Our original plan today was to travel from Florac to Hérisson, which has to be my absolute favourite little camping municipal site. Hérisson itself has little but it does have the essential of a bar, together with a small food shop. The delight here is the idyllic river flowing beside the campsite itself.
The weather had other ideas. An orange warning of orages [storms] was issued covering most of the middle of France. At Hérisson the forecast included 100kph winds with grêle [hail]. Having very recently experienced marble-sized grêle on our first evening at Florac, we were keen not to subject Frodo to another potentially damaging battering, so we ended up travelling 500kms, driving straight past my beloved Hérisson at 350kms distance and onto Cheverny, which is where we had intended to continue onto the following day. Cheverny was nearer the edge of the storm warning and apparently was not expected to suffer French hailstones, which can get painfully large. Winds were expected to be lower, too, being a mere 75kph.
It all seemed a bit surreal. Our 6½-hour journey was made under consistently clear blue skies with the mercury reaching 37°C. We eventually arrived at Camping les Saules, just outside Cheverny, with the skies still clear and the temperature still at 36°C. Was this storm real? Where the hell was it?
We’d discovered this site last year, it being a decent journey back up to our favoured overnight stop at Neufchâtel-en-Bray before returning home. It had been an unexceptional but nonetheless very reasonable campsite. This year it looked very different. About half the site is being given over to the creeping scourge of cabins for rent; that section of the site was roped off and the development work was in progress. The staff were now wearing “uniforms” bearing the name “Clico Chic”, which is clearly some sort of a chain. Let’s hope that it isn’t as dire as Capfun, which we really cannot cope with, being a magnet for Satan’s Little Disciples and everything but fun.
Francine had bravely made an online reservation with her phone as we travelled so we were expected. There were still a good number of touring pitches left, though they were not particularly heavily used, so we selected one that appeared to have a little late afternoon shade from the continuing clear skies and heat We got Frodo settled with his awning out to supplement the natural dappled shade. We plugged in, the electricity came on and we were set. Time for a couple of arrival beers.
The skies to the south began darkening at around 17:30. Shortly before 18:00, one of the staff rode in on his electric cart eyeing my awning and asked if I spoke French. “Oui, un peu”, I replied, “il y a un orage”, I continued. He nodded assent and added, “gros!”. I indicated that I would stow the awning but that was a bit of a stretch for my French. I wound everything in; the locals were also winding everything in. The storm was clearly real.
Exactly when METEO France had predicted, shortly after taking our late afternoon showers, the encroaching darkening skies engulfed the site. Rain began and soon became heavy. The orange orage [vaguely poetic] had arrived, spot on time. We took shelter in Frodo who became a bit steamy being unable to have roof vents open because of bouncing rain drops.
Accompanied by thunder and reflections of lightning flashes, the predicted wind very suddenly whipped up. I heard what might’ve been grêle hitting Frodo’s roof but, no, it was bits of tree debris. As trees whipped about, it was all remiscent of a tropical storm like that in “A High Wind in Jamaica”. Then our electricity went off.
The high winds did not last long, say about 10 minutes, and the rain abated. I tried a different electricity connection point but to no avail. I turned our gas on so we could keep the fridge cool. Having very rarely run on gas, happily the fridge fired up.
As we came out of hiding it was apparent that others were in the same boat with no power. A neighbour had a long but happily not too heavy branch of a willow tree balanced right across the roof of his large motor home. We’d been lucky, though I can’t check Frodo’s roof – a large tree top had twisted off of one the nearby willows and had fallen very close to Frodo’s nose. It more or less filled the neighbouring pitch which had mercifully been vacant.
Our electricity was restored quicker than I had expected, after about 15 minutes. One willow had fallen across the track into and out of the campsite. It was now barricaded.
The saules in Caamping les Saules means willows. Now maybe we know where the term crack willow comes from.
The orange alert was in force until midnight so we remained battened down. It was far too steamy to consider cooking so our evening meal was a baguette with rilletes [potted pork] and a mixture of cheeses. What a hardship.
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