Category: Europe

The last leg

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Packing up for the third time we made the 2.5 hour drive north to Camping Acapulco in Saint Jean de Monts which is a 5 star rated campsite.

Compare to our last stop there were very few motorhome / camping pitches, maybe 20 or so I counted, the rest of the park is a mix of residential and park owned luxury caravans, our pitch was nestled in amongst some of the caravans.

To be fair it was a generous sized pitch with our own water tap, our neighbours were a Dutch family who were very friendly and gave the girls an ice pole each, they had two kids as well though they were out a lot so our girls didn’t really get to hang out with them.

The big attraction here if you have kids is the water park, there are a bunch of slides for smaller kids and then some mad ones for slightly larger ones, there is also a wave pool which the girls really enjoyed in their rings, this is the view from the main pool looking at the slides for the younger kids.

Interestingly the water in the pool was really warm so nice and easy to get in. We didn’t really do much here aside from hang about the pool, cook food and drink a few beers.

Most evenings were spent chilling by the van.

We did venture to the beach one day and it was heaving, didn’t bother taking a photo. The sea was quite rough as the tide came in as well, not ideal for younger kids.

Soon enough it was time to pack up again and start the 5.5 hour drive to Dieppe, it was long, hot and uneventful.

We parked up at one of the Aires a short walk (10 mins) from the quayside restaurants, Dieppe is really busy at night which makes a massive change from all the towns and villages we drove through that always look deserted.

We found an awesome restaurant which had some interesting live music, a very mixed age range band with a female singer coving everything from Eurythmics Sweet Dreams to Nirvana Smells like teen spirit!

Our crossing to Newhaven was at 06.30am, the Aire was 5 mins drive from check in which was handy, got up at 04.30 which nobody was a fan of!

As I finish writing this post Lauren and Arielle have gone for some breakfast and Stella has some internet on her iPad so is watching something which to me looks completely pointless, there is a tired kid crying and the boat is swaying gently on it’s way back to the UK.

As it’s so early we were treated to a beautiful sunrise only marred by the digital zoom on my phone!

In terms of the places we’ve seen it’s been a good trip, the kids have been testing with more arguing and fighting than we’d like, probably due to tiredness more than anything, not entirely sure we’d go away with them for this amount of time again, it’s been quite stressful for everyone, the kids said they had a good time however!

We’ll be home for about 11.00 in the morning, enough time to unpack the van, have a shower, put some washing on and then get ready for work Monday AM, 04.30 start, can’t wait!

Hot

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That’s the average temperature in the van in Sanguinet, scorchio.

Thankfully we put aircon in which gets it down to about 20 in the evening which is comfortable enough to sleep in.

We stayed at camping Sandaya which is a five star campsite on the shore of the lake, a far cry from when we first stayed here about ten years ago in our old van bumblebee. We stayed at an aire which is about 500 meters from this campsite, took a picture for nostalgia.

Don’t remember it being this hot last time around to be honest.

Our pitch was pretty much in the blazing sun most of the day so I made a sun shade out of a back drop which is actually a bed sheet Lauren tie dyed for her mums 60th.

Looks a bit ghetto but it worked as intended.

The campsite itself is quite nice, reasonable facilities, great waterpark for the kids which is hectic at the best of times, there is access to a pool at the site next door which is far more chilled even when it’s busy.

Our days were spent searching for sun loungers at the waterpark, staying there till about fiveish and then heading to the lake at much protest from the kids only for them to have a whale of time trying to catch small fish.

We stayed for three nights and on the last night ventured out to try and eat at one of the lakeside restaurants or snack bars, they were all closed and the kids were hungry so they weren’t on their best behaviour.

The sunset however was beautiful.

There was also a full moon which I was advised by my mother in law is called the sturgeon moon, it was massive and came out for two nights.

On our last night we packed up most of what we’d got out so we could get an early getaway, mainly to avoid driving about in the heat of the following day, we left on the Monday morning.

We are now at Ideal camping which is near St George de didonne, marginally cooler weather.

This is a two star resort, it’s right by the beach and they pack them in here.

