Tuesday 31st October 2017

We had enjoyed our stay at Flower Camping La Beaume near Esparron -de-Verdon for 9 nights but it was closing for the year so we had to move on. We decided to move westward to Beziers .

Our Camping Card had been given to another camper by mistake when we were at La Neptune recently, but had now been returned. We decided to return there for one night to pick up the card before heading west towards Spain. So yesterday we made the short trip back there and set up for the night.

Today we set off around 10:30 heading westward to  Beziers, staying at  Camping Les Peupliers in Colombiers in the Hérault region of France.

30 & 31.10.17 Route

Towing Kilometres – Today: 328 – Cumulative: 4,478

The village is on the Canal du Midi.  We chose to pay a toll and used the autoroute to travel the 200km. We were delayed for about 30 minutes due to an incident, but made the campground, fortunately, in good time. We were greeted by a very pleasant receptionist. We chose our pitch and setup with the intention of staying 4 or 5 nights. Within two hours the site was almost full with arriving motorhomes who appear to use the site as a stopover.

We intend to use this site as a base to visit Béziers, Carcassonne and Canal du Midi before moving south to find warmer weather.

Saturday 21st October 2017

We moved on today to Flower Camping La Beaume, near the beautiful village of Esparron-de-Verdon. The village is located in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence region. This was to be our base for visiting the Verdon Gorges.

21.10.17 Route

Towing Kilometres – Today: 130 – Cumulative: 4,150

Flower Camping La Beaume reception

In an effort to make the transfer as calm as possible, I invested in a GPS app for iPhone, CoPilot. This enables you to enter the dimensions and weight of your caravan and it purports to keep you away from caravan unfriendly places. By & large, for this 115km move, it worked. No silences, no Scrabble defeat!

Wonderful Avenue

Only thing to note about the drive, apart from the mountains starting to appear on the horizon, was this amazing avenue of mature trees shot on Kim’s phone through the windscreen.

On arrival at the site, down a very steep slope, we were met by the enthusiastic and friendly owner who directed us to our pitch.
He showed us the facilities and wonderful pool and although he doesn’t speak any English he made us feel more than welcome.

The facilities on site are acceptable and clean and I think this will be a very comfortable place to stay while we investigate the Verdon Gorges. 🙂

Tuesday 17th October 2017

Today the plan was simple, to move on from the Campsite Lou Vincen in Vallabrègues to Campsite Le Neptune in Saint-Mitres-Les-Ramparts. This is another Camping Card Site and is  €15 a night and was chosen as a base to visit Marseille. It is a trip of 61km, easy.

Campsite Lou Vincen

We had really enjoyed our stay at Lou Vincen. We intended staying four nights, to visit Avignon & Nimes, and stayed eleven nights. The welcome we got from the owners, Hélène & Myriam, and the friendliness of everyone we met there and in the nearby village made it an easy place not to move on from.

Hélène & Myriam

We had taken down the awning the previous night so preparation for the move was rapid and we were ready , after saying our goodbye to the girls, to move by 10:30. The route was put into the Ford GPS and as usual Kim monitors the route on Google Maps. All went well for about 7km until we entered the town of Tarascon. Ford said right, Kim said left. Doh! It was too late to take the left so over the bridge to Beaucaire we went. I turned right into a street with the idea of turning around but this was impossible in the narrow street. Then we faced a very narrow bridge with a sharp left turn after to get back to the main road. Not fun.

We managed to weave our way through this then came up behind a truck unloading outside a bar. No way to get by, we watch him unload for 15 minutes before being able to proceed. This is the point where the drivers sense of humour failure occurred.

Another 15 minutes meandering through the tight roundabouts of the town brought us onto wider roads and progress was being made, albeit in silence.

17.10.17 Route

Towing Kilometres – Today: 61 – Cumulative: 4,020

After 30 or so kilometres, we stopped for a coffee break. Kim, sensing my stress, and the chance of a win, set up a game of Scrabble in the van. Her plan worked a charm. She won, and the silence was broken 🙂

After the break we made good progress without navigation problems to Campsite Le Neptune. Job done, I thought.

The reception was closed until 17:30 and it was only 15:00 so I wandered around the site while Kim waited with the van. I have to admit I wasn’t much impressed with the location of the site and went back to Kim to break the news. Kim noticed there was another site just down the road. With time to spare we went to investigate this.

We travelled down the very narrow road to the site gate, only to find that the site closed for the year 2 days previously. I now had the prospect of a half kilometre reverse with the caravan back down the street.

Just before sense of humour failure could occur again, a lovely lady opened her large garden gate enabling us to separate the caravan and motormove it out of the way and turn the car around. Very kind, and very lucky.

We went back to Campsite Le Neptune and reception had opened early and we were greeted by a very friendly chap who directed us to a pitch and returned later to check all was well

Campsite Le Neptune, Saint-Mitres-Les-Ramparts