InvictaMoto's On The Road Again!

I have a few different blogs and compartmentalise my output but this blog, "On the Road Again" is still my main output source. In fact I got fed up with multiple blogs I merged loads into this one.  The merged ones still exist but they are "sleeping". When I view the blog to try and spot my obvious typos and grammatical errors, I see over on the right that very few of the blogs I follow are regularly updated. So I ask the question? "Is Blogger dying on its feet?" or are bloggers simply giving up sharing their lives? Let's have fellow Bloggers' answers! Me and the Relay Riders Charity Run mascots!

As we get near to the end of June I have finally got around to seeing where I have sunk to in the Kilometerfresser table. Since last year I have become increasingly less and less of a motorcyclist and more of a motorhomer! The motorhome that Claire and I have bought is the single biggest thing we have bought with the exception of a house! Firstly last year with the 115 and now in 2023 with the 2019 Autoquest 175! All we do can be found here . So with reduced riding opportunities I have dropped to 81st in the table!  I have dome a couple of runs in may and into June. The latter will be another few weeks before the table is updated though. Somehow if I am still 81st after the June update I will be very surprised.  There is only a month left to go before the competition end on July 31st.  With next weekend taken up with a moho trip again, I am beginning to run out of time to get active! I have already submitted my mileages and odometer photos for June as I know we aren't goi...

To save me typing this up again I am going to be lazy and simply supply the URL to the other post.... https://tinyurl.com/yh9rwdb6

 Blogger failed to say that the inbox was full.  Have no idea what the inbox is. Here are the rest of the posts that successfully went to Travellerspoint. https://devall-travels.travellerspoint.com/515/ https://devall-travels.travellerspoint.com/517/ https://devall-travels.travellerspoint.com/522/ https://devall-travels.travellerspoint.com/524/ https://devall-travels.travellerspoint.com/526/ https://devall-travels.travellerspoint.com/528/ https://devall-travels.travellerspoint.com/529/ https://devall-travels.travellerspoint.com/532/

Day 6 - Part 2 Well. The change of site may have resulted in us losing the €23 we paid for La Brise, and then the €15 we then shelled out for Sérignan-Plage, but the lack of flies and mozzies makes it almost worth it. We could have had two nights here!  Anyway, coming this far west means that our next double overnight stay near Millau is much nearer. We have to be off site here before noon. I am planning to be away before that! The van did need levellers. This is normal as usually vans are a little "arse upwards". The bordering campsites are a little loud. Music etc. Judging by the voices it's kids they are catering for in the day and adults until 1130pm!! No problems really. Free entertainment!! When it cooled down we took a walk to the beach. Not much going on and the car park, huge as it is, has a height barrier 🚧!! One bar a few hundred metres along from our beach access seemed a magnet 🧲 for yoofs in cars. Their music vying with each other and that of the bar. That...

Day 7 - Part 1 So here we are having lunch in the Camping-Car parking in La Couvertoirade. We didn't get up until late. It was hot and sticky again overnight. So no sleeping bags just sheets used again. We packed up and it was around 11am when we rolled. First stop Carrefour on the outskirts of Béziers for supplies and whilst there I topped up the fuel tank again. Here was the cheapest we have since we arrived in France. Then up the A75. When I was planning I forgot that this crew all except for the Millau Viaduct. It's also the entrance to the Massif. We climbed up and up. The range on the dashboard went from a high of 694 miles to 440! This will go up again when we go downhill! The village costs €4 to park. I didn't see for how long. A French van near us seems to be setup for the night... Levellers, roll-out awning out and all campsite behaviour.  The village itself is marvellous. Built around the 13th century Templar castle. https://lacouvertoirade.com/ https://www.les-p...

Day 7 - Part 2 Once we had eaten. For those interested in the eating habits of others, fresh baguette 🥖, Tomme de Savoie cheese and ham on. Very nice. When paying to park you get a ticket with a bar code. On exit the barrier bollard takes the ticket and that's the last you see of it .. Ohrex wanted us to go left but being a know all after seeing the map I went right. That was actually wrong. The junction on the A75 that I was aiming for was closed for roadworks. But before that the thunder that was forecast daily since Wednesday arrived. Reggie went mad. Then it seemed to pass. About a mile down the road it began to rain. When I say rain I mean monsoon level. The road surface turned into a river in seconds. There was nowhere to stop safely and so I carried on at around 25mph. It lasted for around 10 minutes and then cleared. By the time we came into Millau it was dry. The view of the Viaduct was stunning. I have been over it but as an experience I can't say it was that excitin...

