was just as well because the tap that I used was a fair way from the MoHo service point – although when we filled up the day after, I realised that you can detach the hose on the actual service point and then connect to that tap.

Anyway, the sun came out and it soon warmed up quite nicely. We ended up sitting outside in the sun. I again set about getting through the backlog of Motor Cycle New and PC User. Sue wanted to read her Kindle but it had developed a fault with the screen. We share an account so I got mine charged up and tried to connect it to the MiFi. Spent ages looking for the password but eventually found it and updated my books so that got her going again. What we would we do without the internet?

We had a nice tea of chicken risotto using some French stock cubes which I’d bought last year. They gave it a different taste.

After tea, Ellie and I went for a walk and we decided to follow the sign that we’d seen yesterday to the Blockhaus d’Éperlecques. It was a really warm evening so a pleasant walk. We passed a house where Ellie had nosed another dog the night before. Ellie got really excited and was bouncing a bit but the dog wasn’t there tonight. Clever how she remembers that sort of thing.

We got to the Blockhaus and I was surprised at the scale of it. It was built by the Germans towards the end of WW2 with the intention of assembling and launching V1 and V2 rockets. Check out the history but I think the allied bombardment and the eventual end of the war meant that none were actually launched. I didn’t pick up on this on the night but the penny started to drop because, on the way home, we noticed the brown sign for Éperlecques on the A26 depicts rockets.

When we got back, Dud went to bed reasonably early so I decided to watch American Sniper which I’d recorded on the Sky box ages ago. It promised a lot but seemed to drag on. The ending was a bit puzzling as well. I know it’s based on a true story but the end seemed almost a case of “well, that fills a couple of hours, let’s just finish it off, now” (Not sure that I’ll ever make it as a film critic).

We needed to get some mileage in today. When looking at which Tour stage to watch, we’d decided on stage 5 (or Étape cinq as we say) which is Vittel to La Planche des Belles Filles. We picked that one because: it was on the Wednesday of our first week so gave us a few days to get there; it was in the Vosges Mountains which we’d tried but failed to get to on our first MoHo visit to France; and because there were some climbs which I thought might string the riders out a bit.

When we finally got to see the actual roads that it would take, which is not until mid-May, I spent ages on Google Earth looking over the route – even dragging the little man on Street View to see some potential stopping points. I had thought that the area around the Category 3 climb at Esmoulières looked a likely spot. I was quite stressed about finding somewhere because it was all an unknown.

I’d worked out last night that we should head first for Vittel and then aim towards somewhere near the above and see where we ended up. So, I’d drawn a straight line on the map (metaphorically speaking) and picked a spot around two thirds of the way to the Esmoulières area. That had ended up around Bar Le Duc so I had picked an Aire at random and entered the co-ordinates into the satnav.

We got the Bailey serviced and set off later than we wanted but were still relatively (for us) early. I used the tap on the actual MoHo service point this time rather than use the expanding hose on a tap further away. It just needed to be unscrewed from the tap and then I could fit one of our adapters. I assume the water is fit to drink.

The satnav was saying that we had around 240 miles to do so we needed to get a move on so made the decision to use the autoroutes. Not as interesting as the D roads but it serves a purpose and we could put the Sanef tag to good use.

The highlight for me of the autoroute was being overtaken by a Jag F type – listen to the sound of it on the video. We also saw a truck with Hull City of Culture plastered over the back (that was not a highlight – merely an observation!)

As we were skirting Reims, we had to go through 3 péages. A while before we got to the first one, a rented German registered Hymer overtook us. When we got to the first péage, we saw him in the plebs’ queue as we went through a 30kph lane. After a while, he overtook us again. When we came to the next péage, there he was again. Same thing happened once more. Our number plate makes us reasonably distinctive so I bet he was cursing us (he probably wasn’t but it suits me to think that!).

The Aire whose co-ordinates I’d used turned out not to be an overnight Aire so we re-set the satnav to the actual Aire at Bar Le Duc. That was around 10 miles away. It was still only around 16:00 so we’d made good time.

When we got to the Aire, it was one of those where you think “Shall we stay – or not?” There was what looked like (and turned out to be) a busy train line alongside. There was a dodgy looking MoHo with a small van parked alongside and some swampy, new-age-traveller-looking types congregating nearby and also a gang of youngsters sitting at one of the picnic tables. I’d assumed that the youngsters were part of the new-age-traveller party. It was only for one night so we decided to stay, parked up and got the satellite dish locked on.

Temperature was in the high twenties and Dud was tired so decided to have a nap while Ellie and I went to explore the town. Some lovely French architecture, a typical French town centre church (ie a massive one) but then there’s a drive-in MacDonalds which does not blend in at all. However, nice place and one that you’d never even come near if you just bomb down the autoroutes.

When we got back to the MoHo, Dud hadn’t actually had any sleep. There’s a lad playing a guitar near the youngsters on the picnic bench. He’s actually quite good but not that good that you want to listen to him for any more than 10 mins. I’d still assumed that they were part of the new-age-traveller party but then the youngsters started to disperse and we realised that they were actually local schoolkids who probably met up there most nights when the weather was good. Even the guitarist eventually cleared off – which was a relief.

I also spoke to one of the travellers – a young lass who did not have much English but I managed to speak to her in French – pleasant lass. One of their dogs was quite aggressive towards Ellie but the girl told me that the dog was pregnant so was unusually aggressive. She also asked if Ellie was a “fox”. That seemed strange because she looks nothing like a fox but I suspect the girl meant a fox terrier – not least because French for fox is not fox – it’s renard.

We had tea of sausage and beans and watched a bit of tv. I thought that I’d charge up the laptop using the inverter – but, for whatever reason, it didn’t work. That caused me to panic a bit because tonight was not on hook-up, we knew tomorrow night would not be and, at this stage, we assumed that the night after would not be, either. So it would be ages before we could charge up the laptop. So, laptop use would be on strict ration. That was of particular worry because of the need to move the dash-cam files over to the laptop to free up capacity on the dash-cam sd card. I can live without the laptop (just) but would hate to lose dash-cam video before we got home.

After we’d had tea, the travellers moved vans around. We had no idea why but after a couple of hours, they cleared off and we didn’t see them again – which was a relief.

