2013 - 2014 Blog

Week 11. A journey in France


Above - Thiepval Memorial. Commemorating soldiers of the Battle of the Somme whose bodies were not identified or not found.

Well we have left Holland and travelled into France. Leaving the Dutch site was a right pain in the bum, we had to reverse the van off the pitch turning a very tight right angle in order to hitch up. Those who have had a twin axle know there is no such thing as a “tight” turn, particularly with a two motor mover, the bloody thing took an age to reverse out of the pitch but at least it wasn't raining and we got under way at 10:30. The navigator indicating that we had 404km to travel and that we should be there by 2:30pm - in a pigs ear!! It was pouring with rain and four thirty before we drove into the very narrow gateway of La Ferme des Aulnes. The gIMG 0987ateway was quite something, very tall and just a couple of inches wider than the caravan, still that was it till we left on Friday wasn’t it? Like buggery it was, after booking in the receptionist with a cheery “follow me” jumped into a golf cart and did a circuit of the VERY tight site and went then drove out of those VERY tight gates but worst of all after going through the gates she turned sharp left, fine for a golf buggy, damn difficult for a rig 41 feet long when the turn is a damn sight shorter than that and those bloody gates stopping you turn.

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It was still pouring with rain as we set up camp but stopped immediately after and didn’t start again until we went to the showers next morning.

Quite a sad day today, we went first to the the “1916 Somme Museum” which explained - no it didn’t - it tried to explain how 1,200,000 men, British, German, French and others, were slaughtered over a two year period for an allied gain of just 10 kilometres.

Utter madness.

In the afternoon we visited the Thiepval Memorial which commemorates those French and British soldiers of the Somme whose bodies were never found amongst them Lance Corporal Henry Francis Ghost.

Enough sadness yesterday, so today we visited Abbeville. A pleasant town with a wealth of interesting architecture, stunning. Unfortunately we spent so much time in the local market that there was virtually no time for other sightseeing, still someday we will return.

Week 10. Back in mainland Europe.


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Above: Waiting in the dark to board the ferry.

Week 10 did not start very well. France it seems is closed for the winter. At least the vast majority of her huge number of camp sites are. We have, so far, found two en-route open until the end of October we emailed to check that both could accommodate our twin axle 7.89m length of van. The first emailed back “. . .Je suis desole mais nous n acceptons pas les caravanes double essieux . . .” or in English - no twin axle caravans! Twin axle vans are not liked in France, no-one, it seems, knows quite why, some say it is because gypsies use them, others that it damages the pitch more than single axles, but whatever it is, it could not possibly be that the English use them :-) The second site replied that they were happy to accept vans of our length including those with twin axles but had decided to close early and so would not be able to accept us until the spring.

Oh well never mind, we will find somewhere, and if not we will overnight in motorway service areas that, unlike UK, don’t charge vast sums of money after the first two hours.

All the miserable people and the fun police throw up their hands in horror and exclaim how dangerous that is and how they know someone who’s brother has a friend who’s uncle Cecil was gassed/broken into/attacked/etc.,/etc. Following a few basic precautions - only stoping on busy areas, parking as near to the restaurant and the HGV’s as possible etc., we hope that we will have no problems.

Striking camp at Little Henham was a nightmare, rain fell from the sky unremittingly from when we started until we had finished. We were both wet to the skin, but site owner Mrs M (Kate) revived us with a lovely cup of tea and a warm in her kitchen while we said goodbye to her and farmer Vernon then it was off down the hill to the M11 and more adventure.

We were surprised on arriving at “The Field” that it was empty (and still raining). Whenever we had visited this site before it had, being just five miles or so from Dover ferry terminal, been busy, busy, busy with people arriving from or going to mainland Europe, could it be that in mid October the first tranche of snow birds had already left and the second half were waiting until after spending Christmas with the grandchildren? A even greater surprise awaited us when the alarm went off at 5:45 the next morning, it was still dark and remained so while we struck camp and drove to the Dover ferry terminal.

