We've had a small change of plan. As I am having trouble with the extreme heat Peter has suggested that we go north rather than south and into blinding heat. So we are heading north east through France. Have found two beautiful lakes today, a much larger Queenstown kind of place and this smaller lake, where we are camping, where we will investigate the surrounds tomorrow. This part of France is very like Austria & Switzerland and is just beautiful with its lakes, mountains and small villages. Camping and food is much less expensive here. The weather is warm during the day, 26 - 28 degrees and nice and cool at night.

28 June 2010

Almost at Dijon, mustard country and red wine. Peter will be in his element. The temp got to 34 today but at 5.30 it is starting to cool off. It was still light at 10.00.p.m. last night and only suppose that it will get lighter later as we head north. We're so excited; we brought an electric kettle today. As we are on power most of the time thought we may as well use the power we are paying for. Had lunch at a wonderful lake, had a great small marina and boats were coming and going. We are trying to keep off the main roads so are finding all sorts of interesting little places. Loving this part of France.

This camping ground is huge, over 400 parking spots and every one of them is fairly private with many trees and hedges. It's on a huge lake with sandy beach's, swimming, fishing and water sports.

The next day we had to check out a nasty little squeak that Betsy had developed in her front left foot.It had been progressively worse as we had gone along and the usual spray with WD40 no longer was working. As we had come into the village the previous night Peter noticed a garage with a Ford emblem on it so we went back there in the morning. No English but very helpful. The mechanic checked it out and "told" us it was a steering joint. Lo and behold they had the exact part in stock ( not bad considering the age of Betsy ). We went into the village, checked out the market, had a cup of coffee and went back to find our little Betsy was as good as new.

From there we headed further north where we found another campground just short of Beaune ( pronounced Bone ) The next day we went into Beaune and wandered around this beautiful little town before we headed north to Metz. We saw this beautiful campground beside the river as we entered the town so decided that that would do us for the night. We found the site on the GPS but as usual it took us up some rather unusual streets which became increasingly narrower to the point we had to stop. About the same time as one of the local Gendarmes turned up on a motorbike behind us. He came up along side and Peter explained where we were trying to get to. No problem he said ,follow me. That was easier said than done, motorbikes are much narrower than Betsy. Anyway after negotiating some of the back streets of Metz our kind policeman guided us to our resting place for the night. Just outside the campground was a big parking area with several campervans parked there. Peter went in and checked what the price was to stay in the campground proper. 18 Euros( $36 nz ) He went over and had a talk with this couple who were parked in the carpark. They were a couple of Brits. No problem they said you can park in here for nothing which is exactly what we did, securing this beautiful riverside spot. 0 beats 18 anyday.