During all of this, various trains were passing by on the nearby line. Some stopped at the station and then carried on – including TGV; some (mainly goods trains) went straight through. To add to the noise, we could also hear the tannoy at the station. None of this was a major problem during the night but, in spite of the lovely location by the Canal de la Marne au Rhin, I’m not sure that we’ll stay here again.

Ellie and I had our usual late night walk around 22:00 – as appears to be usual in rural France, everywhere was deserted. On the way back to the Aire, we walked past some apartments and, at one of then, there were some people sat outside having dinner. I offered my usual “bon nuit” and their dog came out and the dog and Ellie had a friendly nose-off. They asked me “Est-ce qu’il a mangé?” (has it/he eaten?) – I assume because they were going to give Ellie some of their food. I replied along the lines of don’t worry, she won’t eat your dog – which caused great amusement and I also learned the word “cannibale”.

When we got back, Dud was asleep. We were low on supplies so would need a shop the next day but I had taken with us a bottle of Prosecco that Janet had bought us for Dud’s birthday earlier that year. That disappeared tonight and was not unpleasant.

I had to manually write up the diary in the log that Dud bought me for Christmas (good present) and as I was getting to the end of the diary (and the bottle of Prosecco) I heard the guitar again. It was not as loud as before but he was around here somewhere so I went outside but could not see him. I was getting quite pissed off with it, now. I suspect the wine was clouding judgement so it was probably a good job that I could not see where he was.

I’d made a decision earlier to set the alarm tonight. I’ve not done that before. We always set the alarm on the drive but have never set it whilst we are in the MoHo – it can alarm the doors but not the internal movement sensors. As I went to bed, I could no longer hear the guitar so he must have cleared off.

Surprisingly, we had a decent night’s sleep. We got woken by a couple of trains but it was nowhere near as noisy as we had expected. Weather was good again and Ellie and I went for a nice walk alongside the canal.

At one point, we could see a few boats gathering near a bridge over the canal and eventually, the barriers came down and blocked the road traffic and the bridge lifted – a bit like Corporation Road but on a smaller scale.

We didn’t know where we would be staying tonight. I had seen some web sites that said that some fields would open up for MoHo access and there would be a charge for parking, drainage and water but we didn’t know whether we would be staying there or would just wild camp. So, we had to be prepared to not take on any fresh water for a couple of days so we needed to brim the fresh water tank. I did that on the service point at the Aire using a Euro Relais 2 token that I had left over from last year.

It was just before 10:00 when we were ready to set off. I knew that the Office de Tourisme opened at 10:00 and they sold jetons so I thought it would be worthwhile getting a couple – they always come in handy. So I left Dud and Ellie in the van and I walked over the railway bridge to the Office.

I got there a bit before 10:00 and there was a street market being held so I had a quick look round that. I didn’t see anything of note – in fact, it looked more like a Sunday morning car boot sale. I got the jetons and went back to the Aire and we set off.

There was a big Leclerc on the way out of town so we called in for supplies and diesel – and I also got a couple of 32gb SD cards to alleviate the satnav storage shortage.

We set the satnav for Vittel. I thought that we could get there and then head more toward the actual area where we wanted to be. I was also concerned that, if we set a direct route, then we might hit closed roads because the Tour was heading from Luxembourg to Vittel so we would cross the route.

I was still feeling stressed because of not knowing what the setup would be. As we got closer to Vittel, we were passed by 3 or 4 Tour cars. There was a Tour official Skoda, an AG2R La Mondiale Mondeo and a Eurosport Mercedes. Tinge of excitement as each of them overtook us.

When we got to the outskirts of Vittel, we arrived at a roundabout and there were lots of cars parked on the roadside and people milling about. There were lots of police, as well so we had obviously come across a part of today’s route. We then headed away from Vittel but we could see signs that the road would be closed the next day. All starting to get a bit real, now.

On my Google Earth research, I’d thought that the area around Fougerelles would be potentially a good spot so we pulled in and reset the satnav for there.

When we got to Fougerelles, there was bunting out in the streets so we assumed that we were close to the actual route and that was confirmed when we started to see pairs of yellow cards with arrows pointing out the route.

As we followed the route, we came to various places where MoHo’s were parked up just on the roadside in readiness for tomorrow. I was still tense in anticipation of getting parked but there was no more room for us to park in any of these places. In view of the excellent place we ended up parking, the lack of space was probably a good thing because I suspect we would have been tempted to park in the first place where we saw other MoHo’s.

We kept driving down the route and you start to think that you are not going to find anywhere. We saw a few potential spots but the view that we would have of the riders was restricted.

At one turning, we saw a sign pointing down the route and saying that there was Parking for Camping Cars.

Eventually we came to a clearing just outside the village of Saphoz. It was on a sweeping bit of road and there was a field on the left that had a Parking sign on it – but the field was empty as you can see in the photo. We initially drove past but quickly decided that it would be a good place to park. We picked a spot with what we thought would be good view (which turned out to be the case) and parked side on so that we could just sit alongside the MoHo and watch it all.

For the first time in days, I started to relax.

I said to Dud that now that we were parked there, then a load of others would park up next to us – but, in spite of the constant procession of MoHo’s, it was a couple of hours before someone else did. We had some money ready in anticipation of being charged – but it ended up being free.

Ellie and I went for a walk into Saphoz – which is only 30 or so houses. It’s great to see the effort that people were making to decorate their homes with old bikes. Even the village sign had been decorated. There were also some banners for one of the riders, Thibaut Pinot – he’s from Mélisey which is around 20km from Saphoz – so a local lad.

It was very warm and Dud was wilting a bit but we had a tea of pork chops and, after clearing up, Ellie and I went for another walk. The field was gradually filling up – as was another Parking just down the road.

At one point, a bloke shouted through the MoHo door to ask what satellite we were locked on to. It was a Brit who parked a couple of hundred metres down the road. I told him it was Astra 2 so he went away and manually pointed his satellite dish in the same direction as ours.

The procession of MoHo’s got even more intense after tea. They appear to be just cruising along the route looking for a good place to park – ie doing exactly what we had done some hours previously. We realised later that this was the wave of traffic that had watched today’s stage and had moved on after the stage ready to park up for the next day’s stage.