Arriving at Dunkirk, suitably replete with a full English breakfast inside us we set off across France, Belgium and Holland as we have done many times with and without the caravan and always in around four hours or less. This time I managed to take junction 21 when I had been told to take junction 20, my only defense being that they are so very close together, almost the same junction, Desmond (the navigator) rerouted and we continued, unfortunately Desmond had not been informed one of the roads we now wanted was closed - another detour that took us through narrow streets of houses including one blocked for fifteen minutes or so by an unloading pre-mix concrete lorry and we finally reached Dicky’s place over five hours after leaving the ferry.

When we arrived the camping site was closed for the winter.

Fortunately we were recognised as regular customers by the staff and allowed to stay, but on the roadway, the site itself being waterlogged, and we’re having to use our own facilities as the site ones are closed and the cleaners laid off till the spring. Still they could have told us to "bugger off", but the Dutch are such pleasant and helpful people.

We visit Sue’s friend Dicky whenever we are able, but this time we are collecting her. She is coming with us as far as Calpe, on the Cosa Blanca, where she is going to stay for the winter.

While in Holland we have stocked up on “Old Amsterdam”, we have a particular fondness for this tasty cheese and a stall in Den Bosch market cuts it into small pieces and vacuum packs each piece for us, it then stays fresh until we use it. It is also €13.40 kilo here while the cheapest we have found it in UK is £28.80 (€34.20) kilo.

Planning our traveling through France is still presenting us with problems. We have studied three routes so far one clockwise and southeast to Perpignan then into Costa Brava. One anti-clockwise southwest via Le Mans and Poitiers then into Spain at San Sebastian and a third straight down the middle all three have a very few open campsites and those mainly in inconvenient places. At the moment we have elected to follow the clockwise route and have emailed the two usable (by location) sites and asked if they will accept our 7.89m double essieux (twin axle), as yet no response.

I wrote in an earlier blog of my new computer that “. . .I have (so far) found no way of changing the new word processor (Pages) dictionary to proper (UK) English . . . “ while we were getting the cheese today we passed a Dutch iMac shop. Without much hope I went in and asked if they could help me. Not only did the young salesman speak perfect British English, and knew that American English and British English are different but, after some rummaging around in the word processor preferences, found the answer to my question - result.

We never did get a response from the French sites we emailed so they obviously don’t want our money. Our planned route is now anti-clockwise down the west side of france and we have managed to book two sites, the first, 415 km from Dicky’s place, is less than 100km from Calais. The second a little more than 500km further south and from there we haven't decided if from there, we will go straight to Spain or try to find one more site in France.

Weeks 8 & 9. What a Disaster.

Week 8 did not start badly. We said goodbye to Paul and Carol and travelled southwards to keep an appointment with Warwickshire based caravan chassis manufacturers Al-Ko who were inspecting our caravan Peggy on behalf of Bailey Caravans regarding a guarantee claim. Cracks had appeared in the nearside caravan wall radiating out from the corners of the door opening.

Despite arriving very late Al-Ko were still able to carry out the inspection, they leveled Peggy on a special floor and took all the heights and angles of her chassis. After this careful measurement the chassis was declared free from defect. The sag on the shock absorbers was measured and declared “about right for her age”. We were surprised, but apparently not as surprised as Al-Ko, when they linked the ATC electronic anti-snaking device to their computer and found that we had towed it well over 700 hours, on a three year old van this was expected to be less than 100 hours. Next came weighing the van, here we felt a little smug as we had taken most of the heavy stuff out and put it in the car before setting off that morning, so we were staggered when told that it grossed 1636 kilo that was a massive 144 kilo over the 1492 MTPLM (maximum technical permissible laden mass) almost double the 160 kilo user payload - what would it have been it we had not emptied the heavy stuff out.

