The long retreat to the coast
Wednesday, August 10
Camping Municipal, Caussade I'm not sure where people got the idea that Christopher Nolan's new film, Dunkirk, is a rallying cry for Brexiteers. Having seen it in a lovely little provincial cinema in Caussade in southern France, it seems to reinforce the idea that we're stronger together. There's a plucky Frenchman who tries to do his best for the equally plucky British struggling to get off the beaches of Dunkirk; in fact, there are lots of plucky Frenchmen (largely unseen) holding off the wholly unseen Germans so more than 300,000 British and Empire soldiers can escape to fight another day. Check the history books and there's a theory that the Germans let us escape because they couldn't bear to let their fellow Aryans be crushed. Some think that's fanciful but it can't be any less fanciful than the idea that one Spitfire pilot (albeit Tom Hardy) could take on the Luftwaffe almost single-handedly and take out a Stuka after his fuel had run out and he was gliding around helplessly, before making a perfect landing on the sand. Still, despite the tosh it was very affecting tosh helped immeasurably by a great soundtrack. On the Thursday at this lovely little campsite, I wrote a column about the terrible rain we endured the previous night, while Jane cycled into Caussade. In the evening we attended a little soirée thrown by Laurent, the camp commandant who's a dead ringer for the BBC presenter Chris Hollins (see picture, right), and the local Mayor with free white wine and Cassis and pizza. We ended the night knocking back a bottle of red with our new Scouse friends Steve and Sue. Friday, August 11 Aire, Donzac After five days in Caussade, we decided that we'd had enough and it was time to move on. We said goodbye to Steve and Sue, swapped a couple of hardback books, and headed west to check out a couple of aires we'd spotted in the hope of some free nights. After one false start, when the first aire, at Valence d'Agen turned out to be unreachable and the neighbouring campsite looked uninviting, we pressed on to Donzac and were glad we did. The aire was right by a lovely duck pond on the edge of a quiet but lovely little village that, crucially, had a bar-restaurant open on the Saturday night for Jane's birthday. On Saturday, we took a cycle ride to the next village of Dunes, about 5km away, but were back in time for lunch. In the afternoon a wedding party confirmed our first impression of the aire because they turned up in force to have their pictures taken alongside the ducks. By seven we were suited and booted, ready for a birthday dinner at the bar, just a half-mile up the road. The simple menu looked just perfect and we thought we ordered a nice selection of starters and mains but when they arrived mine was a mixture of starter and main – a real duckfest with a little of everything on the menu all served on the same plate while Jane had a big starter followed by a big beef main course. After the cheese course, the couple who ran the restaurant brought out a little tart with a candle to celebrate the birthday. It was a great night and we felt we'd given back to the community after they'd given us two free nights on the aire. Sunday, August 13 Camping Municipal, Meilhan sur Garonne Another great municipal campsite along the Garonne valley, this time on a little flood plain set between the river itself and the canal running parallel alongside. When we got there there was no sign of a warden so we followed the instruction on the signs, found a large, shaded pitch and set up camp. With the weather perfect and the surroundings idyllic, this seemed like one of our best choices yet. But it got better. About 50 steps up from our pitch, there was a little canalside marina run by an English couple. They had lots of leaflets about the region and were happy to serve up ice-cold beers at €1.50 for a half and €2.50 for a pint. We noticed that the village was holding a hog roast on the Monday night for €13 per person, including drinks. We decided to go and on the Monday morning we walked up the steep steps from the canal to the village to have a look around. Perched on top of a hill, the village affords unrivalled views right across the Garonne valley and beyond. A panorama point was backed by a very smart restaurant (La Tertre) where we had a lovely coffee and resolved to come back for a meal later in the week. The village itself benefits from a few shops, a supermarket, a church and a leisure centre featuring an outdoor pool and, bizarrely, an indoor basketball court. It's the local basketball club, in fact, which is hosting the hog roast on Monday night. We'll report back once we've experienced it. Monday, August 14 Camping Municipal, Meilhan sur Garonne A heck of a night, certainly food-wise, at the Jambon Braise in the village. We got there at about 7.30pm and had a couple of beers as we waited for the hams to cook. A chef had the job of recycling the juices over the meat roasting nicely on the spits above the burning logs. At about 8.30 they served the first course, melon and tomato, while you helped yourself to wine by pouring red from a box into an empty bottle. As you can imagine, it wasn't the best but it was very drinkable and went very well with the starter. Then came the meat and potatoes... absolutely divine and when everyone had had their fill and seconds were announced we were in like Flynn! For dessert they served up ice cream in cones and by then we were done. Not bad for €13 a head. After the plates had been cleared away, the DJ ramped up the patriotism with some martial songs that got the crowd standing up and waving their white serviette and singing along loudly to what could have been a local version of the Marseillaise. Slightly intimidated and slightly drunk, we retreated and rolled down the steps back to the van and went straight to bed, only to be woken up repeatedly throughout the night by another amazing electric storm right overhead. The view from our table at the ham roast in Meilhan and, right, the chef bastes the meat before the feast
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Below, a rare outbreak of what we think is called 'rain' at Caussade. Above, Laurent, the camp commandant
Top, the aire at Donzac as seen from the duck pond; above, left to right, the bandstand at the panorama point in Meilhan, the campsite and the canal marina, run by an English couple
Below, the avenue of plain trees near the aire at Donzac, Jane's birthday tart and the birthday meal
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Oh calamity II... our second disaster with the van
Wednesday, August 16
Aire, Blaye
A new day dawned and we showered, packed everything away and got on the road, intending to head for Archiac north of the pretty municipal site we'd just left and well on the way to our eventual destination of La Tremblade on the coast, just south of the Ile d’Oleron.
