Club Motorhome Bloggers

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.