Tin Can Travels

16th Nov – 26th Nov 2023

We bade farewell to Almerimar and the desert conditions of the southern Spanish Mediterranean coast and headed inland to the city of Granada. This route took us up into the foothills of the western Sierra Nevada mountains onto a far more scenic inland plateau. Here there were thousands of acres of olive groves – welcome greenery after the coastal barren hillsides and the unsightliness of its endless growing houses. Davide easily pulled up the hills, his youthful 170 horses barely noticing that we have been slowly adding to his burden. Aside from the things that we are carrying around that are unlikely to be used again on this trip (tent, double air mattress, spare camp chair, BBQ, boules, ukulele, beach towels, etc), there are the plenty of aquisitions (ten European Lonely Planet books -thanks Dave & Anita, a watering can to top up the tank, a ground sheet, a drinking water container, a doormat), and there are the things that we are likely to need as winter kicks in and we move north (coats, boots, plug in heater). We also usually have a fridge full of food, cans and packets in the pantry, and of course, the ‘drinks cabinet’. Luckily we have uprated Davide’s total legal onroad weight from 3500kg to 4000kg to allow for our increasing payload but there will be a ‘review of onboard possessions’ on our return to base’ in January.

Granada’s setting is beautiful as it sits in a broad depression surrounded by mountains and fertile agricultural land. Camp here was about 8km out of the city centre and was a small family run place situated down a narrow lane. It had the whiff of medium security prison compound about it being essentially an acre of gravelled parking with a solid 8ft ft tall perimeter fence. We bowled up and rolled in without a booking to find it unexpectedly busy and the owner a little flustered. Happily she found a space for us and we squeezed ourselves into our compact pitch and plugged in. Close proximity parking like this is usually absolutely fine as most van dwellers are fairly quiet folk. Unfortunately our initial neighbours were a British family with two toddlers who sounded like they were amusing themselves by ricocheting of all the internal walls of their motorhome. This sound carries. I felt sorry for them and intense annoyance of them in equal measures.

The main benefit of this camp (apart from the security, electricity, hot showers, water and sewage facilities) was its location of the tram route into the city. With the aid of a travel card provided by the camp host, the half hour journey into the centre was the princely sum of 33c each. Nuts. These cards get passed around the guests, with the ability to reload money onto it at the machine at the station. Otherwise the journey without the card was $1.65. Still very reasonable for a clean, efficient and well executed service that took us right where we wanted to go. Bingo! People take the tram and the city centre isn’t full of cars. It’s not rocket science.

We headed into Granada late afternoon with a vague plan to soak up a bit of early evening atmosphere and have dinner. This inland city of about 225,000 people has a different vibe to Barcelona and Valencia. It felt more Spanish, and although it still has alot of tourist visits, the crowds felt more domestic than international. The ‘big ticket’ tourist drawcard for Granada is The Alhambra. A vast Moorish palace and fort complex build atop the rocky hill overlooking the city. This Unesco World Heritage Site is one of the most famous monuments of Islamic architecture in the world. Building commenced in 1238 by Muhammad I Ibn al-Almar,the first Nasrid emir and founder of the Emirate of Granada, the last Muslim state of Al-Andalus. It was added to and modified over the centuries with Charles V commissioning up a Rennaissance-style Palace addition in 1526, which was never finished. The whole place fell into disrepair for a couple of hundred years until it was rediscovered in the early 19th C by British and American intellectuals and ‘romantic travellers’, including the American Washington Irving who set his 1832 novel Tales of the Alhambra here. Anyway, this is one of Spain’s most visited tourist sites and (as we had underestimated the public’s enthusiasm for visiting it) there were no (reasonably priced) tickets left for sale for the days that we were here. We weren’t too disappointed as by now we had done a lot of viewing ‘old sh*t’ and knew we would be content to see it from the outside.

On our first foray into the city I convinced my brave and loyal companion that (as suggested by a few tourist guides) it might be good to walk across town and ascend the hill opposite the Alhambra, thus gaining a good view of it as sunset approached. Then we could have an aperitif at one of the bars nearby before finding somewhere to have dinner down at lower altitudes. This was a good idea in theory, but one that about a million other people had had too. The climb up to the Mirador San Nicholas, a small church, was along steep cobbled streets, up steps and through noarrow alleyways. It was sunny and hot and a pointless endeavour as when we got to the top, sweaty and thirsty, with all the other sunset pilgrims, all the best lookout spots had been taken and were five people deep, the bars and restaurants with any view had long queues to get in and actually, sunset was still about 30 minutes away. Another great idea ruined by Instagram. There was a good view of the Alhabmbra. We took mediocre photos and walked down again. My brave and loyal companion might have done some swearing about how pointless the whole exercise had been. I am inclined to agree with him.

Down in town we found a place for a Vermut Rojo or several, (they are so good!) waiting until Nick’s restaurant of choice opened at 7pm. When the hour came we relocated to the back street Tapas intitution expecting to find it empty, still laying tables and the wait staff expectantly greeting us as their first customers of the evening. This is, after all, Spain. They don’t come out until 8pm at the earliest……………well no. The place was packed, loud, full of already well-oiled people of all ages but mainly students, and the wait staff were in a state of controlled frazzle. It was bonkers and very obvious that the online advertised opening time of 7pm was a lie. After several attempts to flag down one of the waiters we managed to procure a rare and valuable available table-for-two in a corner. This was located between another small table situated so close that we were basically sharing a table for four with a delightful pair of young German sisters and on the other side there was a row of backsides belonging to half of a group of loud, boistrous students stood around a neighbouring high-top table. Having said that, they were not being antisocial, just some of the bums came a bit close for comfort! We were concerned for the safety of our wine. As we were ordering our dishes for dinner our German neighbours had a delivery of one that caught Nick’s eye: a plate of salted crisps draped in anchovies. A salty delight that was rapidly added to our order. We were in the process of ordering an additional dish when our waiter said ‘no’, ‘that’s enough’. A wise man that either despised food waste or knew that our tiny table had limited space for plates. Either way, he was right. By the time we were finishing off our meal the German sisters had been replaced by an older Spanish couple from Valencia who spoke no English. Despite our corresponding lack of Español we had a nice chat and a laugh with them about….well, no idea really. But they were also delightful.

We revisisted the city the next day for further exploration. It was Sunday and the streets were busy with folk dressed in their Sunday best, cruising around and starting to settle into places for lunch. This seems to be a theme in the Spanish cities that we have visited thus far. It all feels very civilized. Our strollings took us past, and into a few churches and the cathedral. It being Sunday most had mass in progress, so our stays were brief. We hit a tidal flow of humanity heading in the direction of the Alhambra (we presumed), so followed it for a while. The route took us past a sunny plaza upon which there was an open session of couples tango dancing. They were all shapes, sizes and ages, although mainly a bit older, and all were doing quite a good job. We wandered on and the road got narrower and more crowded. Pavements were non-existant and the two-way human traffic was battling with this also being a bus route. We peeled off for a time-out (and beer, obviously) in a small bar and then rejoined the masses. The route took us up and around the Alhambra, approaching it from the rear via a wide cobbled path. At the top, after the wheezing had diminished, we confirmed that there were no tickets available to go inside and which bits we could see for free. We did the free bits on our way back down the hill and headed back into town in search of a late tapas lunch. Our initial choice, another Anthony Bourdain haunt, was perhaps predictably, rammed, as were all the other recommended establishments. We finally found a place that brought us back from the brink of near starvation with the aide of a plate of fried anchovies, some croquettes and our first flamenquins (Serrano ham wrapped around pork loin and battered and deep fried. MMMMmmm). With full tummies we shuffled back to the Gulag with the aid of the tram and decided that Granada was a thoroughly fine place.

The following day took us to Jerez De La Fonterra. Home of Sherry. This involved a reasonable drive of about 3 hours through more olive groves with mountain views. All very scenic. Jerez camp was interestingly located, being on the site of a large out-of-town shopping centre. What amenities do we look for close to a campsite? Well how about KFC, Burger King, Five Guys, C&A, an outlet village, a hypermarket, a full shopping mall, a go-cart track and an Ikea? We settled in then couldn’t resist a wander. We ended up in Ikea, a store we hadn’t visited in over 20 years. It was interesting doing a recreational tour of the Swedish retail giant whilst being in both the position of really not needing anything and also being very limited on space. We came away having spent the princely sum of €1.49 on two cork drinks coasters. I think this might be a record world-wide.

Despite being ‘out-of-town’ we were only about 3km from the centre of Jerez. and the next day we walked into town for the first of our two engagements. This was the midday show of the Andalucian dancing horses. Jerez is home to The Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art Foundation, one of the ‘big four’. The others being the Spanish Riding School of Vienna, The (French military) Cadre Noir and the Portuguese School of Equestrian Arts. The horses and riders are trained in conventional dressage and some perform other feats such as jumping in the air for photo ops. The 90 minute show was set to music and was an impressive display of both horsemanship and the time commitment it takes to persuade a horse to skip on the spot and look like it is enjoying it having riden it in circles for twenty minutes.

We were impressed, but equally keen for it to to come to its conclusion so that we could head to our second appointment: a sherry tasting tour. This involved a leisurely 45 minute walk across town which delivered the classic offerings of old town, narrow streets, churches, an Alcazar and hundreds of urban orange trees laden with ripening fruit. Research (ie asking Google) has informed me that these oranges belong to the local municiple bodies and are not free-for-all-fodder. They look and smell lovely, but ripe fruit can be both a ‘hit you on the head’ and a ‘slimy, slippery mush on the pavement skidding’ hazard. When ripe the bitter, non-eating fruit is picked by a legion of temporary workers, no doubt cauing traffic chaos, and then used to make marmelade or sometimes just composted. Seems quite a thankless endeavour all round and possibly not worth the aesthetics.

There are many Sherry Bodegas in this area but Nick had done some research and selected one called Lustau for our tour. This is a more boutique and quality brand than the bigger ones like González Byass (who make Tio Pepe), but the place was still vast. Our English-language tour had only two other people on it, a Scottish couple called Stuart and Kate who have lived in Conneticut for twenty years. The tour wound its way through the cavernous barrel storage warehouses with the tastings of the various sherries along the way. We learned many interesting sherry facts. Did you know that sherry barrels are not sealed but that the stoppers are loose so as to allow the atmospheric yeasts and bacteria to contribute to the maturation process? Or that it is so important to maintain a humidity of 80% in the warehouses that they water the sandy floors at least weekly? Well now you do. We got on like a house on fire with our co-tourers and spent so long chatting that our guide had to politely chivvy us along the tour and out of the tasting room/shop at the end. We continued our nattering at a bar across the road and then they kindly gave us a lift home in their rental car before heading off to Seville. It was a very good day.

A brisk wind and showers the next day prompted us to have a lazy day ‘à van’ and to extended our planned stay here by a night – Oh the joy of having no set itinerary! This meant that we could take our next excursion, a day trip by train to the nearby town of Cádiz, on the sunny day that followed. Now the simple way of visiting Cádiz would have been to up sticks, drive the 25 minutes there and find a parking space. Both easily done, but we chose the much more complicated and time consuming option of public transport. The bus to take us to the train station took 20 minutes but was late so we missed our planned train. We bought tickets for the train and killed the hour until the next train drinking a coffee in the sunshine at a nearby cafe. (Very pleasant). On our return to the station we discovered that our train had been delayed, but that there was another train – run by different arm of same company- that was going to leave sooner. The tickets were not automatically interchangeable but a nice lady in the ticket office made a phone call and having annotated our tickets by hand said that we were good to go. This other train operated from a platform that was barrier controlled, and of course our tickets did not have the magnetic strips to let us through. The help button did not work and there was no-one official looking to ask. The train was imminantly departing so we tailgated other people through the barriers and finally we were on our way. This other train was the ‘stop-at-every-station’ variety and took nearly an hour so when we eventually arrived in Cádiz it had been nearly three hours since we left home. What a (minor) adventure!

Cádiz is one of those impossibly lovely places. Originally an island it is now joined to the mainland and sticks out into the eponymous Bay of Cádiz as a huge fortified pennisula. It is a major port and cruise ship terminal but away from the bustle of big boats and the cruising crowd it is a picturesque collection of churches, fine houses, narrow cobbled streets, promenades and yellow sandy beaches. It was gloriously sunny and there were even a few people sunbathing on the beach and one or two brave souls splashing around in the sea. As usual we wandered about but we are finding that as time progresses we are less inclined to pay money to go into historical buildings/castles/fortresses/cathedrals and more content to just appretiate them from the outsides. We have dubbed this ‘Old Sh*t Fatigue’. In two and a half years on the road in the USA we never suffered from OSF, but here we are after two months of being tourists in Europe and such is the enormous magnitude of Old Sh*t on offer, it had kicked in already. We will endure. The focus of the day was finding a lunch spot that catered for locals rather than the cruise ship passengers and we accidentally discovered a perfect spot down a back street. Tapas was consumed in a moderate quantity and afterwards we continued our mooching until it was time to get the train home again, the reverse trip being far quicker and far less eventful.

In Jerez our camp neighbours had been a British couple with whom we had exchange pleasantries, but not names. We had ascertained that we were all heading up to Seville from here and, perhaps not too unexpectedly as our camping options were limited in the city, we found ourselves pulling up right next to them again in our Seville site. This was a glorified, dockside car park only 2km from the centre of the city that (sort of) catered for campervans but was also a staging post for the (moderately loud) loading and unloading of cars onto and off car transporters. It had a noisy end and a less noisy end and we made a beeline for the quieter, furthest reaches of the site. It was here that we discovered our British co-travellers and finally exchanged introductions as well as a few more pleasantries. Dave and Sarah are a far more dedicated and energergetic type of tourist than us and we barely saw them during our two day stint here. They were out for hours and hours. We were only out for hours.

We cycled to the historic centre of Seville which was suprisingly easy with the great network of cycle paths, providing one avoided the jeapordy of trams, tram tracks, tourist horse carriages and the multitude of pedestrians. Here we tied up the machines and headed off on foot. The big ticket item in Seville is its enormous, sprawling gothic cathedral. This, we decided, was worth paying the entrance fee to see inside. But nope, not going to happen. We continue to underestimate the appetite of the vast number of post-covid travellers to explore ‘Old Sh*t’ and all the (only-available-online) tickets had been sold for the next two days. Back to Plan A of ‘just looking at it from the outside’. It was still very impressive. There is an Alcazar here but we didn’t feel like tackling the ticket battle for that either so we mooched around the narrow lanes of the old town, had a drink in a roof-top bar and then went to find the ‘largest wooden structure in the world’ The Metropol Parasol.

This is a trippy, mushroom-like, latticed structure that towers over a raised plaza cost €76 million to build and was completed in 2011. It’s an impressive piece of modern art that seemingly serves little purpose other than to provide some shade and an unusual selfie backdrop. Our wanderings brought us back to the bikes and we headed home through Maria Luisa park and past the massive Plaza España. This was built to represent Spain in the 1929 Iberian-American World Expo. It was the biggest construction of the expo. Home advantage rules.

The next day we cycled up along the river cycle path to a more northern area of the central city area to visit a market that was hotly recommended in various publications, Mercado de Feria. By the time we arrived the market was winding up and lunch hadn’t yet begun. Another classic failure of timings. The hour was saved by a couple of glasses of beer sat in the sun at a small neighbourhood bar nearby and then we headed back to the central area through the narrow cobbled streets. This was a blast as on the the bikes we were as fast as any car can travel along these winding roads. With Google maps leading the way we were swept along in the slow tide of traffic through small squares and along ancient alleys and streets. Everywhere there were busy pavement cafes, and bars and restaurants with people spilling out of them as the Spanish took their aperitifs in big groups prior to Saturday lunch. Once back in familiar territory we tied up the bikes again and found ourselves a spot for our own lunch. This was no mean feat given the fact that the city was teeming with thousands of far more organised folk with restaurant bookings all doing the same thing. We finally found two seats at the bar of a slightly more upscale tapas place and managed to eat before we got too hangry with each other. It was delicious. Tuna tartare on mini toasts, cubed iberico pork on brioche, deep fried fish bites, hand cut chips smothered in a brace of delicious sauces and some crocquette things that I’m sure we didn’t order. All washed down with a couple of vermut rojo. Our cycle home was slower, with a food infused dreamlike quality.

