The Absolutely Amazing "Lac Sainte-Croix", "Gorges Du Verdon" & "Grand Canyon"

Bonjour,

We have had to do this extra blog this week as we have just left one of the most spectacular places we have seen so far which was recommended to us by Marc & Kitty who we became friends with in La Franqui.  The drive there from Millau wasn’t anything special until we were almost at our destination, Camping La Source in a little village called Les Salles-sur-Verdon on the Lac Sainte-Croix.  Well as we rounded a bend in the road we got our first glimpse of Lac Sainte-Croix it just totally blew us away with it’s beauty and torquoise blue water, it just didn’t look real, it was like a picture postcard, so with us both very excited we got the van set up at the lovely little site next to the lake and like a couple of kids ran down to the waters edge just to get a look and our feet wet, we were in total shock at what we were looking at.  The lake is a man made lake constructed between 1971-1974 and holds 761 million cubic metres of water.  The original village of Sainte-Croix-De-Verdon is now completely underwater and the new village was built to replace it.

The next day we jumped on the XT and set off to see the rest of the area, we only got a few miles down the road when we found this bridge over what we later found out to be the canyon or what some say is the French Grand Canyon which is a popular tourist area.  One of the things to do here is hire a canoe, kayak, pedalo or electric boat and follow the canyon up so we put it on our to-do list.  So after a quick photo it was a case of just following the road round the rest of the lake then up above the canyon to another place mentioned by Marc & Kitty called the Point Sublime.  

We followed the D952 up which had been cut out the side of the canyon and zig zagged it’s way along the side of the canyon itself and I can honestly say it was heaven on the bike and so much fun.  After about 20km we found the Point Sublime which is a view point 591 feet high looking up yet another canyon which seemed to go on and on.  We spotted some steps and people below so we made our way down and came across a lot of groups doing “canyoning” which involves wetsuits,crash helmets and life vests then jumping in and being taken off by the river for as far as you could see over boulders and small rocks.  We then came across some small metal steps leading up into series of tunnels which had been excavated for an old hydro electric scheme which was abandoned after 4 years but the tunnels still remain intact for walkers and mountaineers to gain access to the canyons beyond.  The longest tunnel was 650m long and in the pitch black apart from the odd hole to one side which must have been something to do with the construction which from reading an info board took place from 1905 to 1909 when it was finally abandoned.  Once back in the sun we found a nice rock and just took in the amazing scenery.

One of the other things on our to-do list while here was to paddle board across the lake to the opposite side which must be just over 1km.  We couldn’t believe our luck as the day we picked to do this it was mirror flat and scorchio so we knocked up a quick pack lunch, chucked the towels, sun cream, camera and a couple of beers in a wet bag and set off across the lake.  We can honestly say we were absolutely speechless at the beauty of the lake and it’s crystal clear water, we have never paddle boarded anywhere like it. As we neared the opposite side we spotted a small shingle beach and made it our own for the day and what a fantastic day it was too, just swimming, chilling, watching the world go by and sunning ourselves.  It was so amazing we didn’t want to leave our little haven but as we finally left we heard an almighty noise and saw a fire fighting plane coming into land  on the lake and taking off again, obviously someone was having a practice run!

As we said we decided to hire a canoe and go up the canyon, the guy at the hire place said 2 hours would be fine so we jumped in and looking like a chinook helicopter, paddles everywhere we set off in a erratic fashion towards the canyon but after a while we found our rhythm and got quite a move on, manoueviring between the other boats, canoes & pedalos (no motor driven boats are allowed on the lake/canyon which was nice).  Once again the scenery was surreal and we had to pinch ourselves at times, on route there was a fabulous waterfall.

Each evening before dinner we would grab a couple of glasses and a bottle of wine and the hammock and walk the few steps to the banks of the lake, tie the hammock up between our favourite 2 trees and watch the sunset, just breathtaking…….

