Derbyshire weekend – Belper

Friday 1st-Sunday 3rd March 2024.

We stayed here for the two nights.

We took the opportunity of a free weekend to travel to Derbyshire to meet up with travel buddies Alison and Peter.

On Friday we stopped at Carsington Water Visitors Centre where we had lunch in Homer, shortly after we pulled up Alison and Peter arrived. It was cold, raw, rainy and we had a hail storm whilst there, not very encouraging but Layla needed a walk so out we went.

The visitors centre which has shops and a cafe.

View across the lake maintained by Severn Trent Water.

From Carsington we drove the short distance to the campsite at Belper where after setting up we chilled out for the rest of the day.

Saturday morning we walked into Belper. Belper is a market town at the heart of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage site. It was once an Anglo Saxon settlement known as Bradelei, the Normans renamed it Beaureparie meaning beautiful retreat. At the beginning of the 19th century the building of cotton mills changed Belper’s landscape.

Belper’s Market place.

A building that has had many uses.

A mill that now is sadly empty and falling into disrepair.

This mill is now a museum.

The River Derwent controlled by a weir.

Opposite the mill was a garden that had been in existence for a long time, originally it had been a place to grow food for a small hospital that treated mill workers.

View down into the garden.

The town was slightly larger than I expected and we spent some time wandering around, we visited two antiques centres that were housed in old mill buildings. We had a pleasant lunch in a restaurant called Nourish at No44, the food was good but the service a little erratic.

An antiques centre.

As we walked back towards the campsite we wandered through a park alongside the river.

The gardens would be a pleasant place in the warm weather, you can hire boats and there is a cafe, there are many water birds wandering around.

Sunday morning the weather improved, we left the site and drove to Heanor where we visited another antiques centre spread over 4 floors that was rammed with items for sale, Michelle added to her Poole pottery collection. From there we drove to the Denby Pottery outlet where had lunch in Homer and managed not to buy anything!!

It was an easy journey home.

Kenilworth via Chipping Norton

Friday 2nd Feb 2024

Tonight’s stopover.

First stop this morning was Chipping Norton, we regularly drive through here en route to Portsmouth but never stop. Today we had a battle to find somewhere to park, one app sent us to the Lido behind a housing estate, 50m up a narrow road we arrived at a locked barrier, parking no longer allowed, it was an interesting manoeuvre to escape. The second car park was at a 45 degree angle with very short spaces, the third we found one space by parking partially on a grass verge, at least it was free.

A few images of Chipping Norton.

Initially we had intended today to visit Kenilworth Castle but Google research showed it isn’t open so we headed to Abbey Fields a large park area on the edge of town.Here there is a large car park that had free spaces and is free for the first two hours.

Obviously there was an Abbey here centuries ago that like many in the country was destroyed on the instructions of Henry VIII.

After lunch in Homer we went for a walk, next to the car park was St Nicholas Church and graveyard that we walked through, many spring bulbs were in evidence.

Carved stone around the church door.

Abbey fields is a large area with a sizeable lake.

The Abbey would have been quite central in the park. Sadly there is nothing left other than the gatehouse.

The remains of the gatehouse.

We walked uphill into Kenilworth town centre, sadly like many town centres in England it looks a little down at heel and not very inspiring and we found little to interest us.

Looking down into the town centre.

The clock tower.

Away from the centre you had a different feel, the park gave an open feel and there were many interesting houses.

Plenty of work for a chimney sweep.

Not sure how many there are in there😊

Tonight we are staying at the Rugby Club, it was interesting to get in, there is a height barrier, you phone and obtain a code which opens a box that contains two keys, one opens a padlock to a set of stepladders, you then stand on the step ladders and unlock a padlock about 3m above ground which allows you to swing open the height barrier. Of course once you drive through you have to repeat the process in reverse.

A person of small stature wouldn’t stand a chance.

Padlock is in the yellow box at the top.

Burford

Wednesday 31st January and Thursday 1st February 2024.

The road into Burford.

We are spending two nights at Wysdom Park Touring site on the outskirts of Burford in the Cotswolds. It is a small site and you have to have your own facilities, it is £20 a night but that includes electricity.

We have a pleasant secluded pitch.

It is only a 10 minute walk into Burford from the site.

Living accommodation at the top of the town.

The buildings are built using Cotswold stone.

Burford’s famous High Street drops downhill to the River Windrush crossed by a medieval bridge, both sides of the road are flanked by an unbroken line of houses and shops. It has a variety of small shops,cafes, restaurants and pubs. There are alleyways and side streets to explore and at the bottom of the town is St. john’s church and a set of medieval alms houses.

