Crash! Bang! Wallop! – Delayed in Bourg-en-Bresse
It’s Monday 4th December and a very tired Travel Malarkey team are calling it a night in the old town of Vienne, after a bit of a disaster as we attempted to leave Bourg-en-Bresse this morning.
What? When? How?.. Read on, and all shall be explained.
It’s hard to beat a Sunday driving through rural France
After a lovely day in the freshest of crisp, cold air in Chalon-sur-Saone we slept like logs. Dead ones. Our body clocks finally breaking the damage of six months of night shifts we slept eleven hours solid. Not waking until nearly 9a.m. Thank goodness it was Sunday! Not that it makes any difference to us. Other than this was day seven in Europe, and a week today since we said goodbye to Edinburgh and set off for the ferry.
It seems like so much longer than a week. It seems like an eternity. Although we’ve only been gone a short while I feel a slight tug of homesickness in my belly. A standard week’s winter break and we’d be heading back today. Instead we drive on into never, never land. There is no return date. Just a vague, “As long as the money holds out. And nothing goes wrong. Inshallah!” I see my friends lives go on via Facebook and feel a surge of love for them all. Stay safe crazy ones!
It’s that roundabout thing again. Superb!
For now, for us, the drive goes on. Today equals Bourg – en – Bresse, another half-timbered town an hour or two down the road. And what a glorious road it was as well.
We seemed to have left the snow behind us near Dijon, and the air was crisp, still and very, very cold. So cold in fact that Iggy had his very first icicle hanging from his body when we went to turn the gas off this morning. You’d never have known it from how snug we were inside.
We had the roads mostly to ourselves as we sailed along the route to Bourg-enBresse. Just us and the giant, silver cockerels watching us pass by from their roundabout viewpoints.
Cockerels? Giant…silver…cockerels?
It’s a French thing. Don’t worry. You get used to it after a while…
We soon arrived at Bourg-en-Bresse – which was just as well given how late we left! The town was another where the motorhome services and the parking were in different locations. But we didn’t need the services having used the ones in Chalon the day before. So we just headed straight for the parking area when we arrived.
Simple, free, parking in a grassy area with modern art and an absolutely fabulous monastery. The roof very similar to the Cathedral in Dijon, but a lot more accessible to my camera.
Parkings like this aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but we were delighted with it. It’s not every day we get to sleep outside a place like this. Or, should I say, it wasn’t every day. Not until we got our amazing Iggy.
It was seven months now that we’d been in the van. And we were still loving every second of it!
Our view from the motorhome parking. I can live with that!
The next best thing about the motorhome parking, after the monastery, and the free bit, was that it was only a few minutes walk away from the town centre as well.
We’d only been sauntering down the road for a couple of minutes when DM spotted this amazing antique French chair in an upholstery shop. He pointed out, quite rightly, that it was just his size. But Jay was keeping a firm grip on the purse strings, and pointed out that we didn’t have any room for it in Iggy. Unless DM wanted to sit in the underfloor locker next to the waste water drain pipe…
Did I mention Jay is rather fond of cakes?
DM can be quite a sensible chap when the mood takes him, and, without quite giving in, said he would sleep on it, seeing as it was Sunday and the shop was closed. But if they were open before we left in the morning he might pop back for another look.
It most definitely was Sunday. And if we’d had any doubts they would quickly have been laid to rest as we wandered the eerily deserted streets of Bourg-en-Bresse.
There are two things in this world that can make the streets of a stunning, historic, half-timbered, medieval town quite this devoid of life three weeks before Christmas. One is the zombie apocalypse… And the other one is a French Sunday.
Everything shuts in France on a Sunday! It’s one of the things we love about the country. We wander Bourg – en Bresse’s frozen, sleepy streets alone. Remembering when Britain too, downed tools on a Sunday. A day of rest whether you wanted it or not. And for many, lest we forget, the only way they could get it.
It’s grand to have the convenience of being able to get whatever you want, whenever you want it of course. But it wasn’t really that difficult to plan ahead. And it was nice to have a day for home, and family, and walks. Lazy long lies and no nipping to B&Q or, heaven forbid, the supermarket.
Motorhome Travel let’s us visit so many places we’d never see otherwise.
For us of course, one day was much like any other now. A glorious curve of unseen days marching away ahead of us. Each one of them ours to do with as we pleased. Well…until our money ran out and we had to come home again anyway.
For today we enjoyed ourselves more and more as we wandered the empty streets. What at first seemed a little eerie, and likely to be quite boring, turned out to be a lot of fun as we had the run of the town practically to ourselves.
With not even a cafe to be found that was open, we eventually grew hungry, and cold and decided to call it quits for the day and head back to Iggy for dinner and a DVD.
As we make our way back I find myself reading a sign on a half-timbered house that tells me that one of my great heros, the legendary Alexandre Dumas, once stood in this very street. I am transported one hundred and fifty years back in time. Tomorrow I can leave Bourg-enBresse a happy woman, and an even happier writer. For today, truly, here in this silent, frosty lane, I walk in the footsteps of giants.
Christmas market in waiting in Bourg-en-Bresse
And so, in the morning, we awoke refreshed from our nice, relaxing weekend’s wandering in France. Ready and eager to get on the road and get our second week of the Tour underway.
