Gillett Jaunes, Journeys and Yuletide!

Wow, it's been a long time coming this one - last blog was back on 21st November, and now here we are, 7th January 2019 and I'm writing from within a proper bricks and mortar house, with the heating on, plentiful supply of hot water and a nice stable internet connection - thanks Mum and Paul!

There is much to catch up on, the last couple of weeks in Spain, the journey back and what we've been doing while we are back.

First things first, the last blog left off with plans to have a leisurely drive back north when the campsite closed on the 30th November, with a plan to spend a few days in Paris on the way back. Well, with all the troubles in Paris thanks to the Gillett Jaune protesters, that was quickly pushed into the long grass to do another time!

We spent the last few days in Camping Miramar pretty much as we'd done throughout out whole stay - a mixture of cycling, walking and generally enjoying the sunshine. During one of our final walks, we managed to grab a great sighting of the exotic looking Hoopoe bird - they were everywhere around the campsite and locality.

We also spotted a lovely Kestrel looking out for his breakfast and later in the day got a great view of a Starling gathering over the campsite - literally thousands of them getting together to settle for the night - gives a new meaning to safety in numbers!

We'd really enjoyed our stay at Miramar, and were pretty sad to be leaving at the end of November. Still, we didn't have to venture too far - the weather was set pretty good for the last weekend (the first weekend of December) so with a pit stop at the supermarket to get the first of the booze stash to bring home, we headed a short way down the coast to another campsite which was open a few weeks longer. This one was a really good find - really huge pitches and although the walk to the beach was 5 minutes further, we had the bonus of a great coastal path to walk in either direction. Having arrived on the Friday afternoon, we did a couple of lovely walks on the Saturday and Sunday, with some really fabulous views of the area.

The flower scenes in particular made us feel very spring like! The onward journey was going to bring us back with a bump to the reality of a Northern Europe winter!

Our last full day in Spain, Monday 3rd December was a final sunny one, and we busied ourselves getting the van organised and having our last "proper" shower until we hit UK soil! The journey back was to be split over 3-4 days, with our tunnel booked for Saturday 8th December - it was reasonably comfortable but we knew early starts would be a big part of it!

And so, on Tuesday 4th December, we found ourselves getting up before it was even thinking about getting light, and hitting the road. Our first day was a reasonable 6 hours, to Lodeve, France. We filled the van as far as we could with fuel on the Spanish border, making the most of the €1.19 a litre prices - the last we'd see of that for a while! Obviously we'd been keeping up to date with the Gillett Jaune protesters who were making their mark all over France, initially against a planned hike in fuel duty, but soon escalating into pretty much any reason to make a stand. We had expected to see some action, but it was far more wide spread that we expected. On the first day we encountered 4 sets of picket lines, and although they were letting most people through, the ones at Beziers and around Perpignan were particularly slow going. We quickly realised that by displaying your mandatory yellow vest on the dashboard, you are showing solidarity with the cause, but are usually shown passage through. Lorry drivers though were another matter - in many areas they were simply turned back the way they came! There was also an added financial bonus to their activities as we'd decided to stay on the French toll road in order to make a bit of progress - as the picket line was literally at the toll booths, we were pleased to see the barriers up and nothing to be paid - every cloud!

I must admit although we'd been expected to see activity, I was shocked at how much damage was being done to the roads as part of it - every picket line had piles of tyres and pallets waiting to be burnt, with the local Police seemingly just watching it all go on. Of course, as fuel users we have every sympathy with their opinions, as long as we can carry on our journey!

Tuesday night we had planned to stay in a Park4Night location at an old Priory. However, as is often the way after a long day on the road, we got to the final 2 miles and found the road to be closed! No matter, managed to find another cheeky spot very close by, and we parked up in time to watch the sun go down.

Wednesday morning and another very early start - we had a big day to do today, all the way back towards the Loire valley. First up though we'd decided to pay the toll and go over the Millau viaduct - the tallest bridge in the world at 343m high - pretty cool although it was a bit of a shame we didn't really get to see too much of it with the early morning foxes coffee (mist) obscuring the view once we got to the other side!

