Neufchâtel-en-Bray, that is.

Many years ago we always used to enter and exit France through Calais. When we did so, our favourite stopping point, about 2½ hours away from Calais (when towing) became an absolutely brilliantly run campsite at Neufchâtel-en-Bray. The owner managed it well and kept improving it with re-investment. The only eventual downside was that it became an ACSI campsite.

ACSI is a Dutch camping organization that arranges fixed, discounted prices, out of season, for its members, largely the Dutch who do like a deal. I am not a fan of ACSI, largely because it attracts many campers away from campsites that are not part of the organization, many of the classic French camping municipal sites, for example, and could adversely affect their income. The ACSI sites also tend to get filled up with Dutch. We are members ourselves but I generally prefer to be elsewhere.

The Neufchâtel-en-Bray site certainly became much busier once it was ACSI and I started finding it advisable to book pitches.

Then we started avoiding Calais as our route in. This was partly but not solely down to the P&O crewing debacle, making us swear not to use P&O again. We began using the longer sea routes to enter and leave France; they’re more expensive but, hey, it’s a holiday.

For this trip, however, we chose to use Eurotunnel Le Shuttle for a change, just on the return. That pushed us up near Calais again so I booked a pitch at Camping Sainte Claire in Neufchâtel-en-Bray for the first time in years.

It’s about a four hour drive up from near Cheverny. The satnav always wants to push you round Paris but we override that and go cross country via Chartres, Dreux and Evreux. We arrived mid afternoon on Friday 5th having stopped at the nearby Leclerc supermarket for booty and provisions.

I was quite surprised to find that the site was not that busy. Then I remembered that we were now in high season and that the ACSI discounts had ceased to be applicable. We were no longer swamped by the deal-seeking Dutch. We did have a few of Satan’s Little Disciples, though. We really must remember to end any future trips before July.

On Saturday morning the trip up to Le Shuttle was a very windy affair, with cross winds battering Frodo pretty much all the way. We got there safely though and went through the scary-for-the-first-time self check-in. We were offered an earlier train so accepted that, then got into a bit of a tangle navigating our way around the terminal to the embarkation point. Still, it worked out in the end and we were soon boarding and leaving the platform.

It’s a very good system and, after about 35 minutes, we arrived at the Folkestone terminal. Given the strength of the winds, I was quite grateful that were not on a ferry. The only downside is that you do have to deal with the Pas de Calais.

We are something like 40-year veterans of camping in France. Many years ago, our typical starting point would be to hit the French coast and travel down for a first major stop somewhere beside La Loire. It’s about one third of the way down France and we felt that it was typically French and an area where the weather seemed noticeably better than in the UK, on average.

We had a favoured campsite, run by a lovely old gentleman, at Huisseau-sur-Cosson. It was just below Blois on one of the wonderful network of cycle routes. There are two networks, one called La Loire à Vélo which tracks areas of tourist interest along the mighty Loire river. There’s another network of circular routes called Les Châteaux à Vélo which has circuits centred on the châteaux of La Loire, including Chambord amongst others, that we were more interested in. The campsite was close to the small town of Bracieux and was right beside one of the routes for Les Châteaux à Vélo. Sadly, the gentleman retired and the site no longer exists.

Our habits changed and it had been a long time since we had visited La Loire, until last year, at least, when we stayed at Amboise to visit the home of Leonardo da Vinci and the town’s wonderful market. Amboise didn’t seem the right place on this return trip but Francine fancied a shot at the Château of Villandry with its wonderfully manicured architectural gardens. We visited many years ago but somehow I lost all my pictures from there so a second bite of the cherry seemed like a reasonable idea. The local campsite had space and we could spend three nights giving us a day to see the château and a day to do some cycling.

Leaving Hérisson, we programmed Sally Satnav and began our journey. Not long into the journey, once the site was open, Francine checked on Google to find closing times. Wouldn’t you know it, reception closed at midday and did not open again until 15:00. We’d be arriving shortly after midday giving us three hours to wait. Welcome to Sod’s Law.

While we were thinking of places to kill time, Francine found a much better sounding alternative. There was a good sounding campsite at Cheverny which close access to the Les Châteaux à Vélo network. Neither did it close at lunchtime – much more civilized. Furthermore, it was a shorter journey. We reset Sally Satnav, arrived and booked in for three nights.

For our first e-bike excursion we chose one of the routes that would take us to Bracieux to see how that was doing. The routes are well signed but some of the signs could be in less than obvious places so you have to keep your wits about you and preferably have Francine reality-checking on a real map.

