Travelling in our Motorhome

We had just packed up the van and were just having lunch before setting off when we saw on Facebook and then an email came through that the event was cancelled!

There was always this chance after the torrential rain we had had in the south-east over the last few days.

Yesterday though, we both thought little of it and if it was cancelled, so be it. We would simply let the tickets roll over to June when the next summer event was on. That was one of the options we were given.

Then today, after loading the van with everything we'd need except for us and Reggie, we saw the notices. Bugger.

Loaded up and nowhere to go!

Molly unloaded. Camping "treat" crumpets out and in the toaster!

Typical.

With a weekend away on grass at the "Campers and Coffee Rally" coming up in a few days.... the weather has turned and we have torrential rain coming from the north-east.

We have had sunny conditions for a few weeks but this week it's lashing down! What luck!

Hopefully the organisers will have a tractor on call if anyone gets stuck in the mud!

Last year's video.

A little more planning this evening for the second day we are in France. We will overnight at the CCP aire at Formerie and the plan is to head almost due south to the CCP aire at Beaulieu-sur-Loire. Sadly, Paris site in the way!

Leaving it to Google Maps and TomTom of course comes up with several different routes. One that goes into Paris and on the périphérique (shudder the thought!) and others that bypass Paris to the east and the west.

I decided that as we have "done" the east side so many times, maybe the west ought to be given a chance.

Ticking the boxes in both apps to "avoid tolls" came to one route! No doubt when it gets onto "Max" it will all change.

So the attached screenshot is the proposed route for Day 2.

During the wee small hours whilst I am trying to go to sleep, my brain keeps thinking about the route to Alcoceber and the stops to make on the way.

On the way from Calais we are already booked into the Camping-Car Park (CCP) aire at Formerie. That's a given. It's after there that I keep having this recurring nightmare that to avoid going the same way (again!) that we have done before that we will end up in the centre of Paris!

It's irrational but can you even imagine taking a 7.02m motorhome into Paris. *Shudder*

I am pretty convinced that the second overnight will be at the CCP aire at Beaulieu-sur-Loire. Trying to find it on Google Maps shows the road number that CCP provide is different and it's still called by it's old name Camping Touristique du Canal. It does say it is managed by CCP. Taking the route that TomTom Max likes would take us to the east of Paris on the outer périphérique and then via Melun and Fontainebleau and then the N7, in its many departmental guises, and finally the A77.A total of 188 miles. I plan in miles despite France being metric and distances being in kilometres.

It's the next day that I am having a problem with. I had originally thought that the CCP aire Brassac-les-Mines would be ideal. My earlier planning is always based on stopping at St Cyprien Plage at Le Flot Bleu on the 4th and last overnight before heading to Alcoceber on the Saturday morning.

Brassac-les-Mines would be mostly motorway with the toll free A77 giving way to the toll free A75 and around 180 miles from Beaulieu.

I have been looking at some other CCP aires at Massiac and Saint-Flour. These would add around 17 miles and 36 miles respectively to the day's mileage. Given the autoroute travel, it's seems ultimately doable. Probably 210 miles for the day maximum.

If we choose to spend €16.30 and stay on the A75 over the Millau Viaduct, then cost goes up and mileage goes down a little. It would mean of course, once at Beziers we need to avoid the expensive toll A9! The mileage for the day would be something like 220 miles. Not too bad considering the distances on the autoroutes.

I have formulated a rough plan for the outward journey that has us stopping in three Camping-Car Park (CCP) aires on the way to Alcoceber.

We could stay at free aires rather than spend between €10 and €15 a night, but we should be guaranteed an electrical hook-up and some sites are municipal campsites that have joined the CCP system and have loos as well.

We have already booked the first night away at the CCP site at Formerie. This is far enough to drive on the first day after getting off the boat at Calais around 1pm and then going to do some shopping for us and Reggie. It's only about 115kms from Calais and we are travelling on a Tuesday and there are no school holidays!

Day 2 is a little more complex.  Paris sits like a huge spider in its web, and getting past it can mean large detours. Usually, we head towards Rouen from Formerie and then from there head south taking in Chartres and along the N10 route towards Tours, Poitiers and Bordeaux.