No double glazed doors here.

Today Feb 1st is my birthday and we were joined here on site by my sister and brother in law and then we went for a very pleasant lunch at a nearby pub/ hotel “The Prince of Burford” a part of the Butcombe Brewery chain of pubs. We are members of their loyalty scheme and as it was my birthday they gave us a rather nice bottle of Prosecco.

Homer’s first birthday.

Sunday 14th January 2024.

Collection day Saturday 14 th Jan 2023.

We haven’t exactly given Homer an easy first year with us, having arrived back today from 35 days away in Spain and France he has covered 9,624 miles since collection. We have put in 1,620l of diesel at a cost of £2,280😵‍💫 fun isn’t cheap.

He has had a small amount of modification with an extra lithium leisure battery and a beefed up solar panel both of which work well.

For cooking and keeping the central heating going in wintery conditions we have used 107 litres of LPG ranging from 60-90p a litre.

We have spent a total of 124 nights away from home staying in car parks, marinas, camping aires and campsites oh and Alison and Peters drive, 23 of those were free and we paid from 3€ up £32 to stay at the variety of places we use.

We have managed to go to the tip of Cornwall, out to the east coast of Yorkshire, up to Edinburgh and to the coast of Wales plus of course numerous places in England. Altogether we have visited France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Spain and some of those more than once.

It hasn’t always been easy driving.

Have we been satisfied with Homer? Well it’s a tale of two halves.

The Peugeot Boxer aspect has been superb, driving is easy and comfortable it has plenty of power and it’s 6 speed gearbox is great, we are euro 6 compliant ( damn Adblue) so we can if we wish travel into cities, we do have the relevant stickers on the windscreen for France and Germany.

Then comes the living side of Homer, we chose the layout with an end bathroom which is superb and a large kitchen with plenty of storage, a good fridge, microwave( good for storage😊). But there are downsides, the cooker is flimsy and on one of our first trips the door fell off it was held on with minuscule screws. Even after being returned to the dealer to be sorted the door still came open as we drove along and I ended up solving the problem myself. The drawers and cupboards have a mind of their own and even after we check they are shut before we start off invariably one will fly open, catches are not sturdy enough. The dining table was in it’s own storage cupboard on pull out runners, that didn’t last long 10 mm screws aren’t up to the job.

These are design faults that could be overcome with a little more thought by the manufacturers.

Are we disappointed, no not really we have learned to overcome the problems and have beefed up items where we feel they are flimsy. Learning to live in a small space teaches you to be tidy and organised and everything has its own place, on a 35 day trip such as we have just undertaken where we needed winter wear and summer wear, there is very little space to gather extras as you go along.

Stopovers like this in Norway are magic, very difficult to do if not in a motorhome.

So here’s to Homer’s second birthday who knows where he will have taken us, well I do have ideas in mind, we will see, as they say “watch this space”😊

Full circle.

Saturday 13th January 2024.

This mornings journey wasn’t the easiest of our last few days, we set off in thick fog that stayed with us for the whole morning until we arrived at our lunchtime stop at Bayeux.

Memorial museum to the Battle of Normandy.

We have stopped here in the past as there was a small aire adjacent to the car park, sadly it isn’t currently open. After lunch we drove a few hundred yards up the road and filled up with diesel at a Leclerc filling station, it wouldn’t take the card I’ve used for the past 5 weeks and would only accept my debit card so I will have to pay a fee for that. We had intended to fill up with LPG but the pump only fed vehicles with the access on the left,of course ours is on the right.😵‍💫

From Bayeux we drove to the coast to Arromanches we didn’t manage to park in the village so we drove out of town to an area dedicated to the D Day landings, when we last drove here it was under construction.

This memorial garden was exhibited at the Chelsea Flower Show.

We drove on taking wherever possible the coast road and stopped in Luc sur Mer for a coffee break, there were a few brave souls on the beach and as today the temperature hasn’t risen above 1 degree you have to be wrapped up warm.

We are now parked next to the aire we stayed on at Lion sur Mer almost 5 weeks ago, Alison and Peter stayed here last night as they caught the early morning ferry. We are spending about 4 hours here as we don’t have to be at the ferry port until approx 9.30 pm. We have been for a walk around the town but again there is very little open. So here we are Full Circle, home tomorrow and life returns to normal.

A beach side property.

An unusual building in town

Journeying north.

Thursday 11th and Friday 12th 2024.

Mirebeau.