Despite that Lauren and I both prefer this to the last place, you very much feel like you’re in a forest and it’s much less hectic although the pool is pretty mad after lunch. There is a well stocked shop and the facilities are in better condition than the 5 star one aside from none of the toilets having toilet roll, if you’re a bloke it’s pretty obvious what you’re up to first thing in the morning!

The beach is lovely and quiet up until about 3pm, then it gets rammed, below is before it gets rammed.

The kids went rock pooling and found hermit crabs, I made a sandcastle when Arielle came back for a bit and got burnt despite putting my usual all day sunblock on, either it’s losing its potency or the sun was just bloody hot, combination of the both I reckon.

Tonight is our last night here, tomorrow we’re off to another 5 star campsite for two nights and then home, would rather stay here as it’s quite nice but going on to the other pace will knock a couple of hours drive off the final leg home.

Whilst we were here I did get to try out my new acquisition, the latest camping shower from decathlon.

My old one after 7 or 8 years faithful service died, the pump handle snapped. I think this is the third revision of this shower and the improvements include being able to see how much water is actually in it instead of guessing, a secure connection to the tank and it being black. I filled it with cold water and left it out in the sun for a few hours, came back and had a lovely hot shower to wash all the sand off my body before a late lunch, can highly recommend, game changer for camping!

A French house in the boonies

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We spent a week hanging at Ian and Lindi’s place which is a tiny little hamlet called Le Tourondel, there are about three dwellings there and rush hour consists of a couple of cars and maybe a tractor a day.

Our first day was spent mucking in and getting the place ship shape, much strimming, sweeping and bring the murky pool back to life.

There is a lot of wildlife here which kept Stella amused trying to catch lizards which she eventually did.

She caught a few other things as well including a massive cricket

There are all sorts of different lizards, green ones

Little speckled ones

And massive slugs

Then there are the bats that live in the bat house, so cool to see them hanging about

It was a very lazy week but we did manage a few trips out, one to le splash which is the local water park, got a nice photo by the river

There’s also a lake not to far from the house so we chipped there and had a bbq

Most of the adults and all of the kids got in the lake

There was a night market in Argentat selling a mix of Artisan products and cheap Chinese rubbish you’d find on Temu, the kids bought a mix of both with their holiday money.

The rest of the week was spent chilling ahead of a four and half hour drive to Sanguinet where Lauren had booked us into a five star campsite, more on that in the next post.

This pretty much summed up the last few days, chilling under a tree enjoying some music in-between the kids arguing over something completely pointless….

And for the last part of this post some pictures of the scenery, it really is beautiful round these parts

A lovely crossing

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The crossing from Newhaven to Dieppe is four hours and for young children it’s a great deal more interesting than sitting in a van in a tunnel or a short plane journey. They can run about and there are plenty of things to do, especially if you have an Uncle Ben with you who loves Lego and inventing dungeons and dragons games, the also do a good kids meal with a bag of colouring thrown in.

As our crossing was at 17.00 UK time we got a lovely sunset out a sea which was magical!

We also took a quick ferry crossing crew picture

Once we hit land we drove about an hour or so south to an aire that Ian and Lindi know, the aire itself was full but there are some car parking spaces you can pull up on as long as you head off at a reasonable time in the morning, ,it’s nice and quiet and there is a river just opposite.

After sone coffee and croissants from the local boulangerie it’s a further 6 hours drive to Argentat, Lauren scoped out a nice lake we could stay at in Chateaurox called Lac de Belle-Isle. There is a nice aire there along with a municipal camp site which also looked pretty decent.

After some car park dining Lauren, Lindi and the kids went to the lake for a splash about.

Ian and Ben had a kip, I fixed the van stereo and did the washing up, very exciting!

Soon again we were in the road, next stop Argentat!

We arrived at about 11 PM, the house hasn’t been opened for a few months so you never know what you might find, thankfully only one dead mouse and no damp!

I parked up the van and after the excitement of arriving and grabbing a well earned beer or three we got our heads down for the night in the van which is parked up just by the bat house, they’ve got more room than we have!

And we’re off!

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For those of you that check in on this blog you’d be forgiven for thinking we’d disappeared of the face of the planet, sold our van and settled down to a life more static. The truth is we spent two years selling our house, didn’t go to France as a family and had a handful of mini adventures.

