Impending French caravan tour.
 

We are on a countdown now for our impending French caravan tour ( can you tell I'm excited - he he ).

We'll be going in our 1999 V70 TDI Auto towing our Swift Charisma and be away for a few weeks.

Plans are :

Portsmouth to Ouistreham ( Caen ).

Cean to Tours.

Tours to Clermont Ferrand.

Clermont Ferrand to Argeles sur Mer on the Western Med ( or there abouts, not finally decided ).

Argeles to Martres Tolosane ( Mid Pyrenees near Toulouse ).

Martres Tolosane to Biarritz or St Jean de Luz on the Atlantic.

Biarritz to La Rochelle.

La Rochelle to St Malo and home.

We have chosen our sites ( ACSI ) but would welcome any recommendations for visits out from ( especially chateaux from ) Tours, Clermont Ferrand and La Rochelle.

Also, anyone been near Argeles sur Mer, is that the best the area has to offer ( for a couple of old bu66ers like us ) without crossing the Spanish border?

Anyone towed on the A75 over the Masiff Central mountain range.

Finally plumbed in my additional ATF cooler today so ATF temps not a worry.

Colin

We returned today ( Friday ) from our aforementioned French caravan tour.

We followed most of the route I had planned as above.

2,640 road miles in my 1999 V70 TDI Auto - not totally without incident I should add.

The turbo induction side output hose blew off the turbo near J26 on the A75 motorway in the Massif Central mountain region at about 1,100 metres above sea level. ( I had this off during my autobox repair, should have tightened it more I guess. But never before had it been subject to such a pressure difference between boost pressure and the ambient air pressure at altitude).

I heard a loud 'pop' sort of sound ( what was that ? ) followed by black exhaust smoke and diminishing power.
Pulled off the auto-route and, once my eyes had adjusted enabling me to see the dark areas under the bonnet ( it was hot and very sunny ), saw the problem and fixed it once the turbo had cooled.

I had a permanent EML from that point onward though as the fault had confused the sensors.
I will DICE it soon.

No other car problems though.

43 nights in France, usually on ACSI sites.

During the next few days I'll be working out the average MPG figures for the trip.

Not checked my MPG for quite a while and it will be interesting to see what it is with most miles towing.

Colin

Cool, glad it went reasonably smoothly for you apart from the hose issue, we are planning something similar next year as I have a bunch of cousins down on the Cote d'azure. Hope you have plenty of piccys to aid the memories.

Desp

Talking of piccys I have some very unusual holiday pics - they are of Doppler blood flow scans in my right calf from Tours A & E.

After traveling from Cean to Tours I had an ache in my right leg calf which didn't really bother me until 4 days had passed and it hadn't gone.

I don't suffer from aching legs usually so I became a bit bothered about the remote possibility of a DVT.

When driving for more than a couple of hours I always have a few minutes stop and a walk around to remove the slight risk of developing a DVT - you can't be too careful once you get into your 60's.

We were due to move a few hundred miles further South after Tours but I wasn't willing to do this without having it checked out.

We went to Tours A & E ( or 24 hrs as they are known there ) with my passport, EHIC and all the cash we had at hand ( several hundred Euros ).

We used ( German ) ADAC breakdown & health ( essential & emergency only ) insurance this year so before traveling I had loaded hospital POI's on my satnav.

I guess A & E's are similar everywhere and we spent 5 or 6 hours there - and they weren't even that busy compared to UK A & E's - 3 people before us.

The reception attendant didn't seem to know what to do when we presented my passport and EHIC and she didn't speak much English so called for a colleague.

Eventually we saw a triage nurse who spoke some English ( we had our French phrase book but the words and/or phrases weren't appropriate ).

Saw a French doctor who arranged a Doppler blood flow scan of my leg and the Doppler operative said all looked OK.
The doctor's English was good.

Waited later for confirmation from the doctor that all was well then we asked if there was anything for us to pay.

He went and checked and said that there was nothing to pay and gave us my scan pictures.

A few days later we moved South and later still I realized that my ache had gone.

They asked for my address for ' the letter ' - I think the UK authority that administer EHIC send a letter for us to confirm that it actually happened before they pay - but it hasn't arrived yet.

Certainly are unusual holiday snaps to add to the album!!

Colin

The other day I collected together the fuel receipts for our trip and added up the total fuel used over the whole period.

I used 400.40 litres of diesel tank to tank, home to home and included the fuel required to fill the tank after arriving home as I started with a full tank.

I averaged 29.7 MPG over the 2,640 mile trip and I guess about 2,400 miles were towing the caravan.

I thought the MPG would have been a bit better but I didn't spare the horses on the French auto-routes while towing ( often at 70 MPH ) and we were heavily loaded with some mountainous areas covered.

Can't say I'm really disappointed with that fuel consumption though.

Colin

Well, a couple of weeks ago I received a bill from Tours A & E regarding my visit there as mentioned above.

I had to use Google translate to make sense of items on the the bill - it was all in French.

It was for 24.98 Euros.

There were other items on the bill that exceeded 100 Euros each that I presume are paid through ( by ) EHIC.

I specifically asked for the bill at the time of our visit but was told there was nothing to pay - hey ho.

I'm not complaining about the bill as I think it is good value for money all things considered.

But, to pay the bill to the ISBN (?) bank account No. quoted cost me £15 ( non urgent transfer ) at Santander to make an international bank transfer and that could have been avoided had the bill been presented to me at the time of my visit as I had requested.

No great hardship but a little bit frustrating that it could not have been completed at the time of my visit.

They have sent a receipt for the payment.

Colin