As well as being sparse with fresh water usage, we needed to be frugal on how much we put into the toilet cassette. I don’t mean the human waste element of that – not a lot you can do about that. But we need to be frugal in the use of the flush. In anticipation of potentially filling the cassette, I’d bought another cassette before we left – I’d been meaning to get another cassette anyway since I’d seen a previous neighbour at Gravelines swap his for a spare (same bloke that inspired me to get the baseball bat!).

On the evening walk, we again went into the village and in the next Parking it was even more full than ours – though I find that strange because we have a much better view. There were a couple of MoHo’s parked up who look like Eastern Europeans and they have some big Peter Sagan flags flying – which is a shame because he was disqualified today (harshly, in my opinion).

One of the houses that we walked past had a small dog that was not tied up. It came out and started snapping at Ellie. It was much smaller than her but she did not respond. She will kill a rabbit without hesitation but will not fight back with other dogs.

Back in the MoHo, Sue and I watched the last episode of Jimmy McGovern’s excellent tv series, Broken. It’s been a riveting series. Reception in HD was great again using the inbuilt satellite receiver in the new tv – it looks like it was an excellent purchase.

Another walk with Ellie because the atmosphere was brilliant and I wanted to take it all in. There was a lot of noise – mainly of the drunken variety – from the next field – I suspect the Peter Sagan brigade were responsible for a large part of that noise. Our field was relatively quiet so that was a good decision.

I was really looking forward to tomorrow.

I woke up quite early. There seemed to be a fair bit of traffic – not that the noise was a problem. I looked out of the window and saw some official cars and some police bikes coming past which got me all excited like a little kid – so I had to get up.

I’d wound in the awning the night before. We’ve not had chance to use it a lot but I wouldn’t leave it out overnight anyway in case the wind gets up or there’s heavy rain. I’d left the pegs that anchor the ties in the ground and was bothered that someone walking along the side of the road might trip over them so I went out and put the awning out again.

There was a Hymer parked up next to us. I hadn’t noticed him arrive last night so it must have been quite late on. There were all sorts of flags decorating it. The owner was out and started talking to me in perfect English. Turned out he was a German but had lived in the UK for twenty odd years and his late wife had been English. He told me that he follows every stage and has done for a number of years. He also told me that parking places like the one that we were in were all free – so we can put that money away, now.

Ellie and I had our first walk of the day into the village. On every walk, we see more and more MoHo’s parked up. Weather was good and it was starting to warm up and there were lots of people sat outside their MoHo watching the world go by. Nearly all were friendly and would say bonjour.

The table outside the MoHo’s of the Peter Sagan fans was groaning under the weight of numerous beer, wine and spirit bottles so that was the likely cause of a lot the partying last night. Not much sign of any of the occupants – understandable.

One of the web sites that I’d seen had said that roads in our area would be closed from something like 12:00 through to 18:00 so I’d thought that maybe we would have to stay parked up for two nights. But our German friend had said that the roads open as soon as the race passes so I looked through the ACSI book to see if there were any camp sites nearby – and there were a couple. I rang round and the first one that actually answered said that there would no problem in staying there so another unknown was cleared up and we would have water, drainage and electricity which was a relief.

The roads were not yet closed and there was a fair bit of traffic. I’m sure that a lot of it was normal traffic but there lots of team and Tour cars and lots of police cars and bikes.

A Carrefour publicity van pulled up and a number of people got out and started to dish out goodies. We ended up with flags, a hat and loads of books of money-off vouchers. I didn’t tell them that I liked shopping at Leclerc! One of them had put a flag across the front of the Bailey. When you think about it from a Carrefour point of view, they want the cameras to pick out loads of Carrefour logos so they want to cover as many areas as possible. They are one of the main sponsors of the Tour so you will see them a lot anyway.

On one of our walks last night, I’d noticed a French bloke stepping out of his MoHo and peeing on the grass. Fair enough – we usually see a French bloke peeing somewhere in public at some point. Similarly, while we were watching the world go by, we saw a woman walking across the field opposite heading towards the woods. It was a fair walk but there was only one reason why she would make that walk. All she needed to make it any more obvious was to be waving a toilet roll about.

There seemed to be less and less normal traffic and more and more Tour related traffic. There were also lots of cyclists trying out the route for themselves. We had more walks and more and more people were about. It all has a carnival atmosphere about it. I had a conversation with some Dutch people who initially thought I was Australian. They were totally baffled about why we had voted for Brexit (but then, I am just as baffled). They acknowledged that the EU was less than perfect but that was far outweighed by the benefits – I told them that I agreed with that. I had a similar conversation later with our German fried pretty much along the same lines.

Ellie seemed to attract some attention. A Frenchman in the village was interested and also asked if she was fox – must be referring to the terrier. She also attracted some attention from the dog that had come at her the night before but it was tied up today. One spectator – American or Canadian accent – even asked if he could take a photo – which he did (maybe he took a picture of every dog but I suspect not).

The Tour book that I had bought listed the approximate times that the race would pass and it also lists the time that the publicity caravane will pass. That was around 14:00. As that time approached, there was still a fair bit of traffic but now, it was all Tour related so presumably the roads were closed.

Before we even thought of going to a stage, I had always thought that the caravane would involve people walking along handing out various goodies. But once we knew that we were coming, I watched a few YouTube videos and was initially surprised that the vehicles travel at speed and people throw the goodies out at you. Think about it, though and you realise that they have to cover the full stage and they have to keep the same interval ahead of the race – so they need to travel at the same speed as the bikes. Regardless, it was still good fun to see the various vehicles and we ended up with a stack of goodies – I will never have to buy another key ring as long as I live.

The caravane was travels a couple of hours ahead of the actual race so relaxed a bit. Sun was getting hot now so we kept under the awning. We had the actual race on ITV4 so were keeping tabs on what was going on. As they got closer, we recognised some of the places they were passing because we had passed through them the day before.

There was a ‘plane circling quite high. Our German friend told us that it was the plane that bounced the signals from the helicopter and the bikes up to a satellite.

