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| The view of the Abbey as we arrived tonight. |
Happy birthday to our Dean … you
can celebrate a bit longer with our Northern Hemisphere greetings. You are
making us feel old!!!
Today has had it ups and downs,
have to say that at parts I wondered what we were doing, but to end up in this
really nice spot makes it all worthwhile. Jilly tested us today!
First stop this morning was for
the repetitive business of emptying and refilling (sorry Steve, but that is
life on the road!!!). Then not far to refuel, diesel is about €1.13/litre, and
a shop at Carrefour’s. As suggested by our French friends yesterday, I tried to
buy a recharge for my Orange data with a message on my iPhone from Google
translate, but the checkout girl said “non”. No joy there.
We set off South and had a very
pleasant drive through the countryside. Spotted a Tabac in a reasonable size
village that had parking nearby so popped in there, again with my message on
Google Translate, but although there were 3 people in the shop, no one spoke
“Anglais” and after reading my message they said they couldn’t help. Dead end
again. They suggested that I go to the Orange Boutique in the next town of which
seemed like a good idea. By this time it was early afternoon, with temperatures
in the high 20’s and we ended up in the middle of Voiron, a very sizeable town
and no sign of any parking. The stress levels rose but finally found a place
within walking distance, found where to pay for metered parking and for €1.20
we were okay for one hour. I set off with the directions and found the Orange
shop very quickly. Three people in the
shop, and no one spoke English! So out came Google Translate again and got the
message through. They were very good and between us we sorted out what I needed
and purchased 3 recharges. They loaded the first one, and think I know how to
load the next when we need it. Finally sorted and set off for St Marcellin
where we had seen there was an Aire in the Town.
Arrived but sadly not a good
place, right in the centre of town with a very dusty carpark. Went online and
found a site East and in the hills, that looked really nice. Unfortunately,
Jilly decided we needed to head there via some very “hairy” roads, so I got her
organised to take some better roads, but she snuck a real curly one on me and
we ended up driving a section of about 5kms of very narrow one way roads, some
very tense driving but finally got onto a more normal road. The views from up
in the hills looking across to the French Alpes were pretty spectacular
As we finally came into the
village well after 6pm we were greeted by the most amazing view of the Abbey.
Still a few testing narrow roads and we finally arrived at the Aire with 5
other campers already here, a couple were the same size as us ...whew. Such a peaceful spot, just below the village,
looking forward to exploring in the morning.
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| This amphibious car got people looking. |
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| Views of the French Alps |
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| We drove through many walnut orchards. |
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| Looking down on the Motorway bridge over the Rhone |
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This took Ian back to his youth with small
bales being made and picked up by hand. |
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| Novel sign for the school. |
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| Ruakiwi parked in the shade for the night. |
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