Riding the Relentless Road to Bellas
Zagan the motorhome is sat on short-cut grass, in the garden-turned-aire of a jovial and enterprising fellow in the hamlet of Bellas, just north of Millau (N44.31284 E3.12753). It’s €5 a night to stay here, right in the bullseye on the middle-of-nowhere dartboard, and our Internet system’s still got a speedy 3G connection. We shouldn’t be here though. We should be noshing down on a wonderful meal in a ferme-auberge further south, but got scuppered by fate, harrumph.
Aire at Bellas, a few km from the A75 north of Millau
North, north! Team Zagan’s swinging back towards the green and pleasant land that is Blighty. The ferry is booked for 16 Dec from Calais, which means we need to be up there on the 15th to get Charlie fettled at the St Omer vets. Still nearly 2 weeks away, but we’ve the length of La France to traverse and none of us much like driving, hence we’re eating the elephant one bite at a time.
The first bite took us to Gruissan, which these days is pretty much dominated by a huge marina (not quite as big as Empuriabrava mind!). Guided by satnav, we ended up on the D32 as we dropped out of Narbonne and rode on south-east. The D32 is a nice, wide, yellow-classification road on our map. But we were on a narrow ran-run of a skanky little thing running through the marshes, just wide enough for Zagan and an oncoming car, tight enough to force a slowness which no doubt infuriated innumerable Frenchmen, who’s rat-running was being treated to the Zagan treacle-speed treatment. Squint again at that map. That’s right, there are two fecking D32’s – the rat-run white one and a beautiful yellow one. Why ye-gods? Why?
Into the Gruissan aire we finally rolled (N43.10379 E3.09972). A van-side of a sign at the entrance declared it to be €9, but only until the end of Oct then it turns FoC. Oh yeah. The news was clearly out: there were maybe 50 other vans, including some rock-star slide-out massive ‘uns. Generators hummed – a clear sign the ‘normal’ rules of aire engagement weren’t in force as a few folks looked to be sitting it out for weeks.
The aire at Gruissan
Mildly fed up after the drive north, we walked the town under a grey sky, but with little enthusiasm. The town’s dominated by the marina, which was packed with boats but had been purged of life by the coming winter. Around the edge of the water, rather pricey restaurants sat closed, their outside areas a tacky mix of decking boards and painted signs. Neither of us could summon the energy to walk to the older part of town, and no doubt we did Gruissan a huge disservice.
Nazi bunkers at Gruissan, which now oddly face the back of a series of whitewashed villas
Nearest thing to life in Gruissan?
Boats. Thousands of boats. All sat unused.
Casting about for something to do, we turned the bottle. Or rather, a bottle. Ju had been flogged a bottle of local Narbonne red by a sommelier-dressed fella in the supermarket down the road. It flowed nicely. A blind taste test of our olive oil collection ensued, with the result that I have no taste in olive oil. My favourite was the cheapest we had; the artisan stuff we picked up at the olive farm came in last of the 3 options. “You don’t like it ’cause it tastes of olive” Ju hit the nail on the head. Films and a few TV programmes entertained us into the evening.
We’ve finally, finally bought some snow chains by the way. Not the cheapest, but still probably far too cheap at less than €40. Just need to work out how to get ’em on now.
This morning Ju worked out an email we got yesterday from Penny had arrived from the other side of the aire. Hmmmm. As there was only one other Brit-registered van in the car park, we should have guessed! Over we nipped for a chat. Penny travels alone for several months a year, after quitting her high-flying (ahem) job as a Rolls Royce engineer some years back, taking a job leading tours in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. After 8 years the company she was with started to use local guides, which forced a change in tack, so Penny trained as an English language tutor, and now spends half the year teaching and the other half travelling. She’s writes a blog which is well worth checking out: European Nomad, loads of info on costs and a nice section on recipes. This trip’s taken her around Italy and across Corsica and Sardinia so far – two islands we’re yet to visit, so before we head in that direction (one day) we’ll be gleaning as much info from there as we can.