Breakfast was had, Iggy was made road ready and we set off to the nearby Carrefour Drive to fill up with Diesel for the drive to Valence. Following Satnav’s directions we arrived at the supermarket car park and looked for the signs pointing to the fuel station. All good. All normal. Just another day in France.
And that’s when we spotted the height barrier on the road into the fuel pumps. What is this? Less than 3 metres! Why is there a height barrier at the Carrefour Drive? We were not expecting this. If there had been a warning we hadn’t seen it! Maybe it’s been damaged? Removed?
Who knows. There’s no time to think. We’re in a funnel with concrete islands on either side of us. The only way is forward. We can’t go forward!
There is a turn on our right just before the height barrier. It’s narrow. A turn in from the carpark – not out and into it. It’s okay though because there’s nothing coming. We have plenty of time to get through. Better than holding up the line of cars behind us as we force them all to reverse to let us out. Isn’t it?
And that’s when we spotted the height barrier on the road into the fuel pumps. What is this? Less than 3 metres! Why is there a height barrier at the Carrefour Drive? We were not expecting this. If there had been a warning we hadn’t seen it! Maybe it’s been damaged? Removed?
Who knows. There’s no time to think. We’re in a funnel with concrete islands on either side of us. The only way is forward. We can’t go forward!
There is a turn on our right just before the height barrier. It’s narrow. A turn in from the carpark – not out and into it. It’s okay though because there’s nothing coming. We have plenty of time to get through. Better than holding up the line of cars behind us as we force them all to reverse to let us out. Isn’t it?
There’s no time to think. It seems the best option and Jay takes it. But this turn is designed for vehicles going in the opposite direction. It’s tight even for that. Even in a car. And good old Iggy is more of a mini-bus than a car. Not to call him fat or anything, but Iggy is over 2.3 metres wide. To say that Jay’s in a tight spot is being a bit on the under dramatic side. We’re going the wrong way up a tiny concrete corridor designed for a child’s scooter with the prospect of cars coming towards us at any moment. He tried to negotiate the impossible turn. Crash! Bang! Wallop!
There was the… most… horrible, nasty, evil grinding sound.
“Stop!”
I jumped out of the van. Part of me, a pushed down until this was all over part of me, was nearly in tears, as that awful noise echoed in my head. What had we done to poor Iggy?! I couldn’t see. We were stuck across a section of concrete island. It looked impossible to get out of!
With me guiding, and Jay, somehow, doing the impossible, we managed to get Iggy unbeached from the island and into the carpark. A quick, terrrified look underneath and we relaxed a little. It was bad – but not that bad.
The poor old guy’s exhaust tailpipe had been crushed. Nasty, but not fatal. It wasn’t completely flattened and we were in an industrial estate, surrounded by mechanics and auto parts stores. There didn’t seem to be any other damage although there was a worrying sounding whine if we revved the engine to go above 30. Hmmm. I didn’t like that whine. Jay got us headed round the corner to the first garage as I reached for my encyclopedia “All Things Hymer”.
This is an amazing resource which I highly recommend as the one thing you cannot do without if you’re a Hymer owner. Otherwise known as the Facebook page “Hymer Owners Group”. They’re a fantastic bunch of people who are always there ready to support others in need. Some of the guys have an unbelievable wealth of knowledge, from years of experience in their respective trades, and in times of need the right information is never long in coming.
Garage after garage said “No.” they were unable to help us due to Iggy’s height. Then the info we needed came through from the group. The whine was from the turbo because of the crushed pipe. It had to be cut off asap or we would damage the engine. Once that was done, if we could safely rig a pipe to take the exhaust fumes away from the vehicle, we would be okay to drive to somewhere that could put a new tailpipe on for us. Hallelujah!
We’d been starting to feel a bit desperate being turned away by garage after garage. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas folks!! Innkeepers come to mind! But thanks to the wonderful people on the HOG group we had found our stable for the night. Thank you guys! Our lives would be so much harder without you!!
Jay had a heck of a job trying to get the broken pipe sawn off. But he managed in the end. We held our breath as he revved the engine…Yes! The whine is gone!
I hold my breath and take pictures until Jay’s head is safely back on the outside again.
By this point we’d had just about enough of Bourg-en-Bresse. Nobody seemed able to help us here and it was time to cut our losses and try somewhere new. It wasn’t too far to Lyon, and I quickly got out park4night to search for a likely looking motorhome aire near there for the night. There was an okay looking place in Vienne. An old Roman town 20 minutes south of the city. A quick stop for ridiculously expensive diesel at a Total up the road and we were off. All guns blazing for Lyon. And windows wide open!
By the time we arrived at our destination t was too late to get anything more done for the day. The rush hour traffic around Lyon had been crazy. How Jay managed after all the other stresses of the day I don’t know. Hat’s off to you Mr. Sloan!
Vienne looked like an interesting town, but we really weren’t interested. All we were ready for was a different kind of crash. In our beds this time! We made a quick, but exhausted, dinner. Unwinding was definitely a necessary item on the to do list by this point. So out came the guitar and the saxophone. Listening to music is a great way to relax . But playing it is even better. A couple of hours and a bit of Netflix later and we were ready to sleep. Everything seemed a bit bleak tonight. It would all look better in the morning.
Fi. x