On the road again, this time to pick up our own camper. There was no troubles getting through customs, they didn't even check our passports! We collected the camper from a lovely French man who spoke only a little bit of English. We understood most things and the rest we thought we would pick up on the way.
We traveled one hour south of Lille to our first campsite where we met up with Marg and Phill as they had headed off first to settle in. It was a lovely, quiet spot by a river. We were set up in less than 10 minutes and we had already fallen in love with "Lilly Pad" we though that was an appropriate name for our camper. We all cooked up a feast of chicken, steak and potatoes then crawled into our luxurious bed well it was luxurious considering what we had been sleeping in, on and under.
The next day we set off to the Ardeche gorge, Kate having no troubles picking up driving on the other side of the road. We took off separately to Marg and Phil as they wanted to take the scenic route to head towards le Tour de France we were uncertain if they would meet up with us at the gorge.
After a few hours on the road we thought it was appropriate to have an espresso stop. We pulled into the service station to find Marg and Phill in there green machine with Millie's head out the car window. They had decided it wasn't the right weather for the scenic route and needed an espresso, what a coincidence. We then set off in convoy to the gorge.
After an 8 hour drive, encountering a stand still traffic jam, we had finally arrived at a lovely family camping ground called Les Arches. It was aptly named as it sat beneath a large bridge of arches on the river. There were so many children around we felt out of place without one, we thought about borrowing one, but thought better of it.
We enjoyed our last feast with Marg and Phil at the camping ground restaurant, steaks all round, before hitting the hay. The following morning started in the usual way, a walk to get our fresh baguette and a croissant for Kate, eggs for all and espressos. We said our goodbyes to marg and Phil as they embarked upon their journey to le Tour de France in Castres.
We had a splendid day planned ourselves, collect a picnic from the shop in the nearest village, a long walk to a waterfall and a swim! Things did not go to plan, we got lost in the field on our way to the village (not a great start), the shop closed for siesta and did not reopen til late and we suddenly found ourselves to be starving. Must be the old saying, always want what you can't have. We returned to the van at great speed and set off to find food. We collected food from a supermarket for a picnic and headed to a town called Mirabell mainly because we liked the name. Turns out that you should judge a town by its name as it was really cute! Set on a mountain with 360 degree views of the whole area a perfect place for a picnic.
It was a hot day so on arriving back to camp we thought we would take a dip in the river. It was quite refreshing and a great way to end the day!
