In which Snod discovers the joys of camping.
The day had come at last, we were ready and we were off. As is traditional we met up at leicester forest east services for the ride down to Ashford. A stop-off at south mimms on the M25 and arrived at the Ashford travelodge without any problems, weather was just about perfect. Cool without being cold and dry all the way. A little windy going over the Dartford crossing just added a little excitement.
I asked the receptionist nicely for a ground floor room and they gave me one set up for 3. So partially unloaded the bikes (leaving only the panniers) freshened up and headed out for a bite to eat. In the end settling on the Chiquito mexican.. which was alright. Then retiring to the Beefeater for a pint or two.
Crossing was set for 08:50 so an early(ish) night and alarm set for 06:30. While shod was in the shower I checked on the weather... sun/showers. heavy rain in the black forest and on into germany and Austria. the only good weather to be seen was south of grenoble - where it was 'glorious'. This was little changed from the night before.. or indeed the few days leading up to the off. Original ideas and routes were scrapped aside from the first stop.
400 miles to camping du lac. here: http://goo.gl/maps/Vgtvn
A nice easy run... weather was pretty much perfect. No rain, cool. little or no wind. occasional sun. If there was rain about it was avoiding us. We followed the usual 'free' route used to the Eifel as its both quicker and a lot cheaper than the toll route. cheaper on petrol too and we know it well, until we turned south from lux and entered france.. this was all new. but.. not bad. However as we approached the end the weather decided it had had enough of playing ball and it started to drizzle this was off and on for perhaps the last 40 miles. not awful. but certainly not good. On the final climb to the Lake the clouds descended.. with more drizzle. We arrived at the campsite without any problems and after checking in started to put the tent up. This was Snods first time. And then it started to rain.. which rapidly turned to Hail. the wind picked up and we had a bit of a fight on our hands. obviously both a bit tired... it was a struggle. but.. we got there. got the tent up.. the camp beds inflated - sleeping bags in. And then we legged it into the restaurant. The owner turned up the heating - we ordered Veal steak and fries with salad. a beer and settled in, warming up.
Bit of a baptism of fire (or ice) for Snod, he was shivering and probably just a tad traumatised, wondering what he had let himself in for. fortunately the hail had finished - it was still quite cold with just a light drizzle by the time we had thoroughly warmed up. eaten and lubricated ourselves with a few litres of cheap french beer. so... dived into the tent and very quickly asleep. so ended day 1.
The next morning - it was still very damp but at least not raining. but.. my heart sank. the clouds hadn't lifted. The tent was packed away while Snod had his shower and got himself ready. I made coffee on my stove to get us going and we were off... following a route to the grand ballon. the highest point in the Vosges. (the road as high as Ben Nevis) after a few miles we had climbed to 3,700 feet and i pulled over. And asked Snod if he wanted to carry on. The cloud was all around us... visibility not very good at all. his answer was instant. 'No'.
So... that was that. we headed down out of the mountains towards the plain below and south. I told the sat nav to take us to grenoble by the fastest route avoiding Tolls and we were off. Once out of the mountains the weather suddenly improved. yes.. it remained largely overcast, but there were occasional breaks with some sun. it warmed up a fair bit and we sped south towards the Jura Mountains that border switzerland and france. A nice mixture of roads... 250 miles until we reached the Rhone and crossed it, following its east bank south until we reached a bridge at a place called Groslee. About 40 miles from Grenoble. south of us a storm we had been following (it never actually rained on us - though it was clear we weren't far behind its edge) looked grim. Another wet night was out of the question - west of us the skies were blue and the sun was shining. So.. west we went, from under the cloud and into the sunlight. After a couple of miles I pulled over and said to Snod. we'll make a beeline for a campsite now. few button presses and voila a campsite less than a mile from us. Turned out to be a 'municipal' in the small town of Morestel. cheap and cheerful. a couple of camper vans and us. right next to an athletics track. tent up and we were asleep pretty early that night.
So, my third attempt at the Vosges defeated by the weather (for the third time) a shame.. but after that things really started to improve. certainly the weather got a lot better as we headed south. warmer and drier. soon the freezing cold hail and rain in the vosges was a distant memory.
Municipal campsites tend to be fairly basic in france and this one was no exception. but, it was cheap and very quiet. The toilets left a lot to be desired so next morning meant a beeline to the nearest MacDonalds to use theirs. and have some breakfast.
The storm had cleared away.. the skies were blue. it was very warm. and we headed south to join the Route Napoleon just south of Grenoble. this would (in theory) take us all the way to the Med coast near Cannes. With a diversion on the way up into and around the Gorges du Verdon. i thought it best to do this part over two days... a wise choice as it turned out. reducing the distances ridden.. with more stops. to ooh and aah. and as it turned out there was a lot of that.
which can wait until the next episode.
I should add that because we were away for two weeks. eating was divided almost equally between 'out' and al fresco. out was either roadside. campsite restaurants or macdonalds. Al fresco meant a trip to Lidl or Aldi. (i have the location of every Lidl in western europe on my sat nav) To buy mostly. bread, cheese and beer. - what more do you need? though we sometimes added salad. chocolate and cake. The differences between the Lidls in various countries was remarkable.. and all of them put ours here in the UK to shame. really. Its no wonder the Mighty Tesco gave up on germany (for instance). And also.. as an aside. The Germans seem to cope quite well with sunday being an 'everywhere is closed' day. funny that they can in a country thats so... industrious.
90c for a can of very nice extra strong German beer. and in the south of Germany - so wonderful. 26c for a bottle of cloudy wheat beer. No wonder everyone seemed so chilled. 15c for bread rolls. the choices of cheese was truly extraordinary. And then having all that for 'dinner' in the evening under a clear sky in air so clean you could almost drink it. pure heaven.
A photo that should have been added to the (mon-weds) post.
this taken not long after we had dropped down into the plain south of the Vosges.. with the foothills behind.
My post:
There were so many days I doubt I remember them in the right order, MB is the one with the record of our routes and the knowledge of everywhere ever! The first night of camping was fairly miserable, we could see the rain heading our way from coming over the hills where it had to climb up and get properly cold.. But the hail was a shock. The tent was already unravelled and it couldn't be abandoned as the wet would find its way inside, so we persevered while being battered on the head (and ears!) by ice pellets. After the grenoulle (?) steak and delicious draft Heineken I went for a walk around, took some pics and hid from the next rain shower next to an abandoned lakeside eatery with a load of pedalos outside, it probably only opens in the summer. Come 9PM it was dark, and by 9:15PM we were back in the tent hiding from the weather. "Look Jack, I didn't come all this way to sit in a tent" says MB in a serious tone.. But it was okay. It still showered on and off the next morning but it was better and not quite as cold, off we went to find a toilet with toilet paper - McDonalds to the rescue!
Camping Du Lac and where the rain slowly came over from:
The rest of the day going to Grenoble (or not) was a lot nicer, despite being constantly tailgated by mad French people and the K starting to shake its head under the strain - a couple of themes that were to continue. I had the mad head shake up the hill round the corner which I posted about not long after, and that night at the municipal campsite in Morestel checked out the steering head bearings (which were fine) and clicked the preload on the rear shock to maximum, which helped a lot though the shakes never went away, coming back with a vengeance on the B500.. But that's a story for later. The Morestel campsite was nice but a bit weird, the gents toilets were still locked shut and it was very basic but nice in a relaxed, quiet sort of way. Plus the fact that it didn't rain until we got into the tent helped things a lot.
Morestel municipal:
On the way to Grenoble the landscape started to change:
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