This time I decided to let TomTom Planner on the laptop decide the route with the emphasis on no tolls.  It does indeed take us towards Paris and then around it on the outer ring roads.

Even though we have the crit'air sticker for France, I'd hate to drive a 7m van any nearer the centre.

At the moment I am looking at Beaulieu sur Loire CCP for the next overnight stop. The site is a former municipal campsite and does have loos and showers available until mid-October. It's around 185 miles on the day.

Day 3 and we should go a lot further on the toll-free A77.  We use toll motorways when we really need to, but why pay when you can go for free? I am looking at the Brassac les Mines CCP. We are looking at the same sort of distance again today.  Rather than thrash along we can take our time and see something along the way.

Once off the A77 we have some local former N roads and then the A75. South of Clermont this is toll free as far as Beziers and the A9 junction. Brassac is an expensive €15 a night. This is open to change and with a lot of the day in non toll autoroutes we could go further and cut down the next day's mileage...

The last overnight at the end of Day 4 I am aiming for is the Flot Bleu Aire at Saint-Cyprien Plage on the Mediterranean coast. We have stayed before in 2022 and it was nice but a little packed in November. Hopefully not packed in October!   I do have a couple of CCP aires as backup. From the reviews it seems that people moan about anything and everything!  We had no problems there.  It's an aire and there isn't supposed to be camping behaviour i.e. awnings and tables and chairs etc! This is a slightly longer day, around 220 miles and I might scrub this one and go for one of the CCP options in the area.

Day 5 we set off for Alcoceber and the week in the apartment.

(This was posted from Yahoo Mail - no paragraphing on arrival in Travellerspoint!!!)

(Edited to add paragraphs - 15th August)

I have had a few days off from planning this trip as there were other things to look into. The rear bumper fix for Molly being one of them - more on that elsewhere on this blog.

So whilst I was playing with Max (the TomTom Go Camper Max satnav/GPS) I decided to let her/him/they calculate a return journey from Alcoceber/Alcossebre with the dimensions slightly altered to make the van wider.

If you have read the earlier blog about the journey to Invicta Caravan Services you will get an idea how even the best laid plans can be ruined by Google having the wrong information in their Maps application!

Also the roads chosen by TomTom were too narrow for Molly to pass trucks and buses safely without one (usually me as truck drivers know that their size and weight always wins!) of us diving to the left to avoid contact. A problem I need to address and quickly.

On the summer trip in May we started coming north from Valencia. This time Alcoceber is around 110kms to the north of Valencia. The route though looks pretty much like the one we did on the way back in May. The non-toll route goes over the Somport crossing and maybe this time we will stay on the aire at Canfranc Station.

We have five nights to travel along this route or one very much like it. On one of the days we need to fit in a vet's visit to get Reggie his worming and passport filled in. I am thinking a Cavignac for that. We have been there before and the village has a free aire about a kilometre from the vet's surgery. Something to consider.

This is a work in progress... I'll work on this as we get nearer to the date we leave.

This is part of the route as far as Cavignac and the vet's office.

One of the successes of having Max is that it is larger than the Ohrex. It's updated by WiFi at home and also gets traffic updates by being Bluetooth tethered to my phone. I just have to remember to turn that on when I switch my phone on. If anyone knows how to make it automatic on an Android phone then let me know! I turn my phone off at night and back on again in the morning. In case of an emergency we still have the landline at home....

Another success is that TomTom Plans syncs with the unit across the wifi and bluetooth connection. So I can plan something and send it to Max.

... and back.

The first part of this blog was written on Thursday and then left as a draft so that today, when I got back from collecting Molly I could upload in one blog!

Thursday 8th August

To get Molly up to Staplehurst for a 9am arrival meant leaving home around 8am. It's merely 40 miles max but it would be during the morning rush hour. With the M20 currently deployed as a contraflow, called Operation Brock, and a reduced speed limit, I let Max (Satnav!) choose a non motorway route. Not a non-toll as there aren't any toll motorways around here.

The route on paper and on screen didn't look too bad. It was terrible!

Once off the A20 after Ashford the route to Pluckley and Headcorn was on shitty little roads. At one point I had to avoid a lump of tree hanging onto the road. It was around a blind bend and luckily nothing came the other way. Car drivers that have no idea which side of the painted centre line they are supposed to be on!

