The mainland again

Things quietened down overnight and the next morning it was almost as if nothing had happened. The campsite people were moving washed-out pebbles from the wrong places and the tree surgeons still had their chainsaws out as we drove to Bastia. The ferry line-up was more orderly than it had been at Nice and we were almost at the front of the queue even though we arrived just an hour before sailing time. For the first time on the island, we met and talked to another British couple who happened to be in our queue.

The vehicles are so tightly packed on the lower car deck that it proves quite hard to walk to the nearest door and stairs. It's a pure coincidence that it's the same ferry for this crossing to Toulon that we took to get to Bastia from Nice.

Leaving La Corse is really tough because it has been a great trip and we've been here for well over three weeks. Although it's easily said, we will be back. This scenery and hospitality is easily accessible and in Europe!

After an uneventful crossing which was twenty minutes late leaving Bastia and one hour late docking in Toulon, which Corsica-Sardinia ferries would later explain was due to yesterday's weather, we arrived into Toulon. Rather surprisingly, it is quite similar to Cape Town with the same sort of table mountain escarpments.

Docking took time as the berths were busy but somehow they squeezed another vessel in there.

Then we were off into Provence and using Park4night we went to a "motorhome parking" in a ravine at the back of a small village, Cuges-les-Pins. This is typical of France catering for its holidaymakers. Next to the sports ground in a non-descript place, they have cut some terraces, added a few shady trees and fitted a water tap and a concrete apron with a drain for grey water. For a payment of €4.50 in a machine (CB accepted), a six digit code is issued which opens the barrier to enter and exit. It was a peaceful night with a few other motorhomes and a camper van, nicely spread out. It's the toilet in the Landy that makes this sort of overnight stop possible.

Onwards to a previously visited site, La Source at St Pierre D'Argençon where we said hello to the English owner who has been building up the place with some glamping and a restaurant at which the locals eat. It was here in 2015 that we heard wolves somewhere in that lump of mountain behind.

The scenery here is stunning and a perfect lunch stop is easy to find.

The next night we used France Passion and headed to a farm within sight of the Jura. We were not prepared for the welcome we received from Andrè who is slightly eccentric in the most accommodating way. I used as much French as I could and he helped with his English and together we discussed silage, the size of his bulk milk tank, the frequency of milk tanker visits and hydraulic hose.

In its curious way, the informality of France Passion meant that we parked on the farmyard, next to a silage clamp and all the farm implements. I don't know what insurances Andrè needs but it doesn't seem to prevent this lovely simplicity.

He has a herd of mixed beef and milkers but it is only fifty five cows in total. How he can do this within the EU when it wouldn't be viable in the UK is something that our language skills wouldn't bridge. They were tested again later when we were invited by Andrè for an apéritif with the other two visiting couples (Germany and Belgium) and an octogenarian friend from Paris. 

The view from the elevated farm provided a super sunset. All too often, even with the clearest of skies, somehow the sun sets behind clouds on the horizon. Not tonight!

Bastia and a day not to forget!

The final journey closed the loop of the island tour at Bastia. This is our arrival and departure port, apparently the busiest in France after Calais. We drove through the town from south to north, avoiding the tunnel with it's 2.6m clearance even though we are 2.3m and we continued a few km up the coast to a campsite, Camping A Casaiola. This is run by Veronica from Napier on New Zealand's north island. Here she almost micro-manages the positioning of tents and vehicles and crams us in.

There's a beautiful pool and the beach just down the road is quite stoney which we found a bit painful for a swim but we had one all the same. We had a nice evening in the sun but were wary of the forecast thunder overnight and into the morning. It wouldn't matter though, as we planned a day walking around Bastia old town and harbour.

The lightening and thunder did start overnight and the show was quite spectacular, as they usually are in hot summers. There wasn't too much rain until breakfast time when the heavens opened and Veronica's open spaces became flood races and it wasn't possible to step outside. The poor lady next door with two kids was split between a little tent and a little van. I don't know who was where but there was no shelter. We didn't have our shade erected so stayed inside until there was a break. It was good practice for future trips in UK weather - and the whole point of getting the Alu-cab roof that allows sleeping "up-top' without needing to go outside to get there up a ladder.

