Cavalaire-sur-Mer

Sunday 31/03/19

Bokkie is parked in the trees of a lovely campsite awaiting the arrival of Charmaine and Chris, later today.  Well, not really, Bokkie has to go and fetch them.  We hadn't realised when we made all the bookings that there was a major marathon in town today and we expect most of the routes to be blocked today so will be taking a rather round-about route to Nice to collect them.

We haven't seen them for so long so are really looking forward to catching up.  We won't blog for the rest of the week but should be on the move by next weekend.

Bormes-les-Mimosas 2

Thursday 28/03/19

We spent the day in Bormes and walked around the village a few more times; it really is lovely.  There are two beautiful parks which we took our time meandering through.  The one, Parc Gonzalez, specializes in Australian plants which seem to thrive on these Mediterranean slopes.

Views out over the Med with Île du Levant and Port-Cros islands

Not content with just chopping down the tree, they turned it into art

Unexpected sight in France (no it's not real)😂

Bokkie in her spot with a French neighbour

Tomorrow we move on.

Bormes-les-Mimosas

Wednesday 27/03/19

We left Les-Pins this morning and popped into Ensuès-la-Redonne to service Bokkie as the services at the overnight stop were disconnected.  On the way we encountered wild goats in the road, unfortunately it all happened so quickly we only got the bizarre photo below (it looks like they're levitating!), but they were so cute.

We then went around (and tunneled under) Marseilles before heading into the hills of Provence.  We managed to get stuck behind a tractor hauling a digger up the mountain passes and had to contend with police vehicles screaming past us every two minutes.  We think there was an exercise at the OK Corral, an amusement park nearby, as that is where we passed them all again.

Soon we were passing (and tunneling under again - the French love their road tunnels) Toulon before we arrived at our destination, a parking area near Le Lavandou.  However we were sorely disappointed as we were definitely unwelcome in the area, with all parking areas now closed to motorhomes.

We reviewed all our options for a while and I spotted a village slightly inland with motorhome-parking.  The access sounded 'interesting' in most of the reviews - "Super difficult to access but when we are there, a real happiness, nobody tonight, quieter it does not exist"  Judging by where Bokkie has taken us previously we felt we could make it and set off; they weren't joking about the access, it is down a 20° slope with sharp twists, but Bokkie walked down carefully without a problem.  

Access is sharp left, down hill and sharp right - for starters

First gear - and crawl

We took a walk into the village - it is absolutely gorgeous with amazing views.  Very welcoming to motor-homers, very different to the coast.  We decided to thank them by supporting the local artisans.

We even spotted a Protea

Supporting local industry...  We didn't manage to finish the water 😆

We will probably spend another day here before heading to our campsite on Friday.

Sausset-les-Pins

Tuesday 26/03/19

Bokkie is hiding from the wind in a sheltered spot within walking distance of the Med.  It was a rough day's travel.

We know our iPad struggles coping with the amount of data it needs to process around cities (we use the iPad and Maps.me as our sat-nav) so we have been using the phone as back-up which works quite well to confirm when we are on the correct route, but today I missed a critical on-ramp in rush hour traffic and our system had a few flaws exposed.  I ended up doing a few very dodgy u-turns and accidentally blazed through a stop sign without noticing it, much to my navigator's horror.  Luckily we didn't hit anything or get pulled over and hopefully there is no camera evidence...  

Some of the areas we travelled through today were quite bleak
It's common for the trucks to overtake Bokkie as we plod on quite slowly

It was quite a difficult route today as we move into more populous areas and was made even more so by a terrible wind.  We passed through the Carmargue natural park: the area is essentially a large flat delta and the wind channeled through it with tremendous force.  When we travelled into the wind we were unable to maintain speed in Bokkie in 5th gear and would have to gear down on the flats.  When catching the crosswind we had to have our wits about us to avoid being blown off the road; it was quite hairy.  The cover we have strapped over our bikes started threatening to detach at one stage and we had to stop and add more straps.

Floating Bokkies

Marseille in the distance

The rough travel was worth it for this view at the end of today

We were rather relieved to reach our destination and a walk along the med.  The aire is sheltered from the wind, which is perfect, and it's a short walk into the village.  A drink may be in order.

Lodève

Monday 25/03/19

France is continuing to bewitch us with the most fantastic scenery.  After a very relaxing weekend in Lisle (as an added bonus there was a microlight airfield across the river so I got to watch them buzzing overhead on Sunday) we headed off this morning.  

The route looked a bit like a knotted Slinky in places so we weren't sure what to expect, however the roads were quite good as we climbed up through the hills and down into valleys with dramatic scenery along the way.  Unfortunately the photo's don't do it justice as we weren't able stop to get proper pics.  We then joined the A75, a large dual carriageway and dropped dramatically down off the escarpment.

We have stopped in the village of Lodève, in a parking lot opposite the Gendarmerie - there don't seem to be many aires in this area.  We had a quick walk around the village but were a bit put off by a dusty wind blowing a gale around us.  We found a water fountain in town so went back to Bokkie to collect one of our large water bottles and headed back.  We took a different route back and found the entrance to the cathedral so popped in for a look, it was amazing!

Paroisse Saint-Fulcran Lodève

Tomorrow we need to tackle Montpellier and then will begin to work our way along the Med towards Nice for the end of the month.

Lisle-sur-Tarn

Saturday 23/03/19

Bokkie is resting in an Aire between a small lake and the river Tarn in the lovely village of Lisle-sur-Tarn.  It's absolutely lovely here and, as we filled up with diesel and did all our laundry yesterday we all have the day off.  We had the most gorgeous sunshine yesterday and have the same forecast today.

The tree-lined roads are beautiful - just not very wide!

Crossing the Tarn - into Lisle-sur-Tarn

The drive was good today - many of the roads were wider and in better condition; we are also wise to the tricks that Maps.Me tries to play on us so avoided most of the traps.  We use the phone as backup in bigger towns and cities as we have realised our dated iPad can't cope with the increased thinking around these areas, and tends to stop and leave us in the lurch at critical times.  With Toni doing back-up navigation we tackled the ring roads around Toulouse in peak Saturday traffic and managed without any hiccups.

Late afternoon, after chores, we decided to make use of the warm evening to take a quick walk into the village.  The old village is like being in a time-warp.  The buildings remind me of York - without the tourists - and it really has a lovely, family feel about it.  We walked past the church and saw people going in so Toni popped in to see what was happening.  It turned out there was a concert scheduled for seven o' clock to celebrate the equinox.  Toni convinced me that I didn't look as scruffy as I felt (travelling gear) and that they probably wouldn't eject us on sight so we decided to pop back later.  We were back by seven and stayed for a few performances, the sound was absolutely fantastic in the huge church! 

The French seem to be able to make even the most
dilapidated look elegant, somehow.

The river Tarn

The impressive church of Notre Dame

Hiding near the back of the church, waiting for the concert to begin

By then it was quite chilly outside so we hustled back to Bokkie's warmth for an evening drink and some reading.