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This holiday has been a little like pin the tail on a donkey. We could just as easily get the map out, close our eyes and stick a pin in it anywhere. The weather was going to be the same whatever we did. Still there is always a silver lining or so they say. Mum used to say "Jennifer , you make your bed and you sleep in it! " She was right. We can complain about the rain but we sure as hell cannot do anything about it. Complaining won't make it go away. We are still steadily heading north towards home. We have not contacted Eurotunnel yet to find out if we can an earlier crossing. According to sally sat nag we are 24 hours from Tulsa - no not really 24 hours from what sounds like a very sunny and warm GB. We have resigned ourselves to three days of travelling and taking in what we can on the way home. We will have to pay a surcharge probably on the crossing but this will be less than the average 18 euro a night campsite fee for the next five days. So we put our thinking caps on
- which way to go home? . Would we find anything interesting on the way home to enliven the journey? Sometimes when you least expect it then something really good happens.
And so it was with Tournus Sur Rhone. On our journey we pondered on our holiday. Was it really all that bad? Of course the weather had spoilt it but we have travelled almost 3800 miles which is about average for one of our trips. We have some kunas to take home and change into euros for the next trip. We have stayed on some pretty nice quiet campsites. We have seen some pretty amazing places . Krka National Park , Sibenik, Grado, the list goes on. Our diesel consumption despite the engine clean has gone down rather than up. 25 .1 to the gallon. Perhaps we need to take the Fiat garage to the Trades Description Act. Suzy though has performed well. No TV for three weeks . Nothing wrong with that apart from Kathrein feeling like a huge white elephant of the roof. Watched the Book Thief . What an intresting and thought provoking film. Read about a third of the second book of the Game
of Thrones series . Hard going. I only manage a few pages a night. So looking back - it's not all been bad.
Our first stop in Tournon was the supermarket. We have been quite fortunate with them this holiday. The Konzum in Croatia were not too bad and now I am revelling in buying huge sweet flans, ice cream, tasty ham , crusty bread and a drop or two of half decent plonk . We arrived in town after the shopping spree.
We arrived at Tournon a town in the Ardeche located on the right bank of the mighty Rhone River. Opposite is Tain-l'Hermitage strangley in the Drome department . We thought how very French it felt . How very busy after some places we had stayed at. There are boulevards along the river on both sides. Cafes and restaurants spilling into the streets. Shops busy with the townspeople going about their business. We crossed the huge impressive bridge from Tain to Tournon. Our destination a campsite on the river itself . It boasted chalets and spaces for motorhomes with river views. An easy walk into town passing the huge monument carved into the rock and it
was an ACSI site. When we arrived it was like a scene from a busy market place with vans parked up with the occupants waiting to be served and allocated a plot. Never a good sign. We parked up , I did the woman thing and went to register. Normally this does not take long , hand over passport and ACSI card, register, give name and details and pay. However there was a queue headed by a German couple . They talked and talked , they laughed with the receptionist , they passed her a bottle of wine. The young french lady in front of me turned round, smiled knowingly and turned back. It is at this time you begin to wonder if you should stay or leave and try somewhere else. The German couple concluded their business. The young french girl was quicker . She pulled out a booking form and a cheque book and within minutes had registered and paid up 200 euros presumably to hire a chalet for a week. Or so I thought - foolish me. It was me next and I quickly registered and paid up. Go anywhere I was told . The riverside plots
were more or less all taken. There was a bit of space but had we taken one it would have felt like an overcrowded french aire. We chose a corner plot. Plenty of room to get the chairs out, put the awning out and sit out with a glass of wine if the sun deemed to show itself. We settled in ...........................
It was at that point a car turned up. Out poured two rather inebriated young boys all dressed up as if going to a wedding. They carried a bag and an empty wine glass each. They were staying in a chalet. They knew the young french girl and much french three cheeked kissing went on . Then a second car turned up. Another two young loud worse for wear boys with the same bags and the same empty wine glasses . The same french kissing went on . We moved .