We left a couple of place markers and began the drive to Bastia. As we did, the storm got more intense and it was very hard to see whilst driving. Floodwaters waters rushed onto the road dragging masses of gravel on there too, making parts very lumpy to drive through. This is the view as it calmed down and we approached our parking spot at Bastia.

This was on the north side of the town. We found a space just uphill from the ferry port and decided that here was far enough, parking the Landy there. As we looked out to sea there were very black thunder clouds and underneath them silhouetted against lighter clouds behind, were more black curly bits of cloud, which we have seen somewhere once before. These are little tornados trying to form and break away.

We walked the twenty minutes into and across the old town, by which time the rain had stopped and we got to the marina. Just as we were getting used to a dry minute or two, the clouds got blacker and blacker. Something was about to happen!

Yes it really did look like this and we swiftly found a café just in time. The weather then went bonkers. I captured a screen shot on my phone to show the lightening strikes. The newest strikes are white and they are progressively "aged" by re-colouring in yellow then orange. Each block is a detected strike location, so there had been around 1,500 near Bastia over the previous few hours.

In the café we drank coffee and studied weather apps as the rain came down more and more heavily. The staff in there had to mop-up as water was coming in from the steps at the side. Here's what they looked like - and this state of water rushing down probably lasted about ninety minutes without let-up.

Now it was lunchtime and it seemed right and proper that we ate lunch whilst watching the tempest outside. Our little group of fellow guests, similarly imprisoned, were doing the same, except for a couple with a baby who for some inexplicable reason, decided that they had to be somewhere else, much to the concern of all and the protestations of the café owner.

Eventually, around 2:30pm we were able to leave and walked back to the Landy, a little concerned for its welfare. As we approached the port there were many sapeurs-pompiers and gendarmerie around the tunnel and we were shocked to find that it was completely flooded, almost up to the 2.6m ceiling.

Luckily the Landy was OK, although water had leaked in but nothing that wouldn't dry over the coming days. The traffic trying to get into Bastia from the north was severely affected by the flooded tunnel but also from a number of trees that were down and had closed the road. As we drove back to the campsite, past this traffic queue, we saw lots of chainsaw activity as the authorities worked to clear the road.

We only discovered what we had missed during our hole-up in the café when we returned to the campsite. The owner had heard about Bastia and she explained that a tornado had gone through where we had seen the trees down but even more amazingly, that a waterspout had played just outside the port, in front of a ferry. This made the news headlines on Sky I believe. Here are YouTube stills captured from two uploaded videos. The Landy was parked just a little off screen to the left hand side.

It was quite a day!

Natural things

Two interesting "natural things" were observed whilst staying at M. Le Patron's. One was at the river and the other at the campsite.

When in water we both wear swimming goggles as this means we can have a good look at what's underneath. In the river there were many small fish. Many, means a lot and they were gathered together in specific places which we realised were under the drops.

After watching the water for a few minutes from above, this is what you see.

They are trying to jump the little waterfalls! It was like being in Lilliput because they are so small and I doubt that any would be able to get up but presume that they must do eventually.

The other phenomena is to do with blue things. We have a blue lidded butter box and Dawn has a big blue mug. We have been hassled by large flies with yellow/black wings that have the aerodynamics of a jumbo jet. They crash land onto anything that is blue. The natural thing that we observed is that the burnt grass of the campsite is covered in long spindly flower stems. They looked dead until the mornings when they are covered in blue petals. These are then systematically eaten by the jumbo jet flies until they all disappear. 

So this seems to be one of those things that happens in nature. The fly needs to eat the petals and the flowers needs the petals to be eaten!

We visited Corte, the university town of Corsica. It was nice to wander the streets which in July feel touristy. The statue of Pascal Paoli is prominent. He was the 18C leader of the Corsican resistance and spent some of his time gaining support of the British. In fact he died in exile in Britain.

We have been told several times about the low level or absence of petty crime and when I wanted to go and get my Landy key from the ignition, I was laughed at by one campsite owner. Walking along the street in Corte I of course spied a Landy parked but the keys were in the ignition and the window was open. It was still there a few hours later when we walked back.