Thankfully that is all behind us and family holidays have resumed We are heading off from Newhaven en route to Dieppe, an overnight stay in an Aire somewhere south of Rouen and then on to the in-laws in Argentat.

We’ll be hanging around in France for three weeks slowly making our way back up the Atlantic coast and I’ll be recounting our adventures here for those that are interested.

Salut as they say and Bon Voyage!

Le Beach

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After a few days at Lac Du Parloup it was time to pack up and head south. Before we came out here I fitted a bike rack so we could bring out bikes and a trailer for Arielle, the idea being that when we got down near the beach we could use the bikes to venture out if we wanted to. Clearly I am not used to how long this additional item makes the van and I managed to snag my rear wheel on a tree.

I’m not going to lie, I did swear and was really annoyed at myself. It transpires that 26” MTB wheels are extremely difficult to come by so that was my bike and the trailer out of action for the rest of the trip.

The drive to where we were staying next, Dunes Et Soleil Marseillan plage took a couple of hours, the kids were well behaved even when we stopped at Lidl, the temperature was noticeably warmer.

Check in was easy and we’d initially booked for a few nights, within no time at all we were setup.

The beach here is lovely, entry to the sea is a very gentle slope and you can wander out a long way and still be only up to your waist which is great for the kids, finally they got an ice cream from the man who walks along the beach with an ice cream trolley, Stella remembered this from the last time we came to France and she was dead set on getting one!

We ended up extending our stay here for another 4 nights at a cost of 70 Euros which is great value. There is an onsite bar that does amazing burgers and Pizzas plus the main drag is well within walking distance as is the local fairground I suppose is the best way to describe it.

There were plenty of rides for the kids and at around 22.00 they’d spent all their tokens and we headed home to be greeted by our first storm.

I wasn’t as prepared as I could have been, the water wasn’t an issue but the wind whipped up pretty quickly, luckily Lolly saw what was going on and came out and held on to the awning while I put some straps in to stop it blowing away, that did the trick and next day everything’s was as it should be, still attached to the van!

We had a great time here and probably would have ended up staying till we went home, we had lovely neighbours from Germany, Belgium and the UK and I even found a working three way fridge someone had chucked which came in well handy for keeping my beer cold!

What we didn’t have was a pool. I don’t mind hanging at the beach but the pool is a nice thing to mix it up for the kids so after seven nights we packed up again and headed to Vias Plage.

Le Trip to The Lake

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After a good few days in Argentat we set off to Lac De Parloup via a friend who we hadn’t seen for a few years. We mentioned we wouldn’t mind a stopover and he said he knew just the place for a picnic and a sleepover and that it was beautiful, he wasn’t wrong.

After meeting up we took a short drive to Najac and followed a dusty track and parked up next to the river.

It was absolutely stunning, we had a lovely picnic and there was a little beach with calm water so the girls could splash about, they loved it.

We were the only people there and had an undisturbed night, the Maxxair fan I put in the van kept us all cool as in the evening it was about 25 degrees.

The following morning I stripped off and a had a wash in the river, something I haven’t done in years! Shortly after 4 canoes came past and had they been a bit earlier they’d have had an unexpected sight!

Before we left we took the opportunity to take a family photo.

Lauren notice fairly quickly that Arielle doll she was holding looked like she’d popped out of her dress!

We hit the road again and in a few hours arrived in Lac De Parloup and setup our pitch.

The site is mainly French and Dutch, a mixture of static caravans and pitches for motor homes and tents. There is a huge play area for the kids which they love, particularly the bouncy castle.

Also there is a nice pool with a restaurant adjacent.

The following day we headed to the beach by the lake, it’s a man made beach and a bit rough but the kids enjoyed it, the temperature of the lake is bearable and as it’s proper hot a nice way to cool down.

Lind and Ian joined us for three nights and secured a pitch right next door which Stella is very happy about.

Day two was spent in the pool.

At the time of writing we are back at the van about to have lunch, we have one more night here and then we’re off to Cap D’Agde for the remainder of our holiday, the beach there is the best we’ve come across on our travels in France and I’m assured none of the sites we’re staying at are naked which is a huge relief for me!

Le Tourondel

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Since arriving in France we’ve been staying at Lindi and Ian’s place in Le Tourondel. We haven’t got up to loads as it’s nice to just chill.

