And here we are, day six I think. They're all rolling into one.
It was a long drive today 340 miles with just two short comfort breaks. The lure of the sun is getting stronger, not because it's cold, in fact it's been like late spring than early spring, but because we want to unwind the awning, and sit with a glass of vino in the evening sun. Wearing shorts and tees.
The rolling French countryside is a joy to drive through. We'd done a few hundred miles on the majestically sweeping toll roads, to get us down south quicker. I don't drive fast when in Helga, because we're never, ever, in a hurry. I get the speed up to around fifty ish, sixth gear, cruse control, and watch the kilometers climb. We hadn't yet met the vast vineyards, lots of fine white Charolais cattle, very few sheep, but there are enormous great chicken sheds, I think, but they could be pigstys.
We came across a sign tellig us we were approaching a services in the centre of France. Good place for a pee and stretch the legs. It was set on an elevated point with views for miles, there was huge chateau just before but no access to take a wee photo.
French tourism seems to knock ours into a cocked hat, but it could be relative to the size of the country. Everywhere we've been, we've seen all nationalities, hordes of school kids, bursting into animated conversation. One thing about the French, if they'd no arms they'd be dummies!
It's a good job the roads are so amazingly good, there are countless thousands of HGV's rolling along twenty four six. Maybe not quite as many at the weekend, and they all seem to drive in excess of sixty fife mph. Never been passed so much in my life.
Litter, we started counting the pieces of litter we saw on the toll roads, in fact all roads, and saw four pieces in all those miles. It's a very clean country, and it's the people that keep it that way.
now, you'll probably have gathered my wee friend Norman Navigator is a wee prat. I yelled at him in Le Mans, he is on his final oral warning, so lets se where we go.
Not being able to converse in French has certain seriuos drawbacks, not least being able to ask directions. Well, since we were misplaced yet AGAIN, we stopped a spritely looking lady clearly out for a brisk walk. She must have liked walking because at this point we were yet again, in the arse end of nowhere.
Where we wanted to be was about twenty kilometers away, so where we were going was only about five. We were on a warning light for fuel, and the French country roads are not ideal to run out of diesel.
I showed her the map that had Aires de Service du camping cars marked. It was a no brainer, we meant to be west of Beaune, a fabulous region for white burgundy, but we were in fact miles away but nearer to another site. She guided us to the other place in quite good English and we happily found it to be a large modern supermarket with facilities for us nomads. This of course was not long after we thought she guided us into somebodys large farm yard. The way the road was laid out, and don't forget we're on narrow twisty country roads here, seemed to end in a farmyard but in fact went round a sharp corner, and then all was merry and clear. Except of course that wee object of venom sitting in the dashboard. Might change his name to Dashboard Dick.
There was no charge, except for TWO EURO you get ninety litre of water, and fifty five minutes of leccy. There is also a car/van wash a place to empty both wastes, and the supermarket was an alladins cave of gastronomic delights. Margaret, I said, if you dont get me outta here you'll be rolling me home.
We behaved and indeed restricted our desires to be on the safe side. There would doubtless be further incursions into the sacred cathedrals of  cholestrol inducing divinity. Seems to be okay if you're French though, they thrive on it. I bought a very good bottle of Merlot for 2.40 around £1.80 absoutely delicious, wonder what I'd  get for a fiver??                                                                        The name of this village? Saint Bonnet De Joux a lovely place to rekindle the spirit of adventure.
Go on, look it up.

Day 7 or Norman, last chance.

Woke up to bright sunlight and opened the roof blinds. FROST? Whats going on here? We're half way  down France and we're getting frost. A quick look at the outside revealed a lowly two point five degrees of frost.
I had to wash the muck and mire off Helga before we went any further, if only to erase the memory of Margaret walking at the back of Helga, in the pitch dark with only a torch guiding me to sanctuary that was the open road once again. I'm chuckling as I write this, because generally Margaret doesn't "do" darkness on country roads, with not a soul apart from me, to rescue her from all sorts of wild animals. And I was bust at the time getting stuck and unstuck. Still, that's the story of my life.

Anyway, I got Helga all shiny and clean and we headed out again. I put Capagnac into Norman. When Margaret was outside I gave him his sternest talking to ever, if he got us lost, sorry, misplaced again, I would feed him to Charlie. I have to say Charlie has behaved impeccably on the whole journey so far. He is growning his fan base rapidly, might have to give him his own Facebook page.

The village of Campagnac was reached after another very enjoyable drive.It was only two hundred and twelve miles, of more exceptionally good roads. several thousand more HGV's and dozens of motor homes.
We used our own common sense this time in equal quantities of Normans Navigational Nonsense and found our destination in no time. We wanted to throw a party, but since we were there with just one other motor home, who incidently were from England, and since we were right next door to the Gendarmerie, we just had a party for three.
Driving takes its toll. Especially on the continent where you have to be even more alert, and considering our mileage. We've been climbing into bed after two or three drinks and at ten or so at night. I like this though, because we wake early and get everything done at leisure and still manage to get on the road early.
We awoke this morning to rain and what looked like fog. Well, if we had weather like this it was best to drive and drive out of it. Since it was raining, we decided to drive up through the vilage because we saw sod all last night. We started off in what was the direction of the church steeple, up a wee side street and rounded a corner. What we saw there was just the pits, this was a really ancient village and there was no planning  regs in those days. The houses were almost in rows like normal villages except this place had two budings that were out of sync with everything else. No way Helga would get round that corner, so once again, reversing with Margaret leading the way. At least it was daylight, pouring with rain, but daylight. And no beasties!
We gave up and pointed her in the direction of Perpignan.
This was the part of the trip I was most looking forward to. We would drive through the Pyrenees, over the worlds longest highest bridge, or certainly Europes, and down the other  side towards Spain.

The scenery never let us down. Today we would drive three hundred and twenty nine miles of mountain roads, long tunnels, snow covered fields, majestic views, and all in the comfort of lovely Helga.
As we climbed we quickly realized we weren't in fog, but low cloud, in fact in places many places we were driving along above the clouds.
Our first destination would be Millau, the link will describe it far more ably than me. The trip was straightforward, in fact ould Norman took us straight to our destination, a campsite within walking distance of the town. The last stretch of the journey wasn't very pleasant, the cloud had intensified as we were up at over 1100 meters and could see very little apart from the road. When we arrived at our next stop we discovered it to be closed for winter.
Not good, not good at all. We really wanted to stay here so we put another site into Norman and set off. We found the site quite easily but we passed it because it was all closed up and we missed the entrance. The signs had pointed us here so we drove until the road turned to track, and this was over half a mile up the side of a friggin mountains time. Oh well. I'm quite the expert at reversing and Margaret loves the exercise! We'd only hone a lots of yards when M spied a pace that with lots of care and several goes, we could turn. This we did, and let me tell you, by this time I just wanted to be on a site with no driving for a few days.
Because of the worsening low cloud we just decided to forego seeing Millau Viaduct and head for the sun.
Spain wasn't far away, and tomorrow would be better.
We headed south again and after more fabulous scenery, we met a sign decreeing we were now in Spain. No passports, no customs, not even a break in the smooth road.
We'd made the first part of the journey safely. Not without incident, but that was only because of an errant 2014 model of Navman



I'm sitting in the sunny brightness that is Helgas living room typing this, the sun is shining on the Mediteranean no more than three hundred yards away.
What would you do?