We’ve decided to head back to Bournemouth and try to deal with this fire claim and neither of us really felt like going away now.

Before leaving camp this morning we went for a walk in the New Forest. It’s a really nice area and all flat too (unless you are cycling). Then we headed off and took the scenic detour on the way home.

Our first stop was Buckler’s Hard, which has some interesting history. It was originally planned as a port for importing sugar from the West Indies, but for some reason that idea never happened. So instead it became one of Britain’s most important shipbuilding villages.

They cut down oak trees from the New Forest to build the ships, and it could take thousands of mature oaks to build a single one!

Don’t ask me why it’s called Buckler’s Hard because I’ll probably come up with something rude.

After that, we headed to Milford on Sea, where we managed to find free parking overlooking the water. It’s virtually impossible to find any free parking in the New Forest, so we were pretty happy.

There’s a spit that leads out to Hurst Castle and a lighthouse, so we went for a walk. It was incredibly windy, so we had to hang onto our hats. And the thick gravel was really hard to walk on. But we made it almost all the way to the castle before we’d had enough and turned around.

It was a really neat area, with the Solent and the Isle of Wight on one side, and the marshes full of windsurfers on the other. The Isle of Wight was so close it felt like we could kayak to it. Except we don’t have a kayak.

After that we headed back to Bournemouth. Not sure what’s happening over the next few days.

I had a bit of shocking news this morning. I had an email from our rental agent in NZ saying there had been a fire in our Cassidy St property. 

Thankfully everyone is alright, but the fire apparently started in the garage and spread to the house. It’s currently not liveable and the tenants have moved out. Scary stuff. Now I have to try and organise an insurance claim from the other side of the world. 

It doesn’t help either, that we’re in a dead zone in the New Forest with no phone or internet coverage. But luckily we have our Starlink, which we usually only put out twice a day to check messages.

Anyway, that put a bit of a dampener on the day. So we spent most of the morning trying to find out more details. Barry knew more that the agent had told us, so that was enough to lodge a claim with the insurance.

After lunch we decided to go into Lyndhurst to do some shopping and find a toilet. But a Sunday afternoon in Lyndhurst was heaving, and it was all paid parking, which was all full. So, I jumped out of the car while we were stuck in traffic to run into the Tesco, while Mike drove around the block. Then, I jumped back in the car, and we got out of there, fast!

But we both still needed a toilet. So I navigated to a pub in Ashurst, about 10 mins away, which had a free carpark. Everyone was inside eating their Sunday lunch, so I ran in and went to the toilet while Mike ordered two Guinesses. 12 pounds for two guinesses! That’s $28 NZD! That was a VERY expensive toilet break.

But, we are enjoying our time in the New Forest. Apart from bad news from home, it is quite relaxing.

We’ve decided to spend a few days camping in the New Forest. As I said yesterday, it’s not actually new. It was created as a royal hunting ground by William the Conqueror nearly a thousand years ago. But, I guess a thousand years ago it was new.

But thankfully, no hunting these days, just a load of horses and cows roaming freely. They belong to local families with grazing rights that have been passed down through the centuries.

It was a gorgeous place to wake up, so quiet and surrounded by nature. A couple of horses wandered by, a robin came to visit, and it was just so calm.

It’s a primitive camp with no toilets. But there is a dump station and fresh water, so that feels like a luxury. You know you’re a vanlifer when a tap and somewhere to empty the toilet feels five-star.

And the best part? We are right on all the cycle trails. So this morning we headed off on a ride to Beaulieu.

The cycle trails are mostly on gravel, but it’s decent gravel, good enough for our slick tyres. There was one point where it got a bit deep and slippery going downhill, but the rest was fine.

That last bit was on a main road down a steep hill with loads of traffic. I wasn’t keen on that bit. Not so much the traffic but the steep uphill we’d have to cycle on the way back.

It took us about an hour and twenty minutes to reach Beaulieu, and what a neat little town. The first thing I noticed was the beautiful river with the old abbey reflected in the water.

But we were hungry. I was drawn by the pub, but Mike spotted the Beaulieu Bakehouse. It was full of cyclists, which usually means the food’s good… or they’re all knackered. But we thought, why not?

We both ordered bacon, egg, and hash brown on a brioche bun, and it was the most delicious bacon and egg bap I’ve ever had. I suspect they snuck in a bit of hollandaise on there too, as it was sooooo tasty. Proper bacon too, probably from a local farm.

But by this time it was proper hot. (Actually, it was already hot at 9 am when we left.) And we now had to cycle back. What were we thinking?

And first we had to tackle that steep hill on the main road. And as it was now lunchtime, the main road was even mainer! Thankfully there was a slight edge we could walk on as we pushed our bikes up. There were plenty of other bikes on the road holding the cars up, so we didn’t feel entirely responsible.

I was pretty heat-stressed by the time we got back to camp. I used to love the heat, but somewhere along the way that stopped. I’m not sure when.

But… we have a shower I’ve just been itching to use. So I grabbed it out, filled up a bucket of water, and plugged it in.