The next day as we were all preparing to leave we struck up conversation with Dave and Sarah again. This conversation ended with not so much a ‘Bon Voyage and nice briefly chatting with you’ as a ‘Okay, see you later!’ as it transpired that we were, once again, planning to move on to the same campsite in the same town. Our free-form travel itineraries had synchronised and a friendship was born. Next stop Portugal.

31st Oct – 16th Nov 2023

Well, after a bit of subconscious delaying, we finally extracted ourselves from La Belle France and gingerly entered Spain. As I discussed previously, despite it being a well known land to many, this is a country of many unknowns to us, and our severe derth of Spanish language skills was the biggest of these. We have now been here for more than three weeks and the list of ‘peculiar things about Spain’ is growing.

The language: Luckily most people speak a bit of English, and this includes all the Dutch, German and Scandinavian travellers that we meet along the way. If not, then Google Translate comes to the rescue. The technology astounds me. I am trying to learn some Spanish with Babbel, but getting understood is difficult with a language where many pronunciations are so different. A ‘z’ is a ‘th’, a ‘c’ can be a ‘th’, but not always. A ‘g’ is a peculiar noise generated in the back of the throat that English speakers would only use prior to ‘hocking a loogy’ and the ‘v’ noise doesn’t exist here, even though they insist on using it as a letter. It is also a language of little ennunciation where words run into each other like babbling brooks. So all in all -confusing and impossible! But we have bumbled our way this far, making an effort where possible, making apologies, accidentally using a lot of French and relying on many gestures. We have fed and watered ourselves, got from A to B, and found places to stay. These are all markers of success!

The Architecture: The ancient buildings and contructions of the people ruling and governing Spain throughout the ages are impressive, but they seem to have lost their way with architectural design and construction planning somewhere in the 20th C. The discovery of the rectangle and the invention of salmon coloured concrete coupled with the distractions of a Civil War and a long dictorship were followed closely by the birth of of cheap air travel and the common man discovering the closely guarded secret that the sun shines most of the time in Spain, whereas in Northern Europe it is mostly pissing with rain and cold. These factors, along with the fact that Spanish people need somewhere to live too, led to the mass building of less-than-beautiful apartment blocks. Spain, generally, has not struck us as a beacon of inspired urban design. (Don’t want to call it ugly, but…)

The daily routine: Confusing. I think the Spanish are a distinct sub-species of human with a completely different circadian rhythmn to most others. Now maybe this makes a lot more sense in the heat of a sultry south-European summer, but we are struggling to adapt to it with the cooler, dark evenings of November. I am not sure what they do in their mornings, what time thay are getting up and having breakfast, but the shops and businesses seem to be open from about 11am to 2pm, then shut for ‘lunch’ for at least 3 hours. Lunch happens mid-afternoon. Then what? A nap? Then presumably one gets up to watch sunset, then goes back to work until 7pm. Then what’s happening for the 2-3 hours before you go out to dinner at 10pm? (My guess is either drinking or shopping). What time do you go to bed and then get up? It’s madness. If we eat out for lunch at 1pm or dinner at 7.30pm we find ourselves eating in deserted restaurants and then leaving just as the early-bird Spaniards are just starting to drift in. I can’t get a handle on it.

Shopping: Pretty much all Spanish supermarkets will have a display of Iberico ham as per the photo. There are a lot of the back legs of pigs being bought and sold. It seems disproportionate to the amount of the other bits of pig available. The Spanish don’t really do hypermarkets. You know, that one mega store where you can buy everything you need. The USA has Walmart and Target, The UK and France has its ‘supermarkets on steroids’. The Spanish seem to have a bazillion small shops all selling a narrow variety of things – sometimes just ham. Great for a local economy, not so handy for a pair of blithering tourists manouvering a sizeable vehicle and just needing to stock up on basics or that one useful thing. Our search continues.

Seasonal sartorial choices and thermoregulation: Now we are on the southern meditereanean coast of Spain in mid- late November and the weather is still fairly glorious. In the past few weeks we have seen daytime temperatures between 23 and 27 deg C and the sun has been shining almost continually. We have been back wearing our summer gear and wearing hats and suncream. The Spanish are in coats, jumpers, boots and in some cases, wearing woolly hats and scarves without looking hot and sweaty. The window displays of all the clothes stores are full of winter gear. Now I do appreciate that these current temperatures are a significant reduction from the 35-45 deg C of the summer days, but is their blood that thin?? And what will they wear when it gets even colder in Jan & Feb? I worry about them.

The Food: This is obviously where I talk about Tapas. What a bloody marvellous invention. Can’t decide what to order off a menu? Doesn’t matter! Order six or seven different things! Not really hungry but fancy a snack? Get a paper cone of deep fried anchovies/cheese cubes/shaved Iberian Jamón. Hungry? Get two or three plates of fried anchovies and then realise that you have eaten A LOT of critters in one sitting. Fancy a salad? Forget it. You can make do with a plate of sliced tomatoes covered with oil and more anchovies and then get on with the real business of eating deep fried things/stuffed things/cheesy things/meaty things. Why are these people not all massive? That would certainly keep them warmer in winter.

Vermouth Rojo: our new favourite aperitif drink – and nothing like the Martini Rosso that we all remember from our teens. Syrupy, simultaneously sweet and bitter like a good marmalade, best served neat over ice with a slice of orange and several anchovy stuffed olives. Delicious and cheap as chips!! Possibly one should only have one before dinner but 2-3 is better.

Driving: I’m not saying that the Spanish are bad drivers, but some of them drive quite differently from us. Nuff said.

Precipitation: Nope

So obviously a reasonable amount of time has passed since we got here, so to try and catch up a bit I’m going to summarize our destinations so far:

Roses:

A tortuous, wiggly and hilly coast road took us across the border (marked by a derelict, grafitti-covered immigration booth) to this coastal town. For some unidentifiable reason it was very busy with motorhomes and all the designated campsites were full so we had one boon-dock night on a back street with about 15 other vans. Safety in numbers. It had a good beach, but was lacking a wow-factor. We walked a long way along the front and back . There were loads of street sellers, with identical stock of trainers, handbags and puffer coats, their wares all laid out beautifully on white bed sheets. Would we come here again? No.

Figueres:

A nice little town half an hour inland from Roses where we came for one reason only – to visit the Salvador Dalí Museum. This was built in a repurposed theatre in the town that Dalí grew up in, and curating it was his final great work before he died. He is also buried here.

“I want my museum to be a single block, a labyrinth, a great surrealist object. It will be [a] totally theatrical museum. The people who come to see it will leave with the sensation of having had a theatrical dream” Salvador Dalí

It was very busy with many human log-jams and many of the spaces were quite cramped and dark. It was expectedly bonkers with many irreverent pieces of art but interestingly the most impressive and memorable work in the whole place was his 1951 painting: Christ of St John of the Cross, a quite conventional (albeit unusually composed) and reverent oil painting of the crucifiction. I felt less like I had had a ‘theatrical dream’ than I had been to busy souk with a sale on. Good but done once is enough.

Barcelona:

Spain’s second biggest city. Well known to many. We spent six nights in a beach side campsite about 12km south of the centre. Our stay was so long as we wanted to visit the Sagrada Familia and the next available tickets were further into the future than expected. Poor planning by us but not a bad place to hang out. Easy bus ride into town and we went three times. Highlights? Beautiful buildings to gawk at whilst strolling, whether Gaudi or not, captivating Gothic Quarter with countless narrow, dark streets to explore, handsome waterfront with impressive super yachts, hidden squares full of restaurants, fantastic, vibrant, covered market stuffed full of meat, cheese, tapas, vegetables, fruit and wide-eyed tourists like us. Campsite right on the beach. Lowlights? Beachfront campsite also at the end of the runway of Barcelona airport, so a trifle noisy. La Rambla. Nothing really to see here except all the tourists who have come to see what is here. It’s just a busy pedestrian street. Sagrada Familia. Don’t get me wrong. This completely bonkers, legacy(/vanity) project by Gaudi is impressive and worth a see, but it costs an arm and a leg to get inside, which didn’t really seem worth the money. The light was beautiful, as were the columns and internal structure, but it was heaving. All my photos are orientated upwards so as to cut out the hoards. Oh, and despite the recent international news to the contrary, it is still far from finished. I think they were hoping it to be done by 2026, the centenary of Gaudi’s death, but apparently due to the ‘delays caused by Covid’ (you can’t use that as an excuse- you’ve been building it for 144 years, people!) it may not be 100% finished until 2040. Food and drink highlight? La Plata, a tiny, 75 year old tapas joint that featured on Antony Bourdain’s show. Here we ate the aforementioned mountain of deep fried anchovies and were introduced to red vermouth whilst standing at the bar because it was so busy. It is an institution. Would we visit Barcelona again? Hell yes!

Peñiscola:

A town with a slightly risqué name if you don’t pronounce it correctly, which of course we alway do…! Another small coastal beach town, but this time with some charming bits in the form of an old town built on a rocky knob (careful…), an impressive castle built atop that, a small fishing port and a long beach with a holiday resort. Two nights here gave us plenty of time to explore the old town and the photogenic castle which was built as a fort by the Knights Templar- a very wealthy and educated organisation of warrior monks. In the 14th C it became the residence/refuge/prison for Pope Benedict XIII making Peñiscola the third papal seat of the world behind The Vatican and Avignon. True story. At 4pm a siren heralded the return of the small fishing fleet and the promise of being able to buy fresh fish off the dock, but it transpired that the siren just summoned a gaggle of people to gather to take photos of crated fish that were then whisked away to the commercial market. A deserted bar on the walls of the old town made a great vantage point to watch sunset over the hills with a beer. A bike ride around to the other side of the bay showed us that the resort bit of town was nondescript, although the beach was nice. Would we visit again? Probably.

València:

Spain’s third biggest municipal area and Europe’s 5th busiest container port doesn’t have a classic waterfront, what with the ships and cranes and everything. The city created a 9km long, thin urban park when the river Turia was redirected in the middle of the 20th C to combat the constant flooding. The river was converted to green space and it was a genius idea that they have executed brilliantly. València is the birthplace of paella and we managed to squeeze one in along the way. I have learnt that true paella should contain no sausage or seafood but can contain plenty of chicken, duck, rabbit and even snails. It should be baked no more than 2cm deep in its traditioanal flat pan in a hot oven until there are plenty of crispy bits around the edges and on the bottom. Also, paella is only served at lunch time. In the evenings one can eat Fideuà, a dish a bit like paella, but that contains seafood and vermicelli in place of rice. So not like paella really except for the fact it is cooked in the same pan and the crispy bits are just as important. We managed to squeeze one of those in too. Our camp here was about 8km out of the city and situated on both a bus route and a great cycle path that went along the beach and then into the city too. On our cycle into the city it became obvious to us that one section of the beach dunes was attracting the presence of a disproportionate number of single men. Some with no clothes on. Even in November one can get an all over tan here and then find plenty of like minded people to show it off to. At least that is one explanation for what was going on. Valencia had its fair share of old buildings to appretiate with the addition a trio of quite left field modernist constructions at the end of the Turia Park: an arts centre, a science centre and an an aquarium. These are co-located on a magnificent plaza and are a feast for the eyes. Vàlencia or Barcelona? Barcelona takes it for us.

Dénia:

This was a place plucked from the ether as a stop on our way south. We knew nothing about it but it turned out to one of our favourite places so far. Smaller than the big cities, but so much more than being the most northerly holiday resort of the Coasta Blanca, it had an amazing marina, a great beach and promenade, a ferry port servicing the Balerics, an unassuming but well preserved old town and an imposing ruined castle looking down on it all from its rocky outcrop. We only had one night here, our stop being a municipally sanctioned ‘park up’ area in an empty lot near the beach that was home to about 50 campers. We wandered all about, up the rock and down the prom and sneaked in a sunset drink at the marina. Not too shabby. Would definitely return.

Cartagena:

We skirted past the delights of Benidorm and Alicante and headed onward to Cartagena. This strategic port town with a huge historical back story having attracted settlement and seafarers from the times well before the Roman Empire decided that it was a good spot, through to the present and it now being the site of a major naval station and small cruise ship port. A bus trip from another out-of-town pit stop took us into the city for our usual mooch around. The city is not quite a picturesque as we had expected and although the waterfront was easy on the eye we had to dig deep in amongst the shopping and back streets to find the interesting bits of history. After a slightly disappointing visit we decided to head for home by getting on the right bus but in the wrong direction. A rookie error which was not a disaster but might have contributed to our Cartegena disillusionment. We will not rush back.

Almería:

Our roost here was a public, barrier-controlled carpark on a wide sea wall in the heart of the ferry port in the downtown of this city of 200,000 people. Almería sits between the sea and mountains and is overlooked by its imposing Alcazabar, the second largest Muslim fortress in Andalucia. (The Alhambra in Grenada has top spot.) Our car park was tolerant of overnight campervans and was a very handy location from which to explore the city and the end of the sea wall gave us a great vantage point for views of the sunset, the harbour master’s tower, the resident band of ferral cats and the comings and goings of the ferries. It was understandably, and expectedly, noisy and bright thus ensuring a one-night-only stay for us and most others. We spent our day here with a visit to the Alcazabar which was a delight. The slightly arduous climb up the hill was rewarded with amazing views down over the city, port and sea, and the place itself was well along the road of being lovingly restored. Weirdly we got in for free having given our nationality as ‘New Zealanders’ at the ticket office. It was the same for the Americans behind us. We didn’t stop to ask who did have to pay, but I have a sneaking suspicion that being ‘British’ might have cost us something. After exploring the Alcazabar we wandered into town, which had a charming old district. The impressive Cathedral was unfortunately shut for siesta, conjouring up a image of a priest locking the door then having a little lie down on a pew. Would we come here again? We would stop if we were passing through.

Amerimar:

This small, purpose-built resort town, complete with identikit apartments, huge marina and the obligatory golf course, is a mere 40km from Almería and was founded by a businessman called Agustín González Mozo sometime in the 1970s. (Apparently the Spanish for ‘founder’ is ‘fundador’, which is an excellent word and should be the descriptor for something far more jolly. Like a rodeo clown.) Anyway, we fancied a few days of quiet and calm, and a break from sightseeing, so the marina-based park here was perfect. Our view was a very fine sailing yacht, a lighthouse and a beach, and our German neighbour had a very sweet d0g called Barney who we had plans to kidnap. The relentless run of consistantly sunny days was briefly interuppted with a bizarre day of thick fog which mattered not a jot to us as we were going nowhere. This area of coastline apparently boasts the most hours of sunshine (3000 per year) in the whole of Europe and has an average annual daytime temperature of 20 deg C. These stats contibute to reasons why this area is also a massive growing area for fruit and vegetables. These are all cultivated under shade cloths in irrigated plastic growing houses that cover thousands and thousands of acres of the land. It is not pretty, one questions where the water is coming from and where all the plastic goes to, but I guess the people gotta eat. When you buy out of season produce in Tescos and it says it comes from Spain. This is that reality. No plans to return, although could think of far worse places to hang out over a winter.

So that is the story so far. The Spanish Med has delivered us nearly constant sunshine and autumnal warmth in a variety of mainly coastal historical towns and cities. We hadn’t foreseen that this trip would mainly be about urban exploring, but it has transpired that this is what Europe delivers best. This is a great time of year to do it.

17th Oct – 30th Oct 2023

Recovered from the exertions and extravagance in Marseille we rolled out of Sausset-Les-Pins the next morning. We had been staying in an aire run by a company called Camping Car Park who offer a type of overnight parking that you just don’t find in the USA. The parks are usually on the edge of a town or village and mostly fairly basic, often with no greenery at all. Spaces can be ‘compact’ and one shouldn’t expect a nice private area to sit out and call one’s own but they do have power to each site, fresh water and a place to drain grey and black water. Entry and exit is all controlled with a barrier and a swipe card pre-loaded with credit, so it is reasonably secure, and sites can be pre-booked or you can just turn up. The number of sites available at any one time can be viewed live on their app. It’s genius! And the average cost for a night’s stay at this time of year? €12. Perfect for us, who prefer to be plugged in rather than boondocking on a back street somewhere.

Anyway, we headed out from this Camping Car Park and had picked another one in the Camargue, a civilised 120 km drive away. The town was called Le Grau-du-Roi, a small coastal fishing port on the edge of the marshlands and salt pans of the Camargue National Park. We planned 3 nights here to do some walking and cycling and see some of the local wildlife – namely ponies and flamingos – and there was also a very cool, walled town nearby called Aigues-Mortes, meaning dead, or stagnant, waters that could be easily reached by bike. We found a space and walked to the nearby supermarket to get some provisions. We had tried to stop on the way in, but every entrance to its enormous car park was height restricted to prevent the entry of camper vans. How rude! And how very unlike the USA. After shopping and lunch we headed out for a stroll along the beach and around the town. It was windy and overcast and although not cold, the whole town, that I am sure was lively and bustling with T-shirted tourists only a few weeks ago had the slightly depressed air of an out-of-season holiday destination – which I suppose is was it was.

