Le Verdon Canyon

What a relief, the weather forecast was wrong and it only reached -8, after we thawed out, the van started no problem and off we motored into Sisteron. Using a self cleaning public toilet for the first time was quite frightening for Cointha as she was closing the door we accidentally flushed it on her and she came out very fast and very white faced.Waiting till the siesta was over at 2pm, (good life here everything closes at 12.00 and opens again at 2pm) the tourist office opened and we were assured that no camping was open so after a coffee and posting some mail we headed to a smaller town where we got directions to a campground.The bikes were removed and well used over the next 2 days while we relaxed in the sunshine before and wandered the skinny streets of Sisteron before heading towards Castellane.Castellane is a beautiful village filled with narrow streets, crooked buildings and a wonderful campground with 800 places, we were the only gusts there at the time, I can’t believe that the French do not take advantage of these places in winter.We hiked to the church at the top of the cliff some 240 meters straight up over the town where the views of the town and Le Verdon (the Verdon river) are spectacular at the top we had a picnic before venturing down to skim stones across Le Verdon’s crystal clear waters, if you want to go white water rafting Castellane is the place to go and the scenery along Le Verdon would be well worth the trip.We hope to return here time permitting when the rafting tours are open.3 days were not enough time to spend in this area as we drive through Le Verdon Gorge which is the largest canyon in Europe. The drive is absolutely spectacular, the scenery overawes you and the water as it rushes through the canyon and enters into Lac (lake) De Saint Croix is a beautiful Aqua marine. A few miles from Lac De Saint Croix is a beautiful town set into the side of a cliff named Moustiers-Saint Marie, 2nd gear is all I could achieve to reach the town but it was well worth the trip as we were mesmerized by its beauty strolling through the streets admiring the Artists stores. It is renowned as an artists hideaway and houses many writers, Painters and fine china is the specialty of the town.The motor home is aimed for Canne so we travel the other side of the canyon for a while before turning south and heading back to civilization.

Eating frogs

On our Way to visit Sheena, Patrick and the gang near Lyon we spend the night at a truck stop, as the tourist information in Bourges can only recommend campsites 1 hour in away in the opposite direction of our destination. We have a wonderful meal of soup and a Calzone/ {half pizza half omelete} I picked up from a street vendor for 6 euro.
The parking bay was quite nice with vistas of N7 the main highway between Paris and Lyon, a little snack bar, about 40 trucks and 4 campervans. As we pulled in the ice was starting to form on the roads and the windscreen so we fired up the heater for a while and climbed into bed.
As a truck driver I am used to sleeping on the side of a highway such as the Hume with trucks flying by, but anyone who has slept in the town of Jugiong NSW before the the by pass was built will have some understanding of just how noisy this parking bay was.
The amount of trucks passing by this spot makes the Hume Highway seem like the Birdsville Track, now lets add the very fast train which we have now discovered is only
5 meters from our idyllic sleeping spot and seems to go past at 30 minute intervals.
Around 5 am the trains and trucks seem to disappear and the sleeping continues on with much greater benefit until 8 am so we travel on to Anse and partake in a bit of shopping as I need to obtain a mobile phone Sim card.
30 euro was the asking price for a sim card so I bought one with a phone attached for 35 euro with quite a bit of French/English difficulty I was quite pleased with the outcome.
Then we headed for McDonalds where I was able to get free Wi-Fi and post some emails and also post some blogs.
We arrive at Sheenas around 3pm to great amazement as I had not phoned for directions,(thanks Garmin).
Let me tell you after 15 years living in France she still has a strong Australian accent.
We enjoy several days there and the kids all got along well having lots of laughs over some of the language translations.
Sheena and Patrick entertained us with some wonderful French meals, wines, cheeses, walks and cultures, including frogs legs. We did some shopping and picked up a couple of cheap bikes for our journey.
A trip into Lyon on Sunday saw us travel to the Artisan markets and to the Catholic church at the top of the hill over looking Lyon.
Sheena and Patrick were great hosts and we really enjoyed the company them and there children.
Grenoble was the next large town we passed through and we kept on traveling and started climbing into the Alps south towards Sisteron spending the night surrounded by snow in a tiny village called Lus-La-Croix-Haute and braced ourselves as our host warned me that they were expecting – 10 degrees tonight,
Well if my fingers are not frost bitten in the morning I may be able to continue this page.

