Riverbank near Dole to Geneva (or there abouts)

Today's route

Today dawned clear and bright – for a change :) – and, first things first, we had a swim in the river. Excellent way of getting cool and clean.

Nothing else to do we decided to head off and get to Lons-le-Saunier for breakfast. We did that very successfully – coffee, croissant, baguette for later, copy of the Tour de France hand-book so we could figure out where we were going to try and catch up with it.

Still too much petrol (remember the leak?).

Onwards to Clairvaux-Les-Lacs and a good Aires with water & waste disposal and a good shady patch of flat ground for petrol leak fixing.

Jon's good like that – once the van was up on it's chocks (to give a bit more clearance) and he had clamped off the hose with his home-made hose clamping mechanism – fashioned out of a pair of long nosed pliers and a bungy, the old hose was off and the new one on in no time. Brilliant.

Lunchtime by then though – and they don't call it Clairvaux-Les-Lacs for nothing! There was a fantastic lake – really blue, amazingly warm, beach – everything, and we really enjoyed our swim in that one (are you jealous yet?)

Onwards – up hill this time. Suddenly everything got a bit more alpine and bit more steep. Essentially skiing territory in the winter – beautiful alpine villages, amazing sceneries, brilliant. And the van was coping well. Up hill was slow but steady (I was generous and kept pulling over to let people past) and although the van wasn't so great on the hairpins, it was OK if you slowed right down.

The only 'slight' problem was the sudden and rather dramatic loss of brakes. Mmm, yes, it was a bit scary, and yes, I was a bit surprised – but it was OK, and, luckily, near the bottom of the hill. We decided that the problem was the amount of braking I had been doing – we must have descended nearly 1000m in about 10km, and there was a lot of hairpins and the like – heating up the brake fluid and so we lost the brakes. And, when I say lost – there was a bit of braking available, if you pumped the pedal :) Once we had stopped and let things cool down a bit it was all back to normal. For now anyway.

Next excitement was Switzerland. There we were, minding our own business – next thing you know we are at the border! Most unexpected. A nice border chap asked me where we were going, and I told him Geneva and he said “on you go then” in a very cheery manner. So far everyone has been lovely.

We made it to Geneva alive!! Bonus. Parked up and headed into town with the primary aim of finding some internet so I could update the blog. It's a bit sad that isn't it? But necessary. On the way into town I had been picking up unsecured networks all over the place – unlike in France where I didn't find any. We found somewhere eventually – and I managed to update the first 2 days, and then it was gone. So apologies if it's not very pretty – the photos take an age to upload and can only be done while on line – and if there are bits missing or spelling mistakes, but it was the best I could do at the time. Hopefully things will improve, although I guess they could get worse!

We didn't get to see much of Geneva , although we had a nice walk along the lake front. It was already 8:30pm by the time we got back to the van, so we had to go straight off to find somewhere to stay. Apparently it is illegal to camp outside of official campsites in Switzerland, so we thought maybe tonight was the night to pay!

After trying one campsite which had been closed for about 30 seconds but refused to let us in (********), we ended up in a municipal park further up the road. We were just starting to lose hope – when we found it. And it's great. The park chap is really friendly and admiring of our van, we have electricity for the first time – a toilet block with showers & everything, the lake (Geneva?) at the bottom of the hill and, apparently, a bakery for croissants 200m up the road, not only that but we had pasta and salad for dinner, and all 4 of the 'Badger's Sett' of beers that Helen and Andrew bought us (thanks guys) – could it be any better?

Well, if there were no mosquitos – that would be better!

Anyone got a method for stopping them?