Overland with Kids

Back to the daily grind! We arrived back following a 33-hour ferry from Santurtzi, Bilbao to Portsmouth in the very early hours of Thursday morning and were faced with getting the children back to school the same day as well as facing a mountain of bills and post on our doorstep.

Our route back brought us to Tarragona as planned which was a welcome stop as Jess, AJ and Andrew suffered badly from dodgy bellies and being unwell - and subsequently this went on for about a week. The weather changed dramatically from the hot sun we were used to, to lightning and rain and black clouds.  

We side-stepped Barcelona and headed inland to Andorra in the Pyrenees (technically, we had now passed through 4 countries) - Anne thought Andorra would be full of sheep but how wrong was she with shop after shop after shop - she soon realised it was pure shopping paradise and for Andrew pure hell on the wallet and we had to make a quick exit into France the same day before being bankrupted!

On the Spanish side of the Pyrennes, we passed through Manressa, Sallent and spectacular mountain backdrop over Montserrat. Evening found us driving through Puig-Reig, Gironelle and finally onto Berga in search of a hotel for the night - an area for winter ski and outsoor sports as well as plenty of history.

The following day, we passed through the longest tunnel (Tunnel de Cadi) in the Pyrennees mountains at 5,000m long and reached an altitude of 1,236M high (the highest we reached on our trip was about 1,500m).

Passing Col de Chiole in France at 1431m high, we spent our first night sleeping rough (in the Land Rover) in a village deep in the French Pryenees called Ax Les Thermes, a really beautiful village with natural hot springs from the high mountains (which it is famous for) reaching 70 degrees in the town square public bath (we dipped our feet in). We arrived late at night (still without caravan at this stage) and hotels were fully booked. We used towels, a picnic blanket and a large paper bag cut in half to shield our windows for the night (state of the art curtains), a mini bar (our fridge), 4-beds (4 car seats), facilities (40L water tank but no toilet!) and check-out at 08:00am. Our reward however was to wake up to really beautiful surrounds in the morning and a real experience for us all which turned out to be exciting and no bother (though wouldn’t recommend making a nightly habit of it due to lack of leg room and loo!).

The French side of the Pyrenees was immediately more lush and green compared to the wilder and more natural ruggedness of the Spanish side.

Following early check-out time, we drove through Carcassonne with it’s old bastion walls, narrow streets, river canal by the station and plenty going on to explore and discover. We were going to stop but decided to push onto Millau, passing around Castres and through Saissac with it’s old chateau ruins. We passed through largely forest area and woods to the village of Laprade which is home to a lonely and very touching monument and crypt, seemingly in the middle of nowhere to several young men of the French Corps, lost in the area during the World War II (aged mainly 19, 20 and 21 years old - very sad).

Jess and AJ still not doing very well throughout and Jess was quite sick. There were plenty of service station rest stops throughout.

We quickly passed through Brassac, Laucaune and St Affrique to Millau, witnessing the breath-taking French countryside in the distance, as far as your eye can see. France like Spain we realised very early on - is vast.

The Millau campsite where we left our caravan in storage was desolate compared to when we had last visited a couple of weeks before. The height of the summer season over, we had our pick of the best campsite pitches and chose a prime site overlooking the river and direct views of the famous ‘bridge in the clouds’, as the kids call it.

No more rain but not boiling hot as our previous few days. Cold nights beginning to draw in. A great opportunity to do some much needed laundry (we also managed a quick emergency wash before leaving Tarragona).

First thing the children wanted was their much missed bikes and they were off in a shot on them - they had missed them plus the freedom of running around again, exporing and being generally nosey. A relief all round for all of us - much more comfortable to have the caravan, not to mention the cheaper campsite rates compared to hotels, usually really good facilities, plus the freedom to do what you want, when you want including getting up and having breakfast when you please. We spent a couple of nights in Millau and it was a great opportunity for us to unwind and get re-organised and to re-pack in preparation for our trip home.

Once in France, our journey home found us driving almost alongside the Pyrenees rather than in it except for a quick overnight detour into Lourdes before finally heading for Santurtzi where again we found ourselves sleeping rough in a parking spot by the noisy and busy port harbour, except this time we had the comfort of the caravan in tow.

Ferry back from Santurzi to Portsmouth was very rough (Anne would rather swim than do it again) but apparently well known for it’s boat rocking motion as it passes the Bay of Biscay. Upside is plenty of opportunity for whale and dolphin spotting of which there were plenty.

Both Land Rover and caravan behaved themselves admirably on the way back. Typical! We are still in love with them both. Will spend a few days now thinking about and deciding what to do next as well as downloading a pile of photos (have posted a few for now) from our trip and providing a summary of our findings and lessons learned etc. (it certainly was a shake down for us!)

Lots of love and thank you to everyone who has been following, supporting and looking out for us - We have really appreciated it.

A, A, J and A

xxxx

 

Diary (Blog)