Miles away to another campsite . Out of town we drove into the countryside . We kept seeing signs Le petit train .I didnt give it much thought at the time. We crossed a high but narrow bridge over a tributary of the Rhone and
crossed the single tracks of a railway line. Now this is getting interesting for steam buffs like us. Our campsite was Le Castellet . A lovely site in the middle of the country with just the sound of birds and the river tinkling past us. Our host was fantastic . She welcomed us , took our details , gave us a huge plot to park up on. We were next to a Dutch couple who with their car would be travelling the Ardeche Gorge for the forthcoming weeks. Lucky them. The toilets were clean and tidy, there was a cafe/bar, free WiFi and a bread service . Sadly this is where I wish I spoke French as the next bit was lost in translation. Madame gave me a map of the area and a brochure about Le petite train. She said it was steam. She told me it was historique. I looked at the map and could see that it started in nearby Tournon and appeared to go up the gorge . She tried to explain that there were two stops . One part way up - the short journey - where the train was physically turned round and trundled
back downhill from whence it came. The second stop was high up the gorge . The train took hours to get there. Before it returned the passenger had time for dinner at a restaurant and a look around the village. I pointed to the short stop thinking that this was the little station right next to the campsite . "Can you buy tickets here?" She shook her head and said no. I resigned myself to just seeing the little puffing Billy as it chugged through tomorrow morning at 10 (the long trip) and at 10.15 for the shorter version.
After a bite to eat and a bit more of the falling down juice I headed off on my own up the track. I came to a wonderland. Very unexpected. A buffet, a ticket office and carriages just left empty. The penny still had not dropped. I spent what seemed like an age inspecting an old steam locomotive painted powder blue. I walked inside carriage after carriage. Alongside the tracks were assorted carriages of different colour. Petrol tankers and all the paraphernalia of a old fashioned railway line and terminus. I was in my element and thought just how lucky
a turn of fate moved us from the town campsite to this little gem.
In the morning we woke early, breakfasted , discussed options for today . We head north again in the direction of Burgundy and Beaune. A nice municipal site beckoned just on the edge of town and within walking distance. We had been before but it seemed not a bad half way point to Calais and a date with a meal at the restaurant at Le Bien Assise campsite at Guines. In the middle of brushing my teeth with toothpaste all over my mouth I heard the sound . Chuff , Chuff, Chuff , I looked at my watch . It was only 9.30 too early for the train to be coming through. Even without my hearing aids the sound continued . Chuff Chuff Chuff Chuff and there before my eyes appeared a black fire breathing , smoke belching little beauty. She chuffed up to us and then reversed back. It was obvious she was hooking up to all those lovely carriages I had seen the night before . Toothpaste packed away , bag full of soap, shower gel and all those bathroom accessories hurredly flung
into the cupboard . I legged it faster than Usain Bolt up the site to the station. It was heaving with people taking photographs, visiting the shop, looking at the engines.
Unlike the United Kingdom or the USA, France did not close down half or more of her railway or railroad network in the nineteen-sixties and seventies, at the start of the motorway age. As a result, modern France still boasts a dense rail network which is a help to us motorhomers and it includes many rural branch lines, some of them quite long, that would have been savagely axed many years ago if France had had a "Docteur Beeching" The line was opened in 1891 and runs between Tournon and Lamestre high in the Ardeche. The 200 ton train is pulled by a locomotive identical to the one designed by the engineer Anatole Mallet (1837-1919). Mallet locomotives are articulated so that they can negotiate the tight curves in the gorges more easily. The four double acting pistons are operated by steam from the boiler which contains 3000 litres of water heated to 200°C under 14 bars of pressure. Interesting facts but for me its the nostalgia of steam
trains and the smell of the smoke not the facts. From Tournon to Lamastre the train consumes 700 kgs of coal and 4000 litres of water. Locomotive n°403 has been running the route since 1903. A listed historical “monument”, it was carefully restored in 2013 at the workshop of the Chemin de Fer du Vivarais, in Lamastre. Locomotive n°414 (1932) has joined its sister on our line in 2015. We saw both of the trains as the second chuffed its way into the station soon after 403.
We had moved Suzy off our spot onto a bit of spare ground above the trains so that we could watch them easily. It was at that point the penny dropped . We could have gone on the train from this station. There was a ticket office where we could have bought our return tickets . There was a chef de train giving talks. We thought about going on it but by this time we were too late. Most of the carriages were reserved for trips and were full. The remaining third class tickets were selling like hot cakes. By the time we would have legged it to Suzy , driven back into the campsite , found the campsite owner and explained we were stopping another day, driven to our spot again and walked back to the station the train would have been halfway to the next stop. Still we saw it and it was one of those rare pleasures . Something that made moving campsites worth while . Something that made the rain seem unimportant. We have it on our radar for a future visit. Next time the train won't chuff out of the station without us.
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jackieandchris2011
Jackie
Tournon
I think we stayed in the ACSI site on the river here! It was fine! We met up with some friends who we hadnt had chance to see in UK - they were travelling south as we were travelling north! We also went on the steam train up through a gorge...cant remember where we went...check our blog!!! We are from Bristol but as from Wednesday we will have No Fixed Abode as we have sold our house!!