Le Gaillou

With the clock change in Spain, Marla was sufficiently confused and didn’t wake us up at 6:30am. However it’s now my turn to have a confused body clock and I was the one wide awake….

We got up and had breakfast. I had a shower and tried to dry my hair using both the supplied hair dryers at once, but gave up after 5 mins as they were pretty useless.

Charlie took Marla off for a walk while I popped to the shop for bread and second breakfast (pain au chocolate), made a packed lunch, did the washing up and packed the last bits of the van away.

In my haste to tidy up, it seems I might have thrown away the piece of paper with the exit barrier code on it… Charlie wasn’t impressed and took a bit of pleasure in blaming me when he had to explain to reception why he needed the code again.

We hit the road mid morning and headed straight for the petrol station for more diesel and ad blu. I’d programmed into the sat nav to stop at the first petrol station it told me was on our way. However as we got closer it turned out to be on the other side of the motorway and we were being told to do a 3km loop back to it. We decided to ignore that and just drive on to the next one, but somehow I managed to miss the turning so on we went to the next one. We finally pulled into a Cespa just off the motorway. I hopped out and started to fill up with diesel while eyeing up the ad blu pump and wondering how to operate it. All of a sudden there was a chap next to me trying to take over the holding of the pump because he had gloves on and I didn’t. There didn’t seem to be much point in him taking over so I said I was ok but could do with help with the ad blu. Once the fuel finished, we popped the bonnet and took the cap off and the chap stuck the nozzle in and pressed go - no different to any fuel pump - so that was easier than I expected (and a bit embarrassing that I asked for help, but he seemed happy to be of service - event though I may have splashed him with a bit of diesel when putting the nozzle back).

Off we headed, back onto the open road with about 300km to get through today. After about half an hour on the road, I realised I had no memory of checking which type of fuel I put into Big Dave. I was sure if I’d have put petrol in, he would be grumbling by now… but best to confess to Charlie that I don’t think I was paying attention…. Thankfully he was and he saw me putting in the cheap diesel. Phew - must pay more attention in the future.

We stopped for a later than normal lunch, finding a random truck car park behind a petrol station that had enough greenery for Marla. Just a quick stop to eat then back on the road.

There were a lot of tunnels today, and we had it again where we went through a tunnel and came out in the clouds (or fog). It faded after a little while, and wasn’t bad enough for fog lights this time. We crossed into France with no problem and the camp for tonight was pretty straightforward to find.

It’s a nice looking site, sandy pitches in amongst pine trees. We had about an hour of daylight, so sat out for a bit until we realised we were being bitten by little bugs.

We had stuffed pasta and began escalopes for dinner tonight, followed by a semolina protein dessert pot (a bit odd).

We have one more day of driving tomorrow before a rest day which I think we all need.

Oh - and my arm has bruised very nicely, just as I knew it would after our drawer issue yesterday.Read more