Nothing.

Tried another power socket.

Dead.

Shower doesn’t work.

Brilliant.

We’d been carrying this thing around for two years for absolutely nothing.

So, I did the next best thing. Grabbed a cup, dipped it in the bucket of water, and poured water over my head and all over me. It was absolute bliss!

Then I talked Mike into giving it a go. He’s not so keen on cold showers, but the water was almost tepid. Even he enjoyed it, and we felt so much better afterwards, with all the stickyness now seeping into the ground. Don’t worry, we didn’t use soap.

We had a vegetable stir-fry for dinner and a couple of zero beers. Perfect!

Today was the day we were heading off on our UK adventures, but things didn’t get off to the best start. 

The plan was for an early start, but first Mike had to go and get some keys cut for the house. He got back, and none of the keys worked. So he had to walk back into to town to get them cut again.

By the time he was done it was lunchtime, so we had some lunch before leaving. But it was already really hot and we didn’t know where to go, we just knew we didn’t want to drive far. 

So I asked chatGpt for advice. He suggested the New Forest, a mere 50 minutes away. I found a couple of primitive campgrounds, so we made a booking before we left.

But did it take us 50 minutes to get there? Of course not.

First, we needed to stop and get supplies. We stopped at a supermarket in Ringwood. We’d just finished paying when one of our bottles of beer fell out of the pack and landed right on Mike’s foot, exploding into glass and beer everywhere.

We were too scared to move in case we cut our feet on the glass (we were wearing jandals). Mikes foot was already oozing blood all over the floor.

The staff came rushing over armed with paper towels, and started throwing them on the floor. Glass had spread all across the self-checkout area and I feared for other peoples safety. Then the first aid man came to check on Mikes foot. He led him away, sat him down, looked at his foot and realised it wasn’t that bad.

But he gave us loads of antiseptic wipes to wipe away the glass from our feet and jandals. It was actually quite traumatic and a little bit amusing.

Anyway, that took care of another hour or so. Then I decided to navigate the back roads. Remind me NEVER to do this in England again. I remembered last year when we tried this and we lost our wing-mirror on a cheeky hedgerow. 

And I feared it happening again. Why are the roads so fricking narrow? And why do they insist on planting hedges right on the edge of the road? Anyway, after a lot of swearing and pushing on my imaginary brakes, we made it to the New Forest campground.

We found a beautiful spot to camp beneath the shade of ancient oak trees. The New Forest isn’t actually new… but more about that tomorrow.

It was still in the low 30s, so we just chilled out for the afternoon. It was too hot to cook, so we made an avocado, salad and pickled onion wrap with a squeeze of aioli. It was surprisingly delicious! 

Today the satnav said it was 11 hours drive to Cherbourg, and we drove all day and the sat nav still says 9 hours. How do we do that?

We didn’t do much other that drive either. We stopped at a LIDL for supplies, and had a two hour nap somewhere, but that was about it.

But we did find a really nice free spot to camp. It’s just on the outskirts of a town and it overlooks farmland. And there are flushing toilets with seats on! And we’re the only ones here! It’s great.

And, I’m loving that it is so much cooler. Still 30 degrees, but that feels like bliss. We were able to sit out in the full sun and not swelter

And in the night it actually got cold. It was 27 degrees in the van when we went to bed around 10pm, but in the night I was actually reaching for a blanket. It was lovely! But… the temperates are creeping up again on the weekend and 38 is forecast again for Monday. So we ain’t sticking around!

Being back in France feels a bit like being home. It’s familiar and just feels easier. The roads aren’t so mountain-ness and squiggly and it seems easier to find the roads we like.

We’re still taking the back roads but heading north to Cherbourg before the next heat wave hits on the weekend.

But it’s been absolutely beautiful with the weather today. A high of 30 and it felt so refreshing for a change. All that cloying heat has moved off to Poland and Russia for the moment.

It’s funny though as our habit has been to drive until late (9pm) to avoid the heat but we realised we didn’t have to do that today. So at 5pm, I found a place for us to stop in a small village. It’s quite nice as we’re overlooking a little farm with goats and donkeys.

We took at walk into the neat little village which has buildings from 12th-14^th century. And the first night markets of the year were on, so that was an added bonus!

There were loads of wonky old chocolate ripple buildings and the square was already buzzing with people. We took a walk around the food offerings. There was snails, rotisserie chicken, salads, chips, meat being fried fresh, crepes and fresh strawberries. The snails smelled delicious, oozing in all their garlicky goodness, but the thought of it put me off.

We decided on Chicken and chips, and a couple of zero beers and sat and enjoyed the ambience.

There were a lot of English people here, the most I have seen since we left England! I reckon the ratio must have been about 50:50 French to English speaking.

All in all a great day and a great find.

We stayed another day at the hotel as we didn’t feel like moving. It was raining too. You might think that would cool it down, but it just made it more humid! We haven’t had rain since… well the last time we were in France. We didn’t actually have any rain the entire time we were in Spain and Portugal!

