Saturday, March 5, 2011

Honfleur to Villaines les Roches


She says...

Brrr..... a chilly start today and our first evidence that Butane doesn't like cold temperatures. Well you live and learn! We found that in the very sub temperatures that Honfleur had to offer we lost our heating. Well, pushed out of bed first with a 'go on' for encouragement I started the day with many layers until we realised the problem. Anyway, full of boiled eggs we managed an early getaway - for us!



We only needed to buy fruit juice today so we got along pretty quickly after our first Mac D. stop to update the blog. Still full of coffee from breakfast we had nothing to buy so a sneaky freebie to load the blog and a promise to make sure we do next time!

The sun, despite valiant attempts, never shone through but looking forward to hook up as promised from our planned aire we carried on south until we reached the place, the name of which I have already forgotten, where with no hook up and more importantly no water we decided to go on further and ended up at a lovely little Troglodyte village which is a centre for basket weaving and which we had visited on the way up last December!  Of course the scenery was lovely but with mostly fog and with a really twingy back we were glad to get to a stopping point. So with free wifi from who knows where and water we had acquired from the Super U on the way we are once again set up for the night. Dinner was courtesy of Morrison's this time and we were nicely surprised by the quality of their half price fish pie! We don't normally buy in stuff as I like to cook but for our hurtle through France to warmer weather we thought it might make sense - so successful have they been I now have the dilemma - what to give up for lent - cooking or ready meals!!

Really tired again today so we must be getting relaxed!

He says...

Up early awoken by very cold noses! The heating had gone off - so much for me thinking our butane had defied physics. Once up and switched over to propane warmth was restored. It was VERY frosty outside and I imagine quite a few degrees below zero.



No sign of life at the other vans - using the right gas I reckon and still fast akip. Across the river though a small flock of sheep were scurrying around with their lambs playing happily. Someone must have suddenly sent them a signal that breakfast was ready as they turned in unison and galloped(?) away.



After breakfast and coffee we got ourselves ready, dumped what remained of our grey water by rinsing the cassette with it and headed off for the local McD to catch up on emails and upload our blog.

We tried a couple of places en route for water but with no luck. At Gace we found the Raclet service point and confirmed that it contained water but needed a token that we didn't have. I called at the Mairie as it just shut for their 2 hour lunch and was sent off to the Presse shop - they didn't sell tokens and sent me to the boulangerie - they were shut too!!  Back on the road, even our planned nightstop in Neuille Port Pierre which was supposed to have services open all year was all switched off - electric as well! Fortunately there was a 2nd aire nearby at a SuperU and they had a Flot Bleu dispenser and for 2 euro coins we got our water - Yes!

As it was still early we pressed on a bit and pulled in at Villaines les Roches which is a Troglodyte village apparently more recently famous for its basket making. We parked up in front of the Mairie and used some free wifi which had one of those connections that drops in and out - really handy when you're in the middle of something....

No comments:

Post a Comment