Gironas Missing Apostrophe

We crossed into France via the EuroTunnel and headed towards our first campsite South East of Rouen where we had a lovely pitch on the banks of the Seine. Les Andelys is a beautiful little town and the impressive Chateau Gaillard stands high above the river. The Castle was built to protect the Norman frontier by Richard the Lionheart, who among his many titles was Duke of Normandy, I don't suppose he had much of a hand in doing the building work, but how did he have the time to get that organised alongside the crusades? On our second day on site I thought we might have been heading for our own crusade, as the sky darkened and a strong wind rocked the van from side to side, this was followed by torrential rain and then hailstones. I had visions of us slipping off the pitch into the Seine and floating off down the river. Then as quickly as it started it stopped and the sun came out. It wasn't until we met a couple later on our trip who told us about the hurricane and tornadoes that had left a trail of destruction  through the Calais region, I think we had caught the back end of it and we were lucky to have not travelled a day later.

As we headed down through France I was making a mental note of the things we needed to buy to make life easier on future MoHo trips. My top 2 were a new sat nav and a robe.

I've noticed that when on a campsite most people head to the showers in a robe and flip flops. I mean it makes sense you just slip out of the robe, hang it up and you are all good to go. Unlike when i go to the showers where I am trying to find somewhere to hang all my clothes to keep them dry, then balance on one leg to try and keep my feet dry as I attempt to get dressed. So I've decided that a robe needs to be added to my MoHo essentials kit. My only nervousness with this whole robe thing is that a strong gust of wind could leave me exposed to the whole campsite. 

When we bought the van we had a multimedia unit fitted which links to a phone so that you have a sat nav, music and judging by the size of the manual much more. The two problems are that the media unit appears to have a mind of its own and disconnects from my phone, seamingly always at the most critical moment, and secondly the sat nav runs off Google maps. Now I'm a big fan of Google, and in the MoHo it has always got us to our final destination, but it has no idea that we are driving a van 2.9 m tall and 2.8m wide. So the first major problem was that it re-routed us around the Paris outer ring road, away from our planned route, probably to save 5 minutes on our journey time and secondly as part of that re route it wanted us to go under a 2m high bridge. Now we are slightly on edge anyway because this whole MoHo thing is new to us, but to use a bit of an understatement, we could have done without the whole Paris experience, even though it was nice to get sight of the Eiffel Tower. In the end it all got sorted, we avoided the low bridge and the roof is still on the van, but to keep our stress levels lower a large vehicle sat nav feels like a good investment.

As we left Paris in the distance, we could start to relax as our overnight destination came within touching distance. We hadn't booked the campsite in advance, so Alison decided to do a quick check and realised that the site we were heading for plus our backup site were closed. We hadn't really appreciated that many French sites close at the end of September. At that moment we probably had a multitude of options, but I think that was part of the issue, with so many apps which one should we use to find somewhere to stay overnight whilst on the move. We were pushing daylight hours, do we stop and regroup or press on? Well, we pushed on and Alison found a site only 20 mins off our route and we arrived there just as dusk was descending. As we got out of the van the site looked deserted and closed, our hearts sank, but whether the site was open or not I really didn't care, we were staying the night here. After all, we had everything we needed in the van. Then as I walked round the outside of the van I noticed that the skirt around the rear light cluster was hanging off, it had never been fitted properly and as I tried to manoeuvre it back into position it just came off in my hand. Tired and hungry after our 6 hour drive, the Paris experience, finding a place to stay and now with part of the van in my hand, I think I uttered the words "this bloody MoHo life is not for me" 

Just then as if by magic someone appeared, yes, the site was open, yes we could stay, yes there was an electric hook up for the van. We were the only people there, but we were made to feel so welcome. The following morning after a good night's sleep, we woke up to some stunning countryside, we were by a river in a lovely valley and as the sun crested the top of the hills everything looked and felt so much better. The rear skirt was stuck back on with duct tape and we set off for our next campsite.

We had no such problems with our next site in Colombiers. We had crossed the Massif Central including the beautiful Millau bridge. As we headed down towards Beziers the weather changed, the temperatures increased and the area had a distinct Mediterranean feel to it. Our site was next to the Canal du Midi, with a lovely harbour area full of shops and restaurants. We were a bit perplexed though about the toilet arrangements on the site. The toilets all appeared to be closed and when we asked at reception we were told we needed to use the winter block. It turns out that the winter block consisted of 3 rooms each with a shower, toilet and sink, so if someone was using a sink you were down to 2 toilets. It was a bizarre set up and as the weather was a lovely 23° and the site was rocking I wasn't sure at what point we had tipped into winter. There's nothing like queuing in your robe to use the loo and shower in the morning, it's a good job it wasn't windy. 

Maybe we had got a little bit complacent, but as we headed for our penultimate stop over, a short 2 hour hop over the Pyrenees and into Spain, I think we were both a bit surprised that the sat nav was directing us into the centre of Girona. We had checked the details before setting off, so we were confident that the sat nav must be right. As we headed deeper into the city Alison's words will be forever etched into my memory, "the camp site is behind this block of flats". We both looked at one another and realised we'd gone badly wrong. It was too late, we were committed. We drove through the narrow city centre streets until we eventually found a petrol station to pull in and re plan. We were 45 minutes south of where we should have been heading and although we didn't know at the time, we had entered into Google maps a camping shop name the same as the campsite name minus an apostrophe. All ended well though, as we plotted the shortest route out of Girona, heading further south to a lovely site on the med at Calella, our first sight of the sea and beautiful clear sandy beaches.

Despite the challenges on the way we finally made it to our final destination in Benicassim, wiser in many ways then when we set off, but I'm sure still with lots to learn. Time now to relax and enjoy our few weeks in the sunshine, the only cloud on the horizon is that the Yorkshire tea box is looking worryingly low.  

You can see more about our trip including the route, stops and some photo's here 

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