By using the Millau viaduct we were then able to chunk off a good bit of the journey on the A75 auto route, although this did prove to be very hilly! During our lunch stop we starting seeing worrying comments on social media about fuel shortages around France - by no means looking like it was wide spread, but certainly the protesters were starting to create an impact. At our lunch stop we decided to fuel up a bit ahead of schedule as that would give us enough to get back across the channel and reduce any worries of missing our crossing.

We made it into Sully-sur-Loire just as night was falling - it had been a very long day, about 9hrs in all but we'd made the push because Sully was an Aire we'd used twice before.

The next morning and we'd decided to have a day off driving - the final leg could be done in one, and there was little point in splitting it and arriving in Calais with 1/2 a day to spare. Ports are not the places to hang out any longer than you need to! After a leisurely start we had a wander into town to get Jase's haircut again - he'd visited the Turkish barbers back in the summer, and it's fair to say they perhaps don't get many English through as they definitely remembered us! We also got the rest of the shopping done for the trip back - plenty of wine and beer as you can imagine - and had a short walk along the river - seeing that winter has very definitely caught up with us!

Friday morning and another early start with the final leg of the journey back to Calais. The trip was wet and windy pretty much all the way, with further yellow vest hold ups around Rouen. We made good time and parked up at Cite Europe around 5pm - with plenty of time for a quick dap into the supermarket for chilli supplies!

Saturday morning we woke pretty early - it had been a bit of a disturbed night due it being very windy- so glad we weren't on the ferry though! We headed around to the tunnel check in, hoping for an earlier crossing in order to avoid any protesters. As it was, they were very busy so we had to stick with our planned crossing which ended up being slightly delayed, although no issue with protesters.

Once back in Blighty, our first couple of nights were spent with Tess and Nige in Newbury. They looked after us exceptionally well and treated us to steak and chips, full English and a roast Turkey - it was good to be back!

Since then we've been staying at Mum and Paul's in Chippenham, plus had stays at Rusty and Kay's in Yate and Jo and Luke's in Weston. We've spent the festive period seeing plenty of friends and family. Mum and I had a night out seeing Michael Palin (now Sir), plus the four of us went to see Sam Sweeney play in Bristol. I've watched my eldest nephew in his Christmas play, and learnt that I've lost 5kgs through the course of the trip from our medical check ups!

We also attended the exceptionally sad funeral for Chris - that was a tough day, and fair play to Louise for writing a service he would truly have been proud of.

And so now, it's the new year and we've got plans to head off hopefully next Monday 14th January - MOT permitting. Jase has been working his socks of doing various jobs and improvements on the van. This has included a new leisure battery, inverter (to allow us to use 12v into 240v when we are off grid - this will mean we are able to charge both the camera and laptop but crucially get hot water much quicker). He has also replaced the rear brakes (following the warning light that came on as we started to descend Col Semnoz back in October!) and replaced the exhaust (which started whistling as we headed up from Millau!). All in all though the van has come back in brilliant shape - not bad considering we've covered almost 17,000kms!

The plan is to head back to Spain and some hopefully warm weather again! Camping Miramar opens back up next Monday so if all goes to plan we should be back with our toes in the water by next weekend. The plan from there is a little more flexible. We will probably have a couple of weeks in camp to settle back to being in the van and get used to that again, then we plan to tour Spain properly, from the coastal edges to the deep interior and spend a good 3 months doing that. Hopefully once we get towards April/May the weather will start to pick up in France and we'll head there to do some of the bits we missed during Jexit part 1. Our timeline at the moment is to keep touring (Brexit permitting) until about the end of September, and from then on return to some sort of "normal" life for a couple of years. There is plenty of scaremongering in the event of a no-deal Brexit that stays will be limited to 90 days with no return within 180 days - how this would be policed I've no idea, but right now we are very glad we took our trip on when we did, and just hope we can finish it off in the way we plan. Time will tell I guess.

Until next time then, happy new year all and see you on the other side hopefully!

J&J x