We bumbled along the back roads heading north and veered off to have a look at the gorgeous town of St Emilion, right in the heart of Bordeaux wine country. With the black grapes heavy on the vines alongside the roads, it was an idyllic scene but the aire in St Emilion, pinpointed in our All the Aires book, never materialised. The directions pointed us down a narrow road just on the edge of the tourist-swamped town but we didn't like the look of it and reversed back onto the main road and back on to the route nationals.
Around lunchtime, we took a wrong turn after filling up with provisions and having lunch at Lidl in the large-ish town of Libourne, just east of Bordeaux. Undaunted, we readjusted our course and headed for a free aire at the historic town of Blaye, about 40km north of Bordeaux.
At this point, the van started having a little engine trouble, misfiring intermittently and losing power, knocking off the cruise control as it did so. It didn't seem serious enough to put us off our stride, so we just made a mental note to have it looked at the next time we were around a Fiat garage… the little amber ‘coil’ sign on the dashboard suggested it was a problem with the Glow Plugs, whatever they are.
Safely in the aire at Blaye, having first scraped the side of the van slightly trying to get in the first, narrow, entrance, we explored the town and found it typically French – lots of pavement cafes on the perimeter and lots of tumbledown old narrow streets behind; plus the added attraction of a location right on the edge of the Garonne-Dordogne estuary as it flows to the sea by Royan.
By the aire, a huge river cruiser had docked and its tourist passengers were meandering off the quay to see what Blaye had to offer. Its main attraction is a huge and well preserved medieval citadel that dominates the high ground above the east of the town, defending it from marauding ships coming upstream from the Atlantic. Today, it is free to look around and has a few restaurants, a TIC, a hotel and a very reasonably priced municipal campsite, accessed through the just-wide-enough archway from the grounds.
On the Thursday morning, we had a good look around it before packing up and heading for the Fiat garage at St George de Coteaux, in order for the misfiring problem to be dealt with.
Even as we were leaving the aire, it became clear that we weren't going to make it and at the first village outside of Blaye, St Martin de Lacaussade, it died. We just managed to pull into the side of the road, erected the warning triangle and rang the breakdown company… it was Almeria all over again!
Jus over an hour after calling for help, a breakdown truck arrived and carried us to a Renault garage in St Savin, about 30 minutes away. We had explained we needed to go to a Fiat garage but the terms of our cover meant we were effectively in the hands of the recovery firm, which was linked to the Renault garage.
When we expressed our concern, the breakdown man – the boss of the whole firm – told us in
French not to worry because he was going to repair the van. It was, he explained, a pollution problem.
On the garage forecourt, a mechanic plugged in his computer to the guts of the van and played around with it for half-an-hour before giving up. All the while, we're sat in the reception watching this going on but not being kept informed either y the recovery insurance company or the garage.
Eventually, we managed to find out that they couldn't fix it and it would have to go to, you guessed it, a Fiat garage to have a proper diagnostic check on it.
They explained we could spend the night in the van on a side road just outside the garage compound so, after they'd pushed it into place, we settled down, made tea and had an early night.