We did a lap, watched the swivelling bridge let a few big fishing boats into the marina and headed back. The next morning we surfaced and checked the weather before planning what to do for the day. It didn’t look good. Lots of rain and wind were on the way. Then we had a phone call from the admin team at Camping Car Park warning us that this particular campsite was at risk from flooding from rain and from inundation from large seas. This is a low lying marsh, after all. They recommended that we leave. Hmmmm. None of our fellow residents, all French, seemed to be breaking camp. We discussed our options and the pros and cons of staying put. In the end we decided to move on. Even if it didn’t flood here, 48 hours of wild weather was not going to condusive to wafting around the Camargue on bicycles, and we didn’t want to get stuck here, so we decamped.

The whole area was under a severe weather watch, starting that evening, so we headed to a place slightly inland and less liable to fill with water. We settled on a place called Mèze, another small fishing town, but this time on the inland side of the Etang-du-Thau, a large lake famed for its oyster and mussel farms. As we pulled up to the barrier there was a sign saying that the parking area flooded in heavy rain. Jeepers, can we catch a break??! We reversed away from the barrier and pulled in on the side of the road. The heavy rain was still forecast and the sky looked angry, but it was still dry. The area wasn’t exactly on high ground but not in a dip either, and there were no nearby hills or streams. This, coupled with a severe apathy to hunt out another site for the night made us brave, so we pulled in, parked up and plugged in. Let the skies throw what they may at us!

Despite the dark skies the rain remained elusive, the radar showing it pass to our north, so we decided to walk to the centre of the town of Mèze, and the waterfront area. This was about 2 km away through a fairly dull residential area and which would, in retrospect, have been much better to do on the bikes and my esteemed companion might have had less grumbling to do. The town was another of those myriad of small French conurbations that at first glance appears a bit utilitarian and unremarkable, but as you walk through its small winding streets it reveals its beautiful ancient homes, original cobbles and the odd medieval church or 500 year old fortress. Mèze also has a small fishing port and many oyster processing outfits and the Thau is full of the racks of the oyster farms.

Across the Thau, on the Mediterranean, lies Sète, a bigger fishing port town sitting at the base of the only hill in the area. Sète holds a special place in our hearts as we had spent 3 months living here in the summer of 2018. We had spent many an hour wandering its streets, visiting the beach, watching the many bouts of jousting from traditional oar-powered fishing boats-which is nuts! (https://en.tourisme-sete.com/fetes-de-la-saint-louis-2023.html). We had also had a french tutor during our time here. A very lovely lady called Marie-Claude. She had dragged our French from medicocre up to reasonable and we had many, many hours of fun and laughter disguised as classes. Now our language skills had degenerated back to very shabby from disuse, which is a shame.

Our sudden change in plans gave us an opportunity to have a last minute day trip to Sète and the next day we took the 45 minute bus journey from Mèze for a trip down memory lane. We didn’t get in contact with Marie-Claude, thinking that it was too short notice to meet up or that she might not remember us as fondly as we remembered her. We were also a bit embarrassed about the current quality of our French. I sent her an email after our visit, knowing that I would write about it here and knowing that she is still on my Tin Can Travels email list so may still read the blog and discover that we had been in town. Her reply was so warm and she does remember us very fondly, so now I am sad that we didn’t make contact with her. So sorry Marie-Claude, and let that be a lesson to me.

In the end we were in Sète for only about four hours but that was plenty of time to wander around all our old haunts, visit our old appartment (A small fourth floor place with no lift, no aircon and the strangest bathroom layout we have ever seen), and have a tielle. “What is a tielle?” I hear you cry. A tielle is a delicacy specific to Sète and is a pastry topped tart filled with a spicy octopus ragu sauce. The red sauce leeches through the pastry, making the tarts orange and they are delicious. We made a beeline for the tielle seller in the indoor market and bought a small one to share as a pre-lunch snack and then sat at a nearby pavement bar with a glass of rosé each to eat it – this being entirely acceptable behaviour. It did not dissappoint.

We wandered around the port to the lighthouse and then back along the main canal where we had a late lunch before catching the bus home, tired but happy.

The next day we headed to Narbonne, another place that we had visited before but were keen to revisit. It has a very grand, but truncated cathedral, the building of which was started in 1272 but was never completed. Pope Clement IV decided that the city needed a magnificent gothic cathedral to impress people and make him look marvellous and the altar and choir bits were built on a grand scale. Unfortunately lack of money and politics got in the way of its completion, and also it was realised that due to its close proximity to the city walls, there was no way of finishing the building without demolishing part of the city’s defenses. So now there is only space for a choir to sing its heart out with no space for a congregation to listen to them. What a c**K up! Sounds like HS2.

We chose to come to Narbonne for a few reasons:

1. Pretty
2. Old
3. Campsite 2km from city centre with cycle route along canal tow path.
4. Rugby town, so confident could find a bar showing the semi-finals with a bit of atmosphere and small crowd.
5. Nice safe cycle route to beach only 15 km away.

All these proved to be true except 4. Although, yes, this is a rugby town, no, we did not find bar showing the rugby that was a-buzz with a slightly rowdy, rugby-mad crowd. Instead we found O’Brians, an Irish bar, and Molly, one rugby-mad Irish girl who was a lot of fun, but did not constitute a rowdy crowd. The bar had a couple of TVs tuned to the action, but no-one else was interested. Since the French were knocked out in last round the locals seemed to have lost all interest in the rest of the competion. We bowled up in our All Blacks jerseys for the spectacle of NZ vs Argentina and quickly realised that Molly was the only other person watching. We invited ourselves to sit with her, at a small table right in front of the screens and spent a very lovely evening of rugby and non-rugby chit chat, and she forgave us for the fact the the All Blacks had knocked Ireland out of the competion in the last round. She is a nurse, solo travelling around France in her van, driving crazy miles, camping mainly in supermarket car parks and seeing as many of the games as possible having taken all her annual leave in one big lump. Respect to her! History will tell you that NZ won, we celebrated in a conservative manner and the evening was over. Our research had led us to discover that Narbonne (a French Division 2 team) was playing at home the next afternoon and the stadium was right here in town. We all decided to go, met Molly at the next day at the ground and watched a very entertaining game of local rugby.

The sun was shining, the brass band playing, the team mascot goofing and many tries were scored. We hoped that some of the 5000 spectators might stay in town to watch the other semi-final, South Africa vs England, thus creating a bit of atmosphere, but no. Off home they all popped. Never mind. We ate pizza together and then headed back to O’Brians, watching the game sat at the same table. A crowd of three again. Molly was supporting South Africa and we weren’t supporting England, so the Springbok’s victory was acceptable all round. We bade our goodbyes and promised to look her up as-and-when we hit Ireland in Davide.

We had the day out on our bikes and headed out to the beach at Guissan, only about 15km away. The compact electric machines continue to impress us and aside from not having any suspension so being bone rattlers on rough terrain, thay have made cruising around town and countryside a dream. Guissan has a small ‘old town’ which is seperate from ‘Guissan Chalets’, a large collection of stilted, beach-front holiday homes along a sand spit, best known as a set location for the 1986 French erotic psychological drama film, Betty Blue. Nowadays all the chalets have filled in their lower levels changing the look of the place a bit. It was quiet when we were here, eating our picnic baguettes on the sea wall, but I can imagine this place is very lively in the summer.

The rain that had been threatening for about a week finally caught up with us on our penultimate night in Narbonne and it chucked down from dusk until dawn. Heavy rain is very noisy on the roof and precludes all TV viewing or the enjoyment of any audio entertainment. Sleep was possible with ear plugs and in the morning the campsite was covered with large puddles. But not a flood. We had planned a quiet day but in the end it was incredibly social with long camp site conversations with passing Brits and several video chats with friends and family. We were exhausted!

The next day we rolled on again. This time along to Carcassone. This was another revisit but it is so beautiful that I wanted to go back again. The Cité, the older part, is built up on a small hill with the original settlement initially fortified by the Romans in about 100 BCE. Numerous chaps fought wars in the area, including the splendidly named Visigoths, and the city was an important stronghold, being incrementally enlarged and fortified. It was renovated in the 19th C back to it’s medieval glory and now looks like somewhere Harry Potter would live after he decided to live his life as a princess. It is also a complete and deserved tourist trap. The fortified Bastide, built on the lower ground in the 13th C is still referred to as the ‘new city’ and for a long time was a rival to it’s elevated, older neighbour. Our camp was a local authority run aire only about 1.5km from La Cité, also digitally controlled with a gate. This we couldn’t book ahead and all reports had said that to assure yourself of a spot you had to arrive early. This was good advice and we arrived at about midday, having only driven about 70km from Narbonne. Already spaces were running out. Happily we secured a spot and parked up. There was no power here, meaning we were relying on our two house batteries and solar panel, but that’s what Davide is designed for. We can live without the coffee machine and hair dryer for a couple of nights but we haven’t yet worked out how to charge the laptops when on 12v power. I suspect an inverter will be on the shopping list soon.

We strolled down the river and climbed up to La Cité to do our usual touristing technique of ‘walking around everywhere’. This included a basic lunch of panini and chips (excellent) sat in a courtyard suntrap with some shelter from the chilly wind and doing several laps of the streets whilst looking for the restaurant that we had eaten at on last visit. (Never found it). This area is renowned for its local dish, Cassoulet. Classically this is a slow cooked stew of beans, confit goose, mutton and sausage. We didn’t partake during this visit, but have bought a can as an ’emergency dinner’ for when hearty food is needed at short notice. For this it is perfect. On our second day here we wandered around the Bastide and found lunch in an interesting locals place down a back street. Here the ongoing cool wind outside and our lack of warm clothes were forgotten as we walked in and were met with a wall of heat created by the enormous open fire in the heart of the restaurant, at which Monsieur Le Chef was cooking sausages and steaks.

It was toasty warm, we were starving, they served wine, the menu de jour involved a double starter of soup and chicken mayonaise salad and then the main course consisted of succulent sausages being cooked in front of our very eyes. It is these things that make us very happy. We dragged ourselves and our full tummies home after I bought a pair of shoes. My current inventory of footwear includes flipflops and boots with not much inbetween. These last few days has reminded me that even if we are heading south, it is still winter and colder days are coming.

After Carcassone we were then looking for a place where we could watch the Rugby World Cup final between the All Blacks and South Africa. Perpignan is another rugby mad town along our route towards Spain, so we found ourselves in a village called Elne, which was near the city and had a train link into the centre. We could surely find a lively bar there to watch the game. On our way into camp we had one of those necessary stops of being on the road: the visit to the laundrette. The reality of doing laundry whilst travelling is that a) you do it much less often and so there is a lot more to do and b) it has a reasonable cost associated with it, but c) it is incredibly satisfying! Also we found a particulaly good (and deserted), clean and modern facility with parking right outside so we could hang out in Davide and have lunch whilst waiting. This sort of thing also makes us quite happy.

There was some confusion as we arrived at our next aire as the power was out and nothing (barrier, payment, water, hook ups) was working. Many people were leaving. We were going to find somewhere else too but spent enough time faffing around looking at the internet for an alternative option that it gave the electrician enough time to arrive and fix it. So we stayed. The next day we checked out the village of Elne to find it had unexpectedly pretty and historic centre with a church on a little hill in the middle. We had also caught market day which is always a feast for the eyes, even if we manage to resist the feast for the stomach.

After a blither about on foot we cycled up to the train station to ascertain its location (quite a way from camp so not really walkable) and to check the timetable. We could get to the city for the game, but the late finish would mean that we would have to get an Uber back. Not ideal, but do-able. Next we decided to have a trundle out to the coast, about 7km away. Here we found the coastal town of Saint Cyprien Plage, a quite delightful stretch of beach with a marina, a forgiveable array of unattractive, 70s built, boxy appartment blocks and a generous offering of restaurants and bars that were still open for business. Some mild investigative work revealed another motorhome aire here with views of the marina and a bar/restaurant that was showing the rugby final the next night. An alternative plan was hatched – one that didn’t involve a bike ride, a train, an Uber back to the station and then a bike ride back in the dark. We booked a table at the restaurant for the match and shifted camp the next day. The pitches in this next place were a bit snug, but its location was perfect. It was also only €10 for 24 hours. We spent our afternoon cyling up the beach a bit and stopped for a lounge and a (short) swim. Not bad for the 28th October!

The game. Let’s just get it over with and acknowledge that New Zealand were beaten.

It wasn’t due to some questionable refereeing decisions. It wasn’t for lack of us being correctly dressed and adorned with flags. It wasn’t because the restaurant’s big screen wasn’t big enough or that we weren’t sat close enough to it.

It wasn’t because we ate too much entrecôte and frites and it wasn’t because there were only five other supporters sitting with us. I think that South Africa were a bit better on the night an deserved to win, the outcome that Nick had predicted before the competion had even started. Our evening ended with a short cycle home rather than the alternative epic journey, which, in defeat, was easier to bear. Now it was all over, we could get on with some ‘normal’ travelling.

Perpignan was still so close and it would have been a shame not to see it, so we decided to go in the next day. This involved us moving back to the Elne aire, cycling to the station, leaving the bikes in a secure locker and taking a short 8 minute train journey.. This small city of about 120,000 is tucked into the corner of Catalan France and is the last major conurbation before Spain. It was the continental capital of the Kingdom of Majorca in the 13th and 14th centuries and has a nicely preserved old centre with narrow streets surfaced with polished stone. Unusually these narrow streets contitue the main retail area of the city although it was a Sunday when we visitied so everything was shut. The highlight of the day was a visit to the beautifully preserved Palace of the Kings of Majorca, an amazingly fortified chateau sitting up on a hill overlooking the city, giving some great views.

Now that the rugby was finished it was time to leave France and move into Spain and although it was only 40 km to the border we were finding the concept of this a bit hard. France is a comfortable place for us as we can speak enough French to communicate and it is very familiar. Spain, not so much. I had started learning a bit of Spanish with Babbel, but “¡Mucho Gusto!” wasn’t going to get us very far. Our decision? Mañana! It was another beautiful day, far too lovely to be driving. So what did we do? The next morning we moved back to Saint Cyprien Plage to be by the beach again. Yes, 100% delaying tactics. We spent the day cycling up the long coastal bike path to the next town, Canet-en-Rousssillon, a bigger version of Saint Cyprien. Here we found a mini golf course which was quite challenging, which is why my superior talent led to me being the (deserved but most gracious) victor.

Now we were ready to go to Spain.

7th Oct – 1th Oct 2023

We had nearly a week to kill before our next date with family and rugby games in Marseille, so we donated some more money to the French pèage (motorway toll) system and headed to a pretty, old and pretty old place, Avignon. Past home to popes who built a big palace, an intact city wall and a bridge that no longer fullfills its primary role of completely crossing a river, this was a place that we had visited in the summer of last year in our tent and we returned to the same campsite. This was a leafy, shady place just across the Rhône, an easy 1km cycle to the city walls. Unfortunately, despite the ongoing beautiful weather and warm temperatures in the late 20s, the pool had shut for the season, as had the campsite’s poolside bar/restaurant. A lot of France decides that September 30th is the end of summer, whatever the weather, and the rest of us can just lump it. Paff.

We had five nights here. After we had set up we realised that our site was under a tree that was dropping small seeds constantly, so the soundtrack of our stay was that akin to a squirrel playing a gentle, irregular, mono-noted glockenspeil as they hit the roof. Not annoying enough to move, but just a bit irritating. We had a day or two doing hardly anything, except that quietly productive pottering around that classifies things like laundry, cutting fingernails, and re-organising cupboards as achievements. Our biggest activity day had us breaking out the bikes and cycling out to Châteauneuf-Du-Pape. Here we visited the town cave of a winery called Famille Perin, a place we had been with friends Dean & Lori about 7 yeas ago. Our shopping spree was curtailed by pannier space, which put us on a four bottle limit, but somehow it feels right to be cruising around the French countryside on bikes, loaded up with as many wine bottles as one can carry. (Yes, it was all delicious, thank you for asking.)