That overload spelt an instant end to our guarantee claim. We had abused and misused Peggy. We had disregarded the loading instructions. Worst of all WE HAD GOT CAUGHT!!

So what to do now? Unless repaired poor old Peggy was worth scrap value and a repair would take between six and nine months and cost an awful lot of dosh. Spending that dosh was one thing but what would we do for between six and nine months while the repairs were carried out.

While in the Midlands we had decided to have the satellite dish system serviced and during the three hours it took went to a large midland caravan dealer to have a nose around. The salesman offered us a deal on some of last years models he was wanting to clear but was reluctant to offer even £1000 for Peggy without inspection saying “. . .well if you bring it in for me to inspect I might be able to go to £1500, but all I can do with it is put it on Ebay . . .”

That was the last thing we wanted to hear. We had recently been offered £8000+ in part exchange for a van now worth around £1000.

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What to do? We phoned the Bardsea Leisure the dealer we had bought the van from and who had first spotted the cracks and asked - “if we ignored the cracks and went to Spain/Portugal for some winter sun and they reached the edge of the panel effectively creating two panels would the result be catastrophic?”

The question was relayed to the company engineers and mechanics who immediately spit into two camps. The “yes” camp and the “no” camp. However there was only one “that would be a stupid and possibly very risky thing to do” camp. They were all in it.

Bardsea Salesman Jason suggested we give him a list of our requirements then he have a look at his stock of new vans and see if he could tempt us with anything. Ringing us back he said he was prepared to give us the Glasses Guide value on our Peggy less the projected cost of the repairs which he would get Bailey to do, and, in the fullness of time, would be able to sell the van on.

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One of the vans he offered was a 2014 Bailey Unicorn S2 Cartagena. We had looked at one of these vans a few months ago and liked it. It had a very similar layout to Peggy but with twin axles boasted a bigger washroom, kitchen and lounge and, most important of all, the payload could be upgraded from the (industry) standard 160 kilos to 274 kilos.

After a few days deliberating we decided that was the one. It had only just arrived at the showroom but could be readied for collection within a few days. Metaphorically shaking hands by paying a deposit over the phone we finalised the deal and headed off to Old Leake, just outside Boston in Linconshire to spend the weekend with Sue’s nephew Gary and his family.

The following friday having enjoyed the morning visit to the dentist - not!!, fortunately we were both given the all clear, we headed north to Birmingham. The next morning the satellite dish will be taken off Peggy’s roof. This took just an hour or so then it was back on the M6 travelling north towards Ulverston and our new caravan.

Arriving at Bardsea Leisure we were quite nervous. We were about to meet an expensive lady who would be our constant companion for the foreseeable future. Would we like or hate her? Either way we were committed. We were stuck with her.

When we were transferring our belongings from Peggy to Fiona (named after Princess Fiona of Shrek fame, cos like the princess, when transformed to an ogre, she is “butt ugly” on the outside but beautiful inside) we were staggered at how many belongings there were.

We stayed at Bardsea Leisure for two nights to check out all the systems etc., etc., the only problem was that glue on a trim came away when we heated the van up and although the engineer tried to fix it in the time we allowed him, it will be the first service before it will be sorted.

Although we had been introduced to our expensive new companion and quite liked her we were still nervous when we hitched up ready to move back south. She was heavier than any caravan I had previously towed. She was longer than any caravan I had previously towed. Although I had towed twin axle vans before the last time was in 1989.

Fiona certainly seemed long when looking in the car mirrors. She seemed to stretch back forever but as we got underway she fell in obediently behind us and behaved impeccably during the 166 mile journey to Birmingham where Peggy’s Oyster85 Satellite system was installed on Fiona by Conrad-Anderson Ltd.

Back in Little Henham we have now weighed every item within Fiona’s extensive cupboards and storage areas, to ensure that we don’t make the same mistake again, and booked the ferry.

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Let the adventure recommence.

Week 7. Visitors.