Day 8 Another totally lazy do nothing day.  After the rainy end to yesterday the forecast today for the Millau area was much more of the same. Our neighbours to the right, both UK caravans, packed up and left.  We had left the awning and groundsheet out and both were sopping wet.  We had a walk to the reception to pick up our baguette and croissants. The sky was grey in places.  The indicator on the fresh water was showing red and so whilst Claire did the washing up I made a few trips to the drinking water tap near the motorhome service area to fill a 5L water bottle. As luck would have it the tip of the bottle fitted perfectly into the inlet.  With the ground wet when we arrived and the subsequent rain, I only want one go at driving off the pitch!  The access to the motorhome service area looks a little tight in any case. We'll need to drain the grey and empty the cassette at some point. Tomorrow I think, when we are leaving. After breakfast the sun peeped out and then the day was...

Day 5 With our next stop only about 150 miles away we had a lie in until 0830.  Our neighbours had been chatting since around 0600... At least the party animals up in the lodges had given up after a day on the sauce at around midnight. So much for camp rules to be quiet after 2200. The plan was to go across to Albon to fill the tank at E Leclerc as the FillGo app showed it the cheapest for mike's around. As it was Sunday, the shop itself is only open to 1230. It was packed. So was the Lidl car-park nearby. After tanking up we set of for a Beaux Village at Mirmand on the N7 south of Valence. Some two and a half hours after leaving the campsite we were still some 45 minutes away. The N7 is murder. ETA was 1320. We decided to abort and "come back another time" which we hardly ever do. So it was the péage again. The A7 past Orange and Avignon. We stopped for lunch at a services in a really nice picnic area. Loads of moho and caravans. A coach party of school kids were enjoyin...

The awning stayed out last night and the tie-downs did their job. The wind had gone up a bit. The down side is that the centre arm locating point at the top fell out and so we can't use it. Not being 9ft tall I can't reach to put it back.... It looks broken. Another job for JC? So this morning we packed up. When Reggie had his first pee, I had to brush all the little grass flies off him plus one mosquito that seemed to have bitten his foot. It's dead now, the #@#@#@! The same happened when we went to pick up our baguettes from the shop. Instant decision. We are leaving. The site would be superb. In fact it has everything you might want from a holiday camp just without the yellow/red coats calling out  hi-de-hi.... It's just the flies. And the bloody mosquitoes. They are used to people leaving early. A sign on the door says that a late check out could be had for €5. It also adds the early departures wouldn't get a refund... We spoke to some other couples, Dutch and G...

Since I began volunteering at the Kent Greyhound Rescue (KGR) centre back in January 2022 I have seen a lot of retired racing dogs come in and luckily a lot have found forever homes. Greyhound racing in Ireland and the UK isn't the "Sport of Kings", a moniker associated with horse racing, it's far more down beat than that. It's a very tough business and spits out dogs that don't do what the owners and trainers want, that's to win races and make money. It seems the latter is the most important part.   Most of the dogs that come through the charity, are from the Republic of Ireland. Many arrive in very poor condition indeed.  As a charity KGR feeds them up, assesses them and then hopefully recoups some of the money spent by asking for a donation. The charity also runs a shop to sell things that dogs' owners might like to buy. Leashes, collars and beds etc. Not everything is for greyhounds and their sighthound cousins but for all dogs. But a second dog? ...

Arrived at the Shuttle at 0646 and checked Reggie into the Pet Reception. Our first stop tonight would be a campsite in Bourg-Comin - Camping la Pointe. Only €19 a night inc EHU. Decent site, good pitches. After a stop at the Picard in Coquelles for three kilos of dogador, raw food for dogs,and then Auchun for those essentials for life - food, beer and wine, and we were off. We decided to knock the time off and take the A26. A toll road. The satnav was quoting 4.5 hours and 7.5 off toll With cruise control to be set at 100km/h on the HUD, we set off. The temp gauge showing a reasonable 25°C. A couple of stops for coffee and lunch, plus essential dog pee breaks and we exited near Laon. I had set a waypoint to a motorhome parking area close to the city wall. One road was closed with road works, but the satnav got us round. Park4Night shows the space for 8 motorhomes. The spaces are delimited by metal studs in the road. There was only one Moho there when we arrived. I did a three point tu...

Today we got Molly back from storage. It was only a couple of weeks since she was put away.  It seems the sealant used to keep the body panels water tight also attract dirt. It seems to stick very easily. Luckily it is easy to clean with car wash wax and a little elbow grease.  Whilst we were at it we cleaned all sides of the box, just the roof escaped this time.  Tomorrow we need maybe to have a little drive to Dover to fill up the lpg. With fuel prices looking higher in France than here maybe at the same time we fill the diesel to the top too!!