Well we left Holland and traveled through Belgium again to the North of France,this is where we first discover just how hard it can be to find a campground in Winter.
We decide that if we get off the motorway we might have more hope so we detour along some beautiful country roads and through some quaint villages, but it seems that civilization is hibernating for the winter. Eventually we end up at our planned destination of Villers-Bretonneux
Villers-Bretonneux is the site of an Australian war cemetery and monument commemorating the liberation of the village by Australian soldiers in 1916. It is also where my grandfather and his brother Allan were stationed and fought in the first world war.
Fortunately for me my Grandfather returned but his brother Allan lost his life here and his name is listed on the memorial. There is also an Australian War Museum housed inside a school which was built by the people of the State of Victoria so it was quite interesting and unpleasant to see a snapshot of the life these young soldiers endured during there time here and as we are here during winter we can appreciate a little more the weather conditions only we are not living in a trench and it is not raining or snowing.
We wake next morning in a pleasant little caravan park in Bresle It is -5 degrees so I turn the gas heater on psssssss oh oh we are out of gas think I will go back to bed for a while.
When I get up I convince our Spanish speaking host with my best French accent to make us coffee before we head off to Grande Paris!!!
We stop several times along the way in order to fill the gas bottle or exchange it but we are finding some difficulty and before you know it we have forgotten the gas as we are driving into Paris and we are acquiring little glimpses of the Eiffel Tower.
We find a good caravan park and I ask the concierge for directions to obtain some gas, well he sends me on a wild goose chase and I spend an hour negotiating Parisian traffic as well as the French language at several gas stations, deciding that I was getting nowhere I return to the park and confront the concierge, so he makes some phone calls and we discover that nobody will exchange an English bottle and there is only 1 place in Paris that fills bottles and as this is Sunday They are not open so I go to plan B.
I hire a European bottle, unfortunately the cross channel unpleasantries extend to gas fittings so we are unable to cook dinner just yet, after some French advice in French I have deducted that we need to find a French hardware department store by the name of Castorama so we are back in the van and crossing the Seine in search of fittings.
Let me tell you at this point our Garmin Nuvi 660 GPS unit purchased from Johnnyappleseed has been worth more than anyone can imagine, but it had a little bit of trouble when we entered a tunnel which opened into roadwork’s that had altered the course of the route we were traveling causing the GPS to become totally confused and ensuring we give up our chase for fittings. Never to be outdone I figure we can turn this disaster into a wonderful adventure and turn off the GPS and line up the well lit (by this time) Eiffel Tower navigating the Parisian streets we finally entered the craziest roundabout I have driven around the Arch De Triumph (I don’t know what the rules are I think it is biggest first) and down the Champs Elysee, back over the Seine and past the Eiffel Tower to the squeals and delights of Cointha and Daniel.
If you think the Tower is magnificent then make sure you see it at night if you ever get the chance.
Next day sees us on a red double decker bus (English hmmmm) which allows us 2 days of sight seeing hopping on and off at all the major sight as many times as you like. Oh and a trip to Castorama where I get all the fittings I need and few extras.
Our 3 days in Paris was fantastic the weather was beautiful blue skies and we are looking forward to returning here in June.
Lyon is our next target and we set off again heading south in search of another camping ground between Paris and Lyon lets see how we get on.

It is a four hour drive to Egmond aan Zee and considering we had a big drive to the ferry we think we will stay around Brugge in Belgium, that is of course if you can find a camping ground in Brugge, we stayed there in 1995 but it seems to be invisible this year so we grab a loaf of bread stopping at a roadside stop to make some soup and sandwiches, and push on towards Netherlands. We travel the motorways around the cities of Rotterdam and Amsterdam which is just as well as the traffic and the new driving conditions were much easier at this time of night, then we end up free camping at a roadhouse 10 kilometers from Thomas and Cointhas (our Dutch friends) and there children’s Joris and Sarah home.
After a pommy bath we navigate to the home of the very shocked Thomas and Cointha as we have arrived a day early and thanks to all these different country codes which I had not forseen we have difficulty phoning them before we arrive, therefore we arrived unannounced, it seems this is a theme that is becoming regular on this trip.
After a wonderful lunch of all sorts of meats, breads, cheeses and cakes topped off with chocolate sprinkle (called Hagel slaag here and seems to be a very consistent part of the diet) sandwiches we ventured into town and we ran into Astrid and Frans some other Dutch friends, Frans was playing trombone in a festival to mark the start of the Easter carnival so watched a bit of that before returning to Thomas and Cointhas via the Supermarket (our first foreign language market) where we had some difficulty working out what a few things were. We had some wonderful Dutch meals including a night with Frans and Astrid indulging in local dishes like Curly flower which looks a bit like parsley and more hagel slaag.
From Egmond we visited Alkmaar, where they roll the cheese, Bergen a beautiful old village, Edam and Volendam an old fishing village with some great pubs and restaurants, then we were off to Amsterdam via an old village full of working windmills. In Amsterdam we took a canal boat ride around the city then we walked the streets taking in the Grand Dam and palace then off through some eye opening alley through the red light district, (I don’t think Daniel will forget that walk in a hurry as a lot of women in g strings thought him quite cute giving him winks and nods ) It was great to have Thomas and Cointha available to share there Dutch cultures and history with us. It will be good to return here when the weather is warmer.
As we are about to leave Holland Atrid arrives to deliver a wonderful bag of Dutch goodies that she and Cointha have put together full of Chocolate, cakes, biscuits and of course Hagel slaag.


