Monday, 30 December 2013

Day 2 – 27th December 2013

A fairly innocuous day travelling from Montreuil to Mery Sur Cher – about 250 miles.  Actually that’s a total lie.  The sat nag route wasn’t checked thoroughly before we left and it sent us to Paris, instead of via Rouen.  There was no obvious way to re-direct so we decided to continue as it was a second option anyway.  This was going to mean a trip around the dreaded Peripherique.  Not only that but Paris has a new motorway which it kept directing us to – the downside of this was that it was a tunnel and had a height restriction of 2m and we are over 3.  So not only did we have to navigate the peripherique, we had to do it without the help and actually with the hindrance of the sat nag. 

Finally we were out of the clutches of Paris and the rest of the journey went smoothly.  But at least for our adventure I can say that I drove a 7.5 tonne truck on the Peripherique AND SURVIVED!!!!

We stayed on an aire again which this time had electricity – the first time we’d had electricity for days so were able to watch a bit of TV in the evening and to get everything charged. We had arrived at around 3.30pm and only one other van was there, by about 7pm there must have been  7 or 8 vans parked up.  We are always surprised by how many motorhomers like to travel during darkness – we hate it and also like to get to an aire early before they get too full.

 For some reason the electricity tripped in the night but we didn’t mind as we were off - oh and another free night.


When planning the route Mr Always asked me if I wanted to go over the mountains or the long way round.  Well I looked at the map and considered that a) the roads would all be motorways and b) they weren’t too wiggly so probably they would be ok.  We had gone through the Ardeche Gorge in Vanessa a few years ago and that was the scariest drive I’ve ever done.  Iain was driving and I was pleading that he slowed down when he was only doing 10 mph.  I said then that I was very scared and he said “You’re scared, I’m 6 feet nearer the edge than you”.  Why do we torture ourselves like this?  Is adventure supposed to scare the hell out of you?

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