Day 2 – It’ll be Alright on the Night.....

After not a particularly good night (it was bloomin cold) we were up and on the road by 8.50am for the long drive South.   The French A6 motorway was busy (a bit like the M25 on a quiet day) but the miles soon passed and we saw some beautiful countryside – lots of sunflowers and vineyards and getting warmer by the mile.  

We stopped at Niemes for some fuel, water and leg stretching – all good, excited to be nearing Cessenon-Sur-Orb, until....  the wind took the door out of my hand and bashed the petrol pump (fortunately no damage done).  Then as we left the Aire Del worked his way through the gears as we accelerated and boom, boom 5^th gear? “non” – I couldn’t possibly write here the contents of the following conversation as I’d get banned by the Internet! Thank goodness for Google and our friends on Facebook page Motorhome Adventures!   It seems that the 5^th gear on Fiat Ducato engines has been a long-term problem but most of all we were assured that we can continue without doing any further damage – albeit a little slower.

So we arrived at Cessenon-Sur-Orb, a beautiful little village but the “trusty” SatNav was telling us we still had a few miles to go?   Now the campsite was situated alongside the river Orb but we were climbing higher and higher through the mountains mmm....  maybe not alongside the river????    We eventually found “a” campsite but not the one we wanted - bad Google giving us the wrong information (got to blame someone).   So down the mountain we came and pulled up at the correct campsite in the “nick of time” as they were closing - http://www.campingfrance.com/uk/find-your-campsite/languedoc-roussillon/herault/cessenon-sur-orb/camp-municipal.  - we have since found out there is nowhere to empty toilet cassettes on this site, but the shower/toilet facilities although a little dated are clean and pleasant.   Very busy here but situated alongside the river Orb with beautiful views of the village on the other side – we are metres away from the bridge that takes you straight into the village with some good shops and restaurants – perfect for me and my dodgy legs!  

As we had only had a baguette all day we were rather hungry so we decided to go into the village for dinner.   We arrived at 8pm and after moaning we finally received our starter only to be followed almost immediately by the main course at past 9pm!  Can’t say either of us particularly enjoyed our meals but it seems they were also catering for a large gathering of people (60+) across the road and the kitchen was really struggling.   I’ll not say too much because we intend to give it another go when it’s a little quieter.

The 60+ gathering of people were well “tanked up” (we think it may have been a wine tasting event) and they had laid on live music to round off the evening.   Now, Del & June had drank rather a lot of the local produce whilst waiting for their dinner so we upped and joined them!   Picture this...  10.30pm in a French village square, temperature still very very warm and we were doing the Twist!  Ha ha great way to see off a particularly eventful day.

Cheers!  from the Birthday Boy