One speciality that tasted very nice was this Migliacciu, a flan made with sheep's cheese (de brebis).

It was a successful morning, a flan to eat (for both) and a dress to wear (Dawn only).

Through the centre

After the coast of the south-east it was good to drive back into the mountains to see the scenery of central Corsica. First stop was Zonza and a little river swimming just below the nice campsite, Camping la Rivière and then a round walk at up from the col at Bavella (parked next a statue, Notre-Dame des Neiges, to  into the mountains on a well marked path to a landmark feature in the granite.

We have learnt to get the solar panel in full sun and use the sun shade if we need it. The fridge works hard in these temperatures but the Decathlon sunshade is a great addition to the kit we carry. It is only supplied with two poles as it is a "tarp" but we bought two additional telescopic poles, maximum length of these is 2.3m. They are the ones at the Landy end, high enough to clear the back door. The two sectional steel poles with the shade are used at the other end and as they don't have the shock cord or springs to hold them together, they can be set to the most suitable length to hide the sun.

We also added extra guys, two at each pole. Thus the sheet can be tensioned fully and can be left out in wind. There's even extra guys clamped at the mid-point of the sides using a releasable "crocodile" jaw thing that grips the material. These cost peanuts on eBay, along with a good length of guy rope.

As we began our walk, in the early morning before the cars jam the pass, through binoculars we could see a little sport climbing (using pre-placed bolts for safety) on the lower slopes of this massif.

This was quite a nice rock feature, made all the more photogenic when the mist flowed through it from one side to the other.

The road continued past beautiful villages and the hairpins never end.

This drive was on a road marked as un-surfaced on our 2008 atlas but now it has been completed.

We drove towards Corte, staying just south at the best campsite yet! This is Peridundellu at Venaco.

Charges were personnes x2 €10, emplacement €3.5, plus taxes of 0.30 each = €14.10 per night

High in the mountains, this is an absolute gem. It is small, on the side of a valley, with easy access down to the best river swimming ever. Plus, Monsieur Le Patron is the best host, running the campsite and a small private restaurant for campers, where each night he provides a set three course menu at €14.50. 

We enjoyed staying here so much that we stayed for three nights and ate his meals each night too. The main courses were Sanglier (wild boar), Aubergine stuffed with meat, and Cannelloni. His house wine was €3 for 1/2 litre. The desert was always billed as Surprise. Of course one evening this was crème brulée. The surprise was which night it would be. For reference, the wild boar sits very heavily on the stomach.

Most campsites take an order for morning bread but only here does Le Patron personally deliver it to your pitch. Ours was marked accordingly as we are the only GBs here. In fact we haven't seen any Brits anywhere! Most other campers here are German and Austrian, in fact it must be featured in an Austrian camping publication as they outnumbered the rest. 

The river below the campsite is fed from some of the highest mountains on the island and has plenty of water flowing. The first swimming place makes a classic picture.

The second though, featured the deepest swimming holes, going far under the rocks, two or three metres deep in places. There was a significant drop too with a fair amount of rushing water providing some invigorating, muscle relaxing sessions.

It is a beautiful spot.

Palombeggia

We moved along the coast towards Porto-Vecchio. It feels very "south of France" here with villas in the rocky hills overlooking beaches that are hard to access. The landscape is low scrub, pink granite rocks and it is dry, dry dry. It could be southern California too perhaps. All the glimpses of the sea are still of beautiful turquoise. The holiday season is getting into top gear now, with cars parked at all access points.

One of "the best beaches in Corsica" is Palombeggia and we thought a visit would be in order. At the northern end, several parking areas appeared to allow overnight campers and we pulled onto one, in a huge area, informally cleared of scrub to leave plenty of trees for shade. Cars were parked at one side but everywhere else was informally arranged with camper-vans and motorhomes dotted about.

Camper-vans feature the ubiquitous VW T6 or T5 with various earlier versions featuring too. There are bigger motorhomes, some old and many new which also tend to be very big and must be hard to handle on these narrow roads.

