Club Motorhome Bloggers

We've just spend a superb month in company with some friends travelling around the Valencia/Alicante areas of Spain using a mixture of Aires and Wild Parking for stopovers.

We met up with our friends, Steve and Lorna, at one of our favourite spots just by the beach at a small Spanish resort, it was their first trip to this area and they were very pleasantly surprised by what a great spot it is! Very busy though with maybe a 100 vans and sad to say that some motorhomers were becoming very territorial about their spaces - even using water bottles to mark out their 'pitches'

That aside we had a great few days R&R before we went for an inland tour to show Steve and Lorna around a bit. Just a few miles inland there is a great, and little used, Aire. Free to stay with a proper service area we enjoyed a couple of nights and made use of one of the town's great little bar/restaurants - menu-del-dia at just 7.50€ and a wonderful part restored Monastery which was free to wander around plus free wifi at the Tourist Office.

On the second morning a Belgian couple joined us at the parking and proudly told us that they had been to the Aire before and were a bit dismayed to see others using it as they had been determined to keep the location a secret! They didn't approve of websites and books that publish locations, I kid you not.....

From there we drove over the nearby mountains to the next valley and on to an Aire that we had recently discovered. On arrival it was deserted and the electric gates were firmly shut. I phoned the number on the gate to see if they would open it up for us and in my best Spanish understood that someone would be along shortly.....

Another long hop and we arrived at our planned destination, an Aire that we first used at the beginning of our trip to the UK almost 6 months ago north of the Pyrenees at Aire sur l'Adour. A car park style Aire right on the river's edge and we were fortunate to get a riverside spot, again I uncoupled and parked to Suzuki tight beside us.

After such long daily stints we decided a day off was in order before getting into Spain and our campsite destination at Huesca. At this time of year they only open at weekends and its 10€ a night all in which hopefully will give me decent wifi access to upload this blog. So we had a restful day and it was nice to meet a couple of Brits to chat to as well.

Caroline ventured into town and, for someone who knows very little French, managed to get her haircut exactly as wanted - well done!

Planning to travel up to 400kms a day we knew of a village Aire on the main route that was likely to have room so we headed for it. On arrival there was space but the layout was such that it was going to be best to reverse into a corner of the parking area.

A new experience reversing an a-frame other than in a straight line..... I had set the rig so there was the least angle to manouever possible but on a slippy gravel surface I couldn't get the cars front wheels to co-operate and rather than force to car against its will I just un-coupled again, parked the car, reversed the motorhome up to it and re-coupled ready for the next morning's departure. In practice this is quicker than 2 or 3 attempts at shunting backwards and forwards as could be the case with a conventional trailer.

Our next night stop target was south of Limoges in the Limousin and the Aire was only just off route in a small town with a pretty and very typical central square. Parking was at the side of a side road and could take around 6 motorhomes. At first we pulled in lengthways across the spaces as there was no one else there but then thought better of it and un-coupled and parked as designed with the Suzuki tucked in tight beside us.

Coupling and un-coupling has become a very quick and straight-forward procedure and takes less than a couple of minutes. What I hadn't reckoned on however was that having used lights a lot on the journey due to the rubbish weather conditions the car's battery was too flat to start the engine. Luckily I carry a jump start unit so it was only a minor inconvenience and letting the car fast idle for half an hour or so recharged its battery to a reasonable level. Something to bear in mind in future though and I'll be asking TOWtal for their advice for preventing it happening in the future. I'm surprised that the installation does not include wiring to maintain the charge with power coming from the motorhome there is actually a fused red wire to the positive terminal of the car's battery and had thought that this was for the purpose.

Anyway, after a surprisingly noisy night what with church bells, heavy and agricultural traffic but we made use of the free dumping facilities before heading south for the Dordogne.

We headed to an Aire at Abbeville that had been recommended to Club Motorhome but was new to us, also that it was a motorway Aire which we rarely use and don't generally advise the use of for well publicised security reasons.

Anyway, we hopped onto the toll motorway in order to gain access and were pleasantly surprised at the facilities provided. Free water, waste and EHU (albeit for the service point so long lead needed). The designated parking is along a layby-like marked off area but with a little searching there is a very nice picnic area at the far end of the facility for caravans which security staff confirmed was fine for us to overnight.

The service area has all the amenities that you would expect including free wifi. The walkway to the parking area crosses some water containing the friendliest ducks and carp that you could imagine. Digger was quite taken with them.

Quite a few motorhomes came and went during the afternoon but only a caravan remained for night time company - and that was gone by the morning.... So we pretty well had the place to ourselves.

Checking the Eurotunnel website we found a reasonable crossing on a Saturday afternoon at £150 (motorhome + trailer) and by the time we went back to book it the price had risen to £159 - hey ho.

En route to Folkestone we made a couple of visits to friends and family which gave us the chance, at long last, to meet our newest grandson - now nearly 3 months old and bringing the number of grandchildren up to 6!

Well, we've finished for the summer, the last 6 weeks at our second location. We feel that having seen it through to the end we probably won't be doing it again!

The campsite for our last 6 weeks was quite large and run by the owners who work full time at it. One other warden couple covered maintenance, odd jobs, pitching arrivals, reception, shop etc. - our duties solely revolved around cleaning.