The grand tour of France in a motorhome 2022 September 20th - day twenty-three

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OMG the D217.... narrow? Twisty? Uphill? Yep, all that. Have I said that in another previous blog post? Sorry!

I had my window down and around one nasty bend something fell off the shelf above me hit me on the head and went out the window. Double tight and steep hairpin bend! Thought it was the Netgear router gone out the window and so we stopped carefully in the only place visible around both bends.

Fluro jackets on, disembarked, off Maggie went searching the undergrowth whilst I stayed with Bryony. Fortunately, there was no traffic at all and she quickly found my little blue notebook containing costs, distances, etc done each day.

The router? Not to be seen. I quickly nip out to join her. The bank off the road is steep down into a ditch affair and is dense undergrowth. After fraught searches back and fro, we admit defeat and return to Bryony somewhat forlorn. I’m feeling very chastened. It was me who kept the router on the shelf above my door. “It’s never been an issue before is my only defence”. My co driver/navigator points out that I’ve never driven with the window down around steep hairpin bends on the road from hell before!

A kilometre on and someone discovers that someone, not him by the way, has hidden the router away in a dashboard shelf; not returning it to its correct place and therefore it hadn’t fallen out of the window. We are very relieved given its expense but the ensuing discussion about whose fault it was is set to rumble on …. until we are at least both 80. For now, words fail me and Maggie goes about claiming I tried to kill her on a hairpin bend.  In my defence, all I will say on the matter is, that as all motorhomers know, space is tight in a motorhome and therefore everything has its allotted space and things removed from their space should be returned to it. Maggie’s counter argument is that had she done that – we’d now be without a router and it’s a stupid place to store it.

If you haven’t read our earlier post about motorhome etiquette to avoid divorce – you can read it here  https://wherenexthun.blogspot.com/2020/11/agreeing-etiquette-to-avoid-divorce.html

 

We are actually on the way to the Aven d'orgnac caves. Just go! You will not regret it. There are insufficient superlatives to describe this cave tour. Who knew you could get palm leaf stalagmites? Thirty-five years a geography teacher teaching karst landscapes every year at GCSE and at times ‘A’ level and I never knew this! Stunning, extraordinary, brilliant!   Giant drapes and curtains, soda straws, organ pillars, palm leaf stalagmites and more. And throw in some HUGE caverns as well.

After doing the tour and meandering along we end up stopping the night at Beaucaire. A quayside aire of six spaces hidden way behind a road bridge alongside the canal. Tight entrance and spaces for 6 motorhomes and we got the last but one. Our evening view? A dilapidated concrete made barge! We walk into town, a nice stroll along the canal, following the path directly from the aire. The canal marina is interesting. We stop to talk to a couple of fishermen and they through mime and broken English explain they are livebait fishing for zander and pike. The bit of the town we saw was dismal – very narrow streets with five story buildings from 1800’s all shuttered up.

The aire is an off grid experience. We have half a tank of water and an empty waste water tank. We empty the toilet cassette whenever we can; we have a maximum of two days before it needs doing. Batteries are working well on solar and so far, we could, where batteries are concerned, go for several days without needing to hook up. There is minimal use in evening.  Two led lights and that’s it normally. We charge phones off a portable solar panel ‘Big Blue 5W’ left on the dashboard in any sunlight and also off a USB panel when the solar panel up top is operating well. The laptop can only be used by starting engine and using the cig socket inverter when we are off grid.

Hot water on hot setting uses gas. We can use the shower in the evening – it works off the leisure battery. The key is just not having loads of things on all at once. We can't charge the E bike batteries and that is a major limit on how long we go off grid. It is something we will need to sort out for future trips!

Storage wise, the shower acts as a storage dump for swim gear, drone gear, two watering cans and a bag of boots and spare shoes. My astro gear stays on a side bench during the day and moves to the passenger seat overnight. Driver’s exit is always kept clear for second emergency door.  

I contacted Vanblitz about the bike accessory loop cable not working and they kindly sent us a new one to our home address to try first. If that doesn't work, they will take the Moho in for free to work out what problem is. At the moment we live with a ‘hit and miss’ alarm cable. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t!

Useful information:

Websites: https://www.orgnac.com/en

Distance: 83 miles

Costs: Beaucaire Aire - free. https://www.searchforsites.co.uk/marker.php?id=2619