Our on our last morning we had one last trip out on the XT up to Aiguines the village above ours to the 17th century Chateau with it’s pepper pot towers which overlooks the lake, we just stood for a while looking at the lake for one last time before moving on.

We looked at the map and sat nav and decided that the best way to our next stopover would be to go up the D952 above and through the canyon (which we had done part of on the XT to Point Sublime) we were both slightly nervous but we knew if we took our time it would be fine and plenty of other motorhomes were using the same route.  We put the GoPro on the front of the van and took a few pics along the way, OMG it was scary yet exciting and something we will always remember from our travels.  There were overhangs of rocks and even a small rock tunnel but again it’s all part of the adventure as we keep saying but one thing is for sure we are glad we are doing this in this van and not our big 8m 6 wheel tag axle that we had before!!!

Once the other side we reached Castellane with it’s chapel of Notre Dame high up on the cliff overlooking the village.

The next blog will be from another lake but a bigger one and in another Country, Lake Garda, Italy!!

J&J

x

From Mum's to Millau

Bonjour,

We got the last of our jobs done at Mum's including an emergency plumbing job on the kitchen sink which decided to block up but I am glad it did while we were there as it meant me getting on my hands and knees (Alan has a replacement knee so kneeling is not easy) in the cupboard under the sink until 10pm dismantling the pipes and re-assembling them all the next morning after Alan had given the pipes all a good clean and flush through.

One of our last big jobs was to give the van a good wash and polish, it wasn't that bad but it was nice to give it a bit of TLC as it's been our home for nearly 8 months now. Julie updated her financial spreadsheet ready for the next leg of our adventure while sitting in the garden next to the pool, yet another great office location!

When we arrived at Mum's we both weighed ourselves as we know we have both lost weight as we are both down to a couple of pairs of shorts that fit and even they are hanging off us! I have lost a stone and Julie half a stone which is purely through a more healthy diet, plenty of exercise and I guess me not being sat in my digger and Julie behind a desk for most of the week. Mum did her best to fatten us up but we weighed ourselves before we left and another couple of pounds had been shed  from all our jobs!  We tucked into a lovely lamb Sunday roast with roast spuds and Yorkshire puddings polished off with almond tart and ice cream which was fantastic as we had been craving a nice roastie!

When we left Mum's back in January on route to the Alps we went cross country via the Tarn Gorges and got a very misty glimpse of the impressive Millau Viaduct. It's in a beautiful area so we decided that it would be a good place to have a stopover in Millau itself on our route cross country this time towards Italy. We found ourselves on the South side and directly under the viaduct so pulled into the visitors centre for our lunch and had a quick look round. It's a great feat of engineering and was actually designed by a British architect and took 3 years to build and opened in 2004, the photo below gives a bit of info about it.

There's no shortage of campsites in the town on the banks of the River Tarn so we pulled into one and set up camp overlooking the river and the paragliders above us.

Our van is under the tree on the right hand side, we took the pic from the footpath opposite.

We had a ride out on the bike through the Gorges De La Dourbie and the scenery was just amazing, we then went up to where all the paragliders take off but it clouded over a bit and the wind picked up so there weren't many taking off. It's quite a busy place, the viaduct is the centre piece so must have brought quite a lot of tourism to the area.

After two nights we moved on and have just spent 4 fantastic nights at the Gorges Du Verdon recommended to us by Marc & Kitty our Belgian friends on a site right next to the Lac Saint Croix, words and pictures cannot describe it's beauty, it's like a picture postcard so we will have to do another interim blog update as soon as we have sorted out all the pictures so watch this space.

That's it for now.

J&J

x

Earning Our Keep....

Hello it’s the Midgets here again checking in!

We arrived here at Mum & Alan’s last Saturday which we thought would be busy travelling on a Saturday during the French holiday season but as we don’t go via the the toll roads but use the national roads instead we managed to miss all the traffic and get to see some more amazing scenery on route.  Once again our sat-nav took us a different route to Mum’s which it seems to do each time!!!!.