Once in Staplehurst Max took us to where Google thinks Invicta Caravans actually are. They aren't. It shows them in the middle of a lane when in fact they are right at the end. As we crawled along, Claire following in the car, I overshot the real entrance. That's when I backed into a road sign trying to turn around a 7 metre van on a 7 metre road! And broke even more of the nearside (left) bumper off. So much that the light block was hanging down. I taped it up.

This meant that of course, the job was bigger than estimated originally. That means it is more expensive.

🤬🤬🤬

Cathy let us in and we surveyed the extra damage. She assured us that it was fixable. So off we went in the car towards Maidstone, forgetting the M20 is closed for the above mentioned Brock! We had to take the A20 back to Ashford before joining the M20 after Brock ended. We were in no hurry.

Saturday 10th August

To save me driving to Invicta Caravans and Claire driving back I checked that I could get the train to Staplehurst and Cathy would pick me up. I needed to get the 8.46am train from Sandling, the nearest station to Hythe, and it would be four stops on the "slow" line towards London. The timetable says 32 minutes. Claire dropped me off and as a miracle occasionally happens the train arrived on time. And, there were seats vacant! That cost me the princely sum of £10.30! Gulp.

Cathy was there to meet me as it wheezed into the station at the scheduled 9.18am. Of that journey 8 minutes was used up when they joined our train to the back of another that was waiting at Ashford!

Overnight I hadn't slept all that well. There was always the niggle in the back of my mind that repairing rather than replacing the broken parts might not be the best solution. In the end I needn't have worried.

The job is exceptional. You would never notice that anything had been done at all to the original. It was pieced together and plastic welded and then a gel coat put on it then painted and the seals redone to stop water getting in.

It certainly wasn't cheap, but I guess having a real artist work on it was worth it.

The other jobs that needed doing haven't been done as the extra time to put right the extra damage meant they ran out of time. I had offered to leave it there but they are fully booked up and booking jobs in three weeks ahead! Cathy is going to sort the part needed for the Truma BBQ point. It looks as though the whole surrounding thing needs replacing so she will order that on Monday. They will do the fresh water drain at the same time as I have the tap already. So more expense! She suggested August 27th as a possible date and they will come to us at home. Now to wait until Monday 12th for confirmation.

For the drive home I used MyRouteApp with vehicle set to Motorhome to create a route back home that avoided Maidstone, the M20 and of course the accursed BROCK! That went into https://plan.tomtom.com/en/ and synced to Max. I had to make a change as part of the route that Max made was different. I wanted to stay on roads wide enough to pass oncoming trucks and buses without diving for the left of the road!

Why the heck didn't TomTom choose my route? It was 2kms shorter and didn't involve any shitty little roads. I was back home in about an hour. No narrow roads! No brushing the left mirror into roadside bushes! No stress!

So here we are. All fixed and our bank accounts are a little more empty.

So with one overnight stopover fixed and booked I am looking at the maps to see if there are places to visit as we travel pretty much due south from Formerie, around Paris and then right through the middle of France.

My "go to" website is "Les Plus Beaux Villages de France". For some reason today the English page isn't working and Google isn't translating the French page for me. So I will have to resort to the schoolboy level French that I stopped learning officially in 1973.

The route after circumnavigating Paris takes us to the A77 toll-free motorway. The day will be about 196 miles to my (possible) stop at Bonny-sur-Loire. For normal people that is about 3 hours or so, but In a motorhome with a dog it's around 4 hours. Or longer.

The Beaux Villages are scattered across France. The latest map I could find shows that the north is pretty poor. This is probably because two world wars were fought across Normandy and what are now Somme and Pas-de-Calais Nord.

It looks for that day we will be unlucky with a Beau Village as the first village on the route is Sancerre and a short hike off the A77. Looking on Search4sites there seems to very little parking but one parking does have two camping-car spaces. That one will go in the book, yes a real notepad, as a maybe.

A better option is a little further south and that's Apremont-sur-Allier. Looks a nice little village with a castle, and it will be about lunch time when we arrive. They have a large camping-car parking place near the old town. I have added that one to the TomTom route.