Much had changed. The old campsite at Bracieux had been transformed into the dreadful sounding Huttopia Les Châteaux. I think it still offers camping pitches but, feeling a little like the Cap(no)Fun chain, it looked best avoided by us. We didn’t see anyone going in or coming out. Frankly, we saw very little activity in Bracieux at all. It seemed almost closed, though there was a bar open. We headed back to keep Frodo company, pausing at a much more appealing little bar in Cour-Cheverny.

On our second full day we jumped on the e-bikes for another route taking us by Château de Troussay and on through Cormeray and Chitenay before heading back, once again, through Cour-Cheverny. “Oh, there’s that little bar again”. Well, rude not to.

Although it’s essentially flat around here, there was quite a stiff breeze blowing much of the time which, no matter how your route twists and turns, always seemed to be a headwind. I must say that having electrical assistance on the bikes was very welcome. It’s making me lazy.

Trying to work out where to stay on our return journey northwards is always a bit of a challenge. We’d stayed two nights at L’Hospitalet du Larzac which, though it was an OK campsite, was a night too long; there simply wasn’t much entertainment to be had there. (Francine had been hoping for some interesting meadows on the high causses but our positioning was just a bit off.)

We hadn’t yet made that much northerly progress, a bit less than 90kms. Now we had to figure out how best to cover the remaining 800kms to get to Neufchatel-en-Bray, our last stop before our Eurotunnel return, and where best to stop. We had no time pressure; there were still four days to go, we just wanted a little more leisure time.

We have a favoured useful stopping point at Hérrison, 360kms north of us, which is handily close to the A71 autoroute and would more or less halve the distance. We’ve used it a few times in the past. It’s a classic French camping munipal and has always had space for us. Decision made for stage one.

The journey was easy until our approach in mid afternoon caused a bit of a flutter. The campsite lies right on the banks of the river Aumance and, given the spring rain that France, along with the UK, had been “enjoying”, we’d been a little concerned about the state the ground might be in. The final road down to the campsite had a “route barree” sign along with “deviation”. Whoops, maybe?

We went down anyway. The entrance to the campsite is immediately before a sort of causeway over the river. It was this causeway that was closed; happily the campsite displayed on open sign. We went in. Finding the ground to be in decent condition – sigh of relief – we picked a pleasant hedged pitch facing the river and got Frodo level and settled. This is one of those campsites where you get yourself installed and wait for madame to arrive at about 18:00.

This is one of my happy places. After about five hours behind the wheel, if conditions are fair, there really is nothing better than to sit outside with a beer or three, staring at this view, listening to the constant babbling of the weir just downstream at the causeway, with swifts screaming overhead, the frequent quack of ducks paddling up and down the river being interrupted by, if you’re lucky, the occasional ragondin [coypu]. A pair of blackbirds was busily gathering worms to feed a brood of chicks. It truly does feel idyllic. Not for the first time here, I thought, if I die now I’ll die happy. [Morbid git. There is a maison de retraite over the river; maybe …]

The village across the river is very quiet. The frontage on the river is, as you can see, wonderfully French and quite delightful in appearance. The village has what some have described as a quirky bar, which is pleasant enough to have a drink at – if you can cross the causeway. There’s also a small local store for provisions but that’s about it.

The downside is then, that there really isn’t a lot to do here for anything more than a 1-night stop. Given this situation, I’d really like to stay for longer but I fear that, cathartic though this riverside view may be, a whole free day may be just a tad too much.

Most of the longer term inhabitants come equipped with multiple fishing rods and I don’t have the patience for that.

Our trip began by starting in the Netherlands, landing at the Hook of Holland and travelling to Havelte further east. After 5 days we doubled back on ourselves and crossed through Belgium into France. Then we crossed the whole of France from east to west to Arçais near La Rochelle. Following that we travelled all the way south towards the Pyrennes, before turning east again to wind up at Mèze. We’d travelled 1900kms buying fuel on our JL credit card without a single hiccough.

Whilst at Mèze, we went to the Super-U supermarket in nearby Pomérols. It has a fuel station which we’ve used on previous years. I stuck in the JL credit card.

“Card not accepted at this station”, flashed up on the screen.

I switched to my Barclays debit card.

“Card not accepted at this station”, flashed up on the screen once again.

“Expletive deleted”, I muttered to myself. What’s the story? We’ve been here before. We still had ¾ tank so nothing was urgent but I was bemused. What had changed?

We are now wandering our way back north again on the autoroutes where I expected less trouble with the cards. Dropping slightly below ½ tank, I called in to a Total Energies station on the autoroute.

