Bingley to Lormes

Bingley to Lormes. 24th September 2018. Well, we’re back travelling again after a few months in England when we enjoyed some good weather and met up with family and friends again. We did the usual visits to Docs and Dentists, I had some minor surgery, the motorhome had a few repairs and improvements and it looks like we’re all good for another year.  But after a couple of months we got itchy feet again and last Tuesday we set off from Hull to Zeebrugge. This is our preferred route to Europe now as it only entails a drive of a couple of hours to get to Hull rather than the long slog down to Dover or Portsmouth. It means we have a longer sea crossing and a longerdrive through Belgium and France but the roads are less busy and we’re not in a hurry omce we land in Europe. When we’ve used this crossing before we have always booked the cheapest cabin which is gloomy, tiny and has bunk beds. I’m past the age when I want to be climbing ladders to get to my bed but the larger cabins with two low level beds are very expensive. So, here’s a tip; we always travel off season and mid week when the ferry is never full and when we collect our room key we ask if they have any upgrades and a better cabin is always then heavily discounted. This time I didn’t even have to ask as P&O phoned me on the day before our sailing offering us a club cabin for £37.50. Double bed, free minibar, snacks, toiletries and TV and portholes! In a relatively quiet part of the ship with little engine noise. Normal price £148! Probably a different story in high season but it’s worked for us on the last few crossings. A drive of a hundred miles or so from Zeebrugge and we stopped on Wednesday at Banteux (50.062801 3.201054), a sleepy village between Arras and Saint-Quentin. The village has provided parking and service facilities for half a dozen motorhomes including electricity for the princely sum of €5 per night. The following day was a longer drive of 150 miles to a favourite stopover of ours at Bray-sur-Seine (48.417112 3.238018). It’s a working port still with barges carrying some type of aggregate being unloaded onto trucks. We live near the Leeds/Liverpool canal but the only narrow boats are pleasure craft now. There are no commercial barges now and I guess they were never the size of those on the Seine.

 

Stopping here also gives me a fishing opportunity although sad to say the fish weren’t biting on this occasion. From Bray we set off for Lormes in the Morvan. A Dutch couple Paul and Danielle who we first met a few years ago in Bolnuevo and who are good friends of ours now have been managing a campsite here over the summer so we’ve been catching up over the last few days before we make our seperate ways down to Bolnuevo for the winter. It’s a pretty campsite on the banks of Etang du Goulot (47.282606 3.824941),(more fishing!) and the village has a half dozen shops. This is a beautiful part of France which we only discovered earlier this year on our way home from Greece but an area we will hopefully visit again. We head off again tomorrow heading toward Pau and then we’ll decide where we will cross the Pyrenees. The options are the Somport tunnel or the D934 to Pourtalet. We haven’t taken either route before but the D934 looks a little more scenic. Once we arrive in Spain we’ll take four or five days to get down to Bolnuevo where we are booked in to our winter pitch from the 4th October. All for now, Pat