We woke up just as dawn was breaking around 8am and realised it had rained overnight. It was still overcast but it was predicted to be sunny later with a high of 20 degrees.
We still had our fly friends, so we opened the back and side doors and tried to flush them out – quite a few got the message, but there were a few persistent ones or maybe their friends joined in. Flies are so stupid, all the doors were open, but they just turned around and flew back in so unfortunately, those ones got the tea towel treatment and at least a headache. The Pup, despite her talent for shredding craneflies, refused to partake in this massacre and slept on her mat, feigning sleep.
We had a slow morning, before packing away and heading off. We had decided to just do short hops from now on and didn’t plan to go far today. Yesterday’s meanderings to Rocamadour were the best so far and hoped today would be in a similar vein. We drove through the actual village of Rocamadour rather than the chateau part, which in our opinion had far nicer shops than the cite medieval. We had slipped into the Department of Lot yesterday without really noticing, but it was not disappointing. We trundled through miles and miles of woodland and forests interspersed with fields and common land – it was just perfect. We went through Espedaillac, a tiny little village of some 290 souls that was rather scattered across seemingly common land, the houses and cottages set in time. They must of been at least 300 years old, possibly even more, untouched by time and tourism, a little commune hidden from the 21st century, living simply. We just loved it – we were so agog at the gorgeous little cottages that we didn’t take any photos and didn’t see anything else matching that wonderful little village for the rest of the day.
We continued our meanderings, trees as far as you could see – this was our kind of country. The sun was starting to come out and the temperature rising. We started to drop down and ended up driving alongside the River Cele (there should be accents over ‘e’s here, but I can’t figure it out on my laptop, so please forgive me) and into a deep gorge. The gorge took us into the village of Cabreret, a quiet and seemingly devoid of human life village, but exceptionally beautiful, sheltering under the overhanging cliffs of the gorge. We did a quick recce before returning to a little campervan car park and went for a wander. A little picture shop was open, but everything was shut – we had come to the conclusion that Sundays and Mondays constituted a French weekend. We wandered down little back lanes, with deep culverts, currently empty of water and dry as a bone – we could imagine what it would be like if it rained heavily and these culverts withholding and directing the deluge into the River Cele, it would of be a sight to behold. The village wasn’t particular big so we began to walk back to the Van when we spotted a patisserie sign like you do and followed the arrow some 50 yards up the road, where we sat at an outside table and ordered our obligatory coffee and sweet confectionery. It was very pleasant apart from a group of Middle England Brits being loud and imperial on the next table. Sometimes you despair of your fellow countrymen.
Fulfilled and pleased with ourselves, we walked back to the Van and began to evict our remaining and more resolute flying insects – we had spent the journey with the windows open, wafting them out with limited success. My attempts of knocking them out senseless with a cloth proved futile, so I upped my armoury with a tourist map, though my aim was wanting. So we managed to offload most these freeloaders by opening the doors and showing them the way, before we continued our journey. The scenery here was stunning, we followed the rocky walls on our right with the River Cele across green meadows until we reached the hamlet of Conduche where the Cele meets the River Lot- our jaws were on the Van floor by this point – the cliffs abutted the road with rocky overhangs threatening to drop onto the road. We passed through short rocky tunnels and drove down the middle of the road, breathing in as we passed oncoming traffic. Dotted in the rocks were openings to caves and there was the Pech Merle that had prehistoric cave drawings opened to the public. It was truly beautiful and so happy that we had stumbled across it.
We headed to Cahors as we had located a possible campervan outlet that could help us with our misbehaving step, held in place by an emergency clip. We dropped down, passing woodland scorched by local wildfires, the road acting as a natural firebreak – nearby were residential houses, so close to the devastating flames. It brought it home to you on what a nightmarish scenario it must of been for the local residents.
We followed the Satnav exactly and found ourselves on an industrial estate, but our shop was nowhere to be seen. A quick visit to nearby, but unrelated unit informed us that they had moved and were closed today anyway. Hubby then suddenly realised the time, – he was due to join an meeting online – a quick Google located a car park just up the road where we could stop. Of course, to get there was convoluted – down narrow streets just wide enough for our Van and we squeezed in, only to find the car park had been taken over by trailers and fancy RV’s. It looked like a film set where film stars have high end trailers where they rest between takes, with cables, generators and other paraphernalia – but equally it could of been a posh circus or fun fair parked up before a week of festivities. Whatever it was, it filled the car park completely, so after a couple of circuits, we headed down the road to another possible parking spot, only to find that cut off by barriers. Oh hell! Time was ticking along, so we located yet another parking area and drove along the side of the River Lot only to be confronted by the road narrowing to a single lane with high kerbs running alongside it. We stopped, trying to calculate whether we could get through it, with a line of French motorists behind us. No pressure. We had ended up at the wrong angle and needed to reverse. (You can imagine the French cursing us). In the end I jumped out and did a bit of traffic management as we were starting to get honked at, letting people pass and then standing in front of our van, lining it up through this narrow section. Drivers at the other end waited patiently as I walked our Van through and then mouthed a lot of “merci’s” and offering integrating smiles before hopping into the Van and making our escape.
With the meeting about to start, feeling flustered and the old blood pressure being slightly high, Hubby pulled into a gravelly layby just beyond the stressy bit of road and parked up. It was for disabled parking only, but we could always move on if we encountered any law enforcement. Hubby joined his online meeting, I sat in the back and googled nearby camping facilities and comfort ate half a large bag of crisps. After his meeting, I directed Hubby north east of Cahors, to the Les Graves campsite which I had telephoned in advance (feeling proud of myself) and confirmed with a man of many words (not) that we could stay at his establishment. As we weaved our way out of Cahors suburbs we spotted our campervan place and made a note of it.
Les Graves was just what we needed, rather than the dusty aires I had spotted on Google Maps when I was looking for our overnight respite. We had seen a lovely aire near Cabrerets earlier which ticked a lot of boxes apart from no toilet facilities (we have a rule in our campervans – no Number Two’s unless in an emergency) so we might of have had to christen our onboard loo – which would of worked, but we didn’t fancy traipsing all the way back there. Anyway, we parked on pitch No 13 at Les Graves, next door to a British couple and their spaniel, wafted out the last of the last of the pesky flies and sunk a beer. I went to pay the man of not so many words and checked out the facilities – basic but adequate, but essentially with loo paper, though back to bare porcelain (you just can’t win). The Pup and I went to play ball in the huge field just beyond our pitch and came back to find that Hubby had acquired a patata and coleslaw from our English neighbours due to the fact that they had no fridge. With tea sorted, we poured ourselves a medicinal glass of wine and had tea. We later discovered that though we were hooked up to electric, none was running through to our Van. Ce la vie – we were too laidback to care. Our lights worked, but our plugs didn’t. We finished off a bottle of wine and I wrote this blog.
Our vague plan tomorrow is to visit the campervan place and hope they can get our step to work, hit a supermarket for some groceries and nip into the French equivalent of Pets at Home for some Bonios and other treats for our very patient and tolerant hound.