We said to Mum & Alan if there were any jobs to do around the house/garden don’t hesitate to ask, well with that they reeled off a “To-Do” list of jobs that we could start on to "earn our keep" while here!

1. Fix a leaking toilet cistern 
2. Sharpen the ride on mower blades which involved Julie & Alan holding the mower on it’s side while I got underneath removed the blades sharpened & refitted them

3.  Quick test of the ride on mower which turned out to be mowing the whole bottom paddock

4.  Shift a heap of pre cut logs into the log store and then split and stack them

5.  Repair/replace some leaking pipework in the pump house for the pool

6.  Cut and strim the rest of the huge garden around the house

7.  Replace some glazing bars on the front window.

In between doing all our jobs we did some of our own jobs including cleaning all the “Toys” out of the van and also gave the van a proper deep clean inside to remove the sand/dust that got blown in at La Franqui, we just need to give it a bloody good wash & polish before we leave here in the next few days.  

Also we managed to get the rest of the wheel covers that help protect the tyres from harmful UV sun rays sewn up using Mum’s sewing machine which I made a start on but Julie was constantly hovering over my shoulder saying do this, do that, not like that, you need to hold that, pull this so I gave up and let Julie take control and I must admit she made a cracking job and was much better & quicker than me with all covers fitting nicely (even though I reminded her she got “unclassified” in her “O” level needlework exam at school!)

We had a few bits of post redirected here from the UK i.e. tax disc for the van, kite insurance and some other important paperwork for the van and also a parcel which was meant to be here but on checking it had been sent back to the UK as the courier said that the address was incomplete (although it wasn’t) so after a quick phone call to the UK it was re-sent but after a couple of days and a few more jobs (we think Mum & Alan may have given the courier company a back hander to delay it so we could get more jobs done!) but still no parcel so after another check it was eventually at a depot in Toulouse but again they said they couldn’t deliver it as the address was incorrect so Julie got on the case and managed to track down an English speaking bloke at the depot and asked him to send it to Mum’s local post office in Miradoux a village 8km away but the funny part was Julie giving him our e-mail address, it was quite amusing as she was going through the alphabet in French and trying to think of French words e.g. “J-Janvier (January), “N-Novembre (November) etc etc so it took a while but we received the email and eventually collected the parcel from Miradoux - many thanks to Alan for taking us to collect it.

It has been lovely to spend time here with Mum & Alan, usually we are here in the Winter so it’s been great to spend time out in the garden and around the pool.  It’s a beautiful house and is actually up for sale (we would love it but sadly it’s too far away from the beach) as it’s just too big for them now and they want something a bit smaller.  If you know of anyone who is interested in a completely renovated Gascone Farmhouse with large gardens & own pool in a rural location surrounded by farmland and open views then check this link out for more details http://www.housesoninternet.com/MIP-1092

As usual Mum has been spoiling us rotten with great food, this is what she knocked up while we were typing this blog, it really is a great motorhome stopover for us but this could be our last visit if they do sell but we are sure they will have plenty of jobs for us in their new house!!!!

It’s fantastic to see that so many of you are still interested in & reading our blog, we are amazed that so many people take the time out to keep up with our adventure.  We have now had 7,800 + views so are still averaging about 1,000 hits a month.  It will be a great record of our travels and full of memories & special moments.

That’s it, got to go the Pizza is ready!

J&J

x

Farewell La Franqui

Welcome once again to our weekly blog,

This sadly is the last blog from La Franqui as we now must start our journey towards Italy and beyond, this place has served it’s purpose of keeping us entertained and has also been a nice place to avoid silly season and the high prices of almost the whole of the south of France.  Whilst here we have cycled, paddle boarded, walked, land yachted and kited our “Flip Flops” off with 20 days out on the water in about every wind condition there is on every size kite we have, and along the way have met and made so many new friends. 

