October 2009

We spent a very nice 10 days in Holland catching up with Mum and Leo and family.  It was nice to hear they do not have swine flu here, its called Mexican flu instead,We collected our new Spartamet motorised bikes, kindly supplied by Leo, and gave them a trial run cycling to Harlingen in the wind. We still ended up slip streaming Mum. The weather was kind.

We stayed for 2 nights in a camp site in the south of Holland as we wanted to visit Liberty Park, the Dutch war and resistance museum at Overloon. Very moving and interesting.

South again to Mareuil sur Ay and a very nice riverside Aire where we met a couple who told us about a Lake where all the cranes pass through on their way south for the winter, needless to say we had a detour…

Next day to Lac du Der, Apparantly many thousands of cranes are spotted here, we didnt see thousands but there had to be hundreds, we cycled round part of the lake and then watched the cranes fly in to roost for the night. There were lots of French “twitchers” about to watch them fly in. Earlier in the month there were 29000 of them.

Onwards again in thick fog to St. Pourcain sur Sioule to another nice free aire alongside a river. It was very warm when we got there, at last a taste of things to come.

Next night found us at Millau. The motorway there was mostly above 800 metres very spectacular scenery, and the van liked the thinner air. The Millau bridge  340 metres above the Tarn is superb and we spent some time walking round the visitors centre and the viewing area, in some very warm weather. We drove across the bridge and back into the town on the old road for a night in the aire.

The next 2 nights at Gruissan on the mediteranean lovely sunny days and warm nights.