I stuck in my JL credit card. “Select fuel type” [done], “Enter PIN” [done]”, then it blew me a raspberry of some description. The screen returned to the starting point and spat me a ticket which seemed to say “authorization refused”.

I tried the Barclays debit card. Same deal, I was never offered the chance to take any fuel.

In desperation I tried the Caxton pre-paid Euro card, which I only normally use for cash and supermarket shopping (and that is new). Mercifully, that worked and I got my tank filed with diesel.

This last issue was different from the Super-U in Pomérols. This accepted the cards but then authorization failed. Previously, it just didn’t like the cards.

Here’s what I think was happening on the autoroute. I did see a message saying “authorizing €200”. The limit at pumps in the UK is £120, which €200 exceeds. I think that’s why the authorization failed. Super-U remains a mystery.

We’re not finished yet; I was on the hunt for something else – AdBlue. I knew our tank would be running low and I needed to have some available. If the AdBlue tank runs dry, the vehicle will simply not start. You do get a warning with some “grace period” to top up, as long as you ain’t dry.

In past years we’ve seen piles of flagons of AdBlue in the motorway stations. This station had none. Recently (last year) AdBlue pumps have been appearing at fuel stations and I had successfully filled up at a local station in Mirepoix. The pumps are much cheaper than the flagons. This year, however, we never visited Mirepoix so I missed my planned opportunity of filling up there.

This Total Energies station had no AdBlue pumps at the car filling points either but I did spot AdBlue pumps at the HGV filling points. I asked an attendant If I could use it. “Yes”, he said, “I don’t see why not”. I did a circuit and drove into the HGV pumps pulling up beside the AdBlue.

I stuck in my JL credit card.

“Card not accepted”, came the jaunty reply.

I tried the Barclays debit card. Same deal, no joy.

OK, Caxton prepaid card it has to be. I stuck it in. “Card not accepted”, it repeated, irritatingly.

“Bollocks!”, said Pooh, profanely.

My warning light was still not on so we just continued, vowing to try every fuel station on the route hoping to pay cash for some flagons of AdBlue.

With great relief, the next service station on the autoroute DID have flagons of AdBlue stacked up. I bought a couple of 5ltr flagons breathing a sigh of relief.

I’ve read that the grace period after the AdBlue warning light comes on is 1500 miles / 2400 kms but I don’t know how general that number is and I wouldn’t like to push it and put it to the test.

Something is out of whack. British cards are failing to work because the European systems may be different. The only safe answer (this year, which is different to previous years) seems to be the prepaid card.

I blame Brexit.

This place is dead. Mind you, it is a Sunday.

There’s apparently nothing in the village of L’Hospitalet du Larzac. The sole entertainment is the bar/restaurant on our campsite. I don’t believe there’s even a boulangerie. The proprietors here have the market all sewn up. Fortunately, it’s a pleasant enough establishment.

We tried a short walk to what looked like a possible wildlife area with three water bodies and, although Outdoor Active showed footpaths around them, they were behind gates and fences.

So, we decided to take Frodo for a short ride to La Cavalerie, where Francine had originally intended to stay. That looked very sleepy as well, though here there was a sign to a boulangerie. We did find a bar with quite a few tables and chairs set out so we treated ourselves to a beer each. Two would’ve been nice but I was driving. I took the number of tables as a sign that this could get busier on some days.

La Cavalerie is a Knights Templar town, a military order of the Catholic faith. Memories of The Da Vinci Code spring to my mind. All the many planters around the town are decorated with the red cross of the Knights Templar. We did pop into the church for a quick look see, too.

There’s another notable feature in these parts, on the high causses and that is the Cardabelle flowers, which look like a kind of huge thistle, stemless, growing flat to the ground surface. Many of the doors are adorned by them.

Not only is it Sunday but it’s also the first round of the snap French election which is reportedly experiencing the biggest turnout in 40 years. Maybe everyone was out voting. Along with our own coming election, this should make for some interesting analysis with the far right supposedly on the rise through much of Europe.

Finding La Cavalerie not exactly enthralling for very long, we returned to our market-cornering restaurant at the campsite for lunch.

Now came the single highlight of the day. Having discovered the notorious Box-tree Moths (Cydalima perspectalis) –  it’s the caterpillars that destroy Box hedges – yesterday and managed to snag a picture, Frodo was playing host to one of the melanic forms to go with the more normal white variety. Now I have the set of two. (The bizarre background on the melanic form is Frodo’s passenger door window blind.)

Incidentally, we’ve been disenfranchised from our own election. It was called just a few days before the beginning of our trip so our postal vote would not be received, and the election is being held 2 days before we return. Brilliant.