We had several forays into the city itself. One was to find a bar in which to watch some rugby games on the Saturday evening. We found one that entirely fulfilled the remit and spent the evening chatting to an English chap in his 30s and a Welsh couple in their 70s. The food was mediocre, but the beer was ok, the company was good and the results expected. We also spent more than several hours aimlessly wandering the streets of this beautifully preserved, ancient but vibrant city. We had visited the Papal Palace last time so didn’t re-visit that, but saw lots of parts that were familiar from last year. We perused the cheese and meat in Les Halles, the indoor market hall, and ate a lunch of steak and salmon tartares served in little jars in a pavement café – very chic! We climbed the hill in the city to get the view from the small, elevated park and walked along the river to get a view of the city at sunset, and we watched the river cruise boats sail by. Avignon is a charming place and was a very fine place to spend a few days to gather our strength prior to our Marseille extravaganza.

And so to Marseille! France’s oldest city, it’s third most populous metroplitan area (after Paris and Lyon), one of Europe’s oldest continously inhabited settlements and host of half of the quarter final matches of the rugby. We had four tickets to each of the two games, and had a posse of six of us between which to distribute them. Our gang was us, Jon & Fran again, other brother Martin, and his bestie, Jamie, who is practically family as we’ve known him since he was 14. Fran had sorted out an Air Bnb in a suburb called L’Estaque where we had three nights. Marseille is not camper van friendly. There are neither any campsites anywhere near town, nor anywhere safe to park without risking a break in. So we had sorted out a site on an aire campsite about 30km away in a place called Sausset-Les-Pins that had a train station which took us both to L’Estaque, and also into Marseille centre. Sausset-Les-Pins is along the coast to the west of Marseille and once we had arrived and installed ourselves we walked the 1km down to the sea. This was our first encounter with the Mediterrean this trip and we were prepared, with swimsuits and towels packed and ready to go! The weather continues to be gorgeous and warm and the Med, although a bit rocky underfoot here, was also a fine place for a dip. Not very autumnal, not yet anyway. After our dip we looked for a beach shower for a rinse off so we could avoid needing a shower ‘in rig’. What we found was a waist height ‘beach tap’ which made for an amusing spectacle of contorsions as we endeavoured to de-saltify ourselves. Well we were amused, anyway.

Friday came and we packed up and packed out, walking the 1km to the station. L’Estaque was a short 23 minutes away on a very scenic train journey along the rocky coastline with a 10 minute stroll at the other end to our apartment. The suburb, as Fran succintly put it, was like ‘Aberdare-Sur-Mer’: the french coastal version of the (not so affluent) Welsh town of her origin. If L’Estaque wasn’t winning any prizes for being chic or fancy, our accommodation was doing better. Again, this seemed to be a home that was being let out short-term and was again full of personal effects. It was a converted loft space with one enormous room that encompassed a kitchen area, a dining area, a lounge area and a small ballroom/art exhibition area. The three bedrooms were all open mezzanines, giving this the familiar air of a boarding school dormitory to most of us, and each sleeping area had its own, uniquely designed version of a perilous staircase. With both toilets downstairs, most of us needing a nocturnal visit to the loo, and plans for a reasonable alcohol intake, if we all survived the weekend with limbs and spinal columns intact it would be a miracle.

Jon and Fran arrived soon after us in the latter part of the afternoon having taken the very civilised TGV down from Paris, but Martin and Jamie would be travelling in the less civilised manner of flying, and arriving much later than planned, courtesy of the French air traffic controllers going on strike. Of course! The four of us filled the evening with a (fairly long) walk out to find a restaurant for what turned out to be a very satifactory seafood dinner and then, having worked out how to work the projector and large screen, we waited up for Martin and Jamie whilst watching multiple episodes of Hawai’i Five O – the only show we could could find in ‘version originale’. The hour got late, Fran and I bailed, and Nick and Jon slept on the sofa waiting to let the latecomers in. One would think that on their arrival at 1am that all would go to bed, but No! Martin had brought a bottle of whisky that saw considerable damage done to it before the four of them tackled the various stairs of doom at about 2.30am. Late, boozy night number one.

The next morning was predictably slow and much coffee and carbohydrate calories of baguettes, croissants and pains-au-chocolate were needed to kickstart the day. The day’s match was kicking off at 5pm, and we had booked a restaurant for lunch in the Old Port area of Marseille at 12.30pm to give us plenty of time. I was in charge of public transport and mustered everyone to walk up to the train station to catch the train that would get us there on time, but No! That train had been cancelled and the next one was not for ages. We fell back on the Uber option, but we needed two. One came quickly, but Jon and Nick had to wait ages for theirs. This was a busy town today. The Old Port area was heaving and we were glad for our lunch booking at a restaurant just off the main area of craziness. This was Marseille and the assembled had wanted to sample Bouillabaisse, or similar, so this is what they had. Washed down with several bottles of rosé. I had garlic snails. A fabulous vehicle for garlic butter! Whilst lunching we were joined by an old friend of ours from NZ, Rob, who was also in town for the games and whom we hadn’t seen for four years. He was on great form and it was as if it had only been last week when we last saw him. We made plans to catch up again later.

The time came for four of us to head off to the game, Wales vs Argentina. This was Fran and I and Martin and Jamie. The stadium in Marseille is much closer to the city centre and much easier to get to than in Lyon. We walked to a nearby metro station and had a sardine-esque experience in a jammed packed carriage to get up to the ground. The Welsh were in good spirits and good voice again, hoping to progress to the semi-finals. We had seats quite high up, in the nosebleed rows, and had some interesting Franglais chats with a bunch of French guys sat behind us who were supporting Argentina. The native Argentinian fans could not be mistaken as they all did a very particular type of supporting and cheering that involved synchronised jumping/fist pumping/chanting in Spanish and latterly, when they got very excited, twirling of their shirts over their heads, bare chested by default. Wales had a chance but Argentina were the victors, leaving a lot of disappointed Welsh, including our Fran. After the game we decided to join the throng walking the 4km back to the city centre rather than cramming onto public transport again. 55 minutes later we caught up with Nick and Jon who had secured a spot for all of us in a bar called Propoganda that was on the front by the Old Port.

They had been here all afternoon, holding court and making friends and by the time we arrived it was only an hour to wait until the second big game of the night, the quarter final between NZ and Ireland that was being played up in Paris. These were our boys! Our group swelled to 10 as Rob and his brothers and a friend joined us and we were set.

It was a titanic battle worthy of a final and the All Blacks were victorious. We had our flag and we were waving it! The long day and the fairly considerable alcohol intake meant that most were on the ‘leathered’ side of merry and that made my next job more interesting. Being the (self appointed) Public Transport Officer for the weekend, and being reasonably sober, I had discovered that there was a night bus that would get us home, if only I could get everyone to the bus stop on time. I managed to eventually extract everyone from the bar, with bills paid and bladders emptied, and then marched my little band of drunken ducks 750m through the busiest part of town to the bus stop without losing anyone or anyone getting run over. We made it with a minute to spare and the night bus took us to within 50m of the front door of our apartment. How fabulous! I was forgiven for my earlier train failure.

Once home, wine was opened and cheese and bread was eaten. Stairs’O’Death were not mounted until 2am. Late, boozy, night number two. No casualties.

Another day, another late morning, more baked goods and lots of coffee. We took a bus to town today. This involved a brisk walk over a hill which prompted some whining from those feeling a bit fuzzy, and then the bus was late, but eventually we arrived and strolled back towards the Old Port, via the handsome Cathédrale de la Major. Again we were looking for a lunch spot before the 5pm game, England vs Fiji, but this time we hadn’t booked anywhere. Our meanderings brought us to a small square that was full of tables belonging to the various restaurants surrounding it. It was buzzing and we found space in a restaurant selected as it had entrecôte et frites on the menu, the meal that most had decided they wanted/needed. We sat next to a large table of England fans, all decked out in white shirts and berets and we waited. Monsieur le garçon was a one-man-band and service was slow but we were just pleased to have found somewhere to eat.

By the time he arrived to take our order, Monsieur advised us that the entrecôte was all gone. Rats. We all revised our orders to the burger et frites and the boys braved a beer. Then we waited some more. A samba band set up and the square was suddenly full of loud music and acrobats flick-flacking up and down. It was very entertaining. Something hit me on the back, I turned…

Then, an explosion.

A bright, football sized flash went off under the English table next to us. A massive bang followed, filling the whole area with smoke and then followed by an earie silence-our eardrums assaulted. The moments immediately afterwards were a blur, a confusion and a high pitched hiss filled the space where sound should be. Some people left straight away, needing to feel safer, or perhaps realising that lunch was going to be delayed. The samba band moved on swiftly too.

After several minutes of chaos it became obvious what had happened. Someone had lobbed a lit thunderflash-type firework into the busy dining area in the square. It had bounced off my back and landed on the floor under the table next to us where it had exploded right next to the foot of a woman in their group. Miraculously, she was the only person who was injured, suffering bruising and a laceration to her foot. Her state of shock was complicated by being about 16 week pregnant and Fran, a registered doctor (unlike me-a very much unregistered doctor) sat with her and reassured her whilst waiting for the paramedics. She had a check up in the back of an ambulance and apart from a sore foot, seemed fine afterwards. We debriefed by discussing how much worse it could have been. It could have exploded in the air, on my back, in someone’s face. About half an hour later a couple of gendarmes came and looked around, but otherwise nothing else happened. It was hard to believe that no-one had seen anything. Had it been kids? Someone hoping to create some chaos in a jumpy city full of revellers? Or retrospectively, someone creating a diversion and hoping to steal some valuables? Jon’s sunglasses mysteriously disappeared from our table…The dust settled, our food was served, we ate, another beer was needed and we left. A very surreal interlude and a very small insight into what it’s like getting caught up in the unforsean traumatic events that many people all around the world have to deal with on a much, much larger scale every day. It is humbling.

This time the boys all headed off to the stadium and Fran and I had some hours to kill. We shopped a bit, although bought very little. Fran was disappointed that the belted cape that she tried on didn’t fit. It was a shame as it was very classy! I resisted bying a framed skeleton of a small bat. I didn’t think that it would survive the day and I knew that Davide really didn’t have any wall space for its display. Such are the downsides of life on the road. Fran then humoured me and agreed to walk up to the other impressive church in Marseille, Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde, the one at the top of the hill. Interestly our walk up was practically deserted and then when we got up there it was packed. How did everyone else get there?? There was a magnificent view from the top including of the stadium, and the wind wreaked havoc with our hair.

Once back in town we headed back to the familiar territory of Propaganda bar and settled in at the same table to watch the game. An aperol spritz and a couple of jugs of Sangria went down quite nicely and history tells us that England beat Fiji. The second game of the night was a big one. France vs South Africa. We had reserved a table upstairs and the bar went to town with its red, white and blue decorations, novelty French headgear and face paints.

The boys made it back from the stadium and we installed ourselves in our prime spot infront of the big screen. Rob and Co. joined us again and spirits were high. We were all supporting France, Allez Les Bleus! The tournament needed them to stay in the competion to keep the excitement levels high amongst the home fans. It was another epic showdown and very sadly, France lost by a whisker. We were all gutted. Soon it was time to round everyone up and we made a successful move to catch the magic night bus again. How was it that getting home at 11.30pm was easier than getting into town during the day?? The evening was rounded off yet again with red wine and whisky meaning a third consecutive boozy, late night.

The late-40 year old/early-50 year old bodies are no longer able to take this abuse. Martin and Jamie crawled out of the apartment and headed to the airport at 8am. Lord knows how they managed that. The rest of us surfaced at 9am and headed up to the station at 10.30 am where we said our goodbyes and got on trains headed in opposite directions. We were back in Davide by 12pm and the rest of the day was a write off. We had a sofa each and did nothing. Our co-campers had had a big night too, having had a big party in the campsite until 3am. Half the residents had been involved, the other half had hated them. I wonder which camp we would have been in if we had been here?!

So our long planned Rugby World Cup experience: getting tickets to some of the games, staying in Lyon and Marseille and sharing that with our rugby-obsessed families had come to an end. It had been epic, we had loved every minute of it and it had been worth every penny. Now we had to hope that France could keep up the enthusiasm for the tournament now that they were out of it and that we could find fun places to watch the rest of the games…

The next day we continued along the coast and headed to the Camargue, planning for a few days of biking and walking. The best laid plans…..

22nd Sept – 7nd Oct 2023

Before heading to our campsite on the northwest side of Lyon, we stopped at a nearby Decathalon and a supermarket. We did a quick circumnavigation of the Decathlon carpark which revealed itself to be far too teeny tiny to have space for Davide’s stout dimensions so we pulled into the car park of a nearby furniture shop which was massive and virtually empty. Here we met the first weirdo of our travels. Interesting to note that in all our time travelling in the USA, this encounter was weirder than any we had there. We decided to have a bite to eat before shopping and almost straight away a small, classically french, beaten up hatchback pulled right up next to us. Desite there being acres of space in the car park, this chap parked so close that he struggled to open his door wide enough to get out of his car. He was somewhere in his sixties, but a smoker, so who knows. He stood around, studying us, but couldn’t see if we were in or out. Then he used his phone, still standing between his car and us. By now I was sat in the passenger seat, so I opened the door and said ‘Bonjour’ to him (whilst eating a sandwich) just to let him know that we were in there, and not to try any funny business or thievery. He looked suprised. I shut the door. Then about a minute later he came up to my window and asked if he could join us for lunch. I said ‘Non’. He said that if we came to his house that he would give us lunch. I said ‘Nous sommes different, Monsieur’. Then he said something that I didn’t understand, I said ‘Au revoir’ and he walked away. He hung around and we watched, and then we moved to a different carpark. Weirdo. Anyway, we did a bit of shopping, all was intact on our return, and headed to camp.

Lyon has one sole campsite within cooeey of the city centre, and this was it. We were to be here for about 10 days as we had some Rugby World Cup games to attend. The first game in question was Wales vs Australia and the park was so chock-a-block with Welsh flag flying campers that a) it felt like Cardiff Arms Park (old skool) had been transported to France, and b) that there surely could be very few Welsh people left in Wales. We had one night sleeping in camp (only mildly disturbed by the Welsh a-gathering for a late night, beer fuelled sing-song) than we were off to the city for the weekend. We packed our bags, summoned a magic personal relocation machine (a.k.a. an Uber) and soon found ourselves in the Old Town area of Lyon. Here too it was abuzz with a multitude of Welsh fans excitedly awaiting their biggest game of the pool stage of the competion the next evening. Beer was being drunk, songs were being sung, welsh flags were being worn as capes and they were all having a ball. Once in the city we had a bar rendevous with our co-conspirators for the weekend – Jon and Fran, my brother and sister-in-law, and Rick, Nick’s brother. After a couple of hours in the bar, waiting for the clan to gather we joined the scrum of folk in the narrow streets and found a spot for a late lunch. A tradition Lyonnaise restaurant entirely fulfilled the remit and once we had finished it was neatly the time that we could check into our apartment. This, overlooking a small square in the middle of the Old Town, was on the fourth floor of a very old building with a worn stone spiral staircase, ancient heavy doors with peeling paint and an internal open atrium. I was certain that the stairs would claim a victim at some point over the next two days, as they were difficult enough to navigate whilst sober, and this wasn’t to be that kind of weekend.

The view across the square was quintissentially French and the all the noises of wandering tourists, excited fans and restaurants and cafés drifted up to our open windows. It was hot and sunny and was forcast to stay that way for the foreseable future. We had a bit of a recharge of the old batteries and then headed back out to find somewhere to watch the other big game of the weekend a clash between Ireland and South Africa. We started off by (very optimistically and in retrospect, stupidly) seeing if there might be space for the five of us in the nearby Irish bar. Hahahahhahhahahahah. We did try and insert ourselves into the hot, sweaty melée of expectant and well lubricated Irish fans that filled every square inch of the joint but soon realised that the key aspects of the evening, namely being able to see a screen, get a drink, converse, turn around and breathe might not all be possible. We pulled out. It took another half an hour of wandering to find a bar that had just about enough space and we stood in it. It was the same place we had been in earlier that afternoon.The game was breathless, the beers flowed and Ireland won. The crowd was happy. We had made some new friends and then we went home.

