After enjoying our time in Puy, even with the chainsaw massacre, we began the return leg to the UK. It was an eventful couple of weeks travel back and we stayed at some wonderful aires, Merlin became French and Beatrix took us to another country.

As we planned our trip, we noticed that Google Maps kept diverting us off the main road we’d used to come into the Alps. The reason appeared to be a road closure and the diversion was through the mountains on tiny, winding roads which aren’t really our favourite. We checked in with the Tourist Information in Puy to see if they knew what was going on, and although they shared a really handy travel app called Inforoute05 (www.inforoute.hautes-alpes.fr) which we’ve used loads, they weren’t able to enlighten us on what to expect.

In the end, we decided to go for it thinking that as this is a main trucking route into the Alps, there must be a suitably sized diversion. (Our driving philosophy is that if we see a truck or bus we’ll be alright). We stayed overnight at an Aire in La Mure, just before the diversion, which gave us the chance to see what the big lorries were doing about the diversion. Happily we found that there was a super clear diversion route for HGVs signposted which although not as direct, took us down to Grenoble.

Our next stop was the Aire Municipal in Beaune. One of the things we really wanted to do when in France was to try the different wine! Before I finished in corporate life, I’d bought a book about French wines and it specifically talked about the excellent quality of wines from this region. Now we had the opportunity to see and try them in situ.

Although it’s not a terribly inspiring carpark, there is plenty of space in the Aire here. When we arrived, mid-afternoon it was pretty empty and through the evening it really filled up. Clearly a popular stopping off spot. Usually, when we stay in campsites or aires, we’re used to be being one of the bigger motorhomes but not here. We were dwarfed by two enormous Morelo truck motorhomes parked on either side of us making us feel very small.

We took a slow walk around the town, had a small glass of wine, bought some more and then headed back to Beatrix.

On our route back we had to make sure Merlin had her worming tablets. Ahead of the trip I had contacted a few vets to see if they would also be able to give her a rabies booster and possibly even an EU pet passport. We found a great vet near Epernay with excellent English and he boosted Merlin’s rabies, gave her worming treatment and more importantly we got her a French EU pet passport. This would mean a lot less hassle as we travel to and from the EU for Merlin and all of this for just 54 euros.

With Merlin sorted for her travel back to the UK we wanted to try another type of wine – my absolute favourite, Champagne, and as we were really close to Epernay – it would be rude not to go and do some tasting! The weather was appalling with biblically heavy rain but the champagne made it all worthwhile! Totally drenched, we walked into a fancy Champagne house at Collard Picard and proceeded to drip all over their beautiful marble floor. After an interesting champagne tasting session we crossed town to a smaller house, where we had the place to ourselves and had a great conversation with the young lady host, tasted more champagne and ended up buying some as well.

We had a couple more days until our train back to the UK so headed to Overijse in Belgium to see our friends who had moved there about a year ago from the UK.

Whenever we go to stay at friends houses we always do some logistical checking with them before we arrive.

Checking in with Eilidh and Alex, we knew we could fit into the driveway but the lane down to their house looked pretty tight and we’ve come to realise that Beatrix always looks much bigger in real life. Luckily, with a bit of help holding back trees and despite gaining a few extra adventure stripes, we navigated in and out without a problem. I think the neighbours were a bit surprised though!

We enjoyed a couple of wonderful, sunny days with Eilidh, Alex, Callum and their Ukrainian guests avoiding any skateboarding injuries!

On the way to Calais and the tunnel, we decided to fill up with cheaper LPG and diesel before arriving early hoping to get an earlier train. At the Eurotunnel however, it became clear that that wasn’t going to happen as the queues were mad!

Strangely, we ended up in the same queue as our friends Lucy and Ben from Puy as they’d come back through France much faster than us. In the first proper test, we booked Merlin in with her new pet passport, we had to show her old passport to show continued Rabies vaccination which was easy to do and then we started queuing. It was pretty tedious and was apparently due to a strike at customs. Toby had hoped for a break and relax before hitting the UK roads but instead we found ourselves slowly navigating through multiple lanes of static traffic with the tunnel staff trying to load us on with the cars at one point! Eventually we did get on a train and it was quite fun as it was similar to the top gear challenge as we saw our friends car from Puy in the queue and were seeing whose queue was moving quicker. Ours did and we eventually got on the train 2.5 hours late.

On the other side of the channel we started driving and immediately noted two things about the UK:

1) The roads are a lot busier

2) The roads have lots and lots more potholes than France

It had been a long day and we’d driven for as long as we could manage so we booked to stay one night at Bearstead club site which was really close to the Tunnel. The next day it was up to Dunstable for Beatrix’s MOT and a welcome return to Mark’s Nursery at Mill End. As per normal, Beatrix didn’t pass her check up first time around. This time neither us, Iveco or the Tester could find the vehicle identification number plate anywhere. A silly reason to fail but with some convincing from Iveco and old stickers from the manual, we eventually got our MOT. Somehow it always seems to take 2 days!

Beatrix wasn’t the only one who needed some check ups, I had booked multiple hospital and dental appointments during April and it felt like I got my MOT at the same time as Beatrix.

As well as the difference in roads, it was not difficult to miss how expensive everything seemed to have become whilst we were in France. The Aires in France had been amazing with great facilities for motorhomes and at a great price however in the UK prices had gone up – quite significantly.

I mentioned in December I had spoken to an ex colleague about a role, when all MOT’s had been complete and whilst we were planning our Scotland tour I phoned them and over a few conversations arranged to work with them as an associate career and leadership coach for one day a week – with the ability to coach remotely. This gave me great flexibility and meant I really could live my best life mixing travelling the road less travelled with Toby and Merlin and getting paid coaching work to help with the rise in the cost of living which I don’t really call work as I love doing it.

And with that, we arrived at the end of Chapter 2 of our Tales from the Road Less Travelled.

Thanks for reading,

Sally, Toby and Merlin