Saturday 14th September 2013

Well we have emptied as much as we can from the caravan and car so that we can accommodate our guests and shuffled 80 odd miles up the M6 to site 52 - Wood View. We will stay here until our guests arrive on Monday and then head off to site 58 - Bunree CC Site, this time though we are going there in one hop, and although it is a total distance of over 200 miles, it should not be too onerous as the first 100 plus are on motorway, but first lots of cleaning, vacuuming and cooking to be done.

Monday 16th September 2013

Our guests, Paul and Carol, arrived today, getting to the rendezvous just minutes after we did. Their car was parked up near our container and we moved on to Penrith ready for the journey to the Western Highlands of Scotland tomorrow.

Tuesday 17th September 2013

We have arrived at Bunree Caravan Club Site after a pleasant and uneventful journey, the weather is cloudy but dry so the awning goes up quickly and easily and we sit and admire the absolutely stunning scenery.

Wednesday 18th, Thursday 19th, Friday 20th September 2013

Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. Does the rain ever stop? It has been constant for the last four days. We have driven the best part of 1000 miles around the Ardnemachen peninsular, around The Isle of Sky - all sorts of places, all beautiful and well worthy of a visit but all a little desolate in the rain. Trying to cut the journey time back from Sky we caught the Caledonian-McBrain ferry from Armadale to Mallaig, the rain rained and the wind blew as the ferry rolled its way in a most disturbing manner.

Saturday 21st September 2013

More rain and another drive today but by the time we had got to Fort Augustus Locks where the Caledonian Canal enters Loch Ness the rain had stopped although the sun was a long way from making an appearance, it remained dry for the whole of our visit. Taking a chance we continued on to Foyers Falls, listed in the 1800’s as third most popular tourist attraction in Scotland, said to be such an awesome sight that people peeked at it sideways through raised hands.

We almost got back to the van before the rain started again - in earnest.

Sunday 22nd September 2013

It rained all night. The forecast was for more rain today and then more tomorrow. We accepted defeat and by 11.00am the awning was down, we were packed, we were moving. 

Heading east.

When we arrived at Yellowcraig Caravan Club Site early afternoon the sun shone from a clear blue sky and with a dry for the rest of the week forecast we feel we have made the right decision.

Monday 23rd September 2013

Awoke this morning to a clear blue sky so we decided to have a shuffty at the highlights of the city of Edinburgh. We went to the Wallyford park and ride, one of many around the city, and caught a bus into the centre. You would think we had learned from our last experience of a bus to Edinburgh, they seem to go round the houses for an age before getting to the destination. We had our wander round the city saw lots of interesting sights, the castle, the spot where Maggie Dickenson died the first time, Greyfriars Bobby, etc., etc. then did we look for a bus back? Not on your life we took a taxi, OK its more expensive but the journey took ten or fifteen minutes not an hour or more as on the bus.

Tuesday 24th September 2013.

It was still dry today, but rather misty. We plan to have a run (in the car, not on our legs) up the coast where the scenery is absolutely great and having a coffee at St Abbs Head before returning to the van to pack up ready for our move back to England tomorrow. On the way we went to Tantallon Castle it was well worth the visit although it would have been better if we could have seen more from the battlements than fog but at least we were out in the fresh air. We had spent so long at Tantallon Castle that the trip to St Abbs was cancelled, visibility was so poor that the scenery could not have been appreciated anyway, and we returned to the van for our last evening in Scotland.

Wednesday 25th September 2013.

Back into England today at the end of our Scottish tour and the end of Carol and Paul’s holiday. We stayed the night at the Birley Alms CL, had a nice meal in the pub restaurant, a drive along Blackpool’s “Golden Mile” to see the world famous “Blackpool Illuminations” going to bed tired but sad that our Scottish Tour was behind us; but HEY another European tour starts in two weeks :-)

Last Updated - Sunday 27th April 2014.             © Seve  Ghost 2014