St Dizier to Dole/Parcey/the side of a river somewhere.....

Today's route
This morning we were ultra keen – we got up at 8am and went for a run from the van – just 30 minutes, but then we are on holiday! Was really lovely, round the lake shore, across an amazingly long footbridge and back again. When we got back to the van we picked up our towels & swimming goggles and went straight into the the deserted lake. It was amazing. Still really warm but a really perfect way to cool off after the run.

After a quick shower (fully facilities at this beach) we went back to the van for a spot of breakfast – bacon & egg sandwiches :)

The only slight downer was that when Jon pulled the folding table out from under the van where we had stored it over night, it had a bit of petrol on it. Jon was confident that it was just a bit of overspill though because it was hot – so we didn't worry about it (you can tell there is more to that story though can't you?).

At about 11am we set off from our 'campsite' (still no money paid for overnights so far) and headed for our next destination for decision making – Dijon.

It was a really lovely drive, lots of really long straight tree-lined roads, miles and miles of hedge-less fields of wheat – and the occasional crop of sunflowers.

We saw plenty of memorials along the way, but one really caught our eye and we headed up to it for a look. It was closed (as are most things between 12 & 2pm in France) so we sat in the shade and had our typically French lunch of baguette, ham & cheese. Here's the thing though – while I was sitting eating my lunch, I spotted the unmistakeable dripping of petrol from under the van!! Jon was dispatched to investigate. Conclusion: hole in pipe. Solution: Duck tape. Outcome: leaking duck taped pipe. Yesss, well, that didn't work – but the idea was there. Round #2 saw Jon repairing the pipe with a bit of carrier bag and a few zip ties – this was, of course, only a temporary measure, but seemed to work pretty well – no drips.

Anyway, that done, we pushed off and were looking out for whatever the French version of Halfords might be to get some replacement hose. 'Roady' was the answer – and, after the nice French chap came out to measure our hose with his vernier calipers and then, even nicer, gave us a bit of hose and a couple of jubilee clips for nothing (how cool is that?) we were back on the road to try and burn some petrol before Jon could do the repairs (there was a good chance of spillage otherwise).

Dijon was nice – although I don't seem to have any photos. Perhaps because we weren't there long and were mostly involved in trying to find wireless internet to update the blog. Can you believe – France is hopeless for 'borrowing' wireless internet – or even finding internet cafes. Maybe they don't do internet in France?

We totally failed on the internet, but we did have a small beer – which was nice.

We still had too much fuel, so we left Dijon (once we had relocated the van – took us 20 minutes!) and headed south to Dole - looking for a campsite marked on our map. We found it, drove round it, got gawped at, didn't find any spaces, and drove out again. Very odd.

After a couple more attempts at finding somewhere to stay, Jon randomly pulled into the car park of a restaurant by a river . No idea where we were really (although looking on Multimap just now were were on the river just south of Parcey I think, just off the N5 south of Dole). Just out of the car park was a kind of grass layby kind of thing – over looking the river – reasonably flat....... well, we decided that no-one would worry if we stayed over night. I mean, what harm were we doing? So we stayed. And nobody bothered us – apart from the mosquitos (and, if you can imagine it, we were locked inside the van with all the doors and windows closed – it's 30 degrees, even at 10pm!). Still, it was free (again).