Dwti Draig

Hello from a lake in South Western France on day 5 of our trip! 

We managed to set off on our journey the day before we actually needed to catch our ferry. We thought we’d make life a bit less stressful for a change, and decided to avoid a dawn start in Dwti to drive down to Portsmouth to catch the 3pm ferry to Caen by driving to Hampshire the day before. All went to plan, and we even ended up driving through the little town where my Gran was born, before finding our campsite and navigating a narrow tunnel to drive in. It was a question of closing my eyes (me, not Lyn) and breathing in (Lyn and Dwti!) All was going well, and we were in bed and asleep at an incredibly early 9pm, knackered from a busy day of shutting down the house for three months, followed by a long drive. 

All  was quiet in the land of nod until Lyn’s phone woke us up, with a phone call from our lovely neighbour  to say our burglar alarm was going off at 11.30pm. What?? We hadn’t used that alarm for maybe 15-20 years! We had no idea of the code to switch it off, and were hundreds of miles away! Luckily for me, I have officially The World’s Best Brother! One phone call to him and he raced up there and tried to sort it. The story ends with him hanging out of an upstairs window with the metal pole from my bar bell trying to hit the alarm off the wall. He succeeded, and silence prevailed! Thanks brother, we owe you one!

The next day went much smoother, and the journey to the ferry was much easier from the camp site than it would have been from home. It is the first time for us to catch a ferry from Portsmouth, as we usually catch the Harwich-Hook of Holland one. It made us a change to be on the sea in Portsmouth rather than on land, as we have visited it a couple of times visiting our favourite daughter Tegz there. (Disclaimer, we only have one daughter!) She texted to say she was waiting to wave us off at the Round Tower, so we headed up on board to wave to her as we passed. It all got a bit emosh for me and I was glad to have a cabin to recuperate in. The 6 hour journey went really smoothly, with showering, reading and napping, and we were soon on our way out into Caen. It was gone 10pm at this point, and dark, so we drove down the motorway (much better roads than the bumpy ones off the Hook of Holland!) and found a truck stop which was full. Lyn used all his 4×4 prowess and parked up on a bit of grass and we got some sleep; waking in the morning to find it was empty and we looked a bit daft parked where we were!

The next day passed with just driving…and more driving… until we got to our park up outside a goat’s cheese farm. We had an interesting convo with the farmer, who understandably spoke no English, with the help of Google Translate, and we bought three goats cheeses for 11E. One with shallots, one with walnuts and one like a big grey pyramid! We’ll be eating them for the considerable future lol. The cheeses were delicious, but the stop left a lot to be desired. It was all a bit muddly, smelly and noisy, with lots of flies. Oh the glamour of overlanding! We had nothing to do or see outside the truck, and it was quickly dark, so we went to bed, being woken at 6.30am when the noise started up again from farm machinery.

We had another day of driving, but this one ended with better weather and a beautiful park up outside a chateau with vineyards. This and the goats cheese farm are part of a scheme we are members of called France Passion, where you can stay for free, but are obliged to look/buy their products. It’s a great way of supporting independent businesses/farmers. Lyn was only too happy to buy a bottle of their red wine. Just a shame he corked it opening it!

We had a lovely little walk around the tiny village in the evening sun, where we found a bakery open at 7.30pm. Lyn managed to visit it twice in the half hour they were open until 8pm, and can vouch for its pastries! I stumbled across a pretty church whilst he was buying his pastrie and wandered into the graveyard, as one does! It was fascinating, full of big family crypts with generations of families interred. 

We were both getting a bit fed up of just travelling so decided to take a breather for the next two nights, which led us to our lake stop over. We are just above Biarritz on south western France, in a camper car park. This is a scheme we used on our last trip, where you can use an app with a map to find camper car parks where the scheme exists. You can check how many spaces are available before you get there, which is ideal for us. We are at a lovely lake surrounded by forests, which has meant today we have had a chilling day before going out for a 4 mile forest walk and a dip in the lake. Of course, as ever, nothing goes simply for us, and we had a drama getting in. The entry key pad to the barrier is obviously on the wrong side, meaning that I have to reach out and do it, but obviously I am in a truck and too high to reach it. This means I have to get out, but Lyn has parked too close to the machine, meaning I can’t open my door properly, meaning i have to slither through a tiny gap! Once I am out I cannot seem to enter the code onto the machine. I faff about for ages before Lyn has to get out and come to my aid. We then find out I was at the wrong machine, so i enter the code, Lyn gets back in and the barrier lifts….before coming down on the truck halfway through! Lyn has to get out again as I cannot lift the heavy barrier off the truck! He lifts the barrier off and I struggle to keep it upright in the air before an old French man gets off his quad and comes to my help. With us both struggling to keep the red and white pole in the air it again begins it’s inevitable journey back down to rest on the truck! Lyn just drives on and through. He then messaged the company in a live chat to say what has happened, but they insist the barrier is up for 30 seconds and he was too slow. Lyn then sits at the window counting hope long the barrier is up for as other vehicles drive through, and finds it’s only 15 seconds. Fine if you are in a little vehicle and not a slow beast! Tomorrow will be fun getting back out!

Anyway, he sun is shining and its 24 degrees. We can worry about the barrier when we need to!

So, it’s two days later now, and it nearly took us all this time to exit the bloody barrier lol. We guessed there was going to be a problem when we took up an Early Window Watch vantage spot to see how others tackled Le Barrier! It didn’t go well for them either. There was much exiting of the vehicle, wandering around the various machines and much French muttering on the phone to the company involved. The morning went by in such a fashion, as we packed up, and we were soon fourth in line of vehicles trying to leave Le Barrier. I was pro active ( as I sometimes surprisingly can be!) and got on the phone to the company whilst we were still second in line to leave. Luckily I managed to speak to someone with good Anglais, who managed to lift Le Barrier remotely for us and Lyn managed to break the sound barrier by driving Dwti through it in less than 15 seconds. Phew, we were out and it had only taken us two hours. What Une Resulte!

It was time to hit the dreaded peages or toll roads to enter into Spain. Viva Espange and hopefully non barrieres coquines!