Following Hannibal

We spent the third night at Pont d"Ain, just south of Bourg-en-Bresse, at a campsite on the riverbank. This is a huge river, flowing very quickly. Not a place for lilos until maybe later in the summer and even those at the kayaking centre were out of the water. Here we spotted the first major group of Dutch holidaymakers. They are by far the most common nation to be found on campsites, although there are also plenty of Swiss, German and French. Everyone is well behaved and in bed soon after dark and not rising until late. It's a hard life.

It happens every time. You are driving along and begin to see the mountains. It's still an amazing sight to get a glimpse of first snow. In mid June there was a surprising amount on some peaks visible from our route that took us past Grenoble. We won't see the big peaks but nevertheless the sight of snow is exciting.

There was little need for the overdrive now, although the problem is understood and fixed at least temporarily, with tape. The rod that connects the bottom of the overdrive selector lever with the OD itself has a screw connection to a rose joint, one at each end. These are opposite hand threads, so that the length of the rod can be changed by turning it one way or the other. It either lengthens or shortens. There are locking nuts but these won't prevent the rod from vibrating longer, if that's the way i wants to turn. That's what's happening, so I taped it up and then yesterday bought some Loctite Threadlockfrom a motor factors.

I strode to the counter confidently with Google Translate to hand and asked for blocage du fil. I was met with a blank look so blurted out something unprepared and the guy showed me a tie-wrap. I resorted to making a quick sketch of a screw thread with a nut on it and a few arrows pointing to the threads. When I said c'est une liquide, all was understood and Loctite 243 was produced and money exchanged. Of course the tape hasn't moved yet and the OD works...

We stopped for lunch somewhere in the Alpes Maritime, next to a sports ground where a helicopter was taking a patient to hospital. The co-pilot gave us a wave before jumping in.

We stayed at Moustiers-Ste-Marie, Camping St Jean, which is the gateway to the Grand Canyon du Verdon, which is the most amazing erm, canyon, that winds from west-east, that's Moustiers almost to Castellane, where we spent a great family caravanning holiday in the late 1980s.

Moustiers was the scene of, in my own world, epic experience of canyoning, where, in a wet suit and climbing harness, you launch yourself into streams that flow through smooth sided rocks that form slides into plunge pools, jump into deeper ones and generally make your way downhill from way above the town. In my case this required multlple abseils down waterfalls, where, once in the pool at the bottom, you had to unclip from the rope and swim out to the start of the next part of the decent. I won't forget the bit where we had to change ropes on a particularly long abseil, with the guide hanging off a bolt at the halfway point.

It's a beautiful town, underneath the majestic cliffs, providing all that adrenaline opportunity. Today it's full of parapenters who were landing behind the campsite, once they had exhausted the thermals or themselves.

Then to a campsite in the hills behind Nice, Camping Les Pinèdes at Colle-sur-Loop. It wasn't obvious that we had reached the coast as we approached from the north. This site is beautiful, terraced and shady, with some steep inclines which even the big caravans had managed, as they manoeuvred onto their pitches. We were excited to be at the top terrace, at the opposite end to two much newer Defender 110s. We only managed to speak the next morning as the owners we nowhere to be seen that evening but they were completing a trip and were heading back to Holland.

There's a great pool and the terrace was perfect for food preparation with the trusty Trangia, making yet another appearance.

A nice cool evening was spent up there, right at the edge of the site and once dark we realised that the forest behind was full of fireflies. It's no exaggeration to say there were hundreds of lights flying around and the little pin-pricks, not random but following their flight paths, was amazing. The forest was full of little flashes. I'm afraid my attempt at a video picks out just total blackness, so there's no evidence.

So to the ferry for Corsica. Sailing was at 14:00 with a minimum of one hour check-in. So we left at 11:00 for a 35min drive to include a fuel stop and plenty of buffer.

In France the supermarkets have the cheapest fuel (don't they all?) and the pumps are usually a scrum, split between self-service using cards before filling and those where a cashier is paid, a form of drive-out. We tend to go where access is easiest and if this means the self service, so much the better as it it quicker. Except not on 21st June. We were stuck behind  the slowest self-servers you could ever have the mis-fortune to be stuck behind. How does it take sooo long to get to the point where you can start to fill? Arghhhhh!

Back on the road, the toll on the A8 was paid at entry and 70 cents seemed cheap enough. Driving standards are poor with cars racing to get past only to the brake as they cut back in and head off on the slip road. Entry onto these urban motorways is also fraught as the slips are very short and usually begin as an on-slip but often turn into an off-slip for the next exit. So in a placid Land Rover, hogging the middle lane seems a good idea.

The traffic was 'orrible. The preferred route to Le Port was punctuated with many many traffic lights. drivers are impatient too. We made it with time to spare...