Late summer in Cornwall

Cornwall in late summer sounds great, so we went. The trip began on Sunday 8th September with a visit to old friends Mark and Jan, near Cheltenham. We covered a lot of ground in a 90 minute catch-up and it was great to see them. Then it was on to an overnight stop at Taunton, picked from park4night. This was a cider farm at Monkton Heathfield where caravans and motorhomes are dotted around an orchard inhabited by a multitude of peacocks.

Using the experience of the Corsica trip we modified the accommodation to handle a double burner cooker fed with gas from a 907 cylinder. This has improved cooking no-end and will certainly be the way forward in anything other than heatwave conditions

(Dawn is only bending down to be in the phtoto. There's plenty of headroom really).

By the time we arrived at Bideford, the weather had turned wet. Lunch was taken inside the Landy, this time with little headroom. Then we headed to the coast at Hartland.

The lighthouse is in a stunning location, only accessible on a farm road (£2 toll) and a very short walk. To get to the farm road though, one has to navigate the Devon lanes and this is hard as they are narrow, deep and steep.

Plus all sorts of traffic came towards us, all centred on construction activity at the lighthouse. Apparently the massive refurbishment going on there (£Millions) is due to the recent purchase by a member of the Sachi family. Who it is we don't know exactly but lots of money is being spent.

We camped at a site with the biggest fields and the most space you have ever seen, at Stoke Barton. There's a link here. The views are fantastic and the coastline is stupendous.

Dinners are getting more ambitious too...

Stoke Barton Farm is owned by Hartland Abbey (or at least they share a landlord) and filming of Mallory Towers was just starting at the abbey. The entire film crew were about to establish their forward base at our campsite and overnight, massive lorries negotiated the Devon lanes, into the campsite. There, all the equipment was decanted into smaller vehicles and taken to the abbey, whilst make-up and actor rest areas were created in some other big trucks.

Meanwhile the beautiful weather gave way to a heavy sea fret and everything turned drippy wet and the wind got up. This has taught us to park facing the wind, as to do otherwise means that the "bedroom" tent fabric flaps around and keeps you awake.

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On y va

Hooray. We are off. The ferry was booked a few weeks ago and the pressure was then on to get all sorts of jobs finished on the house and Landy. Major cosmetic work was to cover the grey front doors with paint that matches the rest of the vehicle. On the engine a coolant leak had developed behind the water pump and so the P gasket and adjacent core plug were renewed. Also a cheapy head unit from those Chinese people replaced the old Sony fm radio. Now we have opened up the wonders of Car Play and all that comes with it. Finally the 9th gen iPad with WiFi became a 9th gen iPad with WiFi and ‘cellular’. This means we can use OsmAnd Maps which need no data and get their gps position off the ‘cellular’ chip in the iPad. More on this useful map in subsequent posts. We headed towards Portsmouth for a mid morning ferry via our old neighbours in S-I-V. There we had a great few hours updating each about our families and then proceeded to save the NHS, the country and the world too. I mean why no...

Onwards

You can’t visit a classic car enthusiast without admiring their car and we got our timing right, as it was the monthly club meet on Sunday. This was held at the Hippodrome in Maisons Laffitte, so it was just up the road. The definition of ‘classic’ here is 30 years and so many of the vehicles there looked very familiar to us 😳. TR5 and TR6, MGB, RR, BMW, Maserati, of course the Jensen Interceptor that our host drives, 2CV, Caterham 7, a beautiful Austin Healy 3 litre and then this… This is identical to mine, a Fiat 850 Sport Coupé, that I owned from 1978-81. Seeing it, brought back memories of welding, brazing, stripped driveshaft splines, clutch on the M1 and many miles of amazing touring. We drove around France on a camping road trip for all of September 1978 and the following year did the Ardennes for a month too. Here’s Nige’s Jensen… Maisons Laffitte is a very nice area to the west of Paris centre. The mansion is now owned by a trust I think and is a beautiful building. All we ne...

Towards Savoie

We stayed on the motorway, which for us is unusual in France but we have experienced the traffic calming in the towns and villages. A direct and fast journey was planned and achieved, with a nice morning stop and appropriate accompaniments. We arrived at Saint-Jean-de-Chevelu which is a little west of Lac du Bourget, the huge lake which has Aix- les-Bains on its eastern shore. We went to a previously researched campsite, Camping des lacs. This is a lovely spot of about 100 places for a mix of tents, camper-vans and smaller motor homes. There are also cabins and some that were a bit like shepherd’s huts. It’s situated next to two small lakes (surprise!) and there’s a ring of small mountains around. These would have been peri-glacial lakes 🥸 back at the last ice age and have now become a joint playground and eco place. You can swim, fish and respect ‘nature’ here but need to get in the right part at the right time to do what’s allowed. A lady pecheur told us of carp and ...

Peelies travels

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