Salies and on to Blaye Days 30-31

As we bowled squeakily along towards Salies, the skies continued to darken, and as we pulled into the Salines campsite, just uphill from the town, the heavens opened, announced by a rumble of thunder and forks of lightning! Mr B dashed in - and out from Reception with a borrowed brolly and we chugged gingerly towards our allocated pitch through heavy rain.

 

There was so much rain that the numbered pitch markers were all underwater and by the time we’d worked out which one we should be on, we’d decided to swap sides to one with better drainage. An interesting arrangement here, with two vans sharing one hedged-in area… Fortunately, the rain was fairly short lived and we hunkered down under the awning for supper. In jumpers! What a difference a day makes.

 

Next day we headed into the town for bread, pastries and dessert to take to our hosts for the next 24 hours, Chris and Sue. Note: Parking a 7m camper in Salies is neither easy nor recommended! Mission (eventually) accomplished, we headed out to Les Antys and the old farm where Chris and Sue live, and whiled away a pleasant day in good company, over lunch and dinner. Dinner outdoors was well and truly scuppered by yet another storm, but we did have time to enjoy the views before being forced inside!

We spent a peaceful night in Evie outside the house with only the occasional hoot of an owl to disturb us. Maybe it was one of the owls that Mr B met in the attic earlier that day, coming to say hello. He thinks she said her name was Hedwig…

Next morning we bade our fond farewells and headed north towards the west coast, still carrying our cargo of noisy mice! 

 

 

With the weather improving, we decided to do one of our ‘drive and see where we get to days’ especially with Evie making those alarming noises from her rear end…

 

Mr B was of the opinion that it sounded like sticky/worn hand-brake callipers, but just in case, we pulled in to an Iveco garage north of Dax for a professional view…

 

Although it was obviously lunchtime, the mechanics were incredibly helpful, and, luckily for us, one had worked for a year in Australia so his technical English was much more useful than Mr B’s campsite French!

 

Although the garage was in the middle of renovations, (so no ramps were available), a quick drive around their car park convinced the mechanics that it probably was the callipers. Checking that there were no warning lights showing and that the hydraulic fluid was not leaking, they reassured us that Evie was safe to drive, but that we should drive ‘with caution’ and book into a garage for a ‘big job’ – eek!

 

Which is how we found ourselves making a very cautious and slow drive north, heading for La Rochelle (where Mrs B was looking forward to trying the mouclade) and stopping at Blaye, north of Bordeaux. Our good friends Jan and Linda had stayed at the municipal site on their way to Spain on a recent trip and it sounded really interesting, situated in an old citadel…

 

But nothing could have prepared us for the sheer scale and magnificence of driving over the small bridge and through the successive narrow gates of this impressive Vauban fortress!

 

 

We’ve come across the impressive scale and designs of Vauban’s forts before, but it’s fair to say we never imagined that we would be camping inside one! It’s a credit to the municipality that they have the imagination to run this site inside a UNESCO designated zone – but they do! There are 12 UNESCO recognised Vauban forts designed and built in the 1600s, early 1700s which have been formally recognised for their contribution to military and civilian engineering on a global scale.

 

We arrived having read about a mysterious €80 deposit in a review on the Park4Night app, but assumed it was some sort of translation error… But oh no, in order to use the facilities a digital key fob was needed, and the deposit was indeed €80! And as payment was in cash (we didn’t have enough) or by cheque (we don’t have any) Mr B found himself on an unexpected bonus walk through the citadel into the town to get some money!

 

Amusing enough as that was, it turned out that the pitch (overlooking a small vineyard and the river Garonne) that we had been allocated was occupied by another camping car already. We assumed, especially as we were only staying one night, that we could simply swap with the one that they were meant to be on (next door), especially as they were staying for three nights. But oh no! With a classic display of French bureaucracy at its best, the other campers were made to move, which left us feeling amused but also a little guilty as we were upping sticks the next day! And of course, with that €80 deposit, we made full use of the facilities via the intriguing access path!

 

 

After a peaceful night’s sleep overlooking the Garonne and nestled inside the impressive multiple layered defensive walls of the fort, it was time to brave those narrow gateways and continue on our way to La Rochelle to sample those mussels in saffron sauce...

 

 

S&J 28.06.23