We flew out of Perth Saturday 16th April via KL and then on to Orly airport in Paris using Air Asia which for the two of us to travel cost less than a single fare with a full fare international carrier. We had no problems with them at all but we did find the connecting delays (11 - 12 hours) a bit tiring. We feel the flight to the UK (Stansted) is far more convenient and if a connecting flight to France can be arranged would have saved a little time and expence.

We hired a car and drove down to Columbus taking about 6 hours, we had a nice trip down and passed through some delightful scenic areas arriving on Sunday 17th at around 4pm. We decided to keep the car an extra 2 days to get provisions, and return it back to Arles early on Tuesday morning. In Bellegarde luckily we have a fairly good supermarket that stock just about everything, which makes life really easy. There also is great Pizza shop in the town, so we decided to take one back for dinner.

On the Monday we did a bit more last minute shopping, I tried to get a pay as you go sim card for my Iphone but after about 3/4 hr trying to get it to work in the Orange shop in Arles we decided that Telstra in Oz had not unlocked the phone! (I had spent over an hour in Oz on the phone surposably getting it unlocked). We delivered the car the next day back to Arles and caught the bus back to Bellegarde, the bus services in this part of France seems very good, nice coaches which run on time and the main thing, they are CHEAP. Later on during our stay we also caught coaches to Nimes (from Aigues Mort) and the Le Grau du Roi a small fishing/seaside resort near to Aigues Mort. We arrived back to Columbus just after lunch, fired up the engine and headed off down the canal heading to St Giles where we had decided to spend the night. Bad move! When we arrived after about 2 hours or so, we moored outside the wine co-operative and Eileen went to see the capitaine as we were moored in a comercial area, well we were charged 35 euros for the night! No water or electricity, what a ripoff we would have been better to stay another night in Bellegarde!

TBC

RETURN

Xmas Day 2010,Southern Hemisphere Oz, Hot @ 38c!!

December 29th Northern Hemisphere France!
Notice the difference in DRESS!

We left Perth on the 27th December (6.30am) in a 40c heatwave, Oh! it had been a very hot few days over Xmas but fortunately we had spent Xmas at our son Dave`s house with a large family gathering and having the advantage of a fairly large pool we were kept very comfortable.

We had decided to make this trip to France because we had problems with the French electricity company and we were told by friends who check over Columbus for us that our electric connection to Columbus had been disconnected. After the flight from Perth - KL - London (Stanstead) then coach to Heathrow to get a flight down to Toulouse! A journey then by car taking about 3 hours we arrived in Bellegarde at around 2pm on the 28th December. Luckily all was fine, though we could not start the Alde boiler (radiators) because we could not get the pilot light to ignite but after lighting the oil fire in the main cabin all was OK and Columbus warmed up and became very cosy quite fast. I had turned on the electric at the mains which we had arranged through the Capitan who looks after our mooring to be turned on prior to leaving Perth (Dec 23rd) but I noticed that the 24v lighting was very dim even though the power (240v) was all working. It appears that the batteries had lost their charge due to no power to the charger, but after starting and running the engine for a couple of hours, the lighting etc started to improve and after another two the next day all was fine, though we were still having problems with the 12v system (Alde ignition, stove ignition, two way radio and instruments were not working) which I found to be either a loose wire or condensation, whichever it was, I had it all back working prior to leaving.

We had arranged to visit Mike & Marina (Clark) whilst in France this New Year, so after a few days getting over jetlag and site seeing around the area where Columbus is moored. We made our way by car using a GPS system that we had borrowed from my Perth antique dealer friend Derek Aslett, which we are now sure that if we had had this sat nav last year we would not have been in the situation we ended up in when leaving Barcelona!!!

 Mike lives in a fabulous place on the outskirts of a small village near Toulon in Provence and only a very short drive from St Tropez, their home sits very high on a hill (which was quite hard to find) with great views over a valley looking towards a range of hills which border the Mediterranean sea, we were told quite a few celebrities’ live in this area inc. Brad Pitt and Bono and if you ever get a chance to visit this area you will see why! We had a fantastic couple of days with Mike and Marina and were made very welcome and introduced to a few of their friends over lunch/dinner and with Mike being an ex restaurateur the meal was great and I managed to get a few cooking tips from him. We also drove into St Tropez and surrounding area, and being winter and not too many tourists around I think we saw the best of it.
 Many Thanks to both Mike & Marina for a great few days.  

 

RETURN