We also celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary and we thought of no better way to spend it than to do a 50 mile bike ride along the Canal de La Robine which runs through the Saint Lucie nature reserve with it’s fantastic lakes dotted along the way either side of the canal.  The route starts here in La Franqui then hugs the canal all the way up to Narbonne where there are some very nice old parts to the City as you can see.  Then to finish the day we headed into La Franqui to treat ourselves to a meal and a pitcher of Rose wine at our favourite little restaurant, “Le Golf” over looking the beach.

Marc & Kitty our Belgian friends who we had helped out last week with their pitch problems kindly invited us round for dinner one evening. I asked Marc what was on the menu and he replied “fish and salad” as he had heard Julie talking to Kitty about how she needed to eat more fish!!   Well it’s not at the top of my list of favourite food but after asking Marc if it was very fishy he said no it’s beautiful, so I thought just go with it as it is nice to try new things from time to time.  Sunday evening came and we all sat down kids included to this feast of fish (Dorade) which we later found out to be Bream which Marc cooked on the BBQ with lemon & garlic and a dressing he had made to go with it. I must admit I was surprised at how nice it was and the 3 whole fish soon got eaten along with the salad.  As a way of us saying thank you we had earlier popped into Leucate village and bought a fresh fruit tart for dessert which the kids seemed to get excited about.  It was a very nice evening just chilling and chatting and one thing we all laughed about was the blue jobs (man things) and pink jobs (girl things) that need to be done around camp and in the vans.   Marc jokingly said yes LA & LE i.e. LA washing machine, LA hoover and LA cooker for the girls and LE Kite, LE Motorbike & LE Van for the men which when you think about it it makes sense!! but I am sure it’s not correct!!  Marc & Kitty left a few days ago and we helped them pack down their tent so Marc had enough time for one last kite with us.  It was a great session with perfect wind and the three of us had a nice little area to ourselves, it was just a fantastic end to their holiday and Kitty and the children had a good time on the beach too.  

The wind here gave us one last show of what it’s capable of going from dead calm to 101km/62mph in a matter of hours.  We had a few new arrivals around us putting up their Decathlon tents and tarps to shade themselves from the sun and wind but we just couldn’t sit back and see it all destroyed as we had looked at the weather and seen a forecast of the wind so we explained the strength of the Tramatona and the direction that it comes from so the few that we did warn changed their camps and took anything that could catch the wind down or put extra ropes on it.  The forecast was spot on as we were woken up in the early hours firstly by heavy rain then the wind which just whipped up from nowhere to 101km gusts, all we could hear was people shouting and the knocking in of extra tent pegs all around, but the unlucky ones ended up at the bins …….

One of the people that we warned were and English couple, Rob & Sally from Taunton, that had arrived that day in a lovely VW California van and parked up opposite us, Julie went over and spoke to them and they were very appreciative and moved their van round and wound their awning in.  The next day they thanked us and couldn’t believe the strength of the wind and then we got chatting and it turned out that they too were wind junkies and were into kiting & windsurfing.  Before we left we had a couple of really nice evenings sat around the van with them sharing experiences, kite spots and many stories with a take way pizza one of the nights and a few too many glasses of vino as we just lost track of time and it was too late to cook!!  

We decided to stay one extra day and just have a chill out on the beach watching the kiters and having a leisurely pack down of the van which was nice.   Before we left we said our goodbyes to the guys at the kite centre, Julie in the bread stall, Phil our Irish neighbour & Paul & Miriam the Welsh couple with the Blokarts, Rob & Sally and a few other wind junkies that we had kited with and met along the way.  We really loved La Franqui so it’s definitely a place full of memories and somewhere we will re-visit in the future.

We are now on route to Italy via a visit to my Mum’s, it will be so nice to see her again and tell her all about our adventures so far.

So it’s au revoir for another week.

J&J

x