Day 44 - Orcet, Auvergne

Well we had some good news and some bad news today …
We rose earlier than normal as we had an appointment at the Vet in Leucate at 10:30am. I suggested to Tina that we buy a couple of things for lunch and try and arrive a little earlier hoping that we can get away sooner. It worked as we were out the door before 10:30am and she only charged us €13 for both dogs … a result. We now took the 20 minutes drive back to the campsite and prepared the van for departure.

On getting the van off the pitch I used the motor movers probably a little too sharply. As we approached the Toll booth we were flagged down and it seems we had picked up a puncture. Getting out of the vehicle it was much worse. The tyre had numerous holes. We proceeded to put on our florescent coats and put out a warning triangle. I grabbed the socket set but the wheel nuts needed some persuasion with the lump hammer. We jacked the side up using the Hydraulic levelling, got the tyre off, released the spare from underneath and refitted the spare …all in around 30 minutes. We did see the Gendarme drive past and I was expecting an issue but nothing transpired. Note to self: I should buy a torque wrench and a wheel bar with the correct socket size. I did stop up the road and rechecked the wheel nuts …everything was good.

We stopped at the Millau bridge for some lunch and then pushed on up the A75 … a free motorway and arrived at our overnight stop around 4:30pm. I was driving on fumes but did manage to go and find a Hypermarket and refilled…must had only a few drops left.
After manoevering the van onto the pitch I placed the remote into the door pocket where it is normally kept….my surprise was that the Levelling remote control was there. Not sure how that happened as neither of us had found it and placed it there. Oh well that has saved us £200 on our return.
More episodes tonight and early to bed as we have 200 miles to travel tomorrow. We really are getting closer to the UK.

Categories: Winter 2019