We try to break each days journey into sections as we are averaging 110 miles a day, we managed to stop at the small town of Mirebeau for lunch.However after lunch we drove straight to the nights stopover at Montreal Bellay, the aire is situated below defensive walls and an impressive Chateua. The fire is next door to a large campsite that only opens fro March to October, I don’t think I would like to stop during those months as I believe it would be rather busy, just behind the aire they are building an aqua centre with numerous outdoor pools.Before our evening meal we went for a walk up into the town.

Sadly the chateau was closed.

Today we drove on further north and stopped for a break at La Flèche we stopped here once before many years ago when it was an aire however the motorhome services have been moved to a new site.

A rather flooded river at La Flèche.

After travelling on for a short while we stopped Sables Sur Sarthe for lunch, again we were able to use a motorhome stopover to park up. We walked along the river and into town, it was quite interesting as the town was disected by another river that ran into the Sarthe.

View of church across the river.

From Sables sur Sarth we drove to tonights stopover at Ambrieres-Les-Vallees a nice picturesque aire below the town alongside the river.

Chateau ow being used as the Town Hall.

It has been a struggle to produce this blog as over the past two nights we have had poor wifi signal and it is slow going trying to load photos onto the blog.

When we stop on the aires and especially if they are provided free by the local commune we try to spend a little money in the local shops, however since we have returned to France everywhere we have stopped there have been very few shops open. We expect them to be shut from 12,30 t0 2.00 pm and are well used to that but it would appear that on the whole the only shops you are likely to find open are the bakers, butchers, tobacconist and of course hairdressers, very limiting.

Voeuil-et-Giget

Wednesday 10th January 2024.

I can’t work out why they didn’t squeeze the letter “a” in the above name they have every other vowel.

We left the aire this morning and drove to Leclerc in Sainte Foy where we know from experience they have diesel at slightly lower cost, as we filled up we noticed that the pump next to us had LPG and as it is very cold at the moment and we use gas for the central heating we decided to fill up. Thank goodness we did, as we drove away from the petrol station it began to snow and has only just stopped at 7 p.m.

We were heading for Montpon which had been our home town for many years, we had booked Layla into her vets to have the compulsory worming tablet before you return to the UK. Thankfully when we took her there this afternoon she behaved extremely well and ate her tablet as though it was a wonderful treat. The 69 euro fee wasn’t a wonderful treat for me😵‍💫

Wednesday is market day and disregarding the weather we visited it, sadly as we were arriving at 11 am many of the traders were packing up as their goods were getting covered in snow.

A snowy Layla with the coat of shame.

A little bit of the market.

Nothing stops intrepid shoppers.

We had to wait two hours before Layla’s vet appointment so Michelle visited the shops and amazingly didn’t buy anything and after lunch we went in Intermarche for a few bits and pieces.

As we left the vets at 2.20 pm it began to snow even more heavily we were heading north to Angouleme but after a while as the sky got darker and the snow heavier we decided to stop at an aire in Montmoreau a town we have driven through hundreds of times. The parking area was next to a river and a park and all seemed well, it even paused snowing for a while.

However it became obvious that there appeared to be a homeless person living in the toilet block along with his dog which barked a lot, after a drink we enacted the golden rule of “ if you don’t feel comfortable move on” so we did. We drove about 15 miles further north and of course it began to snow again but we managed to arrive safely. This stopover we knew as we had stopped here before whilst travelling by car, it is very attractive.

The original laundrette.

Next years Christmas card.

Hopefully tomorrow the weather will be better.

Saint-Antoine-de-Breuilh.

Tuesday 9th January 2024

After saying our farewells to Alison and Peter we left Capbreton and drove north towards Bordeaux most of it in motorway conditions and several sections were peage, thankfully we eventually turned off and took the Bergerac road which led to tonights stopover.

This village is just outside Sainte Foy La Grande and I have over the past 30 odd years driven through the village numerous times but had never noticed this aire.

This is a Camping Car Park stop 10 euros a night with full services.

This image was taken mid afternoon, later on three more motorhomes arrived the one next to us is British.

Homer was full of sand and things weren’t in their correct places as we have moved so much in the past 6 days so Michelle enjoyed an hour or so doing housework. Layla wasn’t well last night we think she had swallowed loads of sea water but thankfully as we arrived at this stopover she perked up. After a coffee we went for a walk around the village it didn’t take long there is very little here.

The Marie.

Both Peter and Alison and ourselves have commented that as soon as we crossed the border into France we immediately felt at home, everything is so familiar, we can understand what is written and have a reasonable attempt to hold a conversation.

