Bluey repairs France

Day 23 1st June 

Travelled: 64km from Dax to Pouillon (stayed at lakeside parking area) then 50km to Saint Palais (stay in large carpark)

After another quiet night we made our way through town early this morning and did a pit stop (water and dump) before arriving at Euromaster for our 8am appointment.

During the hour for Bluey to get his new front tyres put on we had a walk to the nearby shops and did some investigating on exchanging our empty French gas bottle. Cheapest was at Carrefour 13kg for €38.50. This should last us for ages as we only use it for the BBQ or as an emergency as we have a LPG bottle that can be filled at petrol stations. As the bottle we had was from 2016 we thought we may as well us it up before heading out of France and start a fresh.

Then we were on our way to our next destination. However as we were driving along there was an unusual wind noise ( thought it might have been the new tyres) but then a red warning light appeared in the dash with ‘Engine Malfunction’ message. We managed to find a Ford dealership 20mins back the way we came, who was willing to have a look. Poor Bluey was in limp mode by the time we arrived just before they closed for lunch. They found the problem to be a split in the turbo air pipe and ordered the required part for tomorrow. We feel lucky that it happened before we were in the Pyrenees and across the border into Spain. Also we were able to spend the time waiting in a lovely bush setting next to a lake and a restaurant. Things could have been much worse… and we were just saying we could use a couple of days chilling out. 

Day 24 2nd June

During the next morning we had a lovely walk around the lake.

We did a bit of tidying up and sorting out. We had lunch at the popular lakeside restaurant (Mark had a tasty pizza and I enjoyed a lasagne).

At 2:30pm Bluey went into the garage.

We wondered through the village that is clearly in the Basque area with its bull ring.

A couple of hours and €174 later we were on the road again to our original destination os St.Palais. It’s another very hot afternoon so we pop our fan on, leaving the exploration of the town until it cools down.