The next day started slow. There was the obligatory coffee and baked goods fiesta for breakfast and then we headed out to see some sights. We climbed a hill to see a big church and get a good view of the city. We wandered through a Roman amphitheatre. We strolled along the banks of the river Saône and it’s regular Farmers’ Market. (Mmmmm, cheese…) We sauntered through the temporary ‘rugby village’ and thence ambled to look at Lyon’s better known river, the Rhône. By now we were weary, so traipsed back to the Old Town, had a less authentically Lyonnaise, but highly medicinal mid-afternoon lunch of burger et frites and then all went home for a recuperative nap. Tonight was game night.

Fortified by our repose we were very sensible and headed out to the 9pm game three hours early. It took us an hour of (more) walking, a very hot and crowded metro ride and then an equally busy, but less sweaty, tram ride to get the stadium, which was magnificent. There was much anticipation amongst the Welsh fans, who were still in fine voice. They are a bunch of singers. Fran, a Valleys girl, was also in her red shirt and also very excited. We battled the crowds for beers and soaked up the atmosphere. A big game in a big venue is always a blast, even if your own team is not playing. The game itself was fantastic, especially as Wales beat Australia quite comprehensively. As All Black fans, this is paramount to us. Getting home was a slow but steady process and we were eventually home and drinking red wine and eating left over bread. How French.

On Sunday morning, we managed to find somewhere for brunch (not a particularly French thing) and then bade our farewells to Jon and Fran who were flying home. Rick was staying another week as the three of us had tickets to NZ vs Italy on Friday and he was to be our very first ‘house guest’ in Davide. When I say ‘in’, I really mean ‘near’. Davide can sleep four, but that would have been very cozy. We had brought a small tent and (his own) inflatable mattress and there was space on our site for Rick to camp. We had four nights together in the oasis of Camping Du Lyon which now much quieter as most of the Welsh had left and had been replaced with lots of Germans and Dutch, many of whom seemed to be flying All Black flags. A bit unexpected really.

We filled our few days with a whole heap of not much. We hung out by Davide, we hung out by the pool, we bought food and drink, we ate, we drank, we washed up, we slept, we repeated. In the evenings we introduced Rick to our current binge show, Letterkenny. Our televisual entertainment solution in Davide is streaming via a smart TV and a decent cellular router. We do not have any means of viewing terrestrial or satellite TV. This is quite different from Tin Can, where we only had TV via antenna or cable or DVDs. (FYI, if you think that you may like off-the-wall, often a bit rude satire with a Canadian twist, Letterkenny on ITVx may be the show for you!) We also met a couple of charming and funny German sisters, called Anke and Mika who were also following the rugby, specifically the AB’s. The boys had struck up conversation with them in the washing up area and had coveted their collapsible bowl, something that we hadn’t yet managed to acquire. Later in the evening they turned up at our site, no doubt finding us by following the booming, British, Hampson man voices, with the bowl as a gift. What sweethearts! We chatted for a while and arranged to meet up with them at the next game so that we could buy them a beer as a thank you.

One day we did do something energetic in the form of a bike ride. Rick rented an ebike from the campsite and we embarked on a loop ride of about 35km to a small riverside town as suggested by one of my apps. It was a bit spicy in places as at one point we found ourselves hurtling down a bit of busy dual-carriageway that had no bike lane, and there were also several significant hills to test the qualities of ebikes over their solely leg-powered cousins. Unfortunately this area doesn’t have many dedicated cycle routes, but mostly the traffic was either reasonably light or courteous. Our new bikes performed admirably and Rick survived his first ever battery-assisted bike ride.

Friday soon came around and having deconstructed Rick’s tent nest we packed our bags again and headed back into the city. This time we had an apartment in a much more residential part of town, to the east of the Rhône. When we had booked this place we had hoped that Rick’s wife, Catherine, was going to be able to fly out to join us from the UK, but this didn’t work out. As she is a teacher with a wholly inflexible holiday allowance, she just couldn’t find a flight after school finished that would get her here on time for this Friday evening game, which was a real shame. This is the downside of those longer holidays that teachers get. So it was just the three of us in a cute 2 bedroom place which was one of those properties that filled AirBnB when it first started – somebody’s home that they were renting out now and then. It was full of personal possessions and photos and had their food and wine in the kitchen cupboards and the fridge. There was a piano but no TV and no wifi. So very cool.

Unfortunately as the hour for our planned departure from the apartment to get a pre-match meal approached, Nick’s wellbeing disintergrated. An acute onset digestive affliction -high and low- scuppered plans for the meal we had planned and continued to worsen. We cancelled our reservation and despite a two hour delay and my dosing him with the relevant medication, this particular phoenix did not rise from its ashes. His spirit was willing -this was the All Blacks, after all- but the flesh was so very weak. There was no way he was going to be well enough to come to the game and Rick and I had to go without him. We were all gutted. (Rick and I put on a brave face for the rest of the evening. We had amazing seats in the stadium and the All Blacks completely crushed Italy putting on an fantastic display with plenty of action in our corner., and we even got onto the TV! But we won’t tell Nick that because it makes him sad.).

He was much better by the morning, and we dragged him out on a long walk to Lyon’s biggest park, La Tête D’Or. This is huge and boasts a large lake, botanical gardens, big glass houses, and even a zoo. We were not expecting to see a giraffe today. His recovery was cemented by a meal in another Lyonnaise restaurant, Tête de Lard, that specialised in offal driven meals. Nil-by-mouth to lamb brains and a bottle of red wine within 24 hours is impressive, husband of mine.

Rick was flying home on the next evening but we had some time to kill in the middle of the next day. We left the AirBnB and having stored our bags at a bag-drop place near the station we jumped on a tram and headed down to La Confluence, the place where the Saône joins the Rhône. Here the land comes to an unprepossessing point, I guess the area is very prone to flooding thus left pretty au naturel. There is also a very funky building here that houses a museum of mankind.

Our brains were not up to the task of taking on much new information so we just explored the building itself, which was like a huge sculpture. We grabbed a coffee at the café at the top, admired the views then headed back to the central area of town again. Lunch in was another small traditional Lyonnaise restaurant in the busy area near the Rugby Village and then we slowly walked the 3km back to the station and collected our bags. Here we parted ways and Rick headed to the airport and we went back to the campsite, and Davide, for our last night at this campsite. We had put in many miles on our feet and sampled a variety of fine food and multiple beers and wines. We were tired and Nick was still not 100% so we vowed to have an abstemious evening of healthy food, no booze and an early night. And then we met Dave.

To help celebrate the fine victory of New Zeland over Italy we had re-hung our All Blacks flag from our awning when we got back. This was seen by a passing Kiwi, called Dave, and made him stop to have a chat with us. It transpires that he, and his wife Anita, live in a place called Russell, a village in the same area we used to live. It only took a few minutes of chat to establish the existance of mutal aquaintances and many commonalities of place and experience- an entirely normal occurence in NZ. Ten minutes later we had an invite over to his site for drinks and our ‘quiet night in’ went up in smoke. It was hugely interesting talking to them as their experience travelling in Europe closely mirrors what we want to do. They are coming to the end of an 18 month trip in their RV (an imported American beast that they bought in the UK) and were kind enough to gift us their impressive collection of European Lonely Planet guides that they will not have luggage space to take home. We were very grateful. We exchanged numbers and promised to catch up again on Thursday at the next All Blacks game. We owed them a drink or three. So many debts to pay back in beer!

The next day was Monday and time to leave Camping Du Lyon. We weren’t going very far, only an hour and a half’s drive across to Aix-Les-Bains. From here we could easily get the train back to Lyon later in the week for the ‘high stakes’ NZ vs Uruguay game and we had already booked a cheap hotel room for that night. Aix-Les-Bains had a whole different vibe going on Lyon. Rugby? What rugby?? Rugby fans from other countries? Where??? The thermal springs here attract many older French people for theraputic treatments, the cost of which is often covered by the French health care system. Our campsite in Lyon had been packed full of non-French motorhomes. Here we were the only one that wasn’t French and we were the youngest staying on our small town park by a considerable margin. Many people seemed to have been here for a while and there were obvious friendships that had developed, made obvious by almost constant group chit-chats outside the bathroom/washing up block and the marathon pétanque contests on the camp’s pétanque area.

The campsite was only a few hundred metres from Lac de Bourget, which was surrounded by beautiful mountains and there was a lovely lakeside walking/cycle path. We took the bikes for a spin up to one end of the lake one day and had a couple of trips to the lakeshore and one of its small imported sandy beaches. We marvelled how fantastic it was to be sunbathing and lake swimming in early October and it’s no wonder that places like this are thought to have healing properties. If you live in Northern Europe with its dull days and shitty weather, of course you’re going to feel better under blue skies, in the warmth, looking at impressive hills and immersing yourself in nice warm thermal water or swimming in the clear waters of a glassy lake. I feel better just writing about it.

One day we strolled into the centre of town for the weekly market. There really is nothing comparable to a wonderful French farmers’ market. We deliberately hadn’t done a big supermarket shop for our food this week so that we could buy something interesting and delicious from here. It was truely spectacular, but unfortunately it was my turn to be under the weather. Perhaps I had a version of an odd viral thing that had made Nick ill a few days before, but I just felt full of cold and wiped out. The shopping was curtailed to the purchase of a hot rotisserie chicken (the rotissersie chicken van is a thing of wonder in its own right, especially when all the chicken fat drips down onto the roast potatoes at the bottom) and we headed home. I hunkered down for the rest of the day so that I could be on good form for the game the next day. No way I was going to miss a game too. Not happening.

My strategy musy have worked as I felt much improved in myself the next day for our trip back to Lyon. We packed a small overnight bag each and walked the 1.5km to the station. The ol’ step count from incidental walking had been quite impressive since we arrived in Lyon. It is very helpful to be able to offset the delicious food and wine somehow. The train whisked us back to Lyon in a very efficient manner and we prepared to do it all over again! Our budget hotel room was small but perfectly formed and right in the centre of town. Before the game we met up with Dave and Anita in a nearby hostelry and had a few drinks before heading to the stadium with them.

Anca and Mika had been caught up in human traffic whilst trying to get the tram, but finally found us in time for their ‘thank you’ beers and a some chat, and Dave and Anita bumped into a family that they had met at their current campsite. We were quite a gang for a short while! It was another great game for an All Blacks fan, although all the the Uruguay fans that we met were having a blast too. I’m not saying that my husband is chatty, can talk to anyone about anything and can extract large amounts of information from strangers in a short space of time, but he met a Canadian in the queue for the loo who bought us some beers because we we watch Letterkenny. Oh wait. I am saying that.

After the game we headed back to town and and were overtaken by the need for fast food at 12.30am. Our quest started at Macdonalds where we met two more Canadians chaps and had the second conversation of the evening about Letterkenny. Macdonalds didn’t deliver, but a nearby sandwich kiosk provided us with four burger and chip baguettes with mayonaise. Far Frenchier! The next day we dragged ourselves back to the station via another Lyonnaise back street bistro for an early lunch and finally made it back to Aix-Les-Bains for a well needed rest and an actual early night. This rugby tournament is exhausting, and it’s only just getting going!

8th Sept – 22nd Sept 2023

We landed back in the UK at Manchester Airport just after dawn on the 8th of September. Our trip back from Seattle had been a bit complicated, as only modern airline travel can be. A delayed, then cancelled, then rebooked flight had us boots on the ground and back on track, but with a couple of nights of lost sleep. We had arranged to go straight to the motorhome dealer from the airport, a 3 hour train journey away in Nottingham. We were taking delivery of ‘Davide’, a 7 metre ‘low profile’, class C motorhome, on a Ford Transit chassis – our new wheels and defacto home. Despite having been ordered back in February there had been a tense few weeks recently when we thought that he would not be ready for us to collect on our return. He was delivered to the dealership later than planned and it required a flurry of activity at the last minute to fit (most of) our optional extras which happily had him ready on our arrival after lunch. Panic over.

Our handover was a bit of a blur. We were knackered. We tried to pay attention as all his systems were explained and eventually, after a card payment of epic proportions went through worryingly easily, we hit the road. We now had a 3 hour drive back to my parent’s place back in Shropshire. It was unseasonably hot, it was rush hour, it was an unfamiliar vehicle. Nick drove, my job was to keep him awake. The journey went well in the end. Davide got to stretch his legs a bit and proved himself quite fleet of wheel on the motorways and suprisingly agile around the endless multitude of roundabouts on the Shrewsbury ringroad. We made it back without incident and with perfect timing for a much needed gin & tonic. Our base, in my folks’ spare rooom, is hugely appreciated and makes it possible to be in a state of voluntary ‘homelessness’. Their bemused agreement to facilitate our lifestyle choices, whilst thinking we are mad, is what makes the next adventure possible. So thank you, Dad and Tina!

We had given ourselves about 12 days on UK soil before our planned ferry crossing to France on the 20th Sept. Our quick turn around was governed by the fact that we had secured some tickets to the Rugby World Cup. In this nearly two weeks we spent some quality time with family, caught up with friends, had eyetests, collected bulk prescriptions, unpacked and sorted our USA stuff, raided the storage unit for the stuff that we had set aside from the house for Davide and did the mother of all Amazon shops for the rest. There was so much stuff that we had had in the USA that we had let go and now needed replacing in some form or other.

Our largest purchase were a couple of ebikes. We went for folding ones to make them a bit lighter and smaller for not only transporting on our rear bike carrrier, but also to potentially be easier to get on and off trains and into a hotel room if needed. They even fit into a handy shoulder bag, as modelled below. Our vision for Europe is to be whizzing in and out of small hilltop villages and through the narrow streets of medieval towns and cities on our new wheels, rather than trying to do the same manouvres in a brick of a vehicle. The ‘cool index’ rating of a folding bike does start at a low point, but fat 20″ tires and seatpost batteries do help ours to look moderately less ‘saddo’ than most! Our inaugaural outing around the lanes of Shropshire was a success and we are definitely ‘lithium assist’ coverts.

Our departure date soon came round and the day prior we were finally fully loaded, packed and ready for the off. We nipped into town to the local weigh station to see what our total weight was. At this stage we are technically a maximum 3500kg vehicle. Without me in it, because I was in the office paying for it, we were 3460kg. Which is fine because I’m only 40kg, obviously. Uprating our payload to 4000kg is merely a paper exercise, so this will be done so that we can carry more wine/toys/guff around with us legally.

As a shakedown measure we spent our first night aboard on the yard at my parents place. This mainly taught us that there were many LEDs that needed either dimming or covering up so as to not completely disrupt our circadian rhythmns, but otherwise we were comfy, and warm and happy. The next day we set off. Our first stop was East Sussex. This was about a 4 hour journey down to friends’, Toby & Em’s place. They live in a cottage on the family farm and have a perfect Davide-sized parking spot. We arrived just as Toby arrived home with their two young boys and we sat and caught up with him in the melée that only a 5 year old and a 3 year old can create. Em was home soon after that and after pizzas for dinner, more chat and a bottle of wine, we all had an early night.

This second night signified the start of a 3 day block of quite rough weather which was a less than glorious start to our big adventure. After breakfast with our hosts we said our good byes and headed off on the 40 min journey to Newhaven ferry port. I love this as an alternative to Dover. It is so small and low key. We arrived in very good time, quizzed as to our possession of weapons and nothing else and joined the multiple other motor homes in the queue. Lots of people with the same idea, it seems. I was pretty sure that my poor sea legs were going to take a battering on our 4 hour ferry crossing, so I dosed up with anti-nausea meds and after a cup of tea we were loaded. In the end the crossing wasn’t as rough as advertised, and I slept through most of it – a happy side effect of the pills. We arrived in Dieppe and we realised that we were going to be the very first vehicle off the ferry so we quickly got back to Davide to be ready for the ‘off’. And then he wouldn’t start. Our all singing, all dancing fancy alarm/tracker/immobiser system had immobilised him. One of the things that we hadn’t got a good handle on when we took ownership in our jetlagged blur was this. The monitoring company called us straight away to check in and we got a quick lesson in how to use the system and how to get him started, managing to get going again before we had delayed the whole ferry from disembarking.

We were in France! Hoorah! We cleared immigration in the blink of an eye, entering the Schengen Area on our New Zealand passports. This, in theory, will allow us to spend more than the miserly allowance of 90 days in every 180 days permitted to us as post-Brexit, UK citizens. Many moons ago the NZ government negotiated bilateral agreements with about 2/3 of the Schengen Area countries to allow NZ citizens to spend 90 days in those countries independent of the Schengen Area allowance. The water-tightness of this arrangement is not 100% and apparently is dependant on the knowledge/decision/mood of the individual immigration officer involved on the day. Nice to have certainty in our lives! Anyway, we are here now and we can tackle this issue down the line.