A few of Lindi and Ian’s friends have stopped by including the owner of a tractor which Arielle enjoyed.

We’ve gone for a few wanders, in the local woods and down to Argentat to check out the market and dip our feet in the river, it’s a really beautiful spot.

There is so much wildlife on your doorstep here, so far we have seen massive hornets who continually try to break into the house of an evening, an Owl, birds of prey, a dead snake, edible door mice, field mice and loads of lizards,

Today (Saturday) we visited Tour De Merle which is a settlement from about the 1300’s if memory serves me right, it looks like a castle but is in fact a load of individual dwellings.

Accidentally I found a really good spot to park the van, you could see it from literally every part of Tour De Merle

We also came across a live snake hanging about at the entrance, I chucked it over a hedge so it didn’t bite anyone.

The kids had a great time at the castle, especially when we saw some bats and one of them pooed on Lauren, Stella is sitting here in the room just before we saw the bats.

It’s a load of walking up and down and by the end of the day the kids were ruined!

Tomorrow is Ian’s birthday, we’re taking the kids to the pool, getting some supplies from Aldi and then doing something in the evening to mark Ian’s birthday. Monday we are on the road starting our journey down to Cap D’Agde and hopefully some proper sun.

Le start

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After a couple of years of lock downs, travel bans and any travel made so laborious it would put you off the world has opened up again and for us that means a long overdue trip to France.

I’m driving the van and lolly and the kids leave a day later catching a flight from stanstead to Brive. As always we head to Lolly’s parents which is about 10 hours drive including stops for fuel which would be no fun for the kids, planes are much more fun.

Once I hit Calais my overnight was in a place called Chatres, there is a nice cathedral to visit however by the time I got there all I wanted was some food, a beer and to chill out. Our Aires book is well out of date and according to them there are no aires in Chatres. I have an app called park4night which lists places you can stop that’s added by its community members, it came up trumps, a nice little spot by a quiet road and free for the night, rue de launay for anyone interested.

Just round the corner is a car park with a supermarket, washing machines, car wash, gym and a pizza kiosk.

There was a slight bit of confusion with my order but ended up with two free beers, the pizza I ordered and 10 euros in cash, the universe had my back. It was pretty quiet and I got a decent nights sleep.

The following morning I was up at 6am to drive do Brive to pick up Lolly and the kids, it’s about a 4 hour drive so I left at 7am and with a few stops arrived at midday.

Once they arrive it’s an hour to Lauren’s parents place and our holiday together begins 🙂

Camp naked….

On By MashleyIn beach, Europe, france, road trip, solar, T4 Camper, travelLeave a comment

On our last day in Mont Dore Lolly, Lindi, Ian and Stella did some sightseeing and I spent some time trying to figure out the solar issues…

I’ve concluded that one of the panels is having problems working in direct sunlight, I know solar panels outputs are effected when they heat up but they shouldn’t stop working altogether, most likely something is heating up and becoming disconnected.

You can see from the picture below I’m getting a voltage that should now charge the battery when the panels are not in direct sunlight.

The manufacturers of the panel, Phoenix universe did call me back and sent me some things to try that may be able to fix the panel, if that didn’t work they also offered me a new panel at trade price which is a very kind thing to do…

Just before we left Mont Dore I saw this car parked up on the street.

I can’t remember the last time I saw an old Capri 🙂

As the title of this post suggests, we were off to a naturist site. I’m not a fan of the whole naturist thing and don’t partake, I genuinely don’t ever feel the need to wander about with my twig and berries swinging in the wind, each to their own I guess.

The drive down to Cap D’agde is about 4 hours and we didn’t leave Mont Dore till about 5 so without any stops, we should have arrived at 21.00. Four hours continuously behind the wheel is a bit much for everyone so we did make a couple of stops and arrived around 22.00.

I hate arriving anywhere at night as I find it messes with your bearings and makes things generally more difficult to find, such as the booking in office. At this point I would like to mention how lovely the staff here have been. Despite arriving at ten in the evening they made sure we had somewhere to stay for as long as we needed, security we’re helpful in directing us to where we needed to be and being cool with leaving the van in a drop off only point till we were sorted. The check-in staff on the gate explained everything we needed to know and when we registered at reception the following day the same helpfulness again.