Then the noise of helicopters got louder and we could see 5 of them circling quite high up. My immediate thought was that they must have really powerful lenses to catch the action from that height but it seems that they give rides for paying passengers. I would imagine that is a good, if very expensive, experience.

Then we caught sight of the actual television helicopter. It was very low – perhaps 100 feet. It must have been following the back of the peleton. We knew from the television that there was a breakaway group some 2 minutes in front of the peleton. As we were watching the helicopter, there was a surge of Tour cars with flashing lights and police and camera bikes and then the leading group were upon us. As hoped, we got a good view.

Once that group passed, there were team cars and bikes and then a gap and a chasing group. Then the peleton arrived. I had bought a tripod before we left because I did not want to be holding the camera when they all passed. I thought that if I held the camera, then I would be more focussed on filming than watching – which is what happened when we went to the Tour de Yorkshire a couple of years.

You’re trying to take in so many things that it all becomes a bit of a blur but I clearly saw the Sky team (white vests) and nestled at the back of them was the yellow jersey of Geraint Thomas. I think you can pick out Chris Froome on the video but I certainly didn’t do that live.

Then it’s a stream of team cars and motor bikes. I remember seeing the helicopter come right overhead. The new tv has a record to usb function but I hadn’t been able to get it working. If I had, I suspect us and the Bailey would have been clearly visible.

We could see them on the start of the climb but it was a distance away as you can see from the video. And then that’s it. They’ve gone and it’s all over. I have to admit, my immediate reaction was that I felt a bit flat that it had ended. All of that planning and travelling and waiting – and then it’s over in 5 minutes. But that misses the point of it all. It’s not just the actual cycle race – if you want to watch that and see how it develops and unfolds then you’re better off watching it on tv. But if you want to actually be a part of the whole spectacle and take in what becomes almost a carnival type atmosphere, then you need to be there. I now feel as if we actually added to it by being there.

We packed up fairly quickly – as did most of the other MoHo’s. We said goodbye to the German – he had been excellent company – and we set off to the camp site. There were long queues heading away as everyone did the same thing.

We soon got to the camp site. We’ve booked 2 nights and it looks a reasonable place. First job was to empty the toilet. Almost 36 hours since we had last done that so it was much needed. Had we stayed at Saphoz another night, we would definitely have needed the spare cassette but as it was, we were ok.

Once we were parked up and settled, I actually felt sad that the experience was over. Dud even suggested abandoning plans to go to Germany and change the route to visit another stage. I seriously considered it for a while but decided not to. We’ll definitely do that another year.

The camp site is on the outskirts of Plombières-les-Bains. It’s one of those places that has a deep valley running through and steep climbs on either side. On the late night walk with Ellie, I got quite dizzy looking over the fencing at the edge of the road.

Much needed shower tonight – I didn’t want to shower last night to conserve water and a couple of hot days had taken their toll on our hygiene.

We have power tonight so no need to ration the laptop. As well as writing the blog, I transferred files from the dash cam sd card to the laptop. I’d been doing that regularly using battery power but had been concerned that the sd card did not seem to be keeping as many files as I’d expected – even taking into account that the files are bigger than the older dash cam because they are hd. After a bit of delving, I found that there is a ‘Protected’ folder on the card. I haven’t sussed out the rationale behind that but I suspect that the last file before power down is stored in there. There were lots of files in there so I copied those over to the laptop and that cleared up a lot of space. Unfortunately, we’ve lost a lot of video because of that. Lesson learned.

Got up late – we were a bit tired after the driving and the excitement of the Tour. It was already hot by the time that we got up. I rolled out the awning again and even got the ground mat and the table out – that’s for only the second time ever. Already very hot by that time we got up.

As the morning wore on, it became hotter still so I put on the thermal blind over the windscreen. It’s a Taylor Made and has the extra bit at the bottom to cover the air inlets. We’ve regularly used it at night to keep the cab area warm and draft free and it’s excellent but this was the first time that we’ve used it to cool things down. Within seconds of putting it on, it was very hot to the touch – which would suggest it was doing its job. It certainly felt cooler inside – which both surprised and impressed me.

We all sat outside but in the shade under the awning. That’s not like me – I normally like the sun. Dud was struggling with the heat. Nice problem to have in a sense but still a problem.

We were a few days in so had accumulated some washing – knickers, boxer shorts and socks etc (well, probably only one pair of boxers and maybe no socks from me – we’re on holiday, after all). We have a portable washing machine which we’ve carted around with us for the last year or so and we finally made use of it. We’d had a practice at home when we first got it but that was a while ago and I wasn’t sure what we had done. Anyway a bit (or rather a lot) of water and some soap powder and a 15 minute wash did the trick. I had to hold it down to stop it from moving off the surface and I probably put too much soap powder in because that kept frothing over the top but overall, it was a success.

I should mention another accessory that we had purchased before we left that is proving extremely – a five litre watering can. We normally take the MoHo to the service point to fill the fresh water tank but there were taps all around the site including one just a few yards down the road so I used the watering can to top up the tank. That can be done by lifting the carpets and there is access to the tank from the floor of the MoHo. I made a few trips but it was better than taking in the awning, disconnecting the electrics etc in order to drive to the service point.

As mentioned yesterday, we’d decided to carry on into Germany so I rang a couple of ACSI sites in Germany and eventually got booked in on one of them. Looks to be about a three and a half hour drive tomorrow.

As the afternoon wore on, the heat was getting to Dud so she went back inside and I set up the fan that we had bought as an impulse buy from The Range just before we came away. That created a bit of a draft which was welcome for her. Ellie is ok with the fan when not moving but as soon as we set it to rotate, she got as far away from it as possible. She also does not like the fridge door opening so between the 2 it is difficult for her – although if the result of opening the fridge door is a serving of ice cream to cool her down, she soon gets over it.

We had tea of Leclerc beef steak hachette – that’s not quite a beef burger but definitely not steak.

On our late night walk we went further toward the town centre than last night. Again, I was dizzy looking over the railings. As usual in France after 22:00 – very little sign of life.

The weather broke and it rained in the night but when we got up in the morning, it was starting to warm up.

We serviced the MoHo before we left. I’ve never seen the grey waste tank so full. That would be because we had emptied the water from the washer the previous day.

