14-15 September 2018
Wow. We’ve been here just 24 hours, and it feels like we
have been here at least a week, a month even! It’s been eventful… but we’ve
evened out the wrinkles and are having a brilliant time, despite a couple of
initial hiccups….
Friday, the day we were leaving, was extremely busy, racing around last minute getting
stuff ready; sold and dropped off Nick’s car, got the wrong gas connector for
the gas tank so had a 20 mile round trip to change that in the morning rush
hour, then the water pump on the bus was being unpredictable and needed
adjusting, of course we also had to
clean and tidy the house ready to hand back to Ian, our lovely landlord.
Packing everything in to the bus we quickly realised we needed to edit it down massively,
so had runs to the tip and charity shop. Got gone from home about 1pm, 2 hours
behind schedule, missed seeing Auntie Fran on the way to Brighton. Got to
Brighton around 3 to pick up some last minute buys – a tripod for the camera
and a cool box – sweet talked our way out of getting a parking ticket off
Western Road in a residents permit parking zone.
Got to Newhaven, fuel stop, then on to Ferry - nice cabin, a
mooch around the ship, bottle of vino and off at Dieppe. (Note to future ferry
travellers, don’t buy wine from the bar on the ferry, buy it from the duty
free, or on board shop as they call it, it’s better wine, at half the price).
On arrival we decided to stay at a camper van stop, as
recommended via a camper van parking app – big mistake….
Got to this parking place, basically a massive car park, occupied
by middle aged mid-life crisis types in expensive campers. The barrier let us
in but there was nowhere to park as everyone, in order to take up the max
space, had basically parked across 2 spaces. It was dark, it was late and we
were tired. So we parked at a funny angle near the back of this car park, not
really ‘in a designated space’. I went to walk Nina, who hadn’t stretched her
legs all day, and had been an absolute saint so far. I got back to the bus to
find two middle aged men, French and Belgian, kicking off big time with Nick,
shouting in French, threatening to get him deported if he didn’t move our
vehicle – a huge row ensued, by which time a dozen or so curtain twitchers were
observing. I implored us to leave the horrid campervan cattle pen, then had a
effing nightmare trying to operate the ticket system to get out of the car park
– thankfully 5 euros later we managed to escape and headed in to Dieppe town to
find some non camper van designated parking. We soon found a good spot at the
top of the town between a school and church and opposite a little café/bar.
Swiftly fell asleep, woken at 7am by very loud church bells, which was a bit of
a shock to the system! We didn’t want to
hang about so got a superb café au lait in the lovely little café, which
welcomed dogs, and decided to hit the road to head south.
For the first couple of hours, everything went smoothly –
we planned to cover about half the
distance to Bordeaux – you can’t really gun it in the Digibus, as max speed is
about 60mph, but that’s fine with us – the grape picking work lined up starts
Thursday so plenty of time. So, to begin with, all good, lovely misty morning,
the sort that promises sunshine later, beautiful countryside – never seen so
many different varieties of cows, an abundance of fruit orchards , stunning
landscapes – just what you want and expect on the first day on the road in
France. At 10.30 we stopped at a super marche, which put English supermarkets
to shame! We stocked up on a few of days
food – then headed on our way, not before Nina enjoyed seeing the wild goats on
the river bank by the supermarket.
On leaving Nick exclaimed: ‘damn should’ve checked the oil
and water, will stop at next garage’….
Fast forward 20 miles or so, the bus starts losing power and
stops switching into top gear. Nick says its feeling sluggish and it gets
slower and slower – I break out into a hot sweat and palpitations, then
frantically practice the mindfulness and meditation I have been doing lately
and think, ‘right this is actually nothing to worry about, let’s just ‘respond’
and not ‘react’ (easier said than done!). We pull over off a narrow hilly bendy
road (though ironically until now the roads have been mainly flat, straight
with lots of lay-bys??!!). No service on phone, can’t connect to internet…
SHIT!!!
For some reason unknown to me Nick decides to reverse up a
hill to see if this helps, and bizarrely it does, the bus seems to regain some
life and we take off again, looking for the nearest garage. After about another 20 miles we find a garage, top
up with oil which uses up our last 10 euros of cash (the oil was low, but not
empty, the water was fine). The bus is
driving but only in 2 gears. We decide to find the nearest largish town and
call the RAC (thank god we joined) because we reckon there may be a garage
nearby where they can assess the problem, and we think it’s better to take
action now while the bus is still moving, rather than wait for it to potentially
stop completely in the middle of nowhere.
I’m hoping it’s just the clutch cable – though I’m by no means a
mechanic, I’ve had plenty of old bangers in my time and had a few clutches fail
on me.
The next large town we come across is called Pont L’Eveque
and it is absolutely gorgeous – it’s in Normandy (we have made a it a surprisingly
short distance, since morning, maybe a
tenth or so of the way, and been heading south-west). It’s the most charming
place, a wedding is in full swing at the town hall, there is a fountain,
someone playing the accordion, a river, beautiful flowers on display – we couldn’t
really have found a prettier, more bustling place to break down. Alain the
French RAC rep is extremely helpful and eventually the recovery man comes, allowing
me to practice my French language skills, as he speaks no English, and we are
offered the choice of a hotel, or to stay in the bus at the garage, who will
look at it on Monday. We opt to stay in
the bus at the garage - better for Nina, which is short walk from the town
centre. They are super friendly, and have given us electric hook up. Tonight (Saturday) we cooked spaghetti
bolognaise in the bus, did a few odd jobs, Nick put up some hooks, I did some
sewing, we watched a DVD and are now snuggled in bed. We don’t consider what has happened as a
crisis in any way – it’s part of the adventure, and if we need a whole new
clutch, so be it, we can deal with that – thankfully we have a contingency
fund. Hopefully (fingers crossed) we
will get to Bordeaux for grape picking by Thurs – if not, we’ll work round it.
I can’t believe yesterday we were in the UK, it feels like a
lifetime away - I’m loving living life on the road, warts and all…
p.s I will be posting this update after the bus is fixed (at
hopefully minimal cost), and when we are safely back on route, as I don’t want
any family or friends worrying, because actually we’re not, so neither should
you!
Over and out!
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