So off we go again with our mouths full of chocolate.

setting out

It’s your money Ralph, well not according to some banks. As much as we tried we could not access our money, thanks ANZ and National Australia Bank.
Between ANZ travel cards, National Bank Visa/ access card, ANZ access savings card, we were not able withdraw more than ₤500 per day so we had to change money at bad rates and withdraw money from all these accounts at extra cost in order to access our money. Whoever said banks were out to screw you at every opportunity was dead right.
Lucky we got such a good deal on the camper. Banks although being very hard to get along with still need to be bigger pirates if they wish to be more do difficult than insurance companies. No insurance company in the UK it seems will insure our motor home as we are not UK residents. After 3 hours on the phone being told that no one will give us insurance, except 1 broker who said we just wont tell them you are not residents, ( I hung up on him ) I moved to the internet and started to contact caravan clubs.
Somewhere in the UK I knew there had to be somebody who would insure us as I know we are not the first Aussies to purchase a camper in the UK, besides you cannot get Road tax (registration) in this country without it.
Finally I contacted an insurance company called Downunder Insurance who specialise Australians buying campers, AT A PREMIUM of course, but we are happy now we can be on our way.
Do you know what a 13.5 tog duvet is? Neither do I but I bought 1 long with some cutlery, crockery, cleaning implements, pillows and some food, now we are set up to travel, So I book a ferry from Dover to Calais on the internet with Ferry Savers. ₤33.00 for a 6.310 meter long, 2.250 meter wide and 2.708 meter high campervan, 2 adults and 2 kids was much less than I anticipated. So we load up the kids and we are off at 8.50 in the morning for a 12.30 boarding. 186 miles/ 300 km, I haven’t checked out it’s top speed yet Let's hope we make it.

!2.45 and guess who is the last to board, no not us there is 1 vehicle behind us but they load all the trucks last, we only had a 10 minute wait before boarding so our timing was impeccable.
Beautiful skies and calm seas ensure a pleasant trip across the English Channel and an hour and a half later we are in France.
This is where our adventure gets interesting as we now have to navigate the opposite side of the road as well as communication skills will have to be very sharp if we are to enjoy as little stress as possible.The children are buckled into the back with strict instructions that total concentration is required in order for me to safely transport them onto the motorway where we can then acclimatize ourselves to driving down the right hand side of the road

Well here it is

Gloucester Cathedral was another filming site for Harry Potter, some of the Hogwarts scenes were filmed here so we made a visit on our way to Studley to look at some more vans. Lunch was at the monkey Tree, a family restaurant quite reasonably priced.
The car yard in Studley had about 6 campervans ranging from ₤5000 to ₤14000.
Beige was the only color available in a hi top Talbot and the consensus was that it may be a bit of a tight squeeze for a 9 month journey, besides I had been out voted and the rest of the gang made up there minds on a pale blue ₤10000 van.
My name was mud for the trip back to Bradford as I had encouraged the gang to view a few more options before rushing into the first van they liked.

Glastonbury Tor was the aim of our next day via the van we were not able to view when the yard was closed, so we set off earlier, around 10 o’clock for Lyddon on Fosse. The van was in good order so we took it for a test run, it drove OK, it’s major weakness was it was petrol.
So off to Glastonbury for some lunch a climb to the top of the Tor. This was our first real experience of COLD, it was blowing like the clappers and I was so glad I had some shoes. Lunch was interesting as we watched the different people of Glastonbury, from your suited businessmen to the homeless, the hippies
And the witches. Glastonbury is known for being a place of Mystic charm as the Tor is supposed to be very spiritual and it also is strategically placed on a lay line.

Deb and I decided that Cointha and Daniel needed some down time. They had been so good and we felt that we could not keep dragging them around looking at vans, so we spent the day with Anthony as he showed us some of the finer points of Bradford before heading to the Castle Inn to meet some of his friends.
Learning to use a pottery wheel was the afternoons excitement as Anthony shared his skills in the art of making medieval pots. { Anhony spends time each year at a Manor called Kentwell where all the artists recreate life in the Victorian Era, the rules state that they must make all there own clothing in the traditional ways and colors, they must speak in traditional language and while there they use there crafts and make products or services as communities did in these times}. Cointha, Deb and I made bowls while Daniel made some cups. When we return we hope to fire them in Anthony’s home made wood fired kiln.

