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12 June 2012
That was the winter of our discontent!
Well in Hank and Pig terms it was. It seems our endless meanderings around Europe and the UK in Hank the Tank and on Pig our scooter finally took their toll and the old dears have been complaining a bit over the winter.
It seems to have taken months (well it has, six!) to get everything ship shape for our next adventure. None of the stuff that needed doing you would think should be a major issue but it seems as with everything in the motorhome and scooter world it has to take three times as long as you expect and cost twice as much!
I won’t bore you with the details but let me tell you, Motorhoming is not a cheap way of having a holiday! At the last minute before we are about to head of into Europe for the summer I decide to do a shake down trip for a night just up the road from home (on my own, near a pub!). Just as well as the clutch cable is groaning or something is. 7 pages of posts on the motorhome facts forum and it seems it probably is just the cable but you can’t get them anymore and nobody in England can find one. It seems Hank is deemed for the knacker’s yard all because of a bit of wire! Someone finds one and we are away!!!! Ah. No. The bike breaks down on its shake down ride to Richmond. Keeps conking out on the way home on the busy A66. Its sent off to the bike garage and stripped down. It’s the worst kind of breakdown as its one of these where the diagnosis is “Oh. We can’t find anything wrong so we have replaced this, this and this and cleaned this and that, just in case” £100 please.
By the time we head for Dover I’m ready for a break and as usual worry about all the stuff that’s been fixed staying fixed. We also have a new sat nav and I just know its going to be a problem. The only thing I like about it so far is I have discovered a way to make it swear every time it passes an LPG station or Aire de Service. I have had my old TomTom for ten years and have always thought Jane was a bit of a sexy minx. Now she actually talks dirty this takes her to a whole new level! For now, she stays but the jury is out.
For the first time we decide to drive the 320 miles to Dover and not stop over but just get the ferry and find somewhere in France the same day to spend the night. We are hoping to get the four PM boat to Dunkirque but a hold up at Tesco’s sees us at the dock and pulled over by customs at 3:45pm so no chance? We are taken into one of those examination bays that you see on those border control fly on the wall documentaries and the shutters come down. I start to wonder if we will indeed make the 6pm as we will have 86 jars of Lemon Tea which has been decanted into various receptacles to explain. It looks like drugs and is stored all over the place. That should keep us tied up for days.
Customs man starts by asking if our Reg is private as he can’t believe it’s an N Reg van and 16 years old. He is either paying us a compliment or can’t believe anyone would be daft enough to set out across Europe in such an old banger. I mean everyone knows you can’t get clutch cables for them anymore!
He has a cursory look inside and asks me sternly if we have any knives. Loads I say, you’re standing in my kitchen! Errr, yeah. Any offensive ones? Well I think I have called most things in the kitchen four letter words at some point. Anyway he decides we are not drug dealers and doesn’t even notice the packages and containers of brown powder all over the place (Lemon Tea) and clears off and lets us out.
Its 3:58 when we get to check in and unbelievably the very nice lady says she will put us on the 4pm if you get a wiggle on! Hank doesn’t wiggle but thunders across to terminal 55 as fast as he can and we are the last vehicle to board! Smashing!
We are off!!! At last!
When we finally get to the Aire at Bergues we are pretty knackered and try to get an early night for a 230 mile trip in the morning to Lac du Der in Champagne (the one part of France we have not been to).
Champagne is boring, the weather is awful which doesn’t help and Lac du Der is a bit flat. It’s great to be back though and there are three aires here and vans everywhere. Loads of space and all free!
As I am trying to be super fit I actually take Lobster Michelle’s folding mountain bike out. Twice! The next day sees the launch of Yellow Belly II (remember the last one sank in the south of France at the end of last summer’s adventure). Guess what. The flipping thing has a leak! I manage however to find a chandler who sells me some very expensive repair solution and at the time of writing he hasn’t been tested yet on the water but either way the next launch should prove good reading.
We wind down for three days, the weather improves and then turns rubbish again so we move on. The forecast is awful and we are now holding up on a free aire just outside Nancy at a place called Richardmenil but we call it Richard Madeley.
