Northern Springs

After three days driving north, this morning we woke to a grey wintry looking scene. We are parked in an aire beside the Lac de Biscarosse in Les Landes. Looking at the amount of standing water in the ditches I think it has been a wet, cold Spring here; certainly the trees, which are only just budding, seem less Spring-like than in all the others years we have crossed France at Easter time.

Lac de Biscarosse

It was as cold as it looks

Nice lakeside aire - electrticity - good value at 8 .40 euros (beware of  on exit of scary automatic rising bollards!)

We never planned to stop here. In fact, the journey north has been a catalogue of frustrated intent. The plan was straightforward, from Ampudia we would stop at the aire in Miranda del Ebro, push on towards Biarritz for a night, then visit Bordeaux for a couple of days. A good plan, but fatally flawed in so much as it failed to factor-in the knickers and pants situation. We needed to find a washing machine so we headed for the municipal camp site in Burgos instead.

Camping municipal in Burgos

It's a good site, on the outskirts of the city, next to a country park by the river with pleasant local walks. The facilities are excellent with a well designed motorhome service point - what could be better? Well, it would have been better if the laundry had been functioning and not awaiting repair. Nevertheless we went for a walk, generally chilled-out, chatted to a younger couple from England who had arrived with their 12 year old son. They were intrepid - straight off the Santander ferry, with a brand new motorhome, a small-scale fold-out map of Europe, a sat nav that omitted Spain, and ten days to get back to Dieppe. Bravo! We got a bit nostalgic about the days we piled the kids into the car, and bombed south in a bulging Nissan estate, frame tent on the roof-rack, bikes hanging off the back; we have always been useless at staying at home.

So next day, Maisy, her hapless owners and an overflowing laundry bag resumed their journey northwards, but not before exploring the centre of Burgos by motorhome due to a sat nav malfunction. It looked like a pleasant city... maybe next time! Even though Burgos is situated at an altitude of 3000 feet, it does not look like a mountain city like Grenoble or Clermont Ferrand, the high plains continue for some distance before you reach real hill country. Even then, after a brief interlude of twisting hill climbs and steep limestone ravines the road drops into the Ebro valley before finally reaching the mountains of the Basque country.

iconic - Black Bull....

and Repsol!

Miranda del Ebro is a crossroads town where old routes and modern motorways cross the river. The description of the aire sounded quite bucolic, talking of pleasant riverside views and local walks, though it did mention that some pitches were on mud. In reality this latter feature turned out to be the place's defining characteristic. When we arrived, following the signs down a track by the river. there were two or three motorhomes drawn up. They had nabbed the least muddy pitches, and those that remained were pitted and covered in tyre tracks. We decided to give it a miss, so carried on down the lane to find a place to turn. This soon turned into a narrow dirt track close to the river bank; it ended in a 90 degree turn and a steep upward slope. Gill hopped out to check for hazards and I tried to ease the van up the slope to find enough room to reverse turn. "Stop!" shouted Gill. Now I was in a real pickle. Maisie's nose was pressed into a muddy bank and her not inconsiderable behind dangling over the churning waters of the river Ebro.

By this time our predicament prompted interest from the not entirely friendly locals. An elderly woman came out of her house and rattled away in hysterical Spanish. The chap, who for some time had been gesturing at me with his stick from the top of what appeared to be an impossibly steep slope, finally made his meaning clear - the only way out was up. Gill went ahead to check the way, only to be greeted by wild barking dogs. I am not sure what the precise collective noun should be for a group of marauding miniature terriers - pack accords them wolf-like qualities inappropriate to their diminutive size, flock underestimates their ferocity, herd hints at a collective will that is entirely missing - I think swarm is the best approximation. So as half a dozen irate terriers swarmed around Gill, sinking their teeth into her Crocs, I powered Maisy up the steep muddy slope towards what looked like a scrapyard, following the instruction of stick gesturing man, deftly avoiding flattening his other dog, a ferocious but very stupid boxer-cross that kept attempting to throw itself under the front wheels. Crisis averted, I turned the van around, retraced our steps, down the hill, past the muddy aire and headed for the safety of a Mercadona car park.

Too tricky here, we agreed. After a quick shop we headed back to the motorway and decided to continue on and camp on the coast near San Sebastián.



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