I had promised the gang that Sunday we would decide which van we would buy so we set off towards Bridgwater to view a van from a private seller. I had tried to contact some private sellers during the week who had advertised in a UK classified magazine called trade it but none of them bothered to answer there telephones.
We had options today Bridgwater, Chepstow inWales , Bristol and Swindon.

Bridgwater was a very dodgy Bedford van with a toggle switch for a 5th gear and some very choice décor that not even Deb could make look good.
Chepstow would not answer his phone.
Bristol was unavailable until Monday
Swindon was the best we had seen and reasonably priced soafter a test drive and a discussion with the gang, negotiations were begun. Not that you can negotiate with 3 heads sticking out of the door of the van yelling we’ll take it.
So we left a deposit and arranged to return Monday to pick up our brand new secondhand 1988 Fiat Ducato Auto Stratus 2.5 litre turbo diesel motor home.

The hunt begins

Well I managed to get into Bath and pick up some new shoes with only a few hiccups.
First was the fact that the family were a bit dubious about walking the streets with me while wearing thongs and socks.
Also it was raining so negotiating steep wet concrete paths was a bit hairy as I skated along trying very hard not to fall over.
We picked up a few essentials and had a look around some of the sights before heading back to Bradford On Avon to a wonderful warm meal and to study the classifieds in search for our new home/campervan.
We were to search for a campervan on Tuesday but as soon as we found out parts of Harry Potter were filmed just a few miles away in an old village called Lacock, we decided to treat the children, so off we were to Lacock.
Lacock is a beautiful old village that has been preserved as it was 400 years ago and is now used for filming many period dramas. When entering the town there is no sign of light posts or tv aerials and very little signage which must be removable.
Lunch was at one of England’s many pubs with a quaint name, it was called the dog wheel.
The Dog Wheel was so called as it has an open fire with a rotisserie powered by a dog treadmill, I am sure that it would not be legal to use dog power nowadays.
Cointha and Daniel were rapt to see several places of interest from the Harry Potter movies and where the moonlight seen was filmed recently for the upcoming movie.
Unfortunately the Abbey was closed for Winter so we will visit there on our return in August.
The afternoon saw us travel 2 hours west through an amazing gorge into the town of Cheddar in our pursuit for a camper.
Proving to be a fruitless trip as we only managed to view 1 van and the yard was closed so we will be out again tomorrow.

Well we made it to England,
Malaysian Air were fantastic, the flight was uneventful.
Daniel and Cointha were so good. We are so lucky to have great kids.
Daniel didn’t sleep much due to the availability of endless movies and games, while Cointha was happy to listen to audio books and music.
We arrived into London about an Hour late due to a 230 km\h head wind but an extra hour on the final leg of 14 hours was hardly noticeable.
After landing we proceeded to pick up our hire car, a Citroen Picasso, then off to our Hotel.
We all lay down and were fast asleep by 8.00pm Sat night but at 2.oo am Sunday Morning we were wide awake, so a bit of Television later we decided we had had enough of watching square screens and decided to pack our bags and head along our way.
At this point I would like to mention that the only pair of shoes available to me are a pair of thongs which are not very accommodating in an English Winter.
How does this happen?
Well we Traveled to Melbourne From Kyabram in our summer clothes and decided to change at my sisters house in Melbourne before setting off to the airport.
Well after a shower and with 40 minutes before we need to be there I pull on my Blundstones only to discover that Debbie has packed one of my boots and one of her boots.
So it was quite amusing that I was heading to England with no other footwear but Thongs.
The moral of this story and the advice given by embassies and customs is.
PACK YOUR OWN BAGS.
So now we are eating breakfast by Windsor Castle at 6.00 am and trying to acclimatize to our new surroundings.
We avoid the motorways in order to capture the scenery of the English villages along the way.
A stop at Henley on Thames and I am receiving sound advice from a few locals that flip flops {thongs} is not really appropriate for this time of year.
As it is Sunday the availability of a decent shoe shop does not really present itself so we continue along our way to the Beautiful town of Bradford On Avon.
Well here is where we are staying with the most fabulous people in Anthony and Moira, they have given us some great advice on where footwear can be sought after so there are no prizes for guessing what tomorrows adventure will be.

Picture Deb, Daniel and Cointha in front of Windsor Castle

Deb has retired

Well happy new year everyone.

Now that it is 2008 we can finally say that we are going to Europe this year.

Deb has finished work and as of today I have 7 working days remaining. Wahoooo for Deb but my 7 days are going to be a real drag.

As soon as those 7 days are finished someone has to empty all the furniture out of our house, no prizes for guessing who that some one is.

I am now wondering whether 9 months will be long enough to recover.

The kids are starting to get excited I think it is starting to dawn on them just what we might be up for so stay tuned as I am sure they will be posting some very interesting views of their experiences.