Whilst I’m a firm remainer, I can’t help but think that, if the far right gets too strong a grip in too many places, we may wind up with no EU to have remained in anyway.

And then there’s Trump.

Interesting times.

The Villemarin campsite is an aire naturelle and is excellent … on six days of the week. We’d arrived on Friday having travelled from Fanjeaux and set up. We have been here before so we were somewhat prepared.

All was well until Saturday night. Villemarin is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, almost equidistant between Mèze and Marseillan. Well, ALMOST in the middle of nowhere.

Immediately adjacent is a neighbouring property that tends to host functions on Saturday nights. The functions, of course, come with accompanying music, either live, recorded or both, with absolutely no regard for the neighbours, in this case, us and our fellow campers.

Friday night had been bliss listening to a collection of Eurasian Scops Owls and their rhythmic hoots at 3-second intervals. The notes vary from owl to owl, I was a bit surprised to note.

Saturday night was an absolute nightmare. I’ve no idea what the function next door was but misgivings began on Saturday afternoon with what seemed like soundchecks for some live musicians. Sure enough, in the late evening the racket began, and it wasn’t Brahms 3rd racket.

Just when you think it’s finished, an alternative racket began which went on interminably until 03:00, by which time I’m over-tired, wound up tighter than a watch spring and can’t sleep anyway.

To add to the entertainment there was what I think must have been a rave going on all weekend, 24hrs a day. This, mercifully, was far enough away to cause no real nuisance. We’d heard this before on a previous visit, too, so it’s obviously a regular thing but it really isn’t a problem.

We had originally intended to stay until the following Sunday but couldn’t face another Saturday night so I went to pay up on Friday to leave this morning. Frodo needed to turn his wheels over, anyway.

As we were beginning to pull out our delightful French neighbours came over to bid “adieu”. As part of our conversation I wished them good luck for tonight. “Oh, we’re going to a hotel nearby”, they said. Bloody excellent! Oddly, that thought had crossed my mind to help me spend a long time here. These guys were actually doing it.

Francine’s initial cunning plan was to stop at a CCP at Cavalerie, just south of the wonderful Millau viaduct. CCPs (Camping Car Parks) are a useful but basic addition to the battery of places to stay with a Motor Home but are essentially car parks with a service point. Nonetheless, the location looked interesting.

We spent the early morning shopping in luxury at the Mèze Lidl, before calling in to the much more salubrious Caveau de Beauvignac right next door to stock up on our favourite Viognier and Picpoul de Pinet. Interestingly, their BiBs (not that we were buying BiBs) don’t seem any more expensive than many in supermarkets and the wine would certainly be superior.

As we were on the road, Francine developed plan B. Rather than a car park, she’d found a campsite with good reviews slightly short of our first destination at Cavalerie. This was at L’Hospitalet du Larzac, on the Plateau du Larzac in the Parc Naturel Régional des Grands Causses. [I’ve taken a bit of a liberty with the title since I don’t know if there’s a singular of Causses.] This is the high country around Millau. We’re at 800m and the picturesque climb up La Méridienne autoroute, the A75, lost us 5°C.

Reception at the campsite was in a bar [good start] and the price for a bona fide campsite is only about €3 more than a car park.

A bit of an aside at the risk of being repetitive, here’s something than I find baffling. Many motor home folks get awfully excited about staying on a free, or very cheap Aire de Camping Car, often gravel or tarmac areas. Of course, with European weather and 3500kg vehicles, hardstanding is sometimes necessary but why would you spend £70K on a motor home only to habitually scrimp on where to park it? Wouldn’t you like to be able to sit outside on grass, with a table and chairs [many Aires do not allow this] enjoying a decent environment? I know I would.

As we were pitching up I scared up absolute swarms of one particular type of moth, which I hadn’t even noticed was there. I missed it because the little tykes had been sitting hidden on the underside of the leaves. Walk past and up they flutter in a frenzy. I did manage to catch one that settled and forgot it was supposed to be on the underside of the leaf. Shortly after snapping it, however, it remembered its job description and hid. This is the notorious Box Tree Moth (Cydalima perspectalis) which is currently wreaking havoc to Box bushes in various parts of the UK. There are absolute swarms of ‘em here but, oddly, we haven’t seen any Box.

End of wildlife for today, it’s pissing with rain.

We are camped at Villemarin, approximately half way between the towns of Marseillan and Mèze. Our French neighbour, spotting our bikes, asked if we’d done the circuit of the Basin de Thau, which, he said, was about 60 kms. Arghh! “No”, we replied.

