This years Epic Summer trip

Well it couldn't last. Forecast for today was wrong. You literally couldn't see twenty feet all morning. We left it until 11:30 and packed up and left. Now in the Carrefour car park at Argeles le Goolies en route to a cpp Aire. It's crap here as well but at least you can see.

Good fun coming down a mountain on a narrow road waiting for the Cows to appear out of the mist. 😵‍💫

Nothing can take away the magical day and evening two days ago though. Absolutely fantastic. That's the mountains for you I guess.
 
Not too bad an afternoon in the end. A 15 mile ride around some of the lower mountain villages, got caught in a huge downpour and my waterproof trousers failed so my shorts underneath were soaking. Came back and jumped in the secret private swimming pool and did 60 lengths of that. Michelle went and walked up to some Rapunzel tower but the webcams of all the high up places including where we were are just blanked out with cloud and rain.

Got a text off Camping Car Park to warn us of an Orange weather alert where we are and to remain "Vigilant". Not sure what that means we have to do. Not go swimming and riding about on bikes perhaps. :D

The Gaslow must be running on Vapour (Still have a Calor backup) as its showing empty. One theory I have is to get above the clouds back up to 6000ft+ and break through the cloud level :D That could spectacularly backfire of course and I bet ill have to get up to Tarbes first though in the opposite direction to find LPG or just run the calor down as temperatures up there in the coming days are down to 6c at night. Will just keep an eye on the weather and take it from there.
 
The thunderstorm missed us last night but we had a view from the van of it 10 to 15 miles back up the Valley where we came from. It looked like world war three or Mordor from the Lord of the rings up there. It raged for about four hours.

Finally got LPG at Tarbes just now. 10.5 litres so half a litre left. 😊. I did explore taking the Calor out and putting in a second 6kg Gaslow but it's not been needed really. I had anticipated needing to dig into the Calor in the Pyrenees but we have avoided it by the skin of our teeth but only because we had a few nights on hookup and because we dipped in and out due to bad weather. I hope they fix the one at Lourdes though.

Weather is still crap in Tarbes even out of the Pyrenees. 16c and cloudy but dry.

The Pyrenean adventure is not over though hopefully. Will hang around the foothills until Monday and see what the forecast is like for next week. If it's still crap it's the Lot and Dordogne where right now it's not great either
 
We have had a change of heart after studying the weather forecast more. Time to go out on a high I think and move on to a new chapter. Decision made, we will head north tomorrow. We found ourselves on yet another CPP Aire at Tournay about 12 miles east of Tarbes. We had planned to go to Chateaux Mauvezin or Bagnères-de-Bigorre just inside the foothills of the mountains and then venture back in but it looks pretty set in. As soon as you get within site of even the smaller mountains its grim. So we did the Chateaux and Bagnères-de-Bigorre on the bike this afternoon. The Chateaux would have been a nice stopover and it was a lovely ride to it and to Bagnères-de-Bigorre. The Aire at Bagnères-de-Bigorre though has to be the saddest most miserable looking Aire I have seen for some time. Not a soul on it. :D

The Aire here at Tournay is ok. Its also a bit odd though. Right next to a tennis court, swimming pool and sports centre. Tons of space on it though, every one parked down one end so we came up this end near the Tennis court.

In the morning we will head up towards Monflanquin in the Lot et Garonne.

Few pics









 
Pudsey Bear said:
The Aire at Bagnères-de-Bigorre though has to be the saddest most miserable looking Aire I have seen for some time. Not a soul on it.


Hmm!! Maybe they were forewarned of your impending arrival.
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Well clearly not as we didnt stay on it. :D Just checked it out. I don't know what CPP were thinking. I suspect it would be stacked if it was free though.
 