Today we was a driving day, heading back into Narbonne to grab some bits for our mate Jamie from the famous Narbonne Accessories, before hitting the A75.
Adventure Wagon for sale at Narbonne Accessories. At €30k, a bit steep for us.
Many times we have heard of this shop! There are actually a few of them spread across the region, but this is the one in Narbonne!
The A75 is the ‘relentless road’ referenced in the post title. Reason? It cuts across a third of France, running directly North, costing nothing, and it stops for nothing. An hour or so from Narbonne the hills bubbled up, rising up and casting off the endless vineyards of the south. The air cools. Green signs for ‘open passes’ caught us out: we only normally see these on the approach to high mountains? We knew there’s a central massif in France, but somehow forgot this would mean hilly bits…
On, on, on. Despite only being on the road for 2 or 3 hours, and after stopping off for lunch in a motorway services car park, it felt a relief when we peeled off before the toll-section at the Millau Viaduct, heading east for the ferme-auberge we found on park4night.com.
You can just about make out the sleek form of the Millau Viaduct?
Into Millau and out again, we found our road, which was shut. A sign declared it closed until 5:30pm, and we didn’t fancy tackling the tight little puppy in the dark. Map rapidly consulted: a yellow road to the south was a longer, but easier run in anyway, so down it we went, into the Gorges de la Douribe. Curses! It’s yellow, but tight again, and when we finally find the turn off, we find it’s only passable if we dismantle Zagan and carry him up the road piece by piece, it’s that narrow.
Along the Gorge
Our supposed turn off to the left, which even Harry Potter would have struggled to get Zagan down
Waa! Waa! I’m getting knackered. My back’s in agony. The fuel gauge is dipping into the ‘no fuel’ area. I want my auberge! Right, sod it. Out comes our park4night database again and we found this spot. There is an aire in Millau but we’ve stayed there before and it’s now about €10 a night with some weird need to buy a camping card or some such stuff we’ve not heard of before. So we nipped into Millau and fuelled up, then we zoomed off up the A75 again, hitting an all-time Zagan top speed of 110kph in the process.
Pulling in here the chap running the place couldn’t have been more welcoming, popping over for his cash Charlie liked him so much he gambled around the fella like a lamb and then started off with him when he left! The rain’s now spitting and the silver screens are in place. About 800m up here, so we’re expecting a cool night. Who knows – we may even need those chains in the morning?
Cheers, Jay
Do you think the statue in the cafe looks a bit like Jay in (maybe ) 10 years? Or Sean Conery circa ‘Highlander’ era? Sorry to hear your heading home under grey skies, you will soon be back under beltin’ blue skies & no appointments to keep. Safe journey. Wayne.
We’ll banish him! Oh, Highlander, what a film! No says Ju, I wouldn’t have a glass of rose wine sat in front of me! Quite looking forwards to a spell back in Blighty – although it is very, very weird to think we won’t need to start job hunting again when we get back. Just weird. Cheers, Jay
It’s like following a series and enjoy waiting the next addition but can’t read most comments under your photos as they are bigger than the pic! I’m reading on a kindle..is it me!?!
Hi Jackie
Sorry, sorry, it’s not you, we’ve had other folks tell us we have this problem. Not managed to fix it yet, but I will once we get somewhere with WiFi, thanks for your patience and for the info.
Cheers, Jay
You’re coming back to the UK for Christmas? What! It’s been raining here for weeks and the weather forecasters even give names to the storms now, it’s so wet. We’d rather be back in Spain.
Pass the brolly.
Hi Jason, are you coming back to the UK? That was a quick trip
Hi Bob, yep, planned an Xmas return to see family and then have a mate’s wedding back end of January.
After that we have a free run into 2016, with a vague plan to see the Alps in winter and then make our way up into the Arctic in the summer via the Baltics. That’s today’s plan anyway!
Van will need the cambelt doing too, and we’ll get a Jan MOT so can be out for a whole year. Cheers, Jay
The Arctic? I quite fancy Russia
The Arctic circle is relatively straightforward Bob, from what I’ve read anyway. Norway, Sweden and Finland are all well used to motorhomes and have the facilities in place to allow easy movement. No visas needed, just need to take care choosing when to visit and, I’m told, not to underestimate the huge distances involved.