The route would go something like this: Villemarin to Mèze, on round the basin to Sète, thence down the long coastal sandbar to Marseillan Plage, up to Marseillan itself, then back to our campsite at Villemarin.

Enter Francine. Whilst in Mèze she’d spotted a relatively new navettes [ferry] which plugs between Mèze and Sète. The boat ride is 30 minutes and takes bikes as well as foot passengers. I could see it coming.

Naturally a brilliant idea formed in her head. We’d do the 10 kms to Mèze, clamber on the ferry to Sète, make our way a few kms through Sète, followed by the 14 kms down the sandbar to Marseillan Plage Lastly, about 6 kms would get us back up to Marseillan where we could refresh ourselves appropriately before finishing the last 6 kms to our campsite.

Off we set for the 10:40 ferry. Being one of the market days in Mèze , most of the traffic should be coming into Mèze rather than leaving.

The Mèze embarkation side is great – nice and flat. Disembarking in Sète is less than ideal, there’s a concrete staircase up which you have to man-handle your e-bikes complete with batteries; not easy especially when some dozy cow is blocking the exit gate wating to board. The helpful ferry man lugged Francine’s bike up the narrow steps for her. What he should have done was ram the handlebars into the dozy cow,

We started working our way through Sète, partly walking, partly riding. It was manic. You basically have to cross the town from north to south to get towards the sandbar. We found an accommodating bar for a well-earned couple of beers.

Signage for the cycle track was sometimes good and sometimes non-existent. Despite this, after a few head-scratching moments, we finally found ourselves on the 14kms concrete track along the sandbar heading towards Marseillan Plage.

They have a done a splendid job of restoring the sand dunes between the track and the sea. They’ve done such a good job that you can’t actually see the sea; all you can see is the concrete cycle track. It was 14kms of dreary tedium.

At long last we arrived at Marseillan Plage and, since it’s not our natural habitat, made our way back up to civilization in Marseillan itself by 13:30, where we managed to share three tapas dishes for lunch washed down by a bottle of Picpoul de Pinet – after an initial beer to slake the thirst..

We repeated our by now well trodden path back to Villemarin. The Police Municipale were all over a huge itinerant encampment which had recently established itself on the edge of Marseillan. Go fellas!

We can say that we’ve done at least most of the cycle route but we wouldn’t bother again.

Mèze has many things going for it.

Mèze has an excellent market twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays. It does get a bit busy but then, in France, good markets always get a bit busy. They are something of a social occasion and long may they continue to be.

We timed our arrival to visit the Sunday market. Approaching the market area, once having parked our e-bikes, Francine spotted a wonderfully besequinned lady making her way to market dragging what appeared to be a fully coordinated shopping trolley.  The trolley stopped short of the sequins.

At one end of the market was a stall offering tasting plates of half a dozen oysters, complete with lemon, for a princely €5. The stall conveniently sat opposite a bar selling glasses of white wine to wash them down at €3 a pop. Well, you just have to, don’t you? It would be rude not to. We had a plate each. At that price these were not the largest oysters but they were nonetheless very good and hit the spot perfectly.

Mèze sits on the shore of the Basin de Thau, where the local oysters are farmed. Being on the shores of the Mediterranean, it enjoys a high number of sunny days with clear blue skies. Naturally it has a port which is very picturesque and is surrounded by a number of good restaurants, mostly specializing in the excellent local seafood. The curious looking boats in the foreground of the picture, by the way, are for the lance Mèzoise, a curious form of jousting on boats.

When we’re in Mèze , we always like to indulge in a plateau de fruits de mer to help satisfy our love of seafood even further. This fine platter, of course, should have a glass of Ricard as an overture, then be accompanied by a nicely chilled bottle of Picpoul de Pinet, one of the excellent local white wines. I think given the geography of the Basin de Thau, almost but not quite being closed off from the sea, the salinity of the water here is high and consequently its oysters seem noticeably saltier than those we tasted from La Rochelle on the west coast earlier in this trip. I think I actually preferred those from La Rochelle, not that these were bad.

So to another of the great benefits of Mèze. A short distance away in the village of Pomérols (not to be confused with Pomerol, without an “s” or an accent, in the Bordeaux region) is the caveau de Beauvignac which has to be our absolute favourite winemaker. As well as doing a top drawer Picpoul de Pinet (Pinet being another village close by), Beauvignac sells what is, in my estimation, the best white Viognier going. At least, it’s the best my under-educated palate has tasted. I haven’t found it readily available in the UK, which may be just as well, but we cannot leave this area without buying a case or two.

This is idyllic. What is the point of returning to Bedfordshire? This is the place; this is where I would kill to live. I may have to.