Tag: argentat

A French house in the boonies

On By MashleyIn Camper van, Europe, france, travelLeave a comment

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

On By MashleyIn Europe, france, Self build camper van, travelLeave a comment

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!

Le Coups

On By MashleyIn france, road trip, summer, T4 Camper, travelLeave a comment

Lollys parents have a second home near Argentat and this would be our home for the next four nights. Ian and Lindi bought essentially a shell of a property and have worked really hard to turn it into somewhere they can come and stay, enjoy rural French life and be part of a small French community, it was lovely to see different residents of the commune including the mayor in his tractor stop by and say hello despite speaking very limited English and doing their very best to understands Lindi and Ian’s French which is way better than most, certainly better than mine! 

The day we arrived it belted down with rain all day so we did all out washing and I gave the van a bit of a clear up and charged up the leisure battery, we pretty much stayed at home all day bar a brief trip to the shops (chicken and veg for an awesome roast) and a small walk with the dog, the house sits adjacent to a beautiful wood covered in fern, when the light filters through the view is quite magical. 

  
The weather the following day looked equally as damp so we decided to go see some caves, en route there was a bit of a commotion ahead and then there were sheep, lots of sheep!! 

  
When we reached the caves it seemed most of France had the same idea, a 2 hour queue from where we were standing in the rain, sod that, we chipped off and headed for the historic town of Rocamadour.