Winding up and
winding down!
Greetings one and all and welcome once
again to this exciting edition of Adventures with Harvey. As we approach the end of this epic adventure
we are motivated to make the most of every moment, to soak it all in… to be
present. The last couple of weeks have
been extremely social, thankfully a little less driving, and of course a couple
of rugby games thrown in for good measure.
So grab a beverage of your choice and settle in for the latest report.
Our few days at Saint-Maxime were filled
with the most excellent company, some of it expected and some a delightful
surprise. Our first visitor was Nina,
our good friend from New Zealand who was unexpectedly nearby due to a family
bereavement – for some reason in England it takes 2-3 weeks between someone’s
passing and their funeral so Nina had a few spare days during which she happily
decided to track us down. We’ve had the
most agreeable weather these last couple of weeks, mid-high 20’s each day and
clear and sunny so frequent visits to the beach have been on the agenda. The first day of Nina’s visit we caught the
ferry over to Saint Tropez, walked 1km or so down the coast to a small beach where
we swam, sunbathed and picnicked before meandering back through town for a
quiet refreshment before returning on the ferry. On arrival back at Harvey we were delighted
to see that another friend had tracked us down!
At the camp site in Paris we had made friends with ‘Scott the Scot’ – a slightly
mad but absolutely delightful kilt wearing, whiskey swilling, rugby loving lad
from the Highlands. We’ve kept in touch
via social media and he’d cleverly figured out where we might be – what a lovely
surprise to see his little van parked up next to big brother Harvey. That evening it was the specialty of the
house: coq au vin and a wonderful evening was had by all.
Sometimes my daughters like to give
the old man a hard time – and occasionally even with good reason. A few months ago I made friends with an
Irishman named Pat McDaid and his lovely wife Shauna – I say friends, but it
was via social media and we hadn’t actually met. “Aw how lovely Dad…” Deanna opined. “You have a pen pal 😊”. Well it was about time I met my pen pal and
was thrilled when their motorhome turned up in the adjacent parking spot to
replace Scott’s. Catching up with a
Scotsman and an Irishman on consecutive evenings is never going to be good for
one’s liver however rarely will one have better craic – it had been a memorable
few days on the Côte d’Azure!
In order to eke out the last rays of Mediterranean
sunshine, we had left ourselves the longest driving day yet – 425km from Saint-Maxime
to Lyon. But with regular stops and pretty
much all motorway driving we completed the journey by late afternoon. Interestingly, many of the motorways in
France are ‘peage’ or toll roads, at the start you drive through the booth and
take a ticket, then when you exit the motorway it calculates the charge which
you pay by credit card or cash. Depending
on the size of your vehicle, you pay a different rate, either class 1, 2 or for
vehicles over 3m in height… 3. Because
of his roof box Harvey is in fact slightly over 3m tall however one blog we
read in our pre-trip planning explained that motorhomes are all designated as
class 2. So, when you put your ticket in
the slot and class 3 comes up, you press the little button and cheerfully say
to the helpful French person on the other end: “Bonjour. Je suis un camping-car, classe deux”. To which the nice French person on the other end
replies something that you can’t understand, and the toll reduces by around 35%. It might seem like a small matter however for
the amount of travelling through France we’ve done, it has added up to savings
in the hundreds of euros!