As you may have read on my blog we stopped at a naturist place in 2015, you can read about it here, I still maintain I wasn’t made fully aware that it was a naturist site! This time around I was fully aware as it was a kind of deal, I get to go to the mountains with my bike and Lolly gets to wander about in the buff getting a awesome tan.

As I mentioned earlier, we arrived at night and as such the naked crowd had got dressed, sort of…

Turns out this is a bit more than a naturist site, as we were trying to find the night office to check in I noticed a lot of people wearing what looked like S & M gear, lots of ladies wearing string dresses with nothing on underneath and a very obvious transvestite which I have nothing against but just wasn’t really expecting.

We were all knackered so I threw together a camp for us to sleep and stash our stuff while Lolly entertained Stella, when she came back she said amongst other things she came across a couple cracking on and a few people standing around them saying, mmm, yes, very good….

We had the worst nights sleep, it must have been about 30 degrees in the van, Stella kept waking up and when we left the door open to let some air through we were both sure someone stopped to see if there was any action going on, we both agreed we wouldn’t stay here for very long.

The next day we decided to give the place a chance, all we’d seen was some odd stuff going on in the evening and a rushed camp which wasn’t the best start. I setup our spot with the aim of staying for a few days because as I’m sure I have mentioned, it’s a ball ache to get everything sorted.

I also got a chance to set up the hammock and setup the washing line as we are in dire need of doing some washing!

The campsite is massive, all of the avenues are alphabetically ordered so it’s fairly easy to find your way around, all of the avenues look like this.

Some of the properties here are amazing, none of them are permanent which is mad considering how grand some of them are.

Our neighbours in the camp are from the UK and gave us the full rundown, basically this place is whatever you want it to be, for example, when you go to the beach, go right for the family side which is still fully naked or go left to the side where people have sex and other stuff on the beach while a crowd looks on, similar thing at night, if you hang around the site not much happens and nothing is in your face, however if you want some action then it’s not difficult to find so I’m told.

We decided to head to the beach but by the time we got everything together poor Stella was exhausted and fell asleep in Laurens arms..

We all had a little snooze and then went to the beach.

The beach is about a five minute ride through camp from where we are. Back home, one of my oldest friends periodically gifts a us cool things her girls have grown out of, this has been really useful for this trip and Stella absolutely loves it, thanks Steph 🙂

Being a naturist beach it’s not the done thing to start taking loads of pictures so I’ll have to describe it, obviously we went to the family side but en route came across a couple of beach bars that look awesome and are part of the resort.

The beach is sandy and the sea isn’t far away, there is a lot of people traffic by the sea, mostly naked but definitely some wandering along from other beaches to have a look at the naked people of which there are plenty to see!

I’ve noticed there seems to be a lot of penis and testicle jewellery amongst the naturist crowd which is mostly displayed on the beach. Some of it’s piercings but others are rings made of metal or leather with your twig and berries bunched up through it, some men hang chains from their necks down to their waists and then connect it up to their goods, very strange.

Periodically a bell rings which signals the ice cream man in the area, Lolly bought Stella a cone which she consumed with a good helping of a sand.

Stella wasn’t too keen on the sea and enjoyed sending daddy to and fro to fill up the smallest bucket in the world with water, she did eventually get in and was really happy when she realised she could walk in the sea by herself while holding Daddy’s hand.

After the beach we headed home and made some food, time for a family selfie!

We’d booked for two nights but might stay for a couple more, there is no requirement to actually be naked and once you get used to people walking about in the buff it’s just like any other camp site.

The one thing that does let this place down are the toilets. Each toilet block that I have found has a tiny toilet for kids, a regular toilet with no seat and squat toilets, there is no toilet roll in any of them, just a hose to wash your bits. I suspect this is because when you are naked there is no place to stash your toilet roll so it’s quite obvious you’re off for a dump (poo for non British readers) and also it means the site doesn’t have to stock them with loo roll. The showers on the other hand are excellent, they are also open and have mirrors opposite them so at some point you just can’t escape being naked.

As you can see below, Stella has no issues with being in the buff, she’s just like her mum!

At this time of year it’s hot, this is the temperature inside the van at about midday

That alone would encourage you to take all your clothes off!