Bad day in France

Matt: One or two things going wrong in a day on the road is entirely expected. Three or four is generally not a problem that a nice happy hour under the motorhome awning can't fix. Then there's days like today.

We woke at 7:45am in Equihen Plage on the coast of France near Boulogne Sur Mer in an Aire de Camping Car (like a mini, unstaffed caravan park. More on what they are later) to the dulcet sounds of someone knocking hard on our door. It was the Aire operator who had come to collect his €5. We were expecting a 9am visit, but he was obviously eager to get paid.

It was really, really hot in the campervan already. The black paint looks cool, sure, but it's not great in direct sunlight. It was so hot we couldn't get back to sleep so we got up, had breakfast and looked around the Aire. It was on the beach, right next to a small sewerage treatment plant, which didn't smell as bad as it sounds.

What did smell bad was our toilet. It needed emptying. Emptying a campervan toilet is a great start to any day, especially in this Aire, which has no toilet emptying facility except for a drain in the ground (which instructions indicated was the correct place).

After emptying our toilet and grey water tank into the drain we set off for nearby Boulogne Sur Mer in search of a laundromat and SIM cards.

On the way, the car started beeping. "Warning. Low fuel" said the display. After finding a petrol station I jumped out of the cab, took the nozzle off the bowser, put it in the tank and squeezed the trigger.

Nothing. No fuel, no beeping, no explanation, nothing.

After standing there like an idiot for a while I realised that it was an automatic pump and it needed my credit card first. We have 3 cards, all of which the machine declared 'invalide'.

After struggling with the pump and language barrier for a while, we abandoned the petrol station and drove off.

One almost-accident later (someone drove right across the front of us, crossing 3 lanes in the process) we were trying to find a park in Boulogne. A half hour later we found one.

After a decent walk, we entered an Orange store and asked for a SIM card. The nice French lady inside told us in broken English to go around the corner to another Orange store where the not nice French man smugly told us neither he, nor anyone else there spoke any English at all.

Down the road we found an SFR (Vodafone affiliate) store where one of the ladies spoke a little English. We spent half an hour gesticulating and pointing with her before she gave us two SIM cards and a bill for €29. Surprisingly, this didn't give us Internet credit, and she was unable to give us any, so she sent us around the corner again to another SFR store where she assured us we could get some.

The man there sneered as he told us that he didn't speak English. Determined not to fail, I said "quinze (15) euro recharge" and pointed at our iPhones. He spoke in very, very fast French and looked at our befuddled faces with utter contempt.

We grabbed a copy of the catalogue we'd seen in the other shop and pointed at the recharge we wanted.

Once again, the rapid French and the contemptible look.

We left. Angry, upset and unsuccessful.

Rachel: Stomping back to the car in near tears we decided to ditch our attempt to find a laundromat due mainly to heat, hunger and the realisation we were in a much bigger city than first thought. Oh and, apart from looking through every window in Bologne, we had no way of finding one.

Eager to get out of the city, and resolved to head straight to our next Aire in Le Croyton, we jumped back onto the motorway. "Beep beep beep" went our motorhome. Amongst all the mayhem we still needed fuel, and fast. Matt, in an amazing display of his driving skills, took the next exit and practically coasted all the way to a petrol station in the valley below.

We encountered the same problem here as earlier, but at least this petrol station told us our card was invalid in English. We realised, luckily, that one bowser would accept cash and a quick reverse saw us successfully satisfy our thirsty car.

We were finally on our way. A stint on the motorway (which shockingly cost €6.70 in tolls) led us successfully to Le Crotoy and the 70 capacity Aire right at the mouth of the Somme. Unfortunately there were no spots available near an electric hookup so we are reliant on our battery and gas. Poor Matty has no access to his computer or iPad in these circumstances as we can't use our powerpoint off the battery. We instead entertained ourselves with writing some blog posts, wandering through the town and, of course, enjoying happy hour outside with a view of the setting sun. Not a bad ending to a bad bad day.