Don't go to the south of France in July and August they said, it will be too hot they said, you will die they said! Well a few weeks ago that was true, now look at it!! :LOL: Like a wet weekend in Skegness! Actually I bet the weather in Skeggy is better than here. Actually yep, it is. I just checked. :D

It started off as a lovely drive up from the edge of the Pyrenees up towards Condom (Snigger) and then it turned black and chucked it down for most of the rest of the journey up to the Lot et Garonne. Lots of roads that look like proper roads with a white line down the middle but are just not wide enough to meet Mr White van man or truck man coming at you at a combined speed of over a ton without you having to jump into the ditch. However just as we got near our first destination it cleared and the sun came out! So we managed a nice rake round a lovely hilltop village called Pujols just now for lunch which I had earmarked which is not far from the town of Villeneuve sur Lot. Now parked up at the Aire at St Sylvestre sur Lot where Michelle has gone shopping in the rain. :D

Last time we were here about 15 years ago we ignored the crappy Aire and parked overlooking the river next to a massive boules court. On our return we were hemmed in by cars and a massive boules tournament was going on so we ended up stuck there for the night drinking and watching the boules competition.

I did stop over on the way just near here at another stopover to meet a nutter from Motorhome Fruitcakes but he never turned up.











 
barryd said:
not wide enough to meet Mr White van man or truck man coming at you at a combined speed of over a ton without you having to jump into the ditch
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We've had our passenger wing mirrors smacked a few times, usually with Mr 001 saying immediately before 'look at this guy, there's literally nowhere for me to go and he's going to get us'.

Losing the use of that mirror is a nightmare in France so we always have spare glass - from memory, the set of four glass pieces cost about £80 so it just isn't worth the worry of not having them.
 
Jo001 said:
We've had our passenger wing mirrors smacked a few times, usually with Mr 001 saying immediately before 'look at this guy, there's literally nowhere for me to go and he's going to get us'.

Losing the use of that mirror is a nightmare in France so we always have spare glass - from memory, the set of four glass pieces cost about £80 so it just isn't worth the worry of not having them.
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Yep we have been clipped twice on this trip. Second time the bottom glass popped out but I managed to pull over later and put it back in. Electrics still worked to adjust them which was kind of funny as until that moment I had no idea they were electric and adjustable. I just saw the wires and thought, hang on a minute. 😂

Of course white van man or truck man won't give a toss, it's not their vehicle.
 
Jo001 said:
Why? What do you call them? Am I being dense?
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Door mirrors, we've not had mirrors on the wings for decades.

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We left the Aire at St Sylvestre sur Lot as its a proper dump. The town itself seems much grottier than we remembered and there was no chance of a good nights sleep there and the market sets up in front of the Aire in the morning. Twelve miles up the road to Monflanquin which is delightful. Long stretch of motorhome parking at the bottom of the Bastide. Very quiet here. Just us and one fellow British camper van. Nice couple who I had a chat with.

I Took a photo of the service point sign in St Sylvestre as I swear the bloke looking out of the window of the van is the same miserable git who who parked next to us in the couple of hours we were there. We got dead lucky with our visits as the sun came out for each on then it chucked it down each time we moved on. Chateaux Biron tomorrow.

Few more pics. I'm bored of Bastide villages already. :D
















 
Feckin Owls and the Mosquito.

Lovely stopover below Monflanquin village. No cars, no whoosh bang motorhomes (Well no motorhomes at all apart from us and our little Camper van friends), no noise at all. APART FROM TWO BLOODY OWLS!!!!! Feckers woke me up at 6am hoot hoot hoot.

Then there is one Mosquito that got in a few nights ago and I am sure its only one. WTF is it with these Mozzies. All day long you never see him, all evening you never see or hear him. As soon as you go to bed and and only when you decide to go to sleep does the little fecker appear. Why? Why does he wait until then? At least appear when Im watching telly or reading something so I have a sporting chance of beating the living sh*te out of you!!

I thought I might have got him this morning. I was sure I whacked him with the back of my hand on the window but there is no body? Nothing. Its like he just vanished. Ill be turning the entire van over this morning until I find the bastud! Dead or alive.
 
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