Friday, August 18
Wild camping, St Savin
We woke early, expecting to be ferried to the Fiat garage at St George. But no. Instead, as we found out from phone calls to the insurance company and from the garage reception, the Renault people now thought they could fix it, as long as they could pick up a part from a Fiat dealer in Bordeaux, an 80-mile taxi ride away.
Cue more frustrating phone calls to Safeguard and a final agreement that the garage could do the work if we signed the bill – just over €1,000. Suspiciously like the bill in Almeria.
From what we could gather, the work involved replacing some of the fuel injection system. So, I signed off on it to be told the part would arrive around 2.30pm and work would take around two-three hours. All being well, we should be back on the road by tonight… another grand lighter but with a healthy van.
Whoever said we were ‘living the dream’ has obviously never owned a Fiat Ducato van. They're apparently not as ‘bulletproof’ as we've always been led to believe.
After a day twiddling our thumbs, cycling into Saint Savin, about half a mile away, we went back to the garage and sat in reception to await the news. With a lot of shaking heads and banging fists, talking about ‘le camping-car’ we knew it wasn't going to be good news and when 7pm came around and it still wasn't fixed, it was clear it wasn’t.
In French, they tried to the explain in very technical terms what was wrong, but I didn't understand. Eventually, they got it through to me that the part they had brought back from the Fiat garage in Bordeaux wasn't, ahem, the right part.
At around 8pm, I had a long conversation with the owner who showed me the broken part, said it would now be Monday before it was fixed and apologised for the fact we would have to spend three more nights sleeping outside his premises. He also gave us two bottles of local white wine for our troubles.
It seemed a busy place, with breakdown trucks coming and going throughout the afternoon and evening, offloading the sad looking vehicles and their even sadder looking occupants, all doomed to wait for taxis and hire cars once they'd had the bad news their cars wouldn't be ready until after the weekend.
At the gate, waiting in the gathering darkness for their ride, was Robbie and Hannah, from Cardiff of all places. They explained that their Audi needed just a simple part but they fell into the same trap as us – their recovery insurance forced them into the hands of the Renault garage who took it upon themselves to fix it, instead of putting it into the hands of a VW or Audi specialist. As a result, their touring holiday was now all but ruined. They told us they'd been offered a Corsa and a few nights in a hotel while the Audi was being fixed but they were mulling over their options but with their precious holiday time running out they were rather limited.
When it started to rain and their taxi still hadn't turned up, we invited them inside the van so they and their things could keep dry. Having been to St Emilion earlier in the day, they were loaded down with fantastic wine and we helped the, polish off a couple of €40 bottles. When their taxi finally turned up, we turned our attention to the donated white… clearly not worth €40!
Saturday, August 19
Wild camping, Saint Savin
With more than 48 hours of stasis staring us in the face, it was time for some clear-headed thinking but, instead, we sat in the van all morning vegetating, drinking tea, blogging and crocheting, hoping against hope that the garage owner’s little crumb of hope – that there was a chance the part could turn up on Saturday morning at his house and he would come to the van to fix it personally – wasn't just French flannel.
It was, of course, and so on Saturday morning, we got on our bikes and headed to the supermarket. When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.
We picked up some provisions and went back to the van via the little betting shop-come-bar where we accessed their wifi and caught up on our emails. Then we went back, more pottering about and a little bike ride, just to get a bit of exercise.
On Sunday, we were really starting to go stir crazy but we staved off total madness with a long bike ride through the back lanes around St Savin, roaming through the amazing array of vineyards in the area, before winding back to the village and heading off towards a commercial campsite near Les Lacs du Moulin Blanc.
We had a cheap beer at the site (which seems nice enough, if a little cramped and basic) before we cycled to the lakes themselves where there was a wakeboarding event taking place, before returning to camp for another night of cards and 30 Rock.
On Monday, more diagnosticising and more Gallic shrugs and shaking of heads. There seemed no prospect of the van going to Fiat with the garage staff insisting it could be repaired by then, not surprising when their four-figure payday depends on them getting us back on the road!
At noon, they told us they would get straight on it again… once they'd come back from their two-hour siesta!
We repaired back to the van for our siesta, feeling we'd be in the grip for a while longer yet.
On Tuesday, we were getting desperate and not a little tearful, as the van was pushed back into the yard but there was a silver lining to the cloud.
The garage owner, M Sarlat, knew we had had enough of the van and knew we had no more gas for hot water and showers. We told him that his delays in fixing the van meant we were forced to go to a B&B for a night, maybe two if his promise of the van being ready on Wednesday proved to be hollow.