Once we get onto the A75 below Clermont Ferrand we enter the area where we have been to most of them already! So Beaux Villages..... Next time maybe! That's probably not a bad thing as it is a long run on the motorways to St Cyprien.

I am still planning the Awaycation to France and Spain for this Autumn! So this is just an idea at the moment!

As I was toying with the online route planner for the TomTom GO Camper Max aka Max (https://plan.tomtom.com/) for this trip, I picked up a GPX file I have of the Romantic Road in Germany.

I found the GPX file online before we went to the Czech Invader Rally in 2022 and used part of it for the return journey on the bikes. Only part of it though.

The online planner will also import GPX files as well as plan your own route from scratch. I did a bit of bodging using the map from Wikipedia to check that the GPX covered all bases. It didn't and I have to add a few.

Link to Wiki map

To set a start point I had to reverse the route in MyRouteApp and create a new view of the Romantic Route from north to south. Starting in Wurzburg and ending in Fussen - excuse the lack of accented letters, this keyboard doesn't do them! The start point is Calais.

This produced the following route:

As I said it's only a thought at the moment, and making the routes in MyRouteApp and TomTom Planner was good practice!

Another factor is that we still have the timeshare week we can use. There aren't that many dog friendly places in Germany and Austria.

There may be more opportunities in Hungary. There are always a lot around Lake Balaton. I have been to Hungary a few times. Mostly on the motorcycle though, although we did one trip in a hired Czech registered Škoda Favorit estate.

We have stayed at Nelson's Patch before and when I was looking for a weekend away at the end of the school holidays I thought it would be nice to go again.

Two nights and hopefully the weather will be better and we can take a walk to the coast and maybe to Happisburgh and see the lighthouse and the beach.

Last time we had a walk locally but Reggie wasn't too enthusiastic as the road past the entrance to the site doesn't have a decent path, and the traffic was flying past. Hopefully, the pub right next door will be open this time as we will be there Friday and Saturday evenings!

Once the ferry booking was done and dusted I decided that I might as well get the first overnight stop booked.

I had already been looking at Camping-Car Park (CCP) aires for the trip down through France as far as St Cyprien Plage. The firs top being around 180kms from the ferry port at Formerie. We have stayed there before. It's a small aire with only 6 places and it fills up quite quickly.

To book I needed to credit my account with enough to cover the €12.50 (inc local taxe de sejour) overnight cost. I added €20 to the account taking my balance to €20.68! So that's booked.

This will be a toll route start to the holiday! I have driven and ridden the "old" N1 from Calais via Boulogne to Abbeville so often and with the 80kph blanket limit even in the sticks, it's mind bogglingly terrible and tedious. I feel after 40 years I know every turn it has to offer. So it will be A16 from Calais to Abbeville. Once onto the A28 the route planning will be "toll free"!

With the new satnav aka Max (the TomTom GO Camper Max) being the go-to satnav for this trip I'll put the Formerie stop into the system and then each evening let TomTom navigate us down through France to wherever we feel like staying. If it is a CCP aire then depending on what the app says occupancy is like, I might pre-book rather than simply turn up. We have done both over the years.

We have found some really nice aires and I have no problems with paying €10 to even €15 a night for a decent park-up. I know that many motorhomers are scandalised at that idea and look for free everywhere. Horses for courses as they say.

Currently the TomTom non-toll route from Formerie to St Cyprien Plage does take us dangerously near to Paris and it's terrible traffic snarl-ups.

After several attempts I managed to get through to P&O at Dover to book the ferry for our trip in October.

Why not use the online booking system? Because we wanted to use the Tesco Clubcard vouchers we had been saving for about a year against the fare.

I had already been on the Tesco Clubcard site and cashed in £90 worth of vouchers that when used for travel they end up doubling in pounds sterling. That gave us £180 against the overall fare.

On the Clubcard website it took less than 30 seconds to login and cash them. I had the email with the codes for Tesco seconds later.

That's when the fun started. You have to call P&O on their Dover 01304 number, and that's where the holdup is.

Firstly I tried before lunch and was told the average wait time was 50 minutes. I decided to hold off and try later. Mid-afternoon the time had gone up to 77 minutes. So once again I cancelled the call. I had to use my mobile as the landline wasn't working as we had fibre installed and the phone wasn't working.

