Club Motorhome Bloggers

After filling and emptying as required we headed to the nearest E'Leclerc to get some shopping, fill up with diesel and give back our French Butagaz cylinder that we used in France in our old van which didn't have the refillable cylinders that we now use - on production of our original gas contract and ID we got our 9€ deposit back too.

Having had no wifi for a few days we also headed to a MacDonalds to see if all was well in the world. Their car park looked a bit tight so I pulled in at a garden centre opposite and used a long range aerial to get a just about ok signal. Caroline went for a wander around the centre to 'justify' our parking . Emails sorted, blog uploaded, lunch eaten (that time already!) we set off for Burgundy.

Our afternoon's driving finished in the south of the region at Louhans. Its a lovely Aire that we first visited a few years ago when it had first been refurbished. Set by the riverside its nicely laid out and landscaped with the planting of 50 different varieties of pear trees which were now coming along nicely.

Tomorrow should see us up into the Alps....

A day of rest.

Thats's a laugh! Well, that's what we call it anyway 

A great opportunity to finish a couple of jobs on the van whilst we are rested up in lovely surroundings.

Firstly I got the inverter connected up to power. I had previously installed the unit and run the necessary cables behind trim and through lockers etc to get the power where it would be needed. For some reason Carthago don't seem to think you might need any power points at the front of the van, they only supply 4 singles which are all amidships. The inverter (300W) is now mounted in the garage near to where the leisure batteries live and there are now power points in the rear bedroom, middle cupboard and front lounge, the latter being able to run off mains or inverter. The whole inverter supply can be turned off from inside the van via a switched relay.

Spain are going to have to pull their socks up!!

Another 200 km destination although there is a lovely canal-side (again!) Aire that we used a few years ago that might tempt us to stop a bit early, a beautiful spot with all services and although not free it was very cheap. This day would take us right to the bottom of the Champagne region.

Driving was fairly uneventful but I am feeling more comfortable with the van. On an Iveco base its very lorry like as opposed to our Bel-Air which was fiat based and very car like to drive. The gear-change especially has a very long throw and feels quite clonky at first. The engine doesn't feel that it wants to be revved hard through the gears and, like the lorries I remember driving years ago, works at its best when kept in the green power band on the rev-counter. Initial calculations show that we're averaging just over 25mpg which at 4 and a half tons I'm very happy with.

Arriving at Froncles, the Aire I mentioned, we were really disappointed to see the state of it. A couple of really grubby vans and an old coach looked like they had taken permanent residence with associated debris strewn about and the others were jammed in at all angles with washing lines up - it all looked more like a travellers camp!

Back to plan A then, As we went through Landres we followed the signs to a town centre Aire but on arrival we found that although the services were open the parking had been blocked off and prohibited signs put up.

A very lazy and late start, must be the hour lost still! Plan today is another couple of hundred km's hoping to stopover around the vineyards of the Champagne region.

Sat nav set for an approximate destination we set off to see what turns up. With a late start we didn't bother with a lunch stop, just brief pauses to have a look at a few Aires on the way - seems to be a bit of a canal theme to our findings!

Through Picardie and into the Champagne-Ardenne we headed to an Aire that we had used a couple of times before at Mareuil sur Ay but on the way we found a fabulous stop right by the vineyards of the big label producers Moet & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot and Bollinger. The Aire has 8 spaces and still plenty of room enabling us to get the end spot with a great view to just gaze at 

In true motor-homing spirit we've been very casual about planning this trip south. We had to hang around a bit in the UK for the shower repair and a couple of other small things but as soon as was possible we had our channel crossing booked.

Eurotunnel prices had gone through the roof for the days we wanted so we booked a very unsociable 1.23AM! We took a bit of a chance and arrived very early, about 5pm and they very kindly rescheduled us to cross 6 hours early at no extra cost - thank you Eurotunnel! We also found out that the huge prices were because we had chosen dates leading up to the 24 hour Le Mans racing - doh!

So, arriving late evening we just popped around the corner from the Calais terminal to Cite Europe for the night. A leisurely meal, bottle of wine, some French TV and a good night's sleep followed.

Next morning after breakfast and over our traditional couple of cups of coffee we studied the map to decide on our approximate route. Although definitely heading for Spain we had not decided whether to go down through France via the coast, through the middle or via the eastern side and the Rhone-Alps. More or less tossing a coin we chose the Alps. Mostly based on the theory that at this time of year the coast will be hectic, inland hot and from previous experience the Alps offer stunning scenery in the summer without having to contend with snowy conditions at high altitude.

We attended the Carthago Owners Club UK gathering in York which was our first proper camping. The meet was in the grounds of a stately home, Sutton Park, and was a great few days being a very well organised event.

By chance we met the previous owners of our van which was handy to fill in some of the details of the van's history. It was also an opportunity to acquire a set of stainless wheel trims that were residing in their loft!

We discovered at the end of the meet that we had a water leak from our shower and on investigation it turned out to be a broken shower trap. Long story short, the warrantee company said it was not covered by them (no surprise there) but the supplying dealer readily agreed to sort it out. It took a little while to organise as the parts had to come from Germany so we had to make do with Duck-Tape sealing one of the two plug holes.....

Time was getting on towards our date to get back into Europe but eventually the part arrived and was fitted at the dealer's workshops - thank you GoEuropean! Another visit to our friends in Stratford upon Avon and a booking was made for the Eurotunnel.

Recently we spent our last night in our wonderful motorhome..... The next night we spent the first night in our wonderful motorhome!

After a long, long while of indecision we finally made our minds up and put our beloved Bel-Air up for sale, we had a replacement in mind but as always the figures to change had to work. We had a guide price to part exchange from a dealer who had what we wanted but felt we needed a bit more and placed some classifieds.

After a couple of weeks of enquiries without a serious one amongst them we visited the dealer for a serious viewing and a serious chat..... We definitely wanted to deal and with some negotiating the p/ex figure was raised and some goodies were included so we shook hands!

With some mixed and excited feelings we became the very pleased and proud owners of our new (to us) motorhome - a Carthago.

We arranged the changeover for a week later and decided to visit friends at a campsite reasonably nearby in the meantime. The week dragged by and the anticipation grew but eventually the day came and we made our way back to the dealer. After the formalities and the handover instructions we spent a couple of hours transferring our various bits of kit - hadn't realised just how much stuff we carried!

All done, I cautiously drove away glancing back at our Bel-Air in the mirrors - a strange feeling, that motorhome meant such a lot to us......