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Pussers Trip Part 3….Part 2 I have not done yet mainly because the middle bit of our holiday was not really m\home related and may be a little interest to most.
So this is our journey back home from Spain where we had experienced the most unusual weather conditions I have encountered in most parts of the world. The temperature was 33c and yet with the cold wind, you needed a coat in the shade and shivered in the glaring sun in a cloudless blue sky. I cannot work out how it can be that temperature and still feel chilly. The sea was so cold I couldn’t even stand in it as was the pool at the campsite Cypsela.
And so we left Cypsela near Pals and headed for the main drag out of Spain losing ourselves almost immediately. My wife has a natural ability to find her way when this happens but on this day, it deserted her and she directed me off a main road into the village of Ultramort. I am not sure what this translates too but I was thinking Megadeath. We entered this most unattractive concrete village where no one would live through choice and encountered roads that appeared exactly the same width as the Pussbus and any right or left turns were impossible. So unless I reversed all the way back to the main road, I had no choice but to soldier on and the only choice available was a dirt track which I went down.
There followed a pleasant sixty minutes touring fields of corn, maize and stuff I have no idea about, past small farm buildings and it was a full 45 minutes later that we stumbled on our first sighting of another human being. He was black and I would imagine imported from Africa and he gazed at us in disbelief as we thundered by in clouds of dust with bits and pieces of his crops attached to our body work. I waved cheerfully, trying to look as normal as possible and an expression that tried to convey that we often do this for sheer pleasure and a have more than a passing interest in farming. From the look on his face, I don’t believe I was very successful. Some crops were so high and dense I thought at one time we may have to camp there until harvest time so we could see our way out more clearly. Of course, eventually we found our way back on the road and after driving for thirty minutes came across the village of Ultramort. Day Jar Voo or what.
Finally we found the road we needed to take us to the A something or other and was doing quite well until we found the road entirely blocked off with red and white thingys and had no option but to turn right and drive on. This we did and after a very long time and an in depth understanding of Spanish villages unused to seeing Northern Europeans we finally arrived at the motorway at Girona, further south than when we first started out. I did spend quite a long time dreaming of a Tom Tom but I doubt whether that does fields and therefore would be of no use to us.
From the pin cushions on French camp sites downloaded from this website I found a campsite near Montlucon which I think was in the grounds of a French Chateau on the banks of either a river or lake or both.
This was my wife’s birthday and I had a fantastic birthday card made by Mrs. Oggie which has to be seen to be believed. Mrs. Oggie made this for me two months ago so that I would not forget the big day so even though I did remember the big day I had forgotten to take it with us so only this morning did my wife get it. She was really pleased with it and in many ways, it saved my bacon.
I took an old laptop with me with Autoroute on and as I said earlier we were aiming for the La Chatere or something. I wrote down the route, (no printer with me) including the route we need to take to leave. Unfortunately, the missus followed the route to leave and realising many miles North our error decided to hotel it using ETAP and having one of the nicest sort of fast food I have ever eaten in the Buffalo Grill, a franchise throughout France. Interestingly decorated, spotless, and beef burgers with beef and nothing else in. Highly recommended in an emergency.
One little hiccup was me opening my big mouth again in the Buffalo Grill to the waitress who spoke, I thought, excellent English. I made a mistake with something and asked her if they get many idiots coming in for food. She didn’t understand so I pointed a finger at my brain (at least where it should be), and made a circling movement which I thought would explain what I had said. She went off in a huff because it must have seemed to her that I had just told her she was an idiot.
So rather a disappointing day turned out alright on the night and ETAP although basic, was clean and comfortable. If anyone is wondering what we are doing in a hotel it is because we took our son down and the Pussbus was not really ideal for three people and we only took it at the last minute for what should have been a car and mobile home holiday.
The next morning, all nicely showered and full of the Continental Breakfast that comes with the room we decided to go back home rather than go to other sites as it was to cramped for sleeping with three although ideal for ferrying three people and perhaps four on a day trip.
We took the road from Beziers direction Clermont Ferrand so we could go over the bridge at Millau. No toll charges until you get to this awesome structure. You really do have to go over it to appreciate its size and height and beauty. This cost 7.5 euros and that was the only charge we had that day. Had we stayed on that motorway I think I am right in saying there would have been no charges until Vierzon or something similar sounding. This has to be the cheapest and most beautiful route to either South of France of en-route to Spain. I did not see any sign of the view point posted on here where you can stop and marvel but that does not mean it is not there.
After a board meeting, we decided to head for home and the Pussbus cruised quite happily, without obtrusive noise between 75 and 80mph effortlessly and so it took no longer than the average car to arrive at the Tunnel.
Here we were grilled by French security and then again by UK security, all asking the same questions. Just as I drove off having been waved on by the last interrogator, I heard her say as an afterthought, “Do you have any tobacco?” This was a neat piece of observation as all three of us were smoking when we spoke to her as this was our last chance before getting off the train in UK.
“Yes thank you”, I yelled and drove off unwilling to suffer anymore Abu Ghraib style interrogations.
No car was spared this interrogation and I think everyone has the wind up after wiping out that terrorist leader in Iraq. One small victory for us at a cost of one large victory for them in the future for revenge.
Once again, because gas carriers are discriminated against, we were last on board.
This time the safety announcements were made and the alarm sounds were rung so we would know what to do in case of fire. Seconds after this there was a fire as the train engine burst into flames. Instead of the promised alarm we got a hysterical French lady announcer whose French I think was above average but sadly her English left a lot to be desired so we could not make out what on earth she was talking about.