His receptionist ‘Mike’ said he would take us to the chambre d’hote in his car during his lunch break but before he could the boss stepped in and told him to give us a car, for as long as was necessary. This had the effect of taking away all my piss and vinegar, calming me down entirely and opening up a whole new vista for us. “Merci, Monsieur,” I said, and with the renewed promise of the van being ready on Wednesday night – about 36 hours away – we took the car, a beat-up Clio, and checked in to the B&B, a beautiful chateau deep in the woods about two to three miles from the garage.
With the help of the lady of the house, Mme Brigitte Baillot, we settled in and had a wonderful afternoon in the sunshine lounging by her pool, surrounded by beautiful flowers, serenaded by the gentle humming sound of the submarine robot cleaner which gently scoured the walls and surface of the pool.
In the evening, we drove to the nearby town of Bourg, a garrison town on the Dordogne about seven miles away, on Mme Baillot’s recommendation and had dinner at La Plaisance. Disappointing, it has to be said, just for the record.
The following day we drove to Bordeaux and had a wonderful day in this grand old city, parking some miles out near a tram stop and taking public transport into the old town for a day of exploring, all made possible by having a beat-up little Clio to play with for a couple of days.
By the time we got back to Saint Savin, the van was ready for us. We had the little matter of the bill to settle and by this time we were aware, via the AA, that the Renault garage had been forced to take our Fiat Ducato to a Fiat garage for it to be diagnosed and fixed, something we'd been pressing for for almost a week.
The bottom line, with all the additional labour and parts, was around €2,300 but when I pointed out that the original, ‘fixed’ bill had been just over €1,000 (quoted on the previous Thursday), and his team had put a crack in my rear bumper, we finally agreed on €1,700. We shook hands and Jane and I head for our next stop, Jonzac.
Wednesday, August 23
Municipal campsite, Pons
It was around 6pm before we got on the road to Jonzac but it was a short drive, so we didn't feel too bad that it was so late in the day. Even so, when we reached the campsite in the heart of the town, it was full, probably thanks to a circus in the neighbouring car park. A quick look on line suggested another municipal site at Pons, about 12 miles away.
We got there before eight and checked in with the helpful manager, happy to part with €22.44 a night for power and a pitch, and free wifi.
On Thursday, we did the mother of all laundries – three big loads, all washed and dried and ironed in a day. Our remaining time here was spent exploring the lovely little town, principally its grand tower in the heart, and doing some shopping at a nearby LeClerc. We also met first-time motorhomes Billy and Ceri from Port Talbot and had a lovely evening with them swapping stories of our travels. We'd probably put them off Saint Savin with our own tale of woe.
Aire, Blaye
A new day dawned and we showered, packed everything away and got on the road, intending to head for Archiac north of the pretty municipal site we'd just left and well on the way to our eventual destination of La Tremblade on the coast, just south of the Ile d’Oleron.
We bumbled along the back roads heading north and veered off to have a look at the gorgeous town of St Emilion, right in the heart of Bordeaux wine country. With the black grapes heavy on the vines alongside the roads, it was an idyllic scene but the aire in St Emilion, pinpointed in our All the Aires book, never materialised. The directions pointed us down a narrow road just on the edge of the tourist-swamped town but we didn't like the look of it and reversed back onto the main road and back on to the route nationals.
Around lunchtime, we took a wrong turn after filling up with provisions and having lunch at Lidl in the large-ish town of Libourne, just east of Bordeaux. Undaunted, we readjusted our course and headed for a free aire at the historic town of Blaye, about 40km north of Bordeaux.
At this point, the van started having a little engine trouble, misfiring intermittently and losing power, knocking off the cruise control as it did so. It didn't seem serious enough to put us off our stride, so we just made a mental note to have it looked at the next time we were around a Fiat garage… the little amber ‘coil’ sign on the dashboard suggested it was a problem with the Glow Plugs, whatever they are.
Safely in the aire at Blaye, having first scraped the side of the van slightly trying to get in the first, narrow, entrance, we explored the town and found it typically French – lots of pavement cafes on the perimeter and lots of tumbledown old narrow streets behind; plus the added attraction of a location right on the edge of the Garonne-Dordogne estuary as it flows to the sea by Royan.
