Friday 27th June Gourney-en-Bray to Mametz via Beauvais and St Quentin

Today is the day we get to our campsite and set up HQ for plotting ‘ventures and sploring’ into the unknown east. We stop at Beauvais to see the incredible church and cathedral there, but unfortunately it’s scorching weather and the dogs prevent play so we only get an exterior snatch at a view.

We would recommend the aire there though, despite what appears to be it’s out of the way location. It’s actually quite close to everything and masses of park adjacent if you’ve got hounds.

On we go towards St Quentin and the campsite Serracourt le Grand. We have phoned and reserved in advance and are assured that a pitch (and on site carp fishing) will both be available. We arrive and all goes well at first and then we are directed to our pitch. Unfortunately neither of us had the presence of mind to take a photo of this, but picture your standard aire drive over drain, hard core standing, tarmac/gravel, unshaded car park and you get the idea. Despite having no back up plans we immediately leave. I mean… really????? Plus it was full of oiks. Sucks boo to you we say. Except it’s sucks boo to us really as we’ve got no where to go that readily springs to mind, or indeed that we can find online, or via the acsi book, that meets our needs. We have one last card left to play, although it means a HUGE zoom. Again. Our old friend Frederic Lecat and his campsite ‘Camping de Moulin’ in Mametz. Erm. Near Calais. We stayed with him on our first trip and it was a perfect place to hole up, recover, plot and scheme and relax. We can’t get hold of him on the phone and it’s miles away, but we decide to risk it. The comforts that hopefully await us outweigh the miles and the risk, plus it puts us in a position to continue east either via Belgium or Luxembourg.

Jon does yet another heroic zoom, this man needs a medal for endurance driving and upon our arrival we are greeted by Frederic himself who, incredibly, recognises us. Bearing in mind we stayed with him two years ago, for three nights, this is pretty amazing, especially as he may or may not have been three sheets to the wind for the duration of our stay! In short order he has ensconced on a beautiful grassy, sunny pitch with dappled shade, hook up, internet and all the facilities you could ever want (including an entire meadow for the dogs and fishing for us!) for the princely sum of €15 a night. We love you Mr Lecat. As an aside to all motorhomers out there, this man has five pitches and you basically need to stay here. There’s a beautiful carp lake (or three) down the road, the famous and beautiful river Lys runs through the town, the campsite has an excellent bar and the pitches are beautiful and well kept, there is a children’s play area, dogs are welcome and they get a huge field to tank about in. Everything is clean and well maintained while managing to have a warm family feel. The family themselves are completely charming and the whole set up will ease the nerves of the most hard pushed traveller. Do check them out online: Le Moulin de Mametz.

We decide to stay for a week, perhaps we’ll stay longer - especially because Jonboy has apparently inspired some major fishing activities with the locals having hauled out a specimen brown trout and a really big bream!