As is the case with most exits from ports of arrival, be it by sea or air, the complex intenal roading system spits you out into the local environment with minimal signage or time to decide where you want to go. We were slingshotted into the one-way system of Dieppe, got our heads into driving on the right again and almost instantly stopped at a supermarket that we spotted. We had a two hour drive to our first camp, but needed supplies of all those things that we were told that we couldn’t transport across the border – like meat and dairy products – but that nobody seemed to give a rat’s arse about. Shopping done we hit the road and headed East, staying north of Paris. It was dreary, rainy and windy. First stop was in a place called Cappy, a small village on the river Somme. This was an aire, a basic, unmanned campsite that had a security barrier, power and water. We parked at the water fill station and came upon our first problem. We didn’t have the right connection for our hosepipe. Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink…. I scoured the camp for another British registered camper and went to see if I could borrow a connector. I quickly found a kind chap who unpacked his entire garage in the rain to find me what I needed and our first challenge was overcome! Shopping list addition: hose attachments.

The next day was a long driving day. Not something we usually plan or do, but we had a tight time frame to get to our destination, Lyon. We dumped our waste water and our excess freshwater -no point schlepping the excess weight- and headed out. Our route took us across country for a while, to get to the main road. These were the fields of the Somme battles. It was flat, it was wet, it was muddy. The echos of the horrors of 1916 were quiet but present. We passed a few cemeteries. The french system of pèages, or tolled motorways, is magnifique! You get what you pay for: uncluttered, well maintained carrigeways with plenty of rest areas. We paid our money and hit the road south. The weather was officially foul. It was relentlessly windy and rained almost the whole way to our next stop, just north of Dijon. Even I was exhausted, and I didn’t do any driving. We stopped at another aire after a quick stop at a bricolage – or hardware store – We bought our hose connectors and a door mat to try and contain some of the wet and dirt due to the inclemment weather. Our aire was another security barrier controlled parking area with power hook-ups. We had pre-purchased and credited a card and payment, a princely €11 was on exit. A simple and effective sytem, and incredibly cheap compared to USA. We pulled up to the water station and with our new hose attachments in hand, prepared to fill up. But Zut Alors! We had bought the wrong flaming ones. Gnash, wail, curse. There were no friendly co-campers to pester so we did without. We had enough on board for the basics if we didn’t shower, and we didn’t need to do that. We’d showered 3 days ago! Camping clean, people, camping clean. Finally, just before dusk, the horrible weather cleared off and we could finally step outside without a coat. A beautiful rainbow helped us celebrate and we hoped that the drier weather would stick with us for a bit.

The next day we had a shorter, sunnier trip down to Lyon which where the Rugby fun was to start.

26th July – 26th Aug 2023

We have travelled tens of thousands of miles in Big Dave and the vast majority of those have been outside of Washington, the state where he is registered. When you travel outside of your ‘home’ state licence plates announce to everyone where you are ‘from’ and thus people make conscious or subconscious judgements on the sort of peple you might be. When we have been far flung from Washington a common conversation opener has been “You Folks are a long way from home!” The reality that our home has either been in New Zealand or the UK has changed the course of these conversations somewhat. But now, as we cruised into Washington, we were back with our own and our plates no longer defined us as ‘not being from around here’. Big Dave and Tin Can had come home again.

Home, specifically, is the home of our good friend, Lori. The whole Tin Can Travelling adventure had relied on us having a US home address for our vehicle registrations, insurance and bank account and Lori has been kind enough to provide us with that. She is also incredibly generous with her time, administrative skills, hostessing and being a base for us. It had been 18 months since we had spent Christmas with her in Southern California, so we were excited to be catching up again. Initially we had arranged to be with her for about 5-7 days, but as things turned out we stayed for ten days.

As you know, we had decided that this would be our last trip travelling with Big Dave and Tin Can and had listed them for sale on a well known RV sales site at the end of June. We were in Wyoming and headed back to East Wenatchee, Lori’s home town. Our hope was that we could sell them privately towards the end of this trip – our flights back to the UK are booked for 6th Sept – but we knew that anyone looking to buy a rig was likely to want to get some use out of it this summer. So we were prepared mentally, if not logistically, for the possibility that they might sell quickly and hoping like crazy that we weren’t going to have to try and sell them on consignment with a dealer at the end of the season having left the country. We cast our advert into the wonder-web-world and waited. There wasn’t a mad rush of takers but after about 2 weeks we had an email query from a person in Washington asking when we were expecting to be back there as they would like to check out the set up. End of July, we said. Fine, call when you get here, they said. Where are you based, we asked. East Wenatchee, they replied. Oh. That would be quite handy, we thought, but as they had not asked any other questions or requested any more photos we had no idea how interested they were. So we continued our travels and waited to see if we had any more interest. There were only four other contacts: a lowball offer on the camper that we rejected, a tentative expression of interest from a US friend, a serious chat with the couple who took us out for the day in their jeep in Wyoming and then a scammer, who unsuccessfully tried their luck. So as we rolled back into Washington we contacted our East Wenatchee interested party and arranged for them to come and take a look.

It was great to catch up with Lori and her partner, Paul, but our relaxation was short lived as we only had one day to get Big Dave and Tin Can cleared out and cleaned before the viewing. We started early to try and avoid the worst of the heat, but it was a bit academic really as it took us all day anyway. First the emptying. I knew that we had aquired a lot of stuff in the 6 years of doing these trips, but wow, a monumental amount of clobber came out of that thing! Clothes, coats, shoes, books, bedding, towels, DVDs, pantry items, maps, toys, tools, lotions and potions, electronica and leads, cool bags, a printer, art, memorabilia, coolbags, travel bags, rucksacks, bikes, helmets….and more. It was endless and sweaty work. Finally it was empty (save for the kitchen stuff) and we could clean inside and out. By the end of the day we were tired and hot and had taken over Lori’s garage and basement area with our magnificent collection of detritus. This would all need sorting too. We spent the evening properly catching up with our gracious hosts, Lori and Paul, and Lori’s folks, Rocky and Casey who live just down the road.

Over the course of the past day or two we had made a decision. If our prospective Wenatchee buyers didn’t work out we were going to put the rig up for sale on consignment here and now, and not continue our trip in it. The logistics were just too complicated and uncertain to try and accomplish a private sale whilst on the road. We also didn’t want the stress of trying to sort everything out as our leaving date got closer. So whatever happened with our viewing, we really had already had our last night in the Tin Can. The melancholia could wait. We had a rig to sell! Big Dave and Tin Can were looking spick and span and they were ready for their viewing.

Our prospective buyers arrived later the next day and the guided tour was given. Facilities were demonstrated, storage compartments were opened, the bonnet was lifted, the engine started, nooks and crannies inspected. We liked them and they seemed to like BD & TC. They had been searching for the right rig for two years. This was just the sort of set up they had been looking for. There was just one issue. The rig had to be able to fit into their shed for winter storage. The door of the shed was 12ft tall. Exactly the height to which we had measured BD & TC in the past. Them not fitting was an unspoken deal-breaker. They left promising to call when they had discussed things. The next day they got in touch, said they were keen, and arranged to come back in two days time for a test drive up to their house for a ‘shed-fitting’. We went with them, riding in the back seats which felt very weird. Big Dave performed admirably, effortlessly sailing up the hill to their place. Then it was the moment of truth. As they approached the open doorway of the very splendid, massive shed that they had recently built for their business, it looked like they wouldn’t fit. My heart was sinking but I climbed up onto the roof of Tin Can to get a better view of the air conditioning unit, the highest thing, to watch closely as it inched towards the lintel. It cleared under it with 1 inch/2cm to spare and suddenly, with them safely inside, there was a deal to be done. After some minimal negotiations a price was agreed, hands were shaken and -pending a bank transfer – Big Dave and Tin Can had new owners. We pondered the kismet of connecting with these lovely,drama-free buyers who for two years had been looking for exactly what we had to sell and finding them 5 miles from Lori’s house. The sale had worked out pretty much according to our ‘best case scenario’ and we were very thankful for that.

We spent some time doing a full walk through of all the systems with them and then headed back to Lori’s place. It took a few days for the money to come through and in that time we both spent some quality time with Lori and Paul and also busied ourselves with the task of reducing ‘detritus mountain’ back to the amount of stuff that we could fly home with. This involved creating 7 catagories of things.

1. The rubbish – Easy. This included a lot of stuff that had just worn out or was on its last legs and this was just picked up from the gate by the bin lorry.
2. The stuff to thrift/give to charity – Moderately easy, but did involve quite a lot of laundering of all the bedding and some clothes. Lori gave us a lift to the Goodwill drop off centre that had a very efficient ‘drive thru’ system.
3. The stuff to sell – The bikes. Suprisingly easy. Having done us splendid service and having been hauled backwards and forwards across a continent five times, our bikes were no longer in tip-top condition but had plenty of life left in them. We sold them within 24 hrs of posting them on Facebook Marketplace, did a cash deal in a car park near Lori’s place then walked home.
4. The stuff that was included in the sale – Easy. We left tons of useful stuff in the rig, including our beloved breakfast sandwich maker. It had been a ‘rig warming present’ from Lori & Dean when we set off on our first trip and the ritual of creating and eating breakfast sandwiches on our travels became synonymous with Tin Can Travelling.
5. The stuff to send home – A suitcase of treasures. This was a bit involved. Rather than having to wrangle and pay for a third bag on our flight home we decided to send it ahead. Lori had an old suitcase that she gave us (Thank you Lori!) and we filled it with stuff that we had collected over the years and the extra things and clothes that we knew we wouldn’t need for the next month. I used a company called ‘Send My Bag’ that would collect it from the house here and deliver it to our UK address for $190, which I thought was very reasonable for large case that weighed 28kg/621b. There was just the thorny issue of the paperwork. To be fair, the website made it quite easy, but I had to itemise every item in the bag and assign it a value for the purposes of importation and customs. There were some very strict instructions on how to prepare the bag, what labels to attach to what and where, it was collected two days after I did the online booking and was in the UK within 3 days. It got tied up in customs for another week until they agreed that I didn’t owe any tax on the contents, but ‘Send My Bag’ were great with their customer support and sending snarky emails to get it released. It has now been safely delivered to my parents place and is cluttering up their conservatory.( Thank you Dad & Tina!)
6. The stuff to keep for the rest of our trip but that won’t be flying with us – Easy. We just packed this loosely in shopping bags. It will be jettisoned at the end.
7. The stuff to fly with – Easy. If it doesn’t fit in our usual travel bags it joins catagory 6.

After a few days the money was in our bank account and Big Dave and Tin Can were collected to continue their adventures with their new family. As they pulled away I was suddenly very emotional and won’t be afraid to admit that I shed a few tears. It was the end of an era. Buying them and embarking on these years of Tin Can Travelling had been both the catalyst for, and the fabric of, another whole different way of life for us. They had been our ticket to exploring this amazing country and having a million fantastic moments and experiences along the way. We had learned to live together in a confined space in a state of contented isolation and to appretiate life at a slower, less time-tabled tempo. In short, we had been pandemic ready several years earlier than the rest of the world.

What next?

Well. Tin Can Travels will live on. But on the other side of the pond. Our plans are to get back to the UK in Sept and we will (hopefully) take delivery of our new home on wheels and head to Europe.

Until then we have a USA trip to finish. I am not going to write in detail about these last few weeks as I want to take a bit of a break from writing, and from feeling guilty for not writing, the blog! In summary, we had another few days with Lori and Paul before continuing our travels. We cannot really fully express our immense gratitude to Lori for her seemingly limitless hospitality and generosity. Tin Can Travels would not have been as easy, or maybe not even possible without her help. I also want to acknowledge the equal contribution of Dean, who lives nearer Seattle, in facilitating our existence in the USA. When we started our adventures they were still together and although they are now travelling their seperate roads, our roads have always led us back to them both, their friendship, their wisdom and their homes. (Thank you Both!)

So we rented a car, a Subaru Outback – the chosen vehicle of the Pacific NorthWest and spent just under 2 weeks and another 1000 miles exploring the wilds of the Olympic Peninsula. We stayed in Air BnBs and motels and enjoyed the freedom of having a car whilst adjusting to now not being ‘RV travellers’ -a real in shift our sense of identity. Unusually for this part of the world it was hot and we had some amazing beach walks, explored some ‘Twilight’ locations, hiked a hill or two, saw a whale in the shallows, watched a meteor shower, went to a blueberry festival, saw a civil war re-enactment, kayaked, listened to live dub funk, went to a aircraft museum, ate a burger or two and had a beer or three.

After that we flew to Alaska. Why not? We had some time in hand and a few extra dollars in the bank.

Here live our friends Ryan and Sarah who we last saw at their wedding 10 years ago. It was during this trip that we rented a motor home and fell in love with life on the road. So our life choices are partly their fault. Since our last visit they have created two humans and live in a rural hillside idyll overlooking Anchorage in a melange of cats and dogs. They calmly report frequent sightings of moose, lynx and bears in their garden and no walk in the nearby woods happens without a firearm. Summer is tolerated and winter is celebrated. Snow blowers and snowmobiles adorn the driveway, waiting to be pressed back into action. They have an amazing guest ‘wing’ and we made full use of it by staying considerably longer than is polite when you are not family. Ten years of separation dissolved instantly as we reconnected with these marvellous people.

We did take a little side trip to a fishing town called Homer. It is funny how human nature always wants to take you to ‘the end’. A transcontinental road trip ending in Washington state had us wanting to go ‘just a bit further’ to Alaska. When in Anchorage, our side trip took us to the end of the road of the nearby Kenai Peninsula, to Homer, and even then we had to go further and stay at the end of the ‘spit’. Then a boat daytrip took us beyond that to a town called Seldovia that is only accessible by sea or air. Next stop Russia??

We had a delightful 3 nights in an appartment with views of the marina and the mountains beyond. There can’t be too many places in the world where you can stay with a modern kitchen and bathroom, get a good wifi signal, be able to pop out for a beer and fish and chips and see five glaciers from your lounge window. I presume.

As I write this we are still houseguests in Alaska for another 4 days. As is often the case here, summer has ended abruptly and autumn has arrived with a vengence. The wind is blowing and torrential rain comes and goes. In a month there will be snow on the ground. Our hosts are ready for summer to be over. It instills a form of mania as the long days and brief spell of warmer temperatures enforce a compulsion to ‘make the most of it’. They are tired and we are too. It is time for our trip to wind up and for us to head back to the UK. From here we fly back to Seattle and will spend a week with Dean and his partner Jill before we fly on 6th Sept. Whatever jolly things happen with them will have to go unreported as this is where I sign off.

Thank you for reading my blurblings and I look forward to sharing our new adventures with you starting in a month or two.

22nd July – 26th July 2023

Our ‘road-of-the-moment’, the I-90, swept us out of Butte and through Montana and the foothills of the Rockies. This was one of our longest days on the road and we did 240 miles of mostly of gentle downhill until we hit one of our last major climbs of the trip, Lookout Pass. The summit of the pass is very close to the state line and we entered Idaho and our 4th time zone of the trip. Now we were in Pacific time. Like many states Idaho has a panhandle, its jutting up to the North, and the I-90 takes only 73 miles to cross it. We had two stops planned.

Our first stop came at the bottom of the hill, in a town called Wallace. Founded in 1884, Wallace was a very rich town once upon a time and was known as the Silver Capital Of The World. It sat at the hub of Silver Valley which, at it’s peak of production, supplied 21% of the world’s silver. It is also notable as it is the only place in the USA where the whole historic district of the town is on the National Register of Historic Places. This was a brilliant and crafty move by local lawmakers in 1979 to protect the town from the proposed re-building of the highway through this narrow valley. The original plans had the highway carving through the land where the town sits and this would have destroyed many historic buildings and likely killed the town itself. By getting the whole area on the register it was protected from any interference from rebuilding the highway and the whole project had to be revised. Now the highway sails over the town on an overpass and the town survives and thrives.

Our small RV park was very close to town and co-located with a bar and grill. It was the only one, honnest! We arrived on a very hot afternoon, set up camp and decided to stroll into the historic district to see what was going on. A Gay Pride festival – that was what was what was going on. It was a small affair, which was in the ‘Family Fun Day’ stage of proceedings, with stalls and a tiny music stage set up on a closed street in the town centre. We had missed the earlier parade and apparently there was a pub crawl later on in the evening. Despite being the filling in the liberal Pacific NorthWest club sandwich of Washington, Montana and Oregan, Idaho is generally fairly conservative in its leanings. The older chap that checked us into the RV park was a bit bemused by the choice of Wallace for the event, and I suspect that he was not alone in his opinion. It looked like much fun was being had by the Priders and there were a few outlandish outfits to give the locals something to be challenged by.