By the aire, a huge river cruiser had docked and its tourist passengers were meandering off the quay to see what Blaye had to offer. Its main attraction is a huge and well preserved medieval citadel that dominates the high ground above the east of the town, defending it from marauding ships coming upstream from the Atlantic. Today, it is free to look around and has a few restaurants, a TIC, a hotel and a very reasonably priced municipal campsite, accessed through the just-wide-enough archway from the grounds.
On the Thursday morning, we had a good look around it before packing up and heading for the Fiat garage at St George de Coteaux, in order for the misfiring problem to be dealt with.
Even as we were leaving the aire, it became clear that we weren't going to make it and at the first village outside of Blaye, St Martin de Lacaussade, it died. We just managed to pull into the side of the road, erected the warning triangle and rang the breakdown company… it was Almeria all over again!
Jus over an hour after calling for help, a breakdown truck arrived and carried us to a Renault garage in St Savin, about 30 minutes away. We had explained we needed to go to a Fiat garage but the terms of our cover meant we were effectively in the hands of the recovery firm, which was linked to the Renault garage.
When we expressed our concern, the breakdown man – the boss of the whole firm – told us in
French not to worry because he was going to repair the van. It was, he explained, a pollution problem.
On the garage forecourt, a mechanic plugged in his computer to the guts of the van and played around with it for half-an-hour before giving up. All the while, we're sat in the reception watching this going on but not being kept informed either y the recovery insurance company or the garage.
Eventually, we managed to find out that they couldn't fix it and it would have to go to, you guessed it, a Fiat garage to have a proper diagnostic check on it.
They explained we could spend the night in the van on a side road just outside the garage compound so, after they'd pushed it into place, we settled down, made tea and had an early night.
Friday, August 18
Wild camping, St Savin
We woke early, expecting to be ferried to the Fiat garage at St George. But no. Instead, as we found out from phone calls to the insurance company and from the garage reception, the Renault people now thought they could fix it, as long as they could pick up a part from a Fiat dealer in Bordeaux, an 80-mile taxi ride away.
Cue more frustrating phone calls to Safeguard and a final agreement that the garage could do the work if we signed the bill – just over €1,000. Suspiciously like the bill in Almeria.
From what we could gather, the work involved replacing some of the fuel injection system. So, I signed off on it to be told the part would arrive around 2.30pm and work would take around two-three hours. All being well, we should be back on the road by tonight… another grand lighter but with a healthy van.
Whoever said we were ‘living the dream’ has obviously never owned a Fiat Ducato van. They're apparently not as ‘bulletproof’ as we've always been led to believe.
After a day twiddling our thumbs, cycling into Saint Savin, about half a mile away, we went back to the garage and sat in reception to await the news. With a lot of shaking heads and banging fists, talking about ‘le camping-car’ we knew it wasn't going to be good news and when 7pm came around and it still wasn't fixed, it was clear it wasn’t.
In French, they tried to the explain in very technical terms what was wrong, but I didn't understand. Eventually, they got it through to me that the part they had brought back from the Fiat garage in Bordeaux wasn't, ahem, the right part.
At around 8pm, I had a long conversation with the owner who showed me the broken part, said it would now be Monday before it was fixed and apologised for the fact we would have to spend three more nights sleeping outside his premises. He also gave us two bottles of local white wine for our troubles.
It seemed a busy place, with breakdown trucks coming and going throughout the afternoon and evening, offloading the sad looking vehicles and their even sadder looking occupants, all doomed to wait for taxis and hire cars once they'd had the bad news their cars wouldn't be ready until after the weekend.
At the gate, waiting in the gathering darkness for their ride, was Robbie and Hannah, from Cardiff of all places. They explained that their Audi needed just a simple part but they fell into the same trap as us – their recovery insurance forced them into the hands of the Renault garage who took it upon themselves to fix it, instead of putting it into the hands of a VW or Audi specialist. As a result, their touring holiday was now all but ruined. They told us they'd been offered a Corsa and a few nights in a hotel while the Audi was being fixed but they were mulling over their options but with their precious holiday time running out they were rather limited.
When it started to rain and their taxi still hadn't turned up, we invited them inside the van so they and their things could keep dry. Having been to St Emilion earlier in the day, they were loaded down with fantastic wine and we helped the, polish off a couple of €40 bottles. When their taxi finally turned up, we turned our attention to the donated white… clearly not worth €40!