We set off back through Plombières. It was market day so the town centre was cordoned off and we were diverted through some fairly narrow roads.

As you can see from the map, the satnav took us on what appears to be a round-about route. Google maps had suggested the same route when I had checked the night before. I suppose the direct route would have been through the Ballon des Vosges Mountains so not an option. There are two Parc naturel régional for the Vosges. There is the Ballons des Vosges and the Vosges du Nord. We were in the former but we were to skirt the latter later in the holiday.

We found a Leclerc on the way so topped up with supplies. We then found ourselves on an autoroute – but strangely, we only went through one péage before we eventually crossed the German border. So the French A36 Autoroute eventually leads on the German A5 Autobahn. Looking at the map, the A5 follows the Rhine – but I must admit to not seeing that on the day.

There was lots of traffic on the A5. There were some lengthy periods of stop/start traffic so it was a bit like being back home. We skirted Freiburg which is where we stayed on a previous holiday (we drove from Rotterdam to Freiburg on our way to Lake Como).

The outside temperature was hitting 32 degrees – so the aircon in the MoHo cab was being put to good use.

Once we turned off the A5, we were into some scenic countryside. Lots of forest, lots of the road running through a valley and surrounded by trees. The satnav kept saying B28 was closed so calc’ing alternative route. I didn’t take too much notice and didn’t really question it when we turned off the B28 at Oppenau and went down what became quite narrow roads. The Garmin satnav is one that takes into account width and height of the MoHo but we’ve experienced it before where it takes you down some roads that are borderline – and this was one of them. I say “takes you down” but mean “takes you up” because there was some serious climbing going on as well as hairpin bends. As ever, we ended up with white van man up our arse and I eventually found somewhere to pull over and let him and other cars pass. We eventually got through that section and ended up back on the B28. When you look at the map, it was actually a more direct route but I would have preferred to stay on the main road.

The campsite that we were heading to was near to Freudenstadt. As we drove through Freudenstadt, we passed the town square. It was still warm and there is a fountain in the square where families and kids were playing keeping cool on the fountains. There were also quite a few people sitting outside in road-side bars and cafés. After all, it is Friday so they will be getting ready for the weekend.

We got to the camp site and have a great pitch looking back towards Freudenstadt and overlooking areas of the Black Forest – or the Schwartzwald as we locals call it (cue Horst Jankowski)

Six hours travelling was slightly different to the three and a half that we had been expecting and the detour had been stressful so we were ready for something to eat. As we were getting food ready, there was a heavy thunder storm. I can’t remember when we last topped up with gas but I suspect it was before we went to France last September. Our gas system has auto changeover but I only keep one bottle on at a time turned on (otherwise, how do you know when one of the bottles has run out). It decided to run out during the storm.

I waited a while for the storm to abate but got fed up of waiting so I put on my high-vis vest – which is the closest thing I have to a jacket – and went out and turned on the other gas bottle. Cooking of tea could re-commence – but I was not too sure how much gas was in the other bottle because I know we have used that one previously.

We had a tea of Leclerc steak – but it was not brilliant and was quite tough – which lead us to note that we must get some steak knives for the MoHo.

The storms eventually cleared and it became a clear night. Late night walk was mainly around the camp site with a slight trip into the surrounding area.

Today was going to be another relaxing day. Ellie and I walked into the nearby town of Dornstetten. There is a grass track outside the campsite which leads to a viewing platform on top of a hill and that was on what I thought was a footpath/cycle track but it later turned out that it was actually open to cars.

We got back to the MoHo in time to avoid another storm. We watched the Tour and chilled for a while.

After the storm cleared, we set off for a drive with the intention of getting some gas – and topping up the diesel at the same time. We know that one of the gas bottles is empty and we’re not sure about the other so why risk it. We saw an Autogas sign at an Avia garage and pulled in. We have 3 adapters for the gas connection. One is marked up for France and the other two are marked as Europe. I decided to go into the garage to ask which of those would fit their system – I thought that would be better than taking the pump off to see what the fitting was. It took a couple of them to decide which was the correct one but I fitted it to the MoHo and it took the pump no problem. **** photo needed. Filling up cost around €20 – which is on a par with UK prices (I think).

We went for a bit of a drive after that. On looking for somewhere to turn so that we could head back to the campsite, I saw a layby so took the MoHo into it. The exit was a bit steep and as we went for it, we heard a loud scraping which meant that we had actually grounded the chassis or something else. I stopped it immediately and gingerly reversed. It didn’t sound too bad and I couldn’t see anything untoward when I got out and looked underneath. Just a scratch – we hope. We took a different exit with no problem.

It was still not great weather when we got back. At one point, I decided to go outside to top up the toilet flush tank (using my trusty new watering can!). Whenever we have the habitation door open, we always have the fly screen pulled across. Ellie knows not to try and go through it. On this occasion, I had not pulled the fly screen across. I remember seeing her stood near the door looking and it was as if it dawned on her all of a sudden that it was open and she shot out of the door and set off after a couple of German women walking their dog.

Ellie only wanted to play with the other dog but I don’t think it was very pleased and I don’t think that the two woman were very pleased either. She would not come back to me but I caught her eventually and tried to apologise to the women – though I’m not sure why because no harm was done.

We had a tea of fish pie. That was my mistake – I thought I’d bought a couple of breaded fillets – but it was ok. Then we watched The Terminal on DVD. We’ve seen it before but Tom Hanks is always worth a watch. I have to say – again – the Avtex is proving a good piece of kit. It started to rain late on but I waited until it died down then took Ellie for a walk.

There was a lot of rain in the night but it had stopped by the morning. We went out and explored the cycle path/road even more and did a round trip back to the camp site. I decided that we would do it again later with Dud this time.

I’ve started taking out the dictionary and looking up words and a lot of them are coming back to me – including some new ones like Entsorgungstation for disposal point. I can still cope with the structure of the language but not using it means that you lose the vocabulary.

Again, we watched a bit of the tour and I wished we were still there. We then watched most of the Austrian Grand F1 Prix but decided to go for a walk because the race was boring (as most of them actually – apart from the previous one).