Our short and sweaty stroll across to the other side of town brought us to a fantastic, unexpected and very welcome discovery: Wallace City Swimming Pool. This looked amazingly inviting, like an oasis in the desert and we quickly nipped back to Tin Can to get our swimmers. Not only was it a well maintained, clean and well staffed facility, but it was also free. FREE! It is funded by charitable donations and grants and has been a part of Wallace life for generations. We spent a very relaxing hour floating about and considering how hot it was, it was remarkably under utilised.

The next day it was forecast to be hot again so we set off reasonably early to do a hike. This was called The Pulaski Tunnel Trail, an uphill route through the forest. The endpoint was the tunnel entrance of an old silver mine that played an important part in saving many lives 123 years ago. In 1910 a combination of severe drought and hurricaine force winds fanned a terrible wildfire known as the Big Blow Up. Over a period of only 2 days and nights this burnt through 3 million acres of virgin forest in this area. Ed Pulaski was a forest ranger who was up in the hills supervising a gang of men when it became obvious that their lives were all in peril from the approaching fire. Using his knowledge of the forest he led his men to the tunnel, the only place they were going to be able to survive the blaze. They made it just in time and he only lost 5 of the 45 men he was leading. He himself suffered burns, smoke inhalation and temporary blindness and was hailed a hero for his actions. Pulaski is also widely credited for inventing the ‘Pulaski’ in 1911. This is a half mattock, half axe firefighting hand tool that most of us would recognise.

The trail itself was about a 4 mile there-and-back hike from the trailhead with the endpoint being the tunnel entrance which was so low key that we nearly missed it completely. We also walked from the campsite to the trailhead, which added another 2 miles each way to our efforts so by the time we got home we were pretty hot, sweaty and tired. Nothing that another FREE loafing session in the pool couldn’t fix though!

It may not surprise you that we did partake in a few beers and a meal at our local hostelry. We would not want to disappoint……

The next day we left Wallace early and did a short backtrack of our steps, climbing back up to the top of Lookout Pass again. Here was the main reason that we had opted to stay in Wallace, its proximity to The Hiawatha Trail. This is a very wonderful fifteen mile long cycle trail that follows an old railway line through the forest, over trestle bridges and through tunnels. Starting in Montana and finishing in Idaho (with their different time zones), it is a private venture so there is a modest fee to ride it, but it was fantastic and well worth the money. A few folk (mostly on e-bikes) cycle it both ways but most people opt to only do the downhill direction and there is an efficient shuttle bus service that returns you from the bottom back up to the top where the car park is. They recommend not to take RVs up there but we ignored the advice and arrived early enough to find a Big D & TinCan sized parking space. The ride starts with a 1.5 mile tunnel. This was cold, wet and of course, very, very dark. Our rented bike lights gave us plenty of visibility and it was a surreal fifteen minutes of a cruising along in the dark, splashing through the muddy puddles in a strange bicycle convoy of riders of mixed abilities and anxiety levels, at this stage of the day all going the same direction as us. The accoustics were amazing and there was a cacophony of screaming, singing, whooping and bike bells. By the time we emerged back into daylight again we were filthy, as was everyone that didn’t have mudguards.

From here it was a glorious, easy, barely-needing-to-peddle downhill with amazing views and lots of places to stop and appretiate it all. We encountered some little friends on the route that were so disconcertingly tame that they completely freaked me out. Chipmunks are usually very skittish but these had obviously learnt that humans have food and some might feed them. They were at every obvious stopping place so we had to be a bit inventive with the location of our mid-morning breakfast picnic.

I decided that the mid-point of a trestle bridge would be perfect and that we would not be bothered by the very insistant critters. Nick, however, has a morbid fear of heights (in certain circumstances, the vagaries of which are a mystery to me) so he wasn’t too happy. Maybe the pleasure of eating an egg and bacon roll whilst experiencing his fear will be of important psychological theraputic benefit. Anyway, we remained chipmunk-free and met one of the volunteer trail wardens who stopped to chat to us. During this interlude another group of 4 stopped and asked us if we were from Conneticut. We said no and asked why they wanted to know. They had found a Conneticut drivers licence on the trail and they were asking everyone thay met, trying to reunite it with its owner. The warden took on the task, and the licence, and the group cycled on. Five minutes later a chap cycled up from the downhill direction and declared that he was the owner of the licence and that he had met the group of 4 who advised him that the warden, who we were still chatting with, had his licence. Bingo! A happy ending to a minor drama, all played out on a trestle bridge. The amusing thing in all this is that Mr R Ford, the licence owner, was a big 6ft 2in Black guy and possibly the photo on his licence might have given a clue who it belonged to. That is sort of the point, after all.

We continued our cycle and after more miles of effortless downhill, great views, a few more short tunnels and scary bridges we sadly reached the bottom of the hill. We waited in line for the first shuttle of the day at 11.45am and squeaked ahead of lots of other people in bigger groups as we were shoe-ins for the last 2 seats. The bus was an old repurposed school bus and it lumbered back up the gravel road, making us sweat with its cornering on hairpins with steep drop-offs. The bus ride only took us to the downhill end of the long tunnel that we started with and the return 1.5 mile trip back through it to the car park was equally dark, wet, muddy, cold and noisy, but now it was busier with two-way traffic. The advantage of having your entire home in the carpark is the ability to change into dry, clean clothes in privacy and put your dirty ones straight into the laundry basket. We returned our rented lights and got back on the road, the ever present I-90. This took us down the hill from Lookout Pass, back past Wallace and along the 50 miles to our last stop on this stage of our adventure, the exotically named Coeur D’Alene.

Coeur D’Alene, pronounced Cor D’Alene (not the french way -this got us some odd looks), and often abbreviated to CDA, is named for the local native tribe that was probably given its french name by Canadian fur trapers. It is a very delightful lakeside city of about 50,000 people and is only about 30 miles from the much larger (450,000 pop), and a smidge less delightful, Washington city of Spokane. Judging by the lakeside real estate prices, the number of big boats in the marina and the selection of shops and eateries on the mainstreet, there is some money here.

Our lakeside camp was just slightly out town and had a reasonable sized ‘beach’. It was sunny and hot again and happily our site had a nice shade tree, which was good because the stiff breeze made deployong our awning unwise. By the time we had set up and hosed the layer of dried mud off off the bikes it was definitely time for a swim, so we donned our swimmers, grabbed our towels and headed to the lake…just in time for the sun to go in. The lake was not what you would describe as warm, but it was tolerably refreshing. Unfortunately once we were in the wind and lack of sun made it too cold to get out. We got chatting to a couple who were comfortably dry and warm as they floated about on their respective kayak and paddleboard and we slowly slipped into the mildly hypothermic body temp range. It had been a long time since I had felt so cold (tunnels excluded). We extracted ourselves from both the conversation and the water and headed home to warm up. Once dried and dressed we were instantly too hot again and we installed ourselves with snacks and drinks under our shady tree. As we watched the world go by,another strolling couple stopped to chat and we got on so well with them that after nearly half an hour of conversation we had provisional plans to go out for dinner with them the following evening.

The next day we spent the morning and early afternoon on admin and doing a few chores like laundry and having confirmed our dinner arrangements with our new friends, we headed into town on our bikes to explore. There was a great cycle lane along the lakeshore that took us from our camp to downtown. It went through the university campus and along an extensive lakefront park with its long city beach and then to the marina. It struck me as being a thoroughly pleasant place to live or to come to study although possibly it might not be so attractive in the middle of winter.We parked the bikes outside the restaurant that we were going to later and strolled around downtown. It was all very classy but not very extensive. This meant that we had overestimated the time our explorations would take and we were left with about 90 minutes to kill before our dinner date. We spent most of this sat in a lakeside bar with a drink, being entertained by watching kids jump off the dock into the water and judging the boaties tying up and coming into the boat ramp . The wind was so brisk that it blew the foam off our beers.

Finally it was dinner time and we met Blaine and Connie at the brew pub as arranged. They are Californian residents that are newly retired, have hit the road on their first long trip in their trailer and are loving it. They had spent the day doing the Hiawatha trail on our recommendation and had come home equally tired happy and filthy. We had a great evening with them and the food was almost incidental to the constant and uninterupted conversation. They were very good company. It was soon nine o’clock and dusk was suddenly upon us and we realised that we had to cycle home before it got too dark. But No! Our new friends had driven to town in their truck and it was a simple thing to throw the bikes in the bed and give us a lift home. Brilliant. We bade our farewells after they dropped us off at our site and although there is a very small chance we might catch up with them in Washington in August, there is a much bigger chance that we will never meet them again. These fleeting friendships are one of the joys of this sort of travel. There is a level of openness and honesty of exchange that one can have with people with which one has no past and an unlikely future.

So this was our second of two nights in Coeur D’Alene and with our next destination being our friend Lori’s place in East Wenatchee in Washington, we realised that there was a possibility that this would be our last night sleeping in the Tin Can. This was too abstract and too emotional to consider at this time, so we didn’t dwell on it too much and slept quite well. The next day took us into Washington state and across an unexpected plateau full of vast swathes of grain. Everywhere you looked there was a combine harvester plodding through the fields, kicking up massive dust clouds and the landscape didn’t change for nearly 150 miles. After a total of 850 continuous miles of cruising up the I-90 we finally parted company with this epic highway and the final 35 miles of our journey into East Wenatchee followed the equally epic Columbia river up its valley and grain gave way to fruit. This area grows masses and masses of cherries, pears and apples and is dubbed the Apple Capital Of The World. Coming back to Washington, and specifically back to Lori feels a bit like coming home. This was where Tin Can Travelling all started and as we know it now, this is where it would come to an end.

17th July – 22nd July 2023

Big Dave settled into his usual rythmn of an effortless 65 mph up the I-90 and soon we had left Wyoming and entered Montana. The Big Sky State. Allegedly. Unfortunately our spectacular views of the surrounding mountain ranges and the famed celestial hugeness was skuppered by wildfire smoke in the air, drifted down from Canada. We would have to use our imaginations. It was still quite impressive though. Our next two night stop was in Billings, a reasonably utilitarian city of about 120,000 people and Montana’s largest. To put that in context, there are 281 larger cities by population in the USA. Near here is the site of the ‘Battle Of Little Bighorn’ and ‘Custer’s Last Stand’, a place that we had visited and toured in 2017. We opted not to stop again as we could guarantee there had been no changes to the historical facts on offer. Our park in Billings was a bit of a celebrity campsite, the original (and flagship) KOA. This is a campsite company that the branding is an unmistakable yellow logo and all offer great quality of amenities and service. This was the first ever and had been going since 1962. Situated on the banks of the Yellowstone River it had a lovely pool and – this was a clincher for us – a complimentary mini golf course. There was going to be a (free) showdown….

Before we installed ourselves we treated Big Dave to an oil change. Due to our clearance being about 12 ft it is hard to find ‘Lube Shops’ that will fit him in with Tin Can on board, but in Billings we found a place. It could accommodate full sized trucks(lorries, my UK friends) and dealt with customers on a first-come-first-served basis. So we joined the very short queue and ate our car picnic whilst he was being dealt with. There was even a loo available in the reception area. Perfect. It doesn’t take much to keep us happy.

I have mentioned before that often we seem to just happen upon interesting events going on in places that we visit. The converse can also be true. Billings was going to be hosting “Montana’s biggest annual balloon festival’ about two days after we left here. Never mind. As a taster of the things that we were going to miss the campsite had arranged for their branded balloon to come to the camp and set up a non-launch display. We attended, we saw, we photographed.

We had plans to cycle the 3-4 miles into Billings downtown whilst we were here to have a look around and yes, you guessed it Eric of Morda, find somewhere for a burger & beer dinner but we didn’t. A combination of the heat, a fridge full of nice food and deciding that we just couldn’t be bothered kept us in camp for both nights. The closer we get to the end of this trip, the less we feel the need to venture out to experience ‘normal’ things on our travels. Our wallets and cholesterol levels thank us too. So we cooked in and spent our first evening chatting to our neighbour, a divorcé called Justin who was travelling by himself. He was a self confessed introvert but we bamboozeled him with conversation anyway.

The mini golf summary of play is: Nick 2- Sara 0. I was well and truly beaten, especially in the second round. I got the yips, bigtime, and I let myself down. There was no excuse for my poor play, despite an early showing with a hole-in-one on my first hole. I’ll get him next time.

Our next stop was a rare ‘one-nighter’ in Bozeman, another place beginning with ‘B’ along the I-90. This was purely a sleeping stop and we had planned to do absolutely nothing. This, retrospectively, was poor planning as we discovered that the city was hosting the Montana State Fair that week, exactly the sort of thing that we usually seek out and base whole itineraries around. We were right there but had left ourselves no time to go to it. We realised quite quickly that pretty much all the other occupants of the RV park were there because of the fair and we had had no idea. No wonder it had been busy when we had booked! Oh well.

Our last stop in Montana was a rare re-visit. Butte. Pronounced bewt, not butt. This was a place that we had previously stopped at in May 2017, a month into our first trip and we had developed a strange affection for this quirky town. It is an ex-mining town and has an enormous decomissioned open-cast mine pit right next to it. The ‘Berkeley Pit’, now an oddly beautiful lake, has filled with toxic water and is now a tourist attraction, along with being an environmental disaster-in-waiting.. When we visited in 2017 the rising toxic water levels had not yet reached the stage where they were running into, and contaminating, the ground water. This was forecast to happen in 2018 and happen it did. They were ready for this and now there is a water decontamination plant that treats the overflowing water so that it does not pose a risk. All is well whilst all is well. Water fowl that land on the lake water mostly die and the tranquillity of the site is only interupted by the bangs of regular bird-scarers.

We had two nights here at the same KOA campsite that we had stayed at last time. It looked a bit different as they had expanded it quite a bit and all the small trees had grown quite a lot in the intervening 6 years. Once we were pitched we looked back at some old photos and worked out that we were one site away from our previous stay. The photos were of me bravely BBQ’ing dressed in jeans and a long sleeved top. This visit it was almost too hot to be outside. On our travels we have only stayed in the same park twice on four occasions. They are a ragtag collection of destinations: North Las Vegas; Duluth, Minnesota; Las Cruces,New Mexico and now Butte, Montana.

On our first evening here we decided to cycle ‘uptown’ for dinner. NOT a burger this time. A chinese meal. Butte is built on a hill that we were staying at the bottom of. Uptown is really downtown, but up the hill. So we got ready to go out for an early dinner then thrashed 2 miles up hill in 30°c in the lowest gears on our bikes. Butte is trying to market itself as a very ‘cycleable’ city by painting cycle lanes on the roads and putting up ‘cycle route’ signs. This is all very admirable, but it doesn’t change the hill. Needless to stay we arrived uptown very hot and sweaty and needed a pre-dinner beer to restore the body temperatures to non-hyperthermic levels.

The chinese restaurant we were headed to is historic, not only in Butte, but the whole country. Opened in 1909 it is the oldest chinese restaurant in America and having changed hands in 1911 it has been run by the same family since then. Called ‘The Pekin Noodle Parlor’ it is possibly the weirdest eatery we have been to for ages. The whole place is painted in orange and most of the tables for 4 are located in curtained booths, leaving a long runway down the centre. The waiting staff thunder up and down this corridor that connects the kitchen with the restaurant, pushing trollies covered in plates of food which clatter about but never a morsel is spilled! Eating here felt more like being in a curtained bay of a busy Emergency Dept. We settled on a ‘banquet for two’ because we couldn’t be bothered to make any decisions about what to order and considering where we were, it wasn’t half bad. (This was our second chinese meal of our Tin Can Travelling, the first being in Lemon, South Dakota in 2017. That one was fully bad, our fault!) Our journey home was a thrilling freewheel down the hill, a much more enjoyable direction of travel.

The next day, falsely informed by a tourist map that there was a good system of trails around the outskirts of the town, we put on our hiking gear, filled up the camelback with water and set off, only to find that the trails were ‘still under construction’ (ie non existant). Basically we were lied to. So dressed for the ‘wilderness’ we converted our hike into an urban ramble and looked moderately out of place as we yomped around Butte. We visited the Berkeley pit again, wandered through the old mining areas and back through the centre of the town. By mid afternoon we had covered about 8 miles in the stinking heat and were very glad to get home for a shower and flake-out. Mad dogs and Englishmen….

