Back home now we are looking forward to another trek but a little uncertain how the fuel situation will play out because of the war in the Middle East. We were stranded in Portugal at the start of Lockdown which meant a long trek back after our ferry was cancelled. Maybe we will just hold off booking anything until the situation becomes a little clearer.

We have redesigned this website so that it no longer uses google maps etc for any new pages or maps. Instead we are using mapping software that uses the OpenStreetMap maps, the presentation is different, but in many ways it’s clearer because it does not have distracting information on it.

If you have views on any of these changes email our webmaster with comments.

Overall I think the process is working well now that I’ve used it for a series for web pages. The workflow is different, and one needs to be careful to organise all the elements with logical names and produce them in the correct order so that the stages that follow can all happen without going back.

Any feedback will be welcome so I’ll know what readers think.

The hot weather at the beginning of September was very debilitating, so we changed our plans and stayed in the northern part of France. We revisited Mittelbergheim and purchased crémants and still wines too. By the end of September we were cold at night although that’s easier to deal with than being too hot.

Our motorhome trip report will be here as soon as possible, here’s the route.

Motorhome route through Northern France

Each day has our route, kindly provided by google maps, a narrative of the journey and what we did, plus a photo gallery of images for the day. Here’s the link to the overview page.

Next job is to document each overnight stop with details such as location, cost and photos of the facilities together with our comments.

The image galleries are generally easy to put in place and work well. 

There are about 60 more pages to bring over, then the old site can be turned off, at the current rate that will take 3 to 4 weeks to finish.

As time has gone by WordPress has moved on, while Joomla has not moved as quickly. It was a very difficult decision to change, but as I add new pages I am starting to see major benefits, especially in the way that WordPress responds to mobile devices.

As some weeks have gone by I can add more to this posting. Adding web pages to this website takes more time than I expected. For each day of a motorhome trip I think it’s useful to give information about how far we travelled, what kind of place we stayed overnight and other information that seems relevant.

Both Gill and I write journals to document our travels, we record different types of detail, about the weather, the type of country that we pass through, our impressions of the day and what we ate and drank. When we look back through our journal entries it’s surprising how much we have forgotten or remembered differently. Same with the photos, normally we take a lot of photos, almost all of our photos are now taken on mobile phones, in my case that’s an iPhone, whereas Gill likes her Samsung phone. Both phones do a really good job taking photos; the phone is something that we have become accustomed to carrying, rather than a large digital camera.

Getting back to the subject, updating this site takes a lot of time, but it’s a pleasure to read through all our journals and it helps us think about future treks by motorhome.