It was hard work pushing Dud up one of the hills but all good exercise. The walk took us away from Dornstetten and gave good views over the town of Hallwangen. The weather was not great and it was threatening rain so we didn’t stay out too long.

After tea (Lorainne pork sausages and Uncle Ben rice) I took Ellie for another walk rather than wait until late on as it looked as if the rain was going to close in again – which it eventually did.

There were a couple of MoHo’s parked next to us who were obviously together and they were a couple of Asian families. Tonight, I had a chat with one of the fathers. It had been strange to hear German being spoken with an Asian accent but when he spoke to me, he had excellent English and told me he was from Pakistan originally. His kids have 3 languages, Urdu (their preferred language), German and English – and they are only youngsters.

We’re moving on tomorrow but this has been a good site.

It rained again in the night and was still spitting when we went on our morning walk. I got some pictures of the viewing platform – the Airedale would not climb the steps but the lead was long enough for me to get to the top while she stayed at the bottom.

We wanted another couple of nights in Germany so looked at a couple of places in the ACSI book and picked the site at Clausensee in the Pfälzerwald region – no, I’d never heard of it before, either. We rang the site and the Frau said that there would be no problem with a pitch. My German is getting better all the time.

Before we left, I’d bought a couple of books of German Aires – or StellPlätze as the Germans called them – but we didn’t use it since the ACSI sites seemed ok. Perhaps next time.

We had breakfast before setting off. As we were going back along the B28, the satnav said again that the road was closed but there was no way I was going back down that narrow route again – though, it would probably not have been as bad going downhill. There were no road closure signs (another word learnt – Umleitung -diversion) so it looked as if it would be ok.

There were some very steep downhill sections with hairpin bends which had me standing on the brakes – and I pride myself in being quite good at engine breaking. We got to some road works (which is what I suspect the satnav was taking as road closure) and the lights were on red so we stopped. We could smell burning and then smoke started coming from the wheels.

I hoped that once we got moving, that would cool them down but the lights seemed to take an age to turn green. Once we got moving, it all seemed to get back to normal but I pulled over anyway to check. I could still smell burning but it didn’t seem too bad. What did seem bad was a bite that I got on my leg while I was kneeling down looking under the MoHo. I couldn’t see anything or any puncture but it was quite painful – more on that later.

We’d set the satnav to avoid motorways and that led us on a good route following the A5 in Germany. We then went over the Rhine – or rather what looked like three rivers but it is just the one river but with a couple of islands – as you can see from the satellite picture. I hadn’t actually realised that for long stretches of the Rhine, it forms the border between France and Germany – or what used to be called a border before Schengen.

We drove through France for a while and stopped for some lunch in a lorry park next to a Lidl in Wissembourg. We were close to the German border again so the cars were a mixture of mainly French but a significant proportion of German.

We got back into Germany and the satnav started to tell us that the road ahead was closed. We weren’t going to fall for that again and so carried on. But guess what – the road was closed! Anyway, the Umleitung was clearly signed so we had a slight detour through Bad Bergzabern.

We got back on to the main road and started to see lots of vines. There were also signs saying that we were on the Weinstraße – wine road.

As we got closer to the site, we were turned on to some narrow’ish roads – but nothing too bad. At one point, we built up a queue behind us so I pulled over to let the box van and some other cars past.

We got to the camp site and signed in speaking German all the time- though I know from the earlier phone call that the woman speaks English. We ordered some croissants (very German) and some buns to collect the next morning. Having not been able to visit a supermarket, we were low on supplies – actually we were ok but we had no wine – when I say we had no wine I mean I had no wine. Luckily, there was some local Riesling in the camp shop – so I bought a bottle.

We then tried to get in the camp site but there was a barrier and we had been given no PIN or card for the barrier so I wasn’t sure what to do so had to go back to the office. The Frau told us that we were not on the camp site – which was more expensive – but we were on the motorhome-only places outside of the main camp site. These pitches are marked up as Reisemobil Stellplatz – so almost like an Aire but they had hook-up. I would not have minded paying the extra for the main site but was not unhappy with the pitch that we ended up with on the Stellplatz. And we were the only ones on it so plenty of room.

Once we’d parked up, I went to pay but the card machine would not accept either my credit or debit card. I have no idea why but the Frau was ok with it as long as we got some cash tomorrow – another challenge.

There is a stream running through the site so guess which Airedale has been for a paddle in it on one of our walks! Satellite reception seems ok but could we not get ITV 1 on either Sky or Freesat. Plus One is ok but not the main channel. Another puzzler!

Croissants for breakfast even though we are in Germany – not sure that they were any better than the mass produced Leclerc ones.

We have a neighbour. Dutch couple in a VW PVC. We are in pitch 2. Pitch 1 is nearest the lake and we could have had that pitch yesterday but we would have been stuck out a bit so we took pitch 2 which is slightly longer. The Dutch are in pitch 1 now and so they partially block our view of the lake – but not that much so we can still see it.

We went for a drive into the nearby town of Waldfischbach. The Frau at the camp site had told us that there were Wasgau and Netto supermarkets there – and a bank where we could get some cash. We opted for the Wasgau – my first German supermarket experience. It didn’t exactly take my breath away. It’s not a big town so it would never be a huge hypermarket type place. Disappointingly, a lot of the stuff was the same as you could buy in the UK.

Surprising how bad my German vocabulary has become – I even had to look up Schinken which is ham. I’m carrying the dictionary around with me so am picking words up again.

On paying at checkout, I asked the Frau if I could get cash back. She said I could but I had Dud’s card which is a Visa debit card – but that would not allow cash back. So, after unloading the shopping, I walked further into the town to find the bank – which I did after quite a walk. The cash machine was inside and worked without a problem – so we could now pay for the camp site.

We went for a bit of drive but the scenery was just the same as where we are staying – ie twisting roads with loads of trees – so we turned round and had some lunch in a pleasant layby that we had seen on the way in.

Going back through Waldfischbach on the way back to the camp site, we saw our new Dutch neighbours walking through the main street – they waved. Strangely, when we got back to the camp site, their MoHo was still there. We didn’t think they had bikes so wondered how they had got there. I asked them later on and they had walked – it must be at least 8 Km so a fair old walk – and it rained on the way back so they got a bit wet.