The morning after we arrived in Lyon
was another treat, you see it was the day of the rugby, the day before Anita’s
birthday, and we had friends in town. Visitors
were Kate and Ross who are good friends from Auckland (Kate is part of Anita’s posse
of ex-EY girlfriends) along with Kevin and Sandra, good friends from Russell,
all of whom arrived at the camp site to join us for a brunch of croissant, pain
au chocolat, fresh fruit, yogurt & granola as well as cheeses and deli
meats. The campsite itself on the
outskirts of Lyon was like the united nations of rugby fans, many motorhomes
being adorned with flags and other patriotic decorations. After an hour or two of quiet time it was
time to get ready for the rugby – yes, it was NZ’s sternest test since the
France game against six-nations regulars, Italy. The campground was a very long way from the rugby
ground so we shared the cost of a shuttle with some fellow campers, arriving a
couple of hours before kick-off. As we
passed a mini fan-zone outside a hotel adjacent to the ground some friendly
folk dressed in black invited us to join them so we spent a couple of hours
making friends with some nice folk from Dunedin and some kiwi youngsters living
in London. No-one could have predicted
the result, it was an absolute whitewash with the outcome no longer in doubt
after less than 20 minutes had passed. After
our opening loss to the French, some faith in our team was ff
The next morning was 30 September
which meant it was time for birthday celebrations but not before a sleep in and
special breakfast had been cooked. Our campsite
had a swimming pool and the weather was warm and sunny so team pink settled in
with her book for a couple of hours relaxing in the sunshine. In the afternoon it was time to head back
into town as we were meeting the same brunch crew from yesterday, along with another
couple, Kevin and Liz, for dinner. We
visited a traditional Lyonnaise restaurant however most around the table weren’t
brave enough to try the traditional fare… excepting your author who had it on
good authority that parts of the animal which wouldn’t normally be seen on a
dinner plate were on the menu! Offal sausages
– not too awful!!!
With a few days in between games it
was time to head away for a look around the area. Several people had advised a visit to Annecy
oughtn’t be missed so off we went, with a short stop at Pérouges on the way. Another little medieval hilltop village
although this one was more unspoiled and
authentic feeling than others we had seen.
There were far fewer tourists and a lot less restoration. The streets were paved with uneven river
rocks and even the inside of the church was made of very roughcast and uneven
stonework – it was a defensive church meaning one side of it was part of the
city walls. The local culinary specialty
is galettes which is a type of thin-crust sweet pizza, usually topped with sugar,
cinnamon etc – so of course that was our lunch.
This is different to the other galettes we have had in France which are
more a savoury buckwheat crepe, but equally delicious!
Annecy sits on a lake and was as
beautiful as people had described it. Your
author felt there was quite some similarity with Queenstown – the town on one
side of the lake and high mountains on the other. The town itself was quite small and
criss-crossed with shallow unnavigable canals – absolutely gorgeous but there
more for decoration than any waterborne activities. This might be different during the spring
thaw but at the end of summer the levels in both the canals and lake were very
low. During the day there was a
splitting of tacks with team pink taking a stroll around the town then relaxing
in Harvey while team blue went off for a bike ride. The distance around Lake Annecy is around
47km which made for a most pleasant and picturesque afternoon of exploring on
two wheels. There are several little
towns to pass through or stop by, more ups and downs on the road than expected,
plenty of waterfront marinas, parks with sunbathers etc and overall a beautiful
part of the world. The area is a base
for skiing in the winter so had an alpine feeling about it, you could imagine
just how beautiful it would be with snow on the ground. We parked for a couple of nights in a huge central
carpark and for the first night Harvey was the only motorhome in sight however
on return from an afternoon out cycling your author discovered that Harvey had attracted
some friends. Yes, there were about a
dozen motorhomes mostly from the same German rental company and not much later,
a few kiwi accents were heard. A trip
like Adventures With Harvey takes no small amount of organising, but these guys
take the cake – there were 18 motorhomes full of kiwis, travelling as a group to
visit Europe for the RWC. They had
picked up the motorhomes in Germany because, with no rugby tournament there,
they were much cheaper. I doff my hat to
the fella organising all that lot – it was hard enough to organise one
motorhome, let alone 18. It must be like
corralling a very large herd of cats!!!
Back to Lyon for the Uruguay game and
yet more new friends! On a wander
through the campground your author commented on a kiwi flag adorning a nearby
motorhome, and it turns out these folk were from our ‘hood. Although originally British and with an
accent relatively undiluted, Nick and Sara had spent 18 years living in Kerikeri,
only departing 3 years ago to head off exploring. Although there had been covid interruptions,
they had already done a year in a motorhome in the USA and were just embarking
on the type of adventure we Travelling Woodies are shortly to conclude. Needless to say we had plenty of stories to
exchange, advice to give, and were delighted to donate our stack of Lonely Planets
to an appreciative home. The four of us
met up again prior to the game for the requisite whetting of our whistles
before heading into the grandstands for our latest game of world cup
rugby. The stadium in Lyon is very impressive
with a capacity just shy of 60,000 (and full for the game) however the atmosphere
inside was relatively subdued. Perhaps
it’s because the game was never going to be a serious challenge for New Zealand
or maybe because of the large number of neutrals, either way there seemed to be
more noise coming from the Uruguay supporters than those in black. Speaking of which, we’ve discovered what a
massive international brand the All Blacks are – you see black jerseys
everywhere and many of their wearers will reply in a foreign accent if you
greet them. A little like the Chicago Bulls
or Manchester United, our All Blacks are a truly global brand with wide-reaching
support throughout the world. And all
from little ole’ New Zealand eh!