In the information above it does have an English explanation about the bell but unfortunately I can’t enlarge it. From memory it went along the lines that approx 100 years ago it was decreed it shouldn’t be rung unless it was remounted on a church and then only rung for one time.

I had sent Alison a WhatsApp message to say we had arrived and she responded with a message to say they had found an aire and had been to a boulangerie for bread and cakes, well when we discovered the above I couldn’t resist going in and buying us a treat to have after our evening meal.

tarte au chocolat and a tarte au citron.

Very nice they were too.

Sarriguren Spain and Capbreton France.

Sunday 7th and Monday 8th January 2024.

It was quite a long drive on Sunday through some amazing scenery.

Looking down at a river way down below us.

Some of the roads were very narrow with extremely tight bends.

Getting held up by a herd of cows that had walked miles along the road.

We stopped in the town of Java for lunch but didn’t explore, for Michelle and I felt we needed to cover a large distance as quickly as possible as we retreated from the snow in the Pyrenees.

After lunch we drove on an eventually reached an enormous lake, as we drove alongside it we realised we had been there before about 5 years ago in August whilst Layla was still much of a puppy and she enjoyed a swim in it.

We eventually reached our Sunday night stopover in a town called Sarriguren near Pamplona, it was a very modern town and looking it up on Google I found out that it is a pioneer design committed to bio climatic architecture and urban design. It’s designed to create open shared areas, pedestrianised walkways with nature all around the new dwellings. They aim to reduce the levels of energy consumption by influencing energy demand and the use of renewable energy sources. It couldn’t have been any more different from last nights medieval town which was in existence when Catherine of Aragon grew up in the area.

Today we drove from Spain into France, the road again took us through some high areas and there was evidence of snow to the sides of the roads etc.

Sometimes you entered a tunnel and when you emerged some time later the climate appeared to have changed.

Tonight’s parking aire couldn’t be any more different, we are about 3 metres from a sand dune and 100m from a gorgeous sandy beach, it is however the Atlantic and not the Mediterranean sea. After arrival we walked into Capbreton which is a sea side resort, as is quite common in these resorts the majority of shops were closed for the winter and not opening until March.

Capbreton.

What appeared to be a 1930’s cinema building.

A very quiet shopping street.

One shop sadly not open had some wonderful chocolates in the window.

Of course I was terribly disappointed that the shops weren’t open and Michelle couldn’t spend time browsing. Instead we headed back to Homer and went to explore the beach which is extremely popular with surfers.

Looking north.

Looking south.

Layla had a wonderful time on the beach she ran round almost non stop for an hour carrying a large pebble, burying it, digging it back up and then running on again.

My camera isn’t quite good enough for some shots but there were quite a few surfers in the sea.

Of course there’s always time for a pose.

We walked quite some distance along the beach and then turned back and went in the other direction , we came to what appeared to be a large rock but I think it may have been a second world war defence building.

Waves crashing in over the rocks.

There was quite a lot of large drift wood on the beach and the surfers had been quite inventive in building with it. I would imagine this beach must be crowded in the summer, but for us today it made a pleasant change to walk on it after being in the mountains over the past five days.

Ainsa

Sat 6th/Sunday 7th January 2024.

Friday night the rain stopped at approx 8 pm and today was as wonderfully sunny as normal, everything felt proper. As usual there were lots of points of interest.

A large dam on the river.

Looking down over the lake.

Snow on the mountains.

We had a good drive here to Ainsa which is located where rivers Ara and Cinca come together the old town seems frozen in the middle ages.

We paid to go into a wildlife centre dedicated to reintroducing the bearded eagle back to the wild, we walked round the displays and then watched a 15 minute video of the wild life on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees.

A model of the eagle.

Outside they had a pair of eagles that had been rescued from the wild and couldn’t be re introduced to the wild, the female had laid an egg and the parents were taking it in turn to sit on it.

The male.

After our evening meal we walked back into town to see it in its evening glory, it was very cold but people were still sitting outside the bars.

Over the past week I have been monitoring the road we intended to take over the Pyrenees and everything seemed fine, however over the past two days it has snowed heavily on the French side of the mountains, vans are driving in here with lots of snow on their roofs. Peter accessed a live video feed at the end of the tunnel we had to go through and it showed the road covered in snow and it is forecast to snow heavily in the coming days.

So rather than risk that route that had steep downhill sections with many bends we have decided to head west along the foothills of the Pyrenees and head back to Pamplona. From there we can skirt the mountains and head back into France.