Dud, Ellie and I went for a walk round the site when we got back. You can walk past the barrier and get on to the main site. The various rows have all got birds’ names. I wish I’d written them down or taken pictures but I remember Drosselwegen (thrush way), Meise (tit), Spatz (sparrow), Eisvogel (kingfisher), Rotkehlchen (robin) – it’s seeing things like these that builds up your vocabulary.

When I was speaking to our German friend at Saphoz, he had used the word “mobil” when referring to his motorhome – in spite of his almost perfect English. I hadn’t given any thought to what the Germans called MoHo’s but when I heard him use that word, I assumed that was to do with it. Our pitch here is marked up as Reisemobil Stellplatz. Reise means journey. I have also seen MoHo’s referred to a Wohnmobil – wohnen is to live – I like that word because I’ve also seen WoMo (pronounced Voe Moe) which I like.

We had a tea of Pizza and a then did a bit of telly watching.

Ellie and I went for another walk and we took the lane alongside the site. There is another section to the site but I’m not sure how you access it. There are a lot of almost permanent type homes so maybe they have codes or whatever for the gate. Anyway, the lane we took is not the way to get to them. I was tempted to let her loose in the woods – they are massive – but decided not to – I may never see her again doing that.

Back into France tomorrow to work our way back to Gravelines on Friday night.

Always a sad moment when you realise that you are starting your journey back home. It was not great weather when we set off. We set the satnav for Thionville – not sure why, really, but that looked more or less the direction in which we needed to be heading.

Not long after we had set off, something didn’t sound right – you get to know the noises that you should hear when driving. It was as if a window was open. When I looked up, the skylight directly above us was open. That was strange because I know it was closed on my fastidious pre-journey checks. We pulled up at some traffic lights and I thought I might have time to get up and close it – but it closed anyway! When we eventually pulled in and fastened it, it became clear that it might have been closed when I checked it but it was not fastened down. I still can’t get my head around the physics that it would actually open when driving – I would have thought that the airflow would force it down but it appears that it actually forces it upwards – strange.

We travelled out of Germany and into France (Schengen has some good points in that there are no stops at borders). Unfortunately, the weather was not great. It was poor visibility which was a shame because I suspect that there were would have been some good views.

We passed through Thionville and reset the satnav for Charleville-Mézières. At around 15:00, we pulled in to look at the All the Aires book and we decided to head for the Aire at Damvillers. We got there and it was not a particularly attractive location – just off the D905 and in front of a garage with loads of old cars – but we only wanted a stopover for the night so we parked up.

Ellie and I went for a walk through a residential area – and not exactly an up-market one. We could see across some fields and there were some brightly coloured trucks – which I eventually realised were circus trucks. I love circuses – especially ones with animals and I could see what looked like a camel tethered near the trucks. So, we headed in that direction.

We had to double back on ourselves and walk through a different residential area. There was what looked like a school but turned out to be some kind of college and the circus trucks were parked in the college grounds. We ventured in and saw the camel and there was also a pony tethered.

There was a small marquee and 3 or 4 trucks so it didn’t look the biggest circus and there was very little activity. A bloke appeared out of what looked like a washroom section of the college and he said something to me and we got into a conversation. I asked about the circus but evidently it was finished and they were about to move on. I said something along the lines of you would not get animals any more in a circus in the UK and he ended up asking me for a donation for vaccines for the animals. He asked for €10 and I offered €5 – which he accepted. I said to him (all in French) that I hoped the €5 was not for beer for him but he assured me that it would be for vaccines – I suspect I was taken for a mug but I hope not. Anyway, I got a poster for my donation as you can see from the photo.

There is a memorial garden in the town dedicated to the artist Jules Bastien-Lepage who was born in Damvillers. Looks like he’s quite famous in the art world but, heathen that I am, it was the first that I’d heard of him.

Whilst I was making the tea, Ellie had started barking (nothing new there) because she could see something through the window. Dud had said something to her about the swans flying past. That didn’t register at the time but when Ellie and I went for our evening walk, I heard a loud clicking sound. I knew exactly what it was because we’d heard it so much on our visit to St Nicolas de Port (*** link). It was a stork (cigogne) noise so we walked down the lane across from where we were parked and we soon came across stork nests on top of the telegraph poles. They are magnificent birds so we watched them for a while and then walked back and towards the centre of the village.

As we got towards the centre of the village but still on the main road though it, we arrived at the main church. Looking up, there was another stork’s nest above the door to the church and there was a stork stood up in the nest. I didn’t have the camera with me so could not capture the image.

When I got back to the MoHo, for whatever reason, I thought I’d give the invertor another try. To my surprise, it worked so I put the laptop on charge and transferred the video clips on to the laptop.

My leg was getting quite painful and was getting quite red and was swelling up. I still assumed that it was as a result of a bite and would sort itself out.

I woke up quite early – partly because of the traffic noise and partly because it dawned on me that, with tomorrow being Bastille Day, it would most likely be a bank holiday. So, we’d have to get Ellie to a vet today because they would most likely be closed tomorrow. I’d spent some time googling for vets in our area last night but with no success so I got up and checked the maps for the nearest largish town that would likely be on our way. I settled on Sedan (yet another sizeable place that I’d never heard of) and 3 vets came up. I rang one of them but it was still only 08:30 so it went to voicemail.

Ellie and I went for a walk to fill some time. We walked down to the church where we had seen one of the storks the night before but no storks to be seen this morning. When we got back, I tried one of the vets again and made an appointment.

We got to the vets at around 11:00 – which was 30 minutes after the time that I’d arranged the appointment for but the receptionist was very friendly and shrugged off my apology. She called through the vet who was a young woman who was very friendly and helpful. I now know that they weigh the dog (baiser) and then give them the tablet. Actually, she offered the tablet to me to give to Ellie in her food but I thought it best to administer it there and then. I had to open Ellie’s mouth and the vet gave her the tablet. I’ve been asking for comprimé vermicule because that’s what it came up with once on Google Translate but the last couple of times I’ve looked it up, it comes up with comprimé vermifuge. I checked with the vet and it is comprimé vermifuge (worming tablet).