The rain pours, it’s dark and the telly goes off as the satellite fails to find the new Astra 1N satellite in the heavy rain. Great. We are only 4 days across Europe and the changes to the Satellite network have reduced our very expensive blob on the roof into just another useless bit of weight we will be carrying around Europe for five months until we pick up TV Again on the way home (probably the last 4 days) that’s progress!
We can stand it no longer and decided to brave the rain and drive the 8 miles to Nancy Centre on the bike in the rain to see the famous Place Stanislas. A World Heritage site (one of 20 in France) it’s wonderful architecture is an example of 18th century blah blah blah ( just Google it!)
It’s very nice but we are like two drowned rats and finding our way back without ending up on the motorway in rush hour is a nightmare. I normally stop when I get lost and take the sat nav out of my pocket and check where we are on the route. Bad Jane however seems to know she isn’t in a car and refuses to find a GPS signal until she is stuck firmly to the van window again! More progress?
Back at the van now and planning the next leg which will be the Alsace and a trip down the route des cretes along the summits and then down to visit some of the famous Alsace towns and villages. The forecast is still poor though so the next selection of photos may well just be clouds!
Not a great start but hey! We are away and that’s all that matters. Anyway I gather England has sunk.
18 June
Lorraine and Alsace. Summer arrives!
Its short hop to Gerardmer on the edge of the Vosges and we are suddenly in the mountains! We know what we like now and it isn’t anything that’s flat. Gerardmer reminds us a bit of Titisee in the Black Forest. A small lake surrounded by pine clad hills. It’s pretty much a Ski resort but the lake caters for summer visitors with the usual pedalos, Electric boats etc. The Aire in the town is a bit packed and close to the road so we head up into the hills to the Ski resort above the town at 860 Metres. Great views from here and clearly nobody comes up here in summer and we have it pretty much to ourselves.
The weather is rubbish the day we arrive but improves the next day and we manage to get out on the bike in shorts and T shirts rather than the Arctic foul weather gear we had to adorn ourselves with at Nancy.
I’m determined to continue my fitness campaign on this trip and start hiking up and down the hills. If you remember I lost three stone on the last adventure and need to shift at least two more. Confidence at this stage is high!
We spend three days here but end up moving on the last night further up the ski resort as we are under an outward bound centre where the kids are having a disco.
The Grand Ballon and Route des Cretes
We spend a day driving along the route des cretes along the summits of the Vosges of which the highest point is the Grand Ballon which I always thought meant big balls. Perhaps it does as you need them to get to the top!
The summit is 1425 meters or getting on for 5000ft in old money and (this is a first) we head off hiking over the top last bit to the summit. Its flipping windy up there but there are some fantastic views out towards the Black Forest in Germany and the Bernise Alps in Switzerland.
Eventually we turf up on the lower plains of Alsace on the other side of the Vosges in the little village of Equisheim. It’s a parking spot we got off the French website and it appears to be in the middle of a basket ball court. We ruin the kids game by parking Hank under their net. Bloody kids should be at school anyway.
Amazingly we are not the only ones to know about the basket ball court and by early evening it fills up with more vans. All French and one German who parks up, Puts all his blinds down and we never see him again for 24 hours.
The beers are cold the cheese is at that summer van temperature where the Brie de Meux starts to crawl off on its own and it feels like we are back home!
Getting lost in Colmar
Colmar is the largest and most touristy town of the Alsace so we take a trip in on the bike. It’s actually hot now and forecast to be 30 degrees. We of course complain. I wonder what the ideal weather is for us Brits as we always seem to find something to complain about. It’s all very twee and a bit like York really. The highlight of the trip is watching some nutty Chinese woman at a market going round every stall taking photos of all the food and watching the look on the French stall holders faces which ranges from bemused to angry.
I seem to have lost my sense of direction which is normally brilliant and get totally lost getting out of Colmar and back to Hank. We go down three bus lanes and run a red light and then promptly end up on the motorway going the wrong way.
Camping in the Vineyards
We find a fantastic spot for the night at St Hippolyte in the shadow of the most famous Alsace castle Koenigsbourg. Basically we are in a Vineyard. Only us, a Dutch and a French couple.
