Day Nine

Havn't posted for a while, not had internet access. So will catch up over the next few days.



France: L’argentieire (L’ardeche) – Alet Les Bain (Pyrenees)

13th July

Is time to move on again. We’ll be sad to say goodbye to Domaine Les Ranchisses and L’argentieire, but we know we’ll be back soon. A messy start to the morning as the awning was dripping wet and the ground sodden from the previous day’s rain, but un deterred we packed up and were on our way by 9:30 as the sun shone again.

As we motored along en route to our next destination around 10am there was a massive whack as a white van that was hurtling along at a million miles an hour on the opposite side of the road smacked Priscilla’s passenger side mirror and catapulted in into the passenger window. The impact smashed the mirror glass but the passenger window remains in tact (thankfully). The white van didn’t stop but I pulled over to asses the damage. There was enough cracked mirror left to allow me to keep driving and fortunately the casing of the wing mirror has survived with a small scratch and all the electronic adjustments were all in working order, a lucky escape, but it shook us both up. I’ll need to hunt out a Toyota dealership to try and get a replacement or a temporary mirror glass of some sort, but it’s Sunday and there’s no hope of that today. Driving on the right hand side of the road in a right hand drive, I’m very reliant on it.

By 13:30 we had travelled the distance from the Ardeche valley up into the Pyrenees and our next stop Camping Val d’Aleth in the medieval village of Alet les Bains. It’s known for its mineral water and we’ve read a review about the campsite in the Cool Camping France guide book. A great book (highly recommend it to anyone travelling in France) and we’ve been suitably rewarded with a gem of a little campsite set on the side of the river L’Aude not far from Limoux and about 30 mins from Carcassonne.

We pitched and lunched in the sun with beers and cider. We spent the rest of the afternoon discovering the village on our bikes (yes we managed the odd straight line after the liquid lunch!). Some of the buildings had a feel of our own home town of Faversham, the medieval architecture being very dramatic, but with that certain distinctive French styling. It’s a sleepy little village but we had a good mooch around finding the source of the mineral water with its bottling plant and getting some info from the tourist office for the next days trip.

Rounding off the day J cooked another slap up meal – considering we are camping we are eating better than we do at home. Clearly having the time to plan meals, prepare and cook is what's making the difference, better not get too used to it as its back to ready meals once we are both working again!