Saturday, August 19
Wild camping, Saint Savin
With more than 48 hours of stasis staring us in the face, it was time for some clear-headed thinking but, instead, we sat in the van all morning vegetating, drinking tea, blogging and crocheting, hoping against hope that the garage owner’s little crumb of hope – that there was a chance the part could turn up on Saturday morning at his house and he would come to the van to fix it personally – wasn't just French flannel.
It was, of course, and so on Saturday morning, we got on our bikes and headed to the supermarket. When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.
We picked up some provisions and went back to the van via the little betting shop-come-bar where we accessed their wifi and caught up on our emails. Then we went back, more pottering about and a little bike ride, just to get a bit of exercise.
On Sunday, we were really starting to go stir crazy but we staved off total madness with a long bike ride through the back lanes around St Savin, roaming through the amazing array of vineyards in the area, before winding back to the village and heading off towards a commercial campsite near Les Lacs du Moulin Blanc.
We had a cheap beer at the site (which seems nice enough, if a little cramped and basic) before we cycled to the lakes themselves where there was a wakeboarding event taking place, before returning to camp for another night of cards and 30 Rock.
On Monday, more diagnosticising and more Gallic shrugs and shaking of heads. There seemed no prospect of the van going to Fiat with the garage staff insisting it could be repaired by then, not surprising when their four-figure payday depends on them getting us back on the road!
At noon, they told us they would get straight on it again… once they'd come back from their two-hour siesta!
We repaired back to the van for our siesta, feeling we'd be in the grip for a while longer yet.
On Tuesday, we were getting desperate and not a little tearful, as the van was pushed back into the yard but there was a silver lining to the cloud.
The garage owner, M Sarlat, knew we had had enough of the van and knew we had no more gas for hot water and showers. We told him that his delays in fixing the van meant we were forced to go to a B&B for a night, maybe two if his promise of the van being ready on Wednesday proved to be hollow.
His receptionist ‘Mike’ said he would take us to the chambre d’hote in his car during his lunch break but before he could the boss stepped in and told him to give us a car, for as long as was necessary. This had the effect of taking away all my piss and vinegar, calming me down entirely and opening up a whole new vista for us. “Merci, Monsieur,” I said, and with the renewed promise of the van being ready on Wednesday night – about 36 hours away – we took the car, a beat-up Clio, and checked in to the B&B, a beautiful chateau deep in the woods about two to three miles from the garage.
With the help of the lady of the house, Mme Brigitte Baillot, we settled in and had a wonderful afternoon in the sunshine lounging by her pool, surrounded by beautiful flowers, serenaded by the gentle humming sound of the submarine robot cleaner which gently scoured the walls and surface of the pool.
In the evening, we drove to the nearby town of Bourg, a garrison town on the Dordogne about seven miles away, on Mme Baillot’s recommendation and had dinner at La Plaisance. Disappointing, it has to be said, just for the record.
The following day we drove to Bordeaux and had a wonderful day in this grand old city, parking some miles out near a tram stop and taking public transport into the old town for a day of exploring, all made possible by having a beat-up little Clio to play with for a couple of days.
By the time we got back to Saint Savin, the van was ready for us. We had the little matter of the bill to settle and by this time we were aware, via the AA, that the Renault garage had been forced to take our Fiat Ducato to a Fiat garage for it to be diagnosed and fixed, something we'd been pressing for for almost a week.
The bottom line, with all the additional labour and parts, was around €2,300 but when I pointed out that the original, ‘fixed’ bill had been just over €1,000 (quoted on the previous Thursday), and his team had put a crack in my rear bumper, we finally agreed on €1,700. We shook hands and Jane and I head for our next stop, Jonzac.
Wednesday, August 23
Municipal campsite, Pons
It was around 6pm before we got on the road to Jonzac but it was a short drive, so we didn't feel too bad that it was so late in the day. Even so, when we reached the campsite in the heart of the town, it was full, probably thanks to a circus in the neighbouring car park. A quick look on line suggested another municipal site at Pons, about 12 miles away.
We got there before eight and checked in with the helpful manager, happy to part with €22.44 a night for power and a pitch, and free wifi.
On Thursday, we did the mother of all laundries – three big loads, all washed and dried and ironed in a day. Our remaining time here was spent exploring the lovely little town, principally its grand tower in the heart, and doing some shopping at a nearby LeClerc. We also met first-time motorhomes Billy and Ceri from Port Talbot and had a lovely evening with them swapping stories of our travels. We'd probably put them off Saint Savin with our own tale of woe.