Speaking briefly of the All Blacks,
your humble correspondent is rather excited to report that he actually got to
meet a couple of them. On a visit to the
main shopping mall in Lyon, we stopped by the Adidas shop for a look… and you
could have been forgiven for thinking that you had teleported all the way back
to New Zealand! Throughout the store
were huge displays of All Blacks gear, life-sized photos of the players,
mannequins etc. And… a couple of All Blacks
along with their forwards coach doing some shopping. Although they weren’t too keen to stop for a
chat, Ethan De Groot and Samisoni Taukei’aho were more than happy to pose for
the obligatory selfie with an enthusiastic fan!
After one final day relaxing by the campground
pool in Lyon we travelling Woodies began the 600km or so journey back to Paris
where another massive weekend of rugby awaits us. However what to do on the way? First stop was the town of Clermont-Ferrand,
home to the Michelin Tyre empire and also a gorgeous little ‘centre ville’
including the omnipresent cathedral (this time made out of the local volcanic stone
which is almost black in colour). From
there the most direct route to Paris would have taken us north through Orléans
however with a couple of days up our sleeve we decided to detour back slightly
further down the Loire Valley to a couple of our favourite towns from our visit
last year. Amboise was as lovely as we
had remembered, as is Blois fr.om whence this missive is being penned and Harvey
has one of his best ever free parking spots, right on the banks of the Loire.
Which I think pretty much brings you
all up to date with the happenings. Your
author apologises to those of you for whom rugby isn’t much of an interest –
sadly the next edition will also be sport heavy with quarter final weekend in
Paris almost upon us followed hopefully by a black team in the semis and final. Will the All Blacks perpetuate the Irish
hoodoo of never having passed a world cup quarter final or will the All Blacks
equal their earliest ever tournament exit?
Only time will tell. We heard
that more than 60,000 Irish supporters descended on Paris for their Scotland match
last weekend so we can only imagine how green Paris will look when we arrive on
Friday. Not only from Irish jumpers but
of course also South Africans there for their big clash against France on
Sunday evening.
This time in 4 weeks the travelling
Woodies will have touched down back in New Zealand with a couple of days
planned in Auckland before heading back home to the sunny Bay of Islands. Between now and then we shall enjoy every
last minute of our epic adventure!
With much love as always
Dave & Anita
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| Yay Nina came to visit! This is our little platter on the beach at Saint Tropez |
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| the Saint Tropez waterfront |
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| spotted this little beauty on the way out of the harbour |
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| cheers Nina, it is great to have you hanging out with us for a few days! |
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| the bronze mimic is back! |
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| view of Saint-Maxime from Nina's airbnb |
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| and then Scott the Scot turned up - what could possibly go wrong!?! |
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| Harvey bedecked with his New Zealand flags |
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| now it's time to welcome Pat & Shauna, our friends from Derry in Ireland |
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| the beach at Saint-Maxime |
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looks like a happy place to me!
|
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| a nice place for a coffee and a relax... |
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| ...or you could relax here if you prefer |
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| onto Lyon and it's time for a pre-rugby get together. Welcome Kate and Ross!!! |
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| but wait, there's more... Here are the Drinkwaters from Russell! |
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| ready for action - All Blacks vs Italy |
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| the stadium in Lyon holds almost 60,000 and was full to the brim |
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| the stadium in Lyon holds almost 60,000 and was full to the brim |
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| off to Pérouges to explore |
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| Pérouges #2 |
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| beautiful Lake Annecy - reminded us a little of Queenstown |
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| Annecy canals #1 |
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| Annecy canals #2 |
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| Annecy canals #3 with famous boat-shaped building |
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