Russia’s a different proposition I think, much more of a challenge (and probably very rewarding as a result). I’ve no idea what ‘camping’ infrastructure is in place, bit of it’s anything like Ukraine there won’t be much and you’ll need to search out places to do your day to day servicing and find safe places to kip. There’s a visa requirement too as I recall.
The only folks I know who have taken their camper to Russia are Catherine and Chris, who wrote the ‘world is our lobster’ blog. Might be worth searching it for their experiences – they went to Moscow I think.
Cheers, take it easy, Jay
You should turn Zagan back south as storm “Desmond” is creating havoc across Cumbria and South West Durham. Will be heading ourselves to the Arctic circle in “Dion” in July when the wife finishes work, Great blog and spreading the word
Don’t tempt us Eric! Nah, the plan’s been in place for a good while and back to the UK we will come. We’ll just have to ride out the storms with the rest of our compatriots! :-)
We may well bump into you up against a fjord in Norway next year, wow, can’t wait! Congratulations in advance on retirement, and thanks for dropping us your comment, it’s much appreciated.
Jason
Have been following your tour while on our own. We started our ‘retirement celebration tour’ in September in our Autosleeper and have stayed on numerous Aires and even a few campsites in the early weeks and I am writing this on our last night in France near Calais before we too head back to UK for Christmas. We’ve been north to south and east to west and had a great trip. Can’t believe we’ve been away so long. We too have discovered Narbonne assessories and have spent many euros on useful stuff you don’t see in uk dealers. We will be heading to Spain in mid January and may go on to Portugal as we’ve definitely got the ‘bug’ and can’t imagine life any other way. Enjoy every moment “life’s too short to drink cheap wine”!
It’s this organisation who are either opening or taking on aires and then making customers buy a card to enter that needs pre-charging with credit: http://www.camping-car-park.com/. It doesn’t look they ‘own’ many and hopefully it’ll stay that way! Takes all the spontaneity out of finding and staying at an aire.
Thanks Paul. Judging by the comments on the Millau aire on park4night, I’m not sure they’ll enjoy massive success here in the land of liberty! Cheers, Jay
We have used a few of the camping car park Aires during our recent trip especially when we have wanted electricity. You register and buy a membership card at the machine at the entrance at your first stay costs 4 euros and lasts for life. Thereafter you pay the nightly cost at the machine at the entrance by credit/ debit card according to the indicated price. We’re a couple of sixty somethings and if we can work out how to use these Aires you youngsters should have no problems! We didn’t pre book we just turned up as usual and we found them to be reasonable value with good clean facilities and reasonable wifi included in price. Most cost about 8 or 9 euros a night and as with everything in life you get what you pay for which in the case of this company is exactly what they advertise at the entrance. There is a clearly displayed phone number to ring if anything is not working and I phoned to inform them electricity wasn’t working at one site and they got it sorted by next morning it seemed our French neighbours just preferred to complain to all around them but hadn’t actually phoned the number on display! If you don’t want to pay the small charge to stay on one of their Aires there are plenty of others to choose from but sadly due to the bad practice of some motorhomers some Aires are in a poor state as there appear to be some who don’t seem to think they should clean up after themselves and leave their mess for others to deal with or is it that they don’t know how to use the ‘flot’ correctly.
Hi guys, all good points.
We’re privileged to have access to any kind of aire network at all, it makes our lifestyle both possible and enjoyable and we’re always grateful for it. We used both paid and free aires, depending on where we are and, for the most part, they’re well used, well equipped and in a very good state of repair.
As ever in life, the actions of a very small minority of people can have a much larger effect on the wider community around them (just one person pours their toilet cassette in the wrong place and potentially tens or even hundreds of more diligent people feel the effect).
I’m not sure what advantage there is to the motorhome community of having to buy and carry a special lifetime card though, to access certain aires? I’m sure there is one, I just don’t know what it is?
Cheers! Jay