We watched out of the tiny windows the fire engines arriving, klaxons wailing and all sat there like lemons waiting for someone with a brain to tell us what to do. They must have found one because we were slowly let off the train; Pussbus of course the last to go even though we carried a gas bomb. We were then led up and down ramps, around the platforms onto another train. The engine, by the time we saw it, was just smoking so I assumed the firemen had done their job and I saw the driver chatting away furiously to the head fireman and by his gestures he appeared to be taking no responsibility whatever for the inferno he had just caused.
The day was turning into a bit of a nightmare but there was more to come. We arrived in UK 3 hours in real time from booking in on the tunnel in France just in time to hear of a major pile up on the M25 with both carriages blocked as a result. Also, our alternative means of escape was denied us as the Dartmouth tunnel was also blocked.
So we decided to visit our daughters in Lingfield knowing that they had arrived from France earlier than us for a cup of tea and chat and wait for the road conditions to improve so up the motorway we drove turning of on the M26 to join the M25 West and broke down in the middle of it.
The symptoms I experienced were similar to running out of fuel but the engine light was glowing red and I guessed this was a terminal thing.
I have never ever broken down before at least in recent history and I can say it is quite terrifying standing on the hard shoulder with the extreme noise, the extreme wind caused by lorries and the uncertainty that rescue services will find you. I felt extremely guilty about this episode inflicting these dangers on my family and wondered if I had been a bit selfish getting the motor home possibly disregarding others ideas such as a mobile home down in Spain which we could visit by car.
The AA were very busy because of the M25 problems so they sent out a recovery vehicle from Ontime and Ontime arrived an hour later than promised leaving us on the hard shoulder for two hours.
The man from Ontime knew his onions so he told me and very quickly established that he didn’t know what was wrong with it. He reported back to Mr. Big in charge of Ontime and was instructed to tow us to safety to the nearest motorway services and leave us there for a real AA lorry to pick us up and take us home.
By 21:00 no real AA lorry had been seen so I telephoned them up partly to see what was happening and partly to give them my son’s mobile number as my wife’s mobile was running out of battery.
“Where are you?” asked the lady at the other end.
I had a sinking feeling because if she did not know where I was, how will they pick us up.
We went through all our details again and she apologised profusely as Ontime had not logged in the new instructions and they were unaware that we were still in some difficulty. (To say the bl**dy least).
A promise was made for a truck to arrive within another 60 minutes and in fact it arrived much less than that. In fact two arrived, not from the AA but from a company I think called Reliant.
The business stepped out with a Bluetooth in his ear complete with flashing light and said the AA had asked him to have another look at our problem and then launched into a very long explanation about something with the new engines having one per cylinder and sometimes one goes and it fires on just 3.5 cylinders. He finally finished by saying, “Oh – you have a diesel engine so that’s not the same”.
He opened the bonnet and asked me to turn the engine over, called over to his mate for a can of Sniff (I wondered that too whether this was a stressful job) and squirted some in the air intake and the engine turned over and fired.
“You’ve run out of fuel you have”.
I had just spent 2 hours only 50 yards away from a diesel pump and this news came to me as a shock.
“But,” I spluttered, “My spreadsheet told me we can do 700kms on a tank full and I have only done 612kms”, and then realised what a totally stupid thing I was saying. I thought about it and I think because I was bombing back home and a very windy day that my mpg would have dropped significantly and I had been a very silly Pusser.
He sucked half a can of diesel out of his own tank which was a heroic gesture as he had then to wash his mouth out with some bottled water we gave him, poured it into the tank and the PussBuss burst into life as normal. We were ready to roll the fifty yards to the garage.
I thanked him and gave him too small amount of cash as a reward for his help as that was all the UK currency we had and drove off now having the popularity of a pork chop in a synagogue with my wife and son.
We arrived home at just gone midnight, six hours after running out of fuel and I think it fair to say that I was tired, depressed, guilt ridden and seriously wondered whether it was really safe to let me out of the house for any reason. The missus, bless her, could not have been more supportive in my hours of despair from self inflicted stupidity and even my son who missed a conjugal visit from his girlfriend as a result of my doing laughed off the problem.
I have the middle bit, (Part 2) to do which I shall probably do tomorrow. Thank you very much for the comments on Part 1 but as you can see from this part 3, I had little to laugh about.
______________________________________________________________ I´ve never had a date that I didn´t inflate.
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Hi Pusser, don’t be hard on yourself, these things happen, it’s just it happens to some people more often that’s all .
You have the knack of turning the most serious issue into a comedy , be proud of it, you make a lot of people smile and happy with your trip reports.
You’ve done the right thing with the motor home, after all you can just jump in it and away you go, would be a lot harder travelling to Spain to use a static.
MHS…Rob
______________________________________________________________ Optical illusion look closely, can you see a giraffe?
“When I was born I was so surprised I couldn’t talk for a year and a half”
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______________________________________________________________ Never been here before
I´m intrigued, I´m unsure
I´m searching for more
I´ve got something that´s all mine
I´ve got something that´s all mine
Take me somewhere I can breathe
I´ve got so much to see
This is where I want to be
In a place I can call mine
In a place I can call mine
The following members of MHF thanked Rapide561 for this posting
Computers! hey Pusser. They make our lives soooo much easier. Fondly, do I remember the good ole days when a fuel guage was a much cherished item on a vehicles instrument list..................
stew
The following members of MHF thanked artona for this posting
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