The reservations office closes at 6pm so I set an Alexa reminder for 5pm to have another go. Luckily the starting wait was 33 minutes and this very slowly ticked down. After 40 minutes the message said I had less than 30 seconds in the queue. I quickly change to using the headset to make the call easier. I used to hate wearing it when working but it is so much easier and frees up both hands! Finally at 44 minutes I got through. The booking took about 15 minutes and I gave them the three (yes three) codes that made up the £180. It helped to have the military alphabet open in another window so that I could go through each ten digit code!

So we are booked on the 1005 ferry out of Dover on the P&O Pioneer and back two weeks later on Liberte. So that's Claire, me and of course Reggie in the pet lounge both ways for £258 less the £180.

Not much typing here but the photos that I couldn't attach from my phone that cover the weekend and the run back from the Norfolk Motorhome and Campervan Show and the stop off at Snape Maltings.

There are quite a few. Luckily the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-200 numbers photos sequentially....

Thursday 18th July

Friday 19th July

Saturday 20th July

Sunday 21st July

Monday 22nd July

Henry Moore

Barbara Hepworth

And as they say...... "That's All Folks!"

Monday

Once we had arrived at Waterpump CL we did the usual. Levelling went well and the Milenco levellers did their job.

After coffee and one of the cakes I bought at the deli at Snape we had a little rest and a read and then decided to head off to the pub up the road. There is a path from the site across the woods directly opposite the pub. It's called the White Horse.

When we first stayed there the pub was closed possibly due to Covid. The walk was 4 minutes according the Sarah the CL owner. With Reggie being reluctant to go anywhere it was 6 minutes.

We decided to eat there rather than the van. Claire had the pork belly and I went for the White Horse burger. Both excellent. To wash it down a cider and for me a"Hazy Days" IPA from Greene King on draught.

The walk back was a little quicker as Reggie knew he was going back to the van and the CL. We watched a little TV and then it was time for bed.

Tuesday

Once breakfast was over we did all the chores and it was time to leave. We packed up and left around 11am. The trip went very well with even the A12 roadworks were not too much of a problem. The M25 approaching the QE Bridge was a pain in the arse as usual. This time a "police incident". Still the usual incapability of four lanes of traffic being unable to stay in four lanes over the bridge in to four lanes the other side?

With the radio set to TA (traffic announcements) we expected to get some information but were still none the wiser what the hold up was about. Various Essex types came on to tell us about a water main burst in Grays and another road closed due to roadworks... Of the M25 and the QE Bridge. Nothing!

Home around 4pm. Another trip over. What's next?

0900

Today when I got up to take Reggie for his early morning perambulation there was a lot of activity. I am not an early morning person and so dog walks at 7.30am are a strain.

At least the boy was asleep all night and I was saved an evening earlier wander around the showground, doggy bag in hand...

Today the sounds are all of people packing up and getting ready to leave. Our closest neighbours went yesterday and another lot went just now.

The latter were parked as instructed but with their T5 VW they had a tent/awning almost the same footprint alongside us. There was just enough room to walk through.

Once breakfasted there are very few jobs to be done before we leave. I have the EHU to disconnect and the silver screen to stash. Claire has to wash up.

Next stop Snape Maltings in Suffolk.

1200

We arrived at Snape and as before we go past the entrance and turnaround in the next parking area!

We end up in a different area of the parking between two trees. Access to the overflow car park is through a narrow gate and low hanging trees. So we turned around and parked on the way in.

Meeting Claire's sister Sally, then we set off for a walk around the site to the Malt cafe for lunch.

It started to drizzle so they went to look around some of the galleries and Reggie and I went for a walk around. As usual the camera came out.

I moved the van before they came back to a better easier place to see and to get out of. After tea, where I spilled water everywhere, we parted company.

The TomTom Max took us a weird way back through lanes barely wider than the van. I have her measurements stored in the Max.

1600

Arrived at Waterpump CL around 4pm. Our pitch was marked using the blackboard as usual. There are three other vans here. Unusually two of them are also Elddis'.

Once levelled and EHU connected it was coffee and cake 🍰 time...

Now it's time to relax and maybe have a snooze.

Photos to follow.