Grottes de Niaux

Loup was awake just before 7am and so the dog walk was no more than ten minutes later.
As we were leaving the site today, we decided to make tea and coffee to go and get brekkie on route . . . As Andorra was our destination with a hotel overnight . . . well that was the plan.
We grabbed brekkie from a local boulangerie and then returned to site to pay our fees, no-one was in the office when we were about to leave the first time!!
Straight on the road to Andorra, sweeping back past Perpignan and then generally towards the mountains with an expected 3.5hr journey.
Album of the day Joy Division - final track ‘I remember Nothing’. . . Is exactly how you could sum up that album. No more to be said on that one.
The scenery got better and better as we moved towards our destination with Tre taking all manner of photos from the van window. We stopped briefly for a leg stretch for Loup then pushed on. We made one photo stop at the top of a valley where Tre got the collywobbles about me getting too close to the edge . . . it was miles away!
As we approached Andorre as it says on the signs, the sun was shining and everything was fine with the world. We finally drove through the check point that actually confirmed we were in Andorre.
Andorre La Vella was mega busy and built up, not as I remembered it from many many years ago Ona drunken ski holiday. We drove through and on into Encamp, which was really a slightly smaller version of Andorre La Vella so again not really what Tre and I had hoped for. We pushed in again to Canillo and found a small car park to stop and give Loup another leg stretch . . . and it was snowing, lovely little white flakes that had no way of settling, just looking pretty.
I had before driving up here given Tre the benefit of my many years ski-ing experience and weather knowledge, that the season was until about end of March and so the only snow was on the peaks . . . There really was no need for special tyres or snow chains.
We had also not booked the hotel last night as we wanted to have a bit of a look around when we got here. So we now got on our phones to look for hotels nearby, only to find neither of us had any data or signal - and the only message to arrive on my phone was from EE to say whilst in Andorra you have no data allowance.
I was able to add a top up which we did, but still no signal. I realised I could message EE (the only people I could) and they told me the data I had purchased had run out - I won’t go into the conversation that then followed but we didn’t get any further data and I should be getting a refund.
So - what to do? Door knock hotels looking for a room at the right price or drive 30kms back into France, get data, book hotel and chill.
So we ploughed on with the snow that was falling getting heavier and the skies turning ever more grey towards France.
We had an option of toll road or non toll road - taking another lead from the Simon Annals rule book we opted for cheap and no tolls. We drive about a mile steeply uphill when I found myself saying to Tre ‘I’m not sure this is the right thing to do. This is a mountain road up and over the top the toll road is a tunnel through!!’ Tre didn’t need convincing and back and till paid we headed through the tunnel and past the sign saying ‘Caution Snow In Exiting The Tunnel’. At the other end we hit sunshine for about five minutes until we hit the border crossing at which point someone hit the ‘Let’s Show The Twat That It Snows In April’ button. The snow began to fall and sweep across the hairpin bend roads, settling all at the same time. It was effectively a white out and I was only pleased Tre couldn’t see the edges and also didn’t realised my calm attitude was nothing like how I was feeling. The only comfort I took from driving so slowly was that the cars behind me had no intention of trying to catch me up or overtake - so I wasn’t the only one caught out. These conditions continued for what seemed like an age, with Tre telling me I only had 20kms to go to the now with data as back in France, booked hotel. So it kept snowing and blowing a hooooley forever. As we descended we passed a police road block preventing people from travelling from where we had come. Tre took no photos of the worst of the weather as she tried desperately not to look out of the windows on the descent.
Finally we cleared the weather and drove about another 20 minutes to our hotel - both of us glad to arrive, to get out of the van and away from the weather.
We must be close to the record for passing from France to Spain to Andorra to France in the quickest time. Not at all what we had planned and the weather a World away from yesterdays!
Once at the hotel we then had a nightmare walk into town with the mutt, who was on his very poorest behaviour. Finally grabbed pizza from down the road and a couple of glasses of wine and we called it a night.

Our song of the day is:
What A Difference A Day Makes - Dina Washington (Tre’s choice)

Todays album never heard before in its entirety is:
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasure (Our Rating 2/10)Read more