Sunny Spain

We woke to a fine but blowy day. By the time we ate some bagels with ham and melted cheese, it had turned into a very windy day. Fortunately, we had a tail-wind on our trek up to the old city of Carcasssonne, and we were blown through the huge gates up the street looking for a possible wifi and coffee spot. We came to a bar with wifi and coffee and were pleased to escape the wind.

Ross walked up to the bar to ask for two coffees, and saw the owner cooking crepes, and was promptly told, “Not for now!” Ross was put in his place, soup-nazi style. Not long after, he comes to our table and asks what flavour would we like. “Banana?” “ Non.” “Caramel?” “Non.”  We had the choice of chocolate or sugar; I don’t know why he asked what flavor we would like. We found it all quite amusing. The crepe was barely edible, but we ate every skerrick; we thought we might get roused on if we didn’t.

 

We walked up to the ramparts, looked at the steps and decided against the climb, especially in this wind, and spent the money we saved on a book about the history of the fortified town, as well as some postcards. But when we tried to buy stamps at a different shop, we were told in no uncertain terms that she only sells stamps with the postcards you buy at her shop- keen businesswoman, but maybe she should advertise this fact out with the postcards she is selling.

We struggled back to our “camping-car” against a very strong wind, and set off in the direction of Neflach, where I had found Camping La Garenne open all year on the internet when we were stuck at Macca’s in Chavanay.  Most of the camp-grounds are closed for the 6 months of “winter” even though it’s 20C today.

We were heading out of town to join the motorway, when Ross spots a sign “Parc Australienne” and wants to see what it’s all about and follows the sign. We never did find what it was but I’m assuming a little Aussie zoo with maybe a few kangaroos, but our GPS recalculated our route to the motorway through miles and miles of country lanes and dirt tracks. We never thought we’d ever get back on; we actually drove on a track beside it for a couple of kilometres! Very fortunately, they were such unused country roads that we didn’t encounter a single vehicle. I am really hesitant to diverge from the motorways at all!

We stopped for coffee and lunch at a very popular roadside service area, and hooked into their wifi. I relocated La Garonne and Ross skyped her only to find out they were actually CLOSED! Don’t believe anything you read on the internet! I ate a delicious apple tart and ordered Ross a multi-cheese baguette, while he filled up with diesel. Well, the cheese baguette was cold by the time he got in; he had had another altercation with a pump; had to move to another pump before finally getting some fuel only 45 euro worth, not 45 litres as he requested. They don’t make it easy, that’s for sure.

We were following three camping-cars travelling together and I figured they would probably know where they were going so we attempted to follow them. When we struck traffic lined up for kilometres at the border, they got a little ahead because cars kept pushing in in front of us, but we kept them in sight until we reached the toll gates; Ross took a ticket and dropped it on the ground. By the time he climbed out to recover it, they had disappeared over the horizon. There goes my great plan. There’s no way we could get to Barcelona before nightfall now, so we pulled up at a Spanish rest stop (I don’t know what they’re called) and drove in beside two huge trucks to camp the night. There’s Burger King and a restaurant with decent coffee so we won’t starve. On to Barcelona tomorrow and first order of business is to find the Fiat dealer at Badalona to buy a new wheel. Fingers crossed!