We have a ride out on the bike and I decide to have a quick scoot up to the castle. It doesn’t look far from here but I find out later it stands at 2500ft but the ride up is superb with lots of hairpin bends and Pig so far seems to be performing well.
Circuit Training in the Vineyard.
All winter I have been attending circuit training classes at the gym and I have memorised the exercises. So armed with two full bottles of water for weights, a tarpaulin and a chair I set up on the edge of the Vineyard and go through a half hour work out. A few French farmers pass by and all of them do a second take at the nutty English bloke slinging bottles of water about and doing something unexplainable on a chair. It’s flipping hot though. High twenties by mid morning.
We take in the tourist towns of Ribeauville, Riquewihr and Kaysersberg and whilst they are very nice in a similar vein to Colmar it quickly gets a bit samey. What does amuse us though is the Storks nests and storks that appear to be on to top of many church spires and other high buildings. We decide though that after today we will head back up into the mountains and then say goodbye to the Alsace and Hello to Germany!
Leaving grey old England (again)
Aire life once again at Lac De Der (Champagne)
The second Aire at Lac de Der
Lac De Der (it was sunny for a bit)
Lac de Der
City Hall at Nancy
Nancy
13c Gate house (used as a prison in the revolution)
Nancy
Drowned Rat back at Richard Madeley
Lac Gerardmer
Lac Gerardmer
Hank at the Ski resort Gerardmer
Top of the Big Balls
Michelle at the Grand Ballon
Taking over the Basket Ball Court
Equisheim
Parked in the Vineyard below Koenigsbourg castle
Idiot
Wilding at the Col des Bagenelles
20th June 2012
It’s great to be back up in the mountains again and we take another tip from the French website www.campingcar-infos.com and end up at the top of the Col des Bagenelles at 903 Meters. It’s a stunning view back down the valley to St Marie Aux Mines and there is just us and a Dutch couple who we last saw on the basket ball court! Perhaps they think we are stalking them but they seem pleased to see us.
The bike gets some punishment as we complete the circuit of the route des cretes we were going to do in the van. The whole place is littered with Nordic ski routes and we spend some time walking up them. The problem with forests though is there are too many flipping trees and whilst the views are great when you do get them you spend a lot of time looking at trees!
The weather deteriorates a bit and we are confined to the van early evening and watch England beat Ukraine. There is nothing and nobody up here, or so we thought. There is one farmhouse in the distance down a small track and just before kickoff car after car appears and heads down to the farm house. We can’t imagine where they are all going. Maybe it’s a party but we decided as darkness falls and it becomes as black as the ace of spades that it’s a secret cult and they will no doubt be back and midnight to sacrifice the foolish and blissfully ignorant Brit and Dutch tourists who were daft enough to be the only ones to park up there!
The next morning un-sacrificed we are rudely awoken to the sound of the forest being chopped down. We can’t see them but we can certainly hear the team of chainsaws echoing up the valley getting nearer and nearer. The icing on the cake is when a huge industrial vehicle with a massive grabber that makes a JCB look like a toy appears and starts dragging the felled timer out of the forest around us. Oh well we wanted an early start.
We only move a few miles and a bit further up to the Col du Calvaire at 1134 (just shy of 4000ft). It’s a week since we were on electric hookup so we find a smashing Aire by a hotel with Electric and all the services for the princely sum of €8.50! No more rationing of lights, TV, laptops and phones etc as everything gets plugged in and charged. Apparently according to the French if you eat in the Restaurant the parking is free. We work out that the cheapest thing we can have is a hamburger and fries at €6 and wonder if we have the gall to go in, share a burger then demand €2.50 back off them but decided its maybe a bit cheeky even for us (well me)!
We do some more walking up in the hills to grab a view of Lake Blanc next to the Aire and then bike down the mountain to Lake Noir, neither of which are spectacular but see if your passing!
So that’s it for the Alsace for us now. Tomorrow it’s Germany. Definitely. Unless we decide differently. Perhaps. Maybe. Who cares?
View from the back window of the van
Lac Blanc. We climbed up there all on our own!
Me, Pig, Gay new Trainers and Lac Noir
The hotel Aire at Lac Noir
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