Driving home day 2 – Driving up through central France.

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Brrrr..rr what has happened to the weather. Icy bite to the wind and needed the duvet to keep warm. I know that the lake is 1000 metres up but still exceptionally cold for the time of year. It will be mid-summer in 2 days ! We passed a sign which gave temperature as 11.5 degrees. Suntops have been put away and replaced by fleece jacket.
We were away by 9am as no campsite to checkout of. Bob had carefully planned a drive which was part scenic and part motorway. The route via Clermont-Ferrand and the Massif Central is easy on the motorway, definitely not on the smaller local roads and we had had quite a strenuous drive yesterday.
First part of the day was on the local roads, cross-country through the very pretty, pastoral country-side of the Auvergne. The route took us mainly up above 1000 metres past meadows full of a fantastic mix of wild flowers. We also passed lots of contented looking cattle along the way. They are a pretty variety round here, butterscotch coloured with quite long curving horns. We saw signs in a few places to Ski au Fond – (Cross country skiing) so we obviously high up.
After 40 miles we switched to the motorway and used this to get us up to and round Clermont. It is quite a good stretch of road, scenic, with plenty of bends and sights of pretty villages perched on top of every available steep and inaccessible hill.
Bob was pleased to see the Michelin sites as he visited there in the late 1960s when he worked for ‘the Mich’.
Another easy hour’s drive took us to our campsite somewhere near to Montmarault, miles from anywhere really but chosen as conveniently situated for our night halt. The site has a heated swimming pool. As the air temperature was about 16 degrees no swimming was done today. In fact it was too cold really even to sit out though we tried, wearing jackets for a while, as the campsite is full of birds and the bird song was glorious. Spotted an owl as we walked up the campsite later.

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