Tuesday 13th May Mont Roc to Lac de Lauzas

We skip off to Lac de Lauzas…no actually we negotiate another set of endless hairpins in the middle of nowhere. The things we’ve recently seen give a whole new meaning to the word ‘rural’.  In total since leaving Albi we have seen two and a half people. And a cat. There is nothing anywhere!! Anyway, peace is just what we’re after, so this is good news and we arrive to find our own private pitch, with its own beach, the entire lake at our disposal and not a soul for miles and miles. It’s beautiful.

Monday 12th May Camares to Albi to Mont Roc

Albi is once again lovely and our prayers to the wonderful Saint Cecile seem to fall on attentive ears as all our insurance nonsense and Van issues get attended to with minimal fuss and pain. God bless Sofra too. We have earmarked Lac de Lauzas as our final destination, but it’s a bit of a hop so we decide to make an interim stop at Mont Roc. Neither of us had really paid close attention the map at this point and Noush manages to navigate us straight into the middle of nowhere and the other roof of the world. The 360 view is incredible. There’s a 10^th century chapel and we say prayers and silently marvel at the world laid at our feet.

It’s the most peaceful and isolated night’s sleep and we awake rejuvenated and ready to zoom to some lake side action.

Sunday May 11th Mende to Camares

We arrive to a beautiful lake view indeed. Um, where's the water..?

We have been here all of 60 seconds when aire mayor comes out and starts giving it the beans about where we can and cannot park. Bearing in mind we are the only campervan here he gets fairly short shrift. Thanks for the welcome, mate.

Camares itself is like the town that everyone forgot. Odd ramshackle deserted houses cling to the river banks and we are quite certain that there has been no new blood here for generations.

This van may well be the most modern thing this village has ever seen….

Nonetheless we spend an easy night here and have formed a master plan for fixing Valerie.

We are going to undertake a wee loop and head to the familiar comforts of Albi to undertake all the bits and pieces we need to do in actual civilisation and then we’re going to find an actual lake. 

Saturday 10th May Pont du Gard to Mende (!)

We set off early doors in the hope that we will beat the early morning market mayhem in Uzes. Sadly we get snarled up anyway, so it’s a slow and not very zoomy start. Finally we extricate ourselves and head on towards Ales and Anduze – which is where we’ve earmarked our first evening. On arrival it transpires that the Aire is somewhat shabby and a bit plein de chiens, so we go for a quick wander around town – which is FILLED with Bikers – and zoom onwards to St Jean du Gard.

St Jean du Gard is a charming place, really easy access and a nice little parking spot, which unfortunately is next to some serious maintenance works being carried out, so we have a quick mooch around and move on.

Memorial service in progress for French Armistice day with very imposing statue… viva la france!

We take the executive decision to attempt the Corniche de Cevennes. It looks fun, if a little hilly on the map and there’s Florac at the end, which all the books of fiction rave about. The reality is a little different. This Corniche thing is MONSTROUS. We decide to take the low road and what we assume will be the easier option. How high/hard can it be? It follows the river on the map and everything. An hour or so later, knuckles somewhat white we find ourselves somewhere near the roof of the world. The camera can’t cope with what it is seeing, but if you look close enough you should see a tiny snaking road somewhere far below…

Anyway, finally we arrive at Florac. We find the aire and park up all set to enjoy a cool beer and a wander around what promises to be a lovely place. DISASTRO STRIKES!!!! Some French woman who we can only assume is bladdered cos not even women are that bad at driving, manages to reverse into us and breaks Valerie’s bottom. Bearing in mind we are stationary and there are witnesses and everything she initially beams up at us and asks  “are you sure it was me?”. One of the French witnesses wades in on our behalf. In the midst of this Mr Bladdered arrives and proceeds to kick off. Will this be the first ever aire riot??? With all the formalities dealt with and details exchanged etc etc we decide to leave rather than risk Mr Bladdered returning with whatever the French equivalent of a baseball bat is and finishing Valerie off. We zoom to Mende. Ahhh the irony.

Mende is a haven and we park up and collapse. We have reached the top of our “operation balloon” (which was our curvy excursion loop to go a bit inland and then back down to the coast) somewhat sooner than expected and we’ve covered some hilly kilometres. It’s time for some down time, so we pick a nice gentle route, via Millau, to a very secluded aire by a lake in order to hole up and recover. We are off to Camares. 

Thursday 8th May to Saturday 10th May – Gorges du Gardon

The Pont du Gard is amazing. Roman built and ancient, how did they do it???! The views down our river are spectacular and we decide to stay a couple of days as the weather is just too perfect as is the river.

We even manage to teach Norm how to swim properly. It turns out that he is a super swimmer, an otter in disguise. With his disproportionately large paws and his tail sticking up like a mast he powers through the river with incredible zoom. Moo is astonished and unnerved by this and spends a good ten minutes on the shore watching in shocked disbelief. Norm is Olympian!

