Day 2 – to just outside Bayonne

Just a couple of times I questioned my decision of packing so much driving into the first few days. That was to have been four, but now is three thanks to the fortune with the earlier Eurotunnel crossing.

My reasoning had been to get the large journey over with, and in February when the weather is likely to be less enticing to the outdoors. The latter didn’t work very well though. Except for a few dog circuits there was nothing today.

I drove just short of 600 miles, about 8 hours, and would have got into camp earlier if it wasn’t for some incidents early in the day.

Firstly, when filling up with fuel at Carrefour, the automated pump refused me twice. Card declined. I called the bank as I thought possibly it was blocked at their end. Indeed it wasn’t, and not only that, but €150, twice, had been taken off the card. I recall now, this has happened before to me, just in France, and just at Carrefour. They refund the money, but only at the month’s end.

That took a good 45 minutes, especially as the Carrefour management were across a busy intersection at the store.

At one of the tolls the machine didn’t return my card. These French tolls take an age anyway for a solo right hand driver, and usually mean receiving a torrent of abuse from those behind. I called the number of the machine, and in due course, 10 minutes or so, it was returned.

The van had a warning light also, ‘overfilled with oil, please release some’.

Fortunately I’m in a really good Crafter self-build forum, and the guy who runs it, who I met a couple of years ago in Portugal, has indexed all the old questions and answers, and I was able to get an answer quite quickly… take the oil cap off, give it five minutes, and all will be well. And it was.

Other than that not a lot else happened.

The weather changed. It was misty and hovering around zero most of the morning, and down here in Bayonne it was 17C, and now at 10 pm, 13C. Quite a difference.

It’s a really expensive stretch of road using the tolls, and the option is considerably slower. The campervan is a class two vehicle. It’s more than 140 euros, for saving something like four hours. If you think about it as sitting and doing not a lot, off the toll roads, you benefit by about €30 euros an hour, it seems that is the way to go. But in reality, driving on those busier and smaller roads is far more stressful and tiring.

Anyway, not a lot of fun for the dog, or for me, but all being well, we will get to where we are headed a day ahead of schedule.