We didn’t do much. I tried to get some editing done. We took a short walk around the town. We went out for dinner. At the same restaurant we are at in 2018! We are creatures of habit. I didn’t choose the duck gizzard salad this time. Instead I had confit de canard and Mike had a massive steak. It must have been 500g of steak! And he ate it all!

We followed up with a crème brulee. Well, we are in France.

Today we started our drive over the Pyrenees and it was a beautiful drive. We stopped about halfway up at a swimming hole. The water was coming straight out of the mountains and had been dammed to create a swimming area.

Of course it was hot so I had to go in. The water was absolutely freezing but gloriously refreshing. We spent a bit of time here and had our lunch and it was nice to sit for a while.

Then we continued on up the Pyrenees. The road eventually turned into a very narrow and winding road (nothing new there) but thankfully not a lot of traffic coming down.

At the top was amazing 360 degree views over the Pyrenees. There were so many wild horses up there, just hanging around posing for photos. They were really cute and dark brown with blonde mains. And there were even a few young ones. I asked Mike why there were so many, and he said they are probably farming them to eat. 

We spent about an hour at the top as it was a lot cooler at 1500m. Then we had to head down and this was very steep and windy. But by this point we are used to it.

We knew we probably wouldn’t be stopping until 8 or 9pm due to the heat, so we took our time. We found a nice spot by a lake at around 8pm which would have been perfect. Then I saw the GR65 signs and realised we had walked through here on the French camino. I don’t know how we keep stumbling on these places!

There were a few goats hanging around which made me a little nervous. It was an entire family. There was grandpa goat, mum and dad goat and 2 baby goats. They were really cute. But when they started nibbling at our van we decided to leave.

I saw there was a camping car place in Aire sur L’Adore. I remember this place well from the camino. We met our sisters there and said goodbye to Susan. And we ate duck gizzards for dinner.

It was about 9pm by the time we arrived and a very sticky hot. We found the camping car place, which was free, but it didn’t have a very nice vibe. There seemed to be a few squatters there. It would have been fine, but too hot to sit around. So we headed for the same hotel we stayed at on Camino, just across the river.

There was good parking outside and it was reasonably priced, and it seemed we were lucky to get in. They only had 2 rooms left, and she was about to lock up.

After checking in we wandered down to the river to watch the sunset. But we were a little late. The photos still looked good though. The temperature sign said it was still 35 degrees! At 9pm!

Then we watched the thunderstorms roll in from the window of our hotel. I’m not sure if it rained overnight or not, but it was lighting up the sky. The weather over the next few days is supposed to cool down to the low 30’s and high 20s, so hopefully that will make it bearable

We didn’t leave our hotel until the 12 o’clock checkout time. We thought we’d enjoy the A/C for as long as possible!

The thought of navigating the city to look at the hanging houses didn’t appeal either, so we just got outta there!

It was a beautiful drive today through a massive gorge with towering rocks either side. 

It went on forever.We spent a lot of the day at altitude too, so it wasn’t quite as hot. Still 32 degrees, but that is bearable now.

But then we came off the mountain and it was back to 38 degrees. So we kept on driving.

There were quite a few really straight roads that looked like Roman roads. And so many pristine castles along the way. And houses built into the hills. It was really neat drive.

We looked at a couple of places to stop, but at that heat it was too hot. At 7.30pm, we found a hotel which looked quite nice overlooking an old town, but it was locked and nobody was on reception. It looked like one of those places you had to book online and get a code. It seemed like too much effort. So we carried on driving.

We are heading towards the Pyrenees, and I really didn’t want to start driving over a montain pass at this time of day. But Mike ensured me he was fine.

At 8.30pm we made it to another town, but it was still stifling hot. And the only hotel looked a bit dodgy. So we kept driving.

Then, at 9pm, I saw another place in a town. There were two other campervans parked there and it looked fine. Still hot, but the sun had gone behind the buildings so we were in shade. And there was a lovely view from our open doors at the rear.

You’re not supposed to take your chairs out at places like this, but everyone else was. And it was way too hot to sit inside. So we sat out the back of the van stealth like and admired the view of the mountains.

A few more campervans came in while we were sat there. We had a couple of false starts at going to bed. At 10.30pm Mike tried first. He lasted 10 minutes before he fell out of the van again, panting.

I tried at 11pm. Nope, not happening! Now I know why Spanish people don’t go to bed before midnight.

I’ve been carrying strawberry ice blocks in our freezer, so we had ate of those and that seemed to cool us down a bit. And I wet my buff and used it to cool me off. By midnight it was still 32 degrees inside the van, but we couldn’t stay awake any longer.

By 3am, a cool breeze came in through our roof vent and it was bliss!

We finally left the nudist colony after 3 relaxing days. The heatwave was due to break and it seemed like a good time to make a run for it towards France.

We drove most of the day and it was quite nice. We stopped at a town of Cuenca and headed straight for a hotel.

There was one on the outskirts of town with safe parking for Bertie. It was nice to have the relief of aircon again.

This town is famous for hanging houses, apparently hanging off a cliff. Maybe we’ll take a look tomorrow.