We love it here and could happily stay here for the weekend, but the dog charge is simply too prohibitive. So with heavy hearts we say goodbye to the healthiest most beautiful river ever and set off northwards again.

Wednesday 7th May Mas de Rey to Pont du Gardon via Arles and Beaucaire

We make an early departure from Mas De Rey because everyone is sort of awake anyway, in a comatose sort of way. We travel the 8km to Arles and underslept and under-caffeinated we manage to land in the aire without mishap. We love you Arles. We love Arles even more when we actually have a look around. It’s market day and it’s possibly the biggest market either of us have ever seen. Unlikely Algerian types selling unidentifiable spices vie with dapper gents selling antiques. Stalls with fruit and veg literally tumbling off them in abundance impede our progress somewhat as Norm thinks manna is falling for heaven just for him and insists in attempting to hoover up anything remotely close to him.

We make our way to the tourist office and get a map of the city. To our shame neither of us had realised quite how much there was to see in Arles. Around every corner there is another majestic building or ruin or point of interest. Van Gogh made his mark here and his artwork is everywhere. Our senses are pleasantly overwhelmed with beautiful twisting streets draped in blousy roses and falling flowers. Ancient Roman ruins are present everywhere, dominated by the Colisseum. It’s just an incredible place. You could spend a week here and barely scratch the surface. Sadly for us though we are not staying. We’ve got a lunch stop lined up in Beaucaire and the heat is rising.. off we go.

We arrive in Beaucaire and Jon snaffles us an ideal place next to the Marina. We have a bite to eat and then take a walk around. Again there is a beautiful castle here and we tramp up in the midday sun. It’s worth it for the view.

After all the streets and heat we decide we need some river action so we zoom on northwards until we get close to the Pont Du Gard which is our next fixed stop. We end up in the campsite Camping Domaine Gorges du Gardon which is a total gem of a place on the river. Were it not for the €5 charge per dog (unbelievable!!) it would be perfect. Nonetheless it suits us and we settle in for a day or two of wild swimming, fishing, cycling and seeing the Pont du Gard. 

Tuesday 6th May Marseillan Plage to Mas de Rey via Saint Gilles

Our last evening in Marseillan plage and we attempted to get some evening pictures of “the strip”, but for some unfathomable reason they all came out a little fuzzy, here’s our best:

Nor did we manage any escapades to local things, we decided to save that for our return. However we have plotted a route today that takes us into Montpellier and out again giving us another stopover at a French Passion. Unlike us we change our minds and decide to bolt to Arles, which is somewhere that we’ve both always wanted to visit.

Zooming along we realie that we’ve taken this road before and when we stop for lunch in Saint Gilles, it occurs to us that last time we were here was with Badger. We go for a  wander and revisit old haunts and send up a prayerful greeting to the Bear, bless him.

We had contemplated staying here, but we’re surrounded by clapped out camper vans and sketchy characters who can’t seem to perform the most simple of functions i.e keeping their trousers up, staying clear of fluorescent clothing, driving at less than 200km/h, not sitting, not looking like six fingered imbeciles. Harsh but fair. We decide to skip down the road to a French Passion that looks terribly grand in our book.

Sure enough on arrival, we zoom down a very glamourous tree lined avenue onto a LARGE Domaine… Mas de Rey.  Vines everywhere…

This is the type of residence you see in glam glossies advertising the South of France. Provincial stone, slightly shabby chic, vines and lavender in all the right places. Tres Bien Rodney. Joking aside it really is unbelievably picturesque. There is, by all accounts a renaissance chapel, but on this occasion we don’t get the chance to get up close and personal. If for no other reason than the mosquitoes. Biblical. Even Norm gets spooked whilst sat outside admiring the view (edit – waiting for an opportune moment to (delete as appropriate) bark/chase another dog/cause severe embarrassment to us/attack Moo/Poo in the worst possible public place.

We choose to sit inside and polish off some (semi) local wine whilst dining in exquisite (safe) surroundings. We meet the lovely Sophie, who airily waves us a hello in the barn enorme (read uber glam conversion restaurant thing, islands are sinking because their marble bed rock now resides at Mas de Rey). We humbly enjoy our shady grassy pitch and our wine (sorry sophie, quick Norm eat the box!) and ease into the evening.

An early night beckons, especially after a good few miles covered during the day. Safe to assume then that a good night’s sleep is on the cards. Weill actually no. If you don’t believe in the supernatural then come and stay here.

Norm, the dog that once asleep resembles the dead does not sleep. At all. He maintains a dedicated nightly vigil with precise outbursts of barking and alarm alerts whenever the need arises. The need arises on a minute by minute basis. The clash of roman weaponry versus the scream of a clapped out 2CV at 4am (4am… lock up your daughter….woops, too late). The attack of the flying squirrels, the falling pine cones, the odd irregular shooting from across the way, but most of all the ghosts. Ah the ghosts. The restless ghosts still prowl their ground here, be prepared to share. But gosh it’s beautiful. Do stay, but bring anti mosquito stuff. And holy water??? J