Butte is a town of faded glory. The mines brought incredible wealth here in the late 19th C and many of the old buildings tell a tale of the money that was here once upon a time. I suspect that it’s time of gentrification will soon be here as the cheap real estate starts to bring people here again. Watch this space.

7th July – 17th July 2023

Our shortish drive from Lander to Thermopolis took us through the very picturesque Wind River Canyon. This was fairly low level and didn’t have any significant climbing. We had not paid much heed to altitude changes until recent weeks, but the closer we get to the Rockies, the more it is becoming a preoccupation on our journeys. I don’t know why because Big Dave is a strong beast and has hauled his buddy Tin Can up and down many a moutain pass in the past without incident (and yes, I am touching wood and got my fingers crossed as I write this), but grinding up hills is not our favourite thing. Anyway, the middle of Wind River Canyon seemed a suitable spot for our picnic lunch and after stopping at a pullout we jumped the crash barrier and sat on some handy rocks with a good view and a sheer drop into the river below. It was a nice change from a Walmart carpark, with a frisson of danger to boot. A train even chugged past, completing the scenic vista and, sandwiches consumed, we continued to Thermopolis.

As the name might suggest, Thermopolis is home to numerous natural hot springs. The biggest of these, appropriately named ‘The Big Spring’, is claimed to be the biggest mineral hot spring in the World. I am not entirely convinced by this claim as: A) it didn’t look that big. B) There wasn’t any real data as to whether this was based on area/ouput/depth etc. C) This country loves a biggest/tallest/widest/oldest/heaviest claim and is prone to stretching the truth D) A google search for ‘biggest mineral spring in the world’ comes up with several different answers. But despite all that, hot springs is what this town is all about, oh, and dinosaurs. Our small RV park was right in town and only a short bike ride from all the things we wanted to see. We had three nights here which gave us a couple of days of exploring. The adventure started in the only grocery in store in town. Here the dangerous things were sold in a seperate area. So glad that the cigarettes, AMMO and HANDGUNs are not on the main shelves…!

Several of the hot springs, including The Big Spring, are located on the edge of town in what is now a small state park. This has a small free hot pool (with a 30 minute soak per visit limit) and two commercially run hot pool complexes that charge about $15 for a day pass. The park also has a network of walking trails and a small herd of bison. On our first day we cycled to the hot pools in our hiking gear with our pool gear in a bag and left our bag in a locker and the bikes tied up outside.

We picked a trail that was about 3-4 miles around the park and set off in the blazing midday heat. All of our fellow park visitors opted to take the ‘drive-around-the-park-in-an-air-conditioned-vehicle option’ of sightseeing so we had the trails, and the gritty battle for survival, all to ourselves. Our route didn’t take us through the bison pasture enclosure but we did spy several small dark blobs on the horizon that we we assumed were bison not just big cows. We eventually arrived back at the hot pools, hot and sweaty and not really relishing the prospect of immersing our overheated bodies in hot water, but a plan had been made and we were sticking to it. We had chosen the older of the two outfits, a slightly shabby and outdated complex that was the less busy of the two. The other one, newer and shinier, boasted the Super Star 500 : ‘One of the longest water slides in the world’. I’m sure.

We found the coolest of the pools, bought an iced drink each and settled in for some relaxation. Our reverie was interupted by enforced conversation from a local lady. Deeply tanned and about 70 years old, she and her husband had season tickets to the pools and came every day. After about half an hour of her talking with her we were able to tease out the finer complexities of her character and beliefs. These I can sum up in two words: conspiracy theorist. She did not notice that normal two way converstation fell by the wayside when she started mentioning’ the poison injections’ and that ‘the government fabricated the pandemic to control us’ etc. We held our tongues, knowning no debate was possible. Her husband was strangly quiet too. I wonder what he thought about it all?

Eventually we extracted ourselves from the craziness and now that we had cooled down, physically if not intellectually, we managed to sample some of the warmer pools before we called it a day and headed home. That evening we headed to the small brewery in town for the usual cultural experience of beers and a burger. I actually had a ‘french dip’ which, for my non American friends, is a sliced beef and caramelised onion baguette-style sandwich served with a small pot of beefy stock juice that you dip the sandwich in. Bloomin’ delicious! As usual we sat up at the bar and had a very lovely chat with a younger couple who were celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary having gleefully left their kids with the grandparents. There was a tense moment towards the end of the evening as another couple that was sat further down the bar got up to leave and the guy challenged the couple sat next to us on the other side. “Do I know you?” he asked in an aggressive tone “and if I don’t then, why have you been staring at me all night?” . They were flustered and gracefully, although unecessarily, apologetic and he huffed off. No they had not been staring, just facing that way and being normal. He was just being a total a*se. It is exchanges like that that could deteriorate into a bit of pushing and shoving most places in the world, but in this country, and in this state in particular, where apparently everyone is armed (although we have yet to see any evidence), outcomes can potentially be very different.

The next day, we lurched back into the baking heat and cycled across town to the dinosaur museum. This is a fairly epic collection of fossil samples and dinosaur skeletons in what is essentially a big shed. A rancher here found some dinosaur fossils on his land and a rich German fossil enthusiast bought the land, leased the grazing back to the rancher and started excavating specimens. He is partly in it for the science, establishing the museum and a research facility, but it seems that his other significant motivator is money as he sells some of his specimens to the highest bidders at auctions. This annoys the scientists in his team and it sounds like they are resigning in their droves. We did the museum tour then paid a bit extra to have a guided tour of a dig site. A young college student doing a summer job confidently drove a minvan full of us up the hill at moderate speed along a winding gravel road with steep drop-offs. Once we arrived safely at the top he expertly toured us through the dig site, pointing out fossilised footprints of a few different types of dinosaurs, a few in-situ bones and some excavated bones and teeth, giving us lots of geological facts and figures and generally doing an excellent job. Once our brains were full of dinosaur facts and the sun had once again cooked our souls we headed back down the hill and found an icecream kiosk co-located with a mini-golf course. What’s not to love about that combo on a warm day?? Nick won.

Another short hop took us from Thermopolis to Ten Sleep. This tiny settlement at the base of the Big Horn Mountains has an unusual but logical name. It was originally named Sackett, after the Colonel who mapped the area but trappers later named it Ten Sleep after the Indian method of determining distance. The area was ‘ten sleeps’ travelling time from the settlement of Yellowstone and ten sleeps from Fort. Laramie. Simples! We had booked three nights here, which on the face of it was probably two nights too many, but in the end it worked out just perfectly. Our stop was an RV park co-located with a ‘horse hotel’, a camp for riders and their horses who come here to take advantage of all the great rides nearby. Our first day here dawned with a cattle drive. At about 5.30am a gradual increasing volume of mooing got loud enough to wake us and it sounded like there was a massive herd of cattle going right past the park and down the main road through town. We got up to investigate and that is exactly what was happening. The spectacle was entirely enhanced by the fact that actual cowboys on horses we doing the marshalling with their magnificently trained dogs and the sun was just rising over the mountain range. You couldn’t order up this stuff if you offered to pay for it.

Later, during normal Hampson waking hours, we cruised on foot along the short main street through Ten Sleep. This took mere moments. We padded out our adventure by chatting to the lady manning the visitors centre and then stopping for a milkshake at Dirty Sally’s, the general store. Here they served us up a pint of icecream each, barely liquefied enough to suck up a straw and thus be classified a drink. Our busy day continued with doing laundry and we got chatting to our ‘parked behind neighbours’ at the park. Mike and Sarah live full time in a big bus and she is a travelling nurse, currently working at the nearest town half an hour away. They had seen our ‘For Sale’ sign on Tin Can’s rear and expressed an interest, so we talked a bit about his and Big Dave’s attributes and the asking price. During our conversation we discovered that they love going up into the mountains in their Jeep Rubicon and they asked if we would like to go out with them the next day. We thought about it for about 0.4 of a millisecond and heartily accepted.

So the next day dawned, and 6 hours later we were up and about, breakfasted and loaded into a Jeep. We had an amazing trip of about 70 miles over 5 hours cruising up into the hills and navigating the narrow gravel roads that criss-crossed this side of the Big Horn Mountains. None of it was true off-roading, but it felt a like wilderness as we barely saw a single other vehicle or sign of human existance.

There were some free ranging cattle, some beautiful lakes, wildflowers, colourful rock formations and endless epic views. Sarah capped it all by whipping out a box of snacks as we stopped at a particularly amazing view point. To thank them for such an unexpectedly fantastic day we offered to buy them dinner in the form of pizza at the local….yes you guessed it…..brewery!

The Ten Sleep Brewery was about a mile and a half out of town and that evening it was hosting an open mic music night and a pizza van. Sounded like a good combination. We had planned to cycle but happily accepted another Jeep ride. The brewery was located in a magical location up a slight rise and nestled into the base of some craggy red rocks. It was still sunny and hot when we arrived but there was plenty of shade and as the sun dipped behind the rocks it cooled to that perfect warmth where the air feels entirely neutral on your skin. The beer was great (They make an infamous 6% IPA with honey undertones called Speedgoat. Infamous because it apparently gets you drinker than you thunk you are), the pizzas were excellent and the musicians mostly talented. Considering the tiny size of the town (about 270 population) there was quite a crowd. There was a combination of cowboy-hatted locals, RV dwellers and horse hotel types like us and a significant sized gaggle of rock climbers, all sporting their tattoo dawbed, sinewy limbs, female midriffs and manly neon painted nails. I tell you, it’s a thing.

In the morning we bade our farewells to Mike and Sarah, who like the rig but probably aren’t quite in a position to commit to it just yet, and we set off. This morning we were doing our first significant mountain climb, The Powder River Pass over the Big Horn Mountains. This was 5000 ft of climbing and descent over about 45 miles. It had stunning views and we took our time, plodding up to the pass summit at 9666ft. Here we stopped for our breakfast, a picnic of bacon and egg mayonaise buns. A nostalgic nod to our similar boating picnics with friends Lloyd & Laura in NZ. We were thinking of you guys!

The cruise down the hill was punctuated by many signs warning us of STEEP HILLS! 8% SLOPE! CHECK YOUR BRAKES! USE LOW GEAR! EMERGENCY ESCAPE LANE 1000FT! One of the escape lanes that uses a wire system to slow runaway lorries was out of action because it had been used in anger recently and needed repairing. Scarey stuff. We were fine and soon made it down the other side to Buffalo and joined the I-90, the big daddy of all the interstate highways. This road was going to see us all the way back to Washington.

The I-90 runs coast to coast from Seattle to Boston and is the longest interstate at 3021 miles. This seems a long way until I remind all you loyal readers that over the course of our first trip, during the spring/summer/autumn of 2017, we drove from Seattle to Boston, covering 8500 miles. We deviated from the direct route quite a lot, barely using the I-90. Now it was taking us up to our next stop, Sheridan. Our last Wyoming small town.

Where as most towns concentrate on 4th of July celebrations, Sheridan (pop approx 19,000) hangs fire for 10 days, saving its festivities for WYO Rodeo. This is a 5 day fiesta of country fun. There is the annual state rodeo and funfair, a street parade, a fun run, numerous charity events, a pow wow and dancing display by the local native tribe, Crow Nation, and several music events. We had timed our visit to join the fun.

I had pre-entered the fun-run, another 5km jaunt, but for some reason we hadn’t pre-purchased our rodeo tickets. Arriving on Thursday afternoon, our plan was to buy tickets on the gate for the Friday or Saturday rodeos depending on which had the better weather. The hot weather was spawning evening thunderstorms which would reduce the fun of cycling up to the showgrounds and spending the evening outside. Luckily we checked online to look at ticket availability and discovered that Fri & Sat had both sold out and there were very limited tickets available for Thurs. Limited to going that evening we hurriedly tried to buy tickets online but the system got confused and wouldn’t sell them to us. After half an hour we worked out that this was because our billing zip code was not in Wyoming. Now we were looking at having to buy them on the gate before they sold out and the box office opened at 5pm. It was now 4.30pm. We qickly showered and changed into our suitable rodeo attire of jeans, boots and shirts and then embarked on the 20 minutes cycle to the showgrounds. All this would have been easier if it wasn’t still 30 °C and the showgrounds weren’t up a hill. We arrived (fairly sweaty) soon after 5pm and managed to get our tickets just in the nick of time before they all sold out. Now there was only two hours to kill before the rodeo started. There was a funfair, but it was still really hot and sunny and we were hiding in the shade like vampires. We settled for people watching from the shadows under the grandstand with a cold beer or two.

There were several food trucks and a few market stalls selling cowboy hats and Wyoming branded gear. We opted for ‘meat and chips smothered with cheesy sauce’ from a BBQ van for our dinner and finally it was Rodeo Time! Our seats were not the best in the house, as could be expected as they were the last ones sold but at least they were under cover and out of the sun.

The program consisted of team Indian relay races, (one bareback rider, three laps of a track, three horses, crazy changeovers), bareback bucking broncos, (angry horses, ragdoll impersonating, crazy riders), saddled bucking broncos, (equally angry horses, mildly less crazy riders) calf roping, (bewildered baby cows, cowboys with crazy lasso skills), barrel racing, (nimble horses piloted by crazy girls whizzing round obstacles), bull riding, (just plain mega crazy) and the obligatory rodeo clown (entertaining the crowd by making normal people do crazy dancing).

It was very entertaining but we left after about 2 hours, probably only seeing about half of the events. We bailed early for three reasons: 1) our seats were incredibly unconfortable narrow aluminium bleachers with no backs, 2) it was getting dark and we didn’t have any proper lights for the bikes and 3) the sky was starting looking ominously like rain. Our freewheel down the hill was quite the ride and we arrived home just in time to escape a significant downpour.

The next day started with the second of my 5km ‘fun-runs’. This started at the far more civilised time of 8am and there were about 400 people joining me. Despite the altitude being about 1500ft less than my last run in Lander 10 days ago it was much harder. I think this was something to do with the significantly higher temperature (it was already 27°C at 8am) and there was a very cheeky hill in the middle. I staggered round at my tortoise pace, running the second half with a lady called Martha. It turned out she was the person that the rodeo clown had singled out from the crowd the evening before and she had done some epic and manic dancing all whilst being beamed onto the big screen. Respect to her for having no self-consciousness at all!

I managed to finish without expiring, although it was close, and whilst I was still very hot and and sweaty we went for breakfast at an establishment called ‘The Cowboy Cafe’. I was so hot that I even had an iced coffee, an Americanism that I usually have no trouble avoiding. Suitably recharged with eggs and now much cooler we adjourned to our next activity – the town parade. This was far more enthusiastic than the one we had seen in Lander and hiding from the sun in the shade of a tree seemed more appropriate for the occasion than sheltering from rain and getting borderline hypothermia.

We took loads of photos, but these four sum up the parade, and the location, for us.

The local native tribe, Crow Nation, had brought a huge contingent to town and they looked fantastic in all their traditional regalia. After the parade they put on a display of Indian dancing, a slow, rhythmic marching type movement in formation.The women were dressed in colourful long tunics covered with elk teeth. Apparently the numer of elk teeth on a tunic was representative of their family’s prowess as hunters and therefore their status.

All the male dancers had strings of bells attached from their waists to their feet creating a really atmospheric sound, coupled with the singing and drums. It was the best part of the day and by mid afternoon we were ready for home. On our last evening in town we had a rare mediocre meal out. This was mainly due to the service being quite bad, which in this land of tipping, is very unusual. Afterwards we eschewed the live music on the main street in favour of a small locals bar on the way home and the evening was salvaged by meeting Riley, the philosphical bar tender who had a love of retro British comedy and Dillon, the smiliest young man in the universe, who despite a ginger moustashe and mullet, was very cool looking and just a delight to talk to.

We decided that Sheridan was to be elevated in status to One Of The Best Very Cool Small Towns That We Have Visited, although I do appretiate that we were experiencing it on its showcase weekend. It felt like it had a great sense of community, plenty to do and, as I will say yet again, it was a delight to be able to easily cycle about. We were quite sad to be leaving both Sheridan and Wyoming in general. This state, or at least the parts that we visited this time, really captivated us. It was beautiful, wild and we loved the lack of traffic and crowds. The people were incredibly friendly and welcoming but also know they have something special here and hoped that their slice of paradise doesn’t get ‘discovered’ by the masses. So Shhhhhh….don’t spread the word… Wyoming isn’t real….