She signed the Pets’ Passport in the two places. I asked her if she got many Britishers asking for this and she said 2 or 3 times a week. Then she presented the bill. I was shocked – it was €7.20 that’s the lowest that we’ve paid – previous lowest was €14:00 at Bapaume and I thought that was cheap.

We’d decided that once we’d been to the vets, then we’d set the satnav for Calais avoiding motorways and see where we ended up. We pressed on through Charleville-Mézières and then stopped for some breakfast. The layby where we stopped had a burnt-out car in it so we’re starting to feel at home again since they are a regular sight in Grimsby.

We needed a shop – not desperately but, again, given that tomorrow could be a bank hol, we decided to do it today. We ended up at an InterMarché at Le Cateau. We filled up with fuel whilst there (bit of a tight squeeze getting to the pump and then past the cashier). Good job we did fill up because there were notices that it would not be open on the Friday of Bastille Day.

We carried on driving and got the distance to Calais to under 100 miles and decided to look for an Aire. The closest one was at Arras so we headed there. An interesting feature of the satnav that I’ve found this trip is that if you set it for an ACSI site (all pre-programmed into the satnav) then it will come up with any that are in your current vicinity. It picked one out that we passed quite close to but we’d made the decision to head to the Aire at Arras.

The “All the Aires” book had said that the Aire is popular and that proved to be the case with most of the dedicated places taken up. The only one left was the one next to the service point so we gave that a miss and parked outside of the Aire at the end of the road next to it. There’s another couple of vans near us to we’re not the only ones. We’re getting quite blasé about where we park these days – be like the French and don’t feel that you have to park within some lines!

Tea of risotto – second time this trip but I defrosted 2 chicken breasts last night and so needed to use up the other one tonight. Delicious – the French stock cubes give it a great taste.

When Ellie and I went for our late night walk, there were lots of groups of mainly youngsters milling about all seemingly headed somewhere. When we got back to the MoHo, we found out where they were going when the firework display started. It sounded very impressive and went on for a good 20 minutes. Ellie was agitated at first but soon settled down. She is used to fireworks because we see a lot of them when they put on a display at the Oaklands back home.

The Aire is in not a particularly pleasant location. There are some commercial buildings around it and just down the road are some big apartment blocks. Some of the apartments look ok but some look decidedly dodgy.

We topped up with water for what we hoped would be the last time using up one of the Euro Relais jetons. We were only 90 miles from Calais so decided to take the motorway so we could get to Gravelines reasonably early and have a walk to the beach. There weren’t many trucks on the road – at least, not French ones – because it is Bastille Day.

We got to Gravelines and went to the service point even though we didn’t really need to but I emptied the toilet and drained the grey waste anyway. That will definitely be the last time until we get home.

We parked in pretty much the same spot as we’d done last year. It’s a good spot overlooking the inlet – which is actually the River Aa – guaranteed to be the first in any alphabetical list!

We delayed the walk because it started raining so we watched the Tour for a while. Once the rain stopped, we went to the beach which is about a mile away from the Aire. There’s a walkway but it’s tricky with the wheelchair getting to it because you have to cross a bridge with a very narrow footpath which is marginally wider than the chair. Negotiating that bridge with an Airedale pulling at the lead is not easy.

There was quite a lot of activity on the sea front. Lots of kids and families about enjoying the bank holiday.

When we got back, we saw a MoHo that had been at Arras the night before so we chatted with them for a while.

Gravelines is a walled town but, because the Aire is effectively on the port, you are outside the walls. On our night walk, we went inside the walls – first time that we’ve done that. That threw a whole new light on the town. The square is impressive and has had a lot of money spent on it (not uncommon in French towns). There is quite a history to the town.

Our train was due to leave at 09:20 and set off to the Tunnel in good time. When we got there, we could see queues – again. We had to get Ellie checked so went to the Pet centre. We went in, got dealt with straight away, I scanned her chip and the man did whatever he had to do to check us in and we were straight out again. We’ve never been as quick as that.

So we got in the queue. 2 hours later we got on the train. It took ages to get to the first booth. When we got there, the ANPR recognised us and I pressed OK but it told us to wait – which we did (as did all of the other booths). That took probably 20 minutes or so. Then we got in the queue for passport control. That took another age – not least because busses kept pushing in to our lane. They are a bit big to argue with. We then got through to the queue for the train and were held there for another age.

There was a Jaguar XJ220 in front of us. You don’t see many of those. The driver said that one of the tunnels had been closed earlier and they were having to put trains through one way only and that was causing the delays. I’m not sure whether that was true but when we were finally called to the train, cars were still coming off which I’ve not seen before. Also, another train came in and started to unload just as were getting on so that could have been true.

We’d seen the Jag as were progressing through the various queues. I’m not sure that I’ve seen one before and, at first, I thought it was a Lamborghini. He had to use the MoHo/van lanes because it was so wide. When I was talking to him, I kept thinking that there was an association between the car (the model – not this particular car) and Elton John – I was right according to this web page. The actual car that we saw – R152 AAR – is referred to on the XJ220 Facebook page.

Once we eventually got going (around an hour late), we had breakfast in the tunnel. Back on British soil, we had the atrocious M20 to contend with – what a disgrace that this is the first road that foreign visitors see of this country – the state of the surface is appalling. On to the M25 and then the M11 and we stopped at Birchanger services for a cup of tea.

I’ve been wanting to get some comfortable chairs for the rare occasions that we sit outside in the sun. The journey home takes up past Brownhills Motorhomes which is alongside the Newark turn off the A1. So we called in there and I went in the accessories shop and saw some chairs that I liked the look of – so we bought a couple. Can’t wait to try them out – maybe in Spain when we go there when I retire.

When I was looking to see which chair to buy, there was a lady who had a disabled right arm – in fact, she had no hand on the arm. She was also looking at the chairs. When I picked the one that I wanted, I chatted to her and said something along the lines of did she thing I’d made a good choice. The chair has a bit of a table with it and she said that she needed the table on the left side because she was left-handed. “Oh, are you?” I said – which, given her disability, was a really stupid thing to say!

We pulled in at the Brough layby for a sandwich and then set off for home. Good holiday.