We stopped at Honfleur in the afternoon for an overnight stop as we head South. We’ve stopped at this aire a few times before.
The aire itself is basic and functional. The harbour areas are nice with the inner harbour particularly picturesque.
We felt a little like “billy no mates” as it appeared none of our European pals wanted to park up next to a British registered campervan.
We agreed with the AA we’d drive to the Eurotruck Iveco dealer in Saint Martin and then call them from there after the mechanic had inspected the handbrake.
My French is poor and the mechanics did not speak much English so with the help of Google Translate I tried to explain the fault with the handbrake. The garage were very helpful although they explained they did not have the handbrake cable in stock.
With hand signals and goodwill the mechanic and I communicated and explored the fault. I was a little embarassed to find the handbrake cable termination had become unclipped from the bracket due to slack in the cable. The mechanic clipped it back on and tested the handbrake. We were fixed in 10 minutes and the garage refused to take any money. Wendy donated a €20 contribution to their tea/biscuit fund and we were on our way – relieved.
On hindsight I should have investigated the fault at the Boulogne sur Mer aire. The slope of the aire with no handbrake put me off on safety grounds, but I might have saved us the concern and the trip to the garage.
We drove from the garage in Saint Martin to the aire in Le Crotoy. Whilst at the aire I adjusted the handbrake cable to ensure we did not have any more problems.
The aire is located between houses and a mussel/oyster processing facility. It has a very short walk to the beach, although when the tide is out it is very far out with a long walk to reach the water.
After touring for one week with the “kids” we sadly said goodbye at the Eurotunnel and we headed on our solo two week tour, stopping overnight at Boulogne sur Mer aire. We’ve stayed here several times before and enjoy the views from the cliff.
We experienced our first technical problem here. The aire is on a slope and our handbrake failed so we carefully chocked the van in place. We decided not to investigate the fault due to the slope and Wendy located a local Fiat dealer. It was Sunday so we planned to call the AA In the morning and relaxed for the night.
The ladies visited Mercier champagne one day and the Moet Chandon another when we were enroute to Sameon. Whilst the ladies toured the champagne Duncan and I watched the Tour de France and the Formula 1 from the comfort of our campervans in the Moet Chandon car park.
This was a quiet rural site with enclosed pitches.
Sameon was a convenient overnight stop for us at the end of an idyllic first week. The “kids” were travelling back to the UK on the Eurotunnel the next day. So this was our last night together, for now.
We then moved to a municipal camping site at Val de Vesel. We haven’t stayed in French municipal campsites before. We had ready they were basic although I really liked this one. We are quite self sufficient and we don’t use the site toilet block or showers.
The site is surrounded by farmland and the canal is nearby. There is very little amenities in the village so you need to come prepared with everything you need at this site.
There is an interesitng maze created in the corn field. This is next to an amusement park, but I’ve left that out of the images, on purpose.
It’s taken a while to start adding more updates from our tour of France in the summer, so a series of updates will follow.
We visited the Tour de France in Dunkirk where Duncan met Geraint Thomas and collected the famous Gilet.
We stayed here for at Saint Amand les Eaux for a couple of nights, visiting the tour in. Dunkirk and the cobbles.
I spent a day editing and looking after the dogs whilst everyone visited the tour in the cobbles.
After an overnight Britstop in Chesterfield enroute from Glasgow we took the Eurotunnel and arrived in Guines. We had a trouble free quick trip on the Eurotunnel with an easy pet check-in. Max did not like the train very much though.
We arrived in Guines to nice weather and settled in for a few nights.
We are staying on sites for the first part of the trip as we travel in a family convoy. We have stayed here many times over the years. It’s a lovely rural relaxed site, yet still close to the Eurotunnel and ferry terminal.
This is the first trip in Duncan’s Caddy Maxi as we just finished the build, so far so good.
We are off to watch the Tour de France over the next few days.
I’ve been getting some jobs done in preparation for our summer tour. First task was a full service on the Ducato, with Barney helping me. I bought the filter kit and oil from Global Motor Parts and I found these guys very helpful.
Then I fitted an Alexa Echo. Before and after images below –
We will have a family convoy for some of the trip – the Ducato, the Caddy Maxi conversion we just completed and a Clio, so I added some extra USB sockets – we’ve now got six for when all the family are together. We also tested our projector screen for movie nights. I’ll be powering the projector from a PowerOak power bank.
We travelled from the Glasgow area arriving at Stratford race course on the Thursday evening. The area we had booked was already full so we parked up in the overflow area and had a walk around to investigate. This is a huge show with a great variety of campervans and overland vehicles to see.
We raised our usual flags to help us find our van on the way back. although they were dwarfed by some others. The flags also celebrated the Queen’s platinum jubilee on this occasion.
This image doesn’t do the show justice. There were so may vans. The video at the end of this post captures the scale of the show much better. We finished the day with a relaxing campfire.
I do like a timelapse and we watched the sunset. For some reason the video is not embedding, so it can be viewed at this link https://youtu.be/9seOwSDCFcI
It was really nice to meet and chat with more people we watch on YouTube – Greg and Lou Virgoe, Rick and Debs Beechwood, John and Mandy. We met Alex Frood and Liam the Terrible at Quirky a couple of weeks back. It’s good to meet in person having watched these peoples’ van lives for quite some time.
We also started our campervan sticker collection so we just need to decide where to place these on the campervan – and get our own stickers printed of course.
The video captures an overview of the scale of the show – it’s huge. There were some brilliant vans with really fancy paint jobs and some interesting overland vehicles.
On a different topic, we are getting close to finishing the Caddy Maxi conversion in preparation for a family convoy to France. Wendy keeps us right advising we only have two days left over weekends before we depart. You can view the microcamper conversion here.
I’ve got a new PowerOak /Bluetti AC50S power bank and I’ve been using this to power the TV off grid and charge laptops. I do have an inverter fitted to the van as well although this provides more flexibility and allows me to be mobile with power around the van. It’s also sufficiently mobile to take with me to recharge my drone batteries and camera batteries away from the van. It’s a great addition to our kit.
I used it a the International Campervan and Overland show in Stratford and at our overnight park up in Lancaster on the way home.
McNaughts On Tour 