An Italian couple decided to come onto the parking and provided great amusement. There's a (Vic) Reeves and (Bob) Mortimer sketch where they drive a car into an open field but choose to park in between two trees. They then can't get out without great difficulty. You see this at supermarkets and other car parks where someone always wants to park next to you even though there are other free spaces with more room around.

These Italians spent ages trying to decide which trees to park near and eventually chose a spot that was just a little two low and they couldn't quite open their roof-lights. So Mr Italy climbed up onto the roof and proceeded to break all the branches needed to make the required space. Bizarre.

The camping here is official (I think), costing €10 for the night rather than the €4 to park for the day but it won't pass any facilities tests, as there aren't any, save for a water tap and three showers.

This is one of a very few places where electric hookups aren't provided. Rather surprisingly almost no-one can manage without a hook-up. There are cooler units in the shade of all the campsites with an electric cable running to them, from the often very distant outlet. We haven't seen anyone else with a solar panel and no-one has a fridge like ours.

The only direct 230VAC device we have is the MacBook and the power to re-charge this comes from a cheap and cheerful inverter, now five years old, which is connected to our 12V through a dedicated fused supply and this will recharge the laptop in a few hours, as per normal.

Also, in spite of all the climate talk and plastic usage, we seem to be the only people who drink the water from the taps. It's beautiful stuff but the Swiss, Austrians, Germans and French buy bottled water in vast quantities and then have the bottles to dispose of.  At least the locals can be seen re-filling plastic at the pipes supplying direct ground water in villages. We cool our tap water in "hiking bottles" in the fridge.

The Palombaggia beach was a little busy but the water was very warm and we had a good few swims and a relaxing afternoon. After the day trippers had left we enjoyed a little walk before making our way back in almost total darkness to the camp.

Going south

We headed inland just a little, to an interesting sounding France Passion campsite, at a farm with the simple yet effective name of Camping la Riviere . The France Passion deal here is that the first night is free. Well we have to get our handbook money back and we won't if we don't use it, so here we are. It is Sunday afternoon and this is a bit different. Somehow the farm has created a swimming hole in the river that's so big, they have also been able to construct water slides that leave a goodly drop at the exit between slide and water. The place was heaving with what appeared to be locals.

The restaurant had done a roaring trade judging by the clear-up going on and we joined in by buying our first Corsica brewed beer. This one comes in at 5% not the 6.5% of the other and was very flowery to taste but also a nice change. Not the sort of drink that we would down a pint or two of though and anyway the prices were a little steep, as they are across most of the island. €4 for 25cl bottle was the same as at Calvi's posh waterfront.

The camping area was a hundred metres or so behind the market garden part of the farm and stretched over several acres of burnt ground with a few trees providing shade. The campers that are here are well separated from each other and we got established under our own tree.

There are rudimentary showers and basins but most of our ablutions and washing-up were done at the Landy with the water thrown anywhere where it looked as if it might do good.

It was a good site for playing a little music slightly loader than normal. We have been listening to Mariza, specifically her album Fado Em Mim.  Try listening to "Chuva" and see if you agree. She's Portuguese not French but her music seems appropriate for sultry nights under the stars.

It is sultry too, so there's nothing for it other than to pull a cork and sit back.

Bonifacio is at the southern tip of Corsica and we headed there, camping just inland at a highly organised, "holiday" campsite, U Farnienta, which has a very impressive waterpark. We are now in high season prices and so had to fully use the facilities to justify it.

The town is built on and around amazing limestone cliffs which are brilliant white and fantastically eroded to form a perfect natural, fjord-like  harbour.

It actually rained for a few minutes as we caught the edge of a spectacular thunderstorm. It was all a bit too much for one guy, local I presume, who stood outside and got soaked, in front of our café. He had his arms outstretched as if he was thanking the Good Lord for the deluge. 

The Moby car ferry goes across to Sardinia which is only a few miles away. It appears that you spend a lot longer waiting on the quay to board and then get underway than you do for the actual crossing.

I couldn't resist Gooooogling the details on this yacht as we sat on the quay with a Bonifacio ice cream. It's the 64th largest yacht in the world and is owned by an Israeli/Kazakh billionaire Alexander Mashkevitch. I wonder if he's here sitting somewhere eating an ice cream too?