When I came to start the engine to move over to the service area the engine turned slowly, the speedo and rev counter pointers dropped to zero – a bad sign! After a struggle the engine finally fired and started. Oh how that took me back to some of the old cars I used to drive when cold winters meant careful attention was needed to your battery. That’s a thing of the past now, maintenance-free batteries mean you never need to check the electrolyte level or inspect the terminals etc.

We serviced the vehicle emptying the grey water and cassette, then needed to move to fill with fresh water, this time I really didn’t think the engine was going to start it turned so slowly. I waited, giving the battery time to recover then tried it again, there was one small sign of life from the engine so i kept cranking and eventually the engine fired up. No surprise I kept the engine running whilst we filled with water then got on our way.

Major change of plan called for today, baking heat, no long drive, it was obvious that we needed a new battery TODAY. Nearest town was Jaca – so that’s where we went, but by the time we arrived everywhere mentioned on google maps was closed until late afternoon.

To be completed . . . we got a new battery and the service was excellent

We looked at each other and wondered what had run our battery down?

After a couple of more attempts or starting I gave the battery a rest and envisaged waiting for a call out to our remote mountain location.

One more try I thought, then after a few more turns of the engine a sign of life, a few more and YES, the engine caught and burst into life. Now, keep it running, remembering those old car batteries and cold winters of many years ago. So off we went, now thinking that a new battery would be needed.

As we drove on, about half an hour later a different idea came into my head – the fridge! On the days before we stopped we had been driving along very narrow mountain roads, average speed 17 mph for two and a half hours; fridge freezer on automatic so it would be using the 12v supply from the engine, plus air con on. At that slow speed it is unlikely that the alternator would be producing enough current to meet demand – keep in mind that the fridge takes 20 amps.

We stopped and changed the fridge to gas manually then continued.

Next stop Canfranc, 1200 metres up near the French border, with EHU. Would that be enough?

Today I can happily say that Hymer started first time with the ‘normal’ sound and the water pump is making its usual noise too. So it looks like the cause of the flat battery is found.

This year we couldn’t book a fast crossing with Brittany Ferries except on two dates in August, so we chose the later on, 26th August 2026 and booked that. Little did we know that Spain and Europe would have extreme temperature during our stay in Spain. The heat has been sufficient for us to abandon out plans to go south to Granada by way of the Roman sites at Albarracin.

Instead we headed north, into the mountains close to the French border, and even here we have been in temperatures around 33°C, we are left sitting our our days waiting for the sun to pass over and behind mountains so that the temperature starts to fall. Currently we are in Canfranc, just a few km from the French border at 1200 metres; no point moving from here at the moment, if we go down a little into Spain temperature jump to around 33 or 34° and it’s the same if we go north into France. Today is Sunday, all the forecasts suggest that by wednesday temperatures will be heading for normal, about 10 to 12° lower.

So, we sit and wait. I am reminded that waiting is something that none of us are godd at these days. We expect immediate results, so perhaps we are being told something that we need to listen to?

To summarise, a long way to travel through Europe to reach Norway, expensive in every way. Toll roads, ferries and tunnels, campsites few and far between, crowded in July and August, roads narrow, tortuous, low speed limits, difficult driving in a motorhome.

Read our daily travel details for more information. 

Not one of our better experiences, personally I think Sweden is a better choice for many reasons – no road tolls, better roads, lower prices, more flexible ‘wild camping’, much less crowded, much better driving experience.

Another epic trek across Europe; starting with a weekend English Folk Dance event at Drax Sports and Social Club followed by the ferry from Hull to Rotterdam, through the Netherlands, north to Barmstedt for an American square dance event then north through Denmark, ferry to Bergen and a stressful drive through Norway (more to follow on that theme), returning via the ferry from Stavanger to Denmark, driving back through Germany and the Netherlands, Rotterdam to Hull ferry and home to Lancaster.

Norway was bursting full of motorhomes, we have NEVER seen so many, suitable campsites are few, far between, overcrowded and expensive — that’s the take-away message about Norway; pretty in places, but the driver gets to see nothing, the roads are narrow, tortuous, flanked by metal crash barriers and have low speed limits everywhere. Thronged by motorhomes, (many of which are rentals) and caravans that are too wide for the roads makes for a very stressful experience.

You will be able to read about our adventures in full as soon as time allows the pages to be prepared. Pages now built and available.  Meanwhile we need to plan because we have a ferry to Spain booked in just over 3 weeks, watch this space for more.

Screenshot from Here Maps app on iPhone

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.

As soon as time permits a new section is coming in which we will talk about the places where we bought wine, how much it cost and how it compares with supermarket wine and more specialised wine sellers here in the UK.

Since Brexit the amount of wine and other goods that can be brought back into the UK from the EU has been restricted, per person it is currently 18 litres of still wine, that’s 24 normal bottles, plus either 4 litres of spirits or 9 litres of sparkling wine, that’s a dozen normal bottles. There are other allowances but we are only interested in the wines. As usual, the government is punitive if you go over any of the allowances, for example if you have one bottle of wine over the allowance then you have to declare it and pay duty etc on the whole lot — greedy government is the only way to describe it.

We are always very careful to make sure that we don’t go over the duty free allowance when returning to the UK. Another point is that you are also entitled to reclaim the VAT on your EU purchases, however, that’s another article, it’s not easy and so far we have not managed to reclaim VAT.

On our last motorhome trek through France and Spain I used Gaia, better know as a GPS and tracking app for hiking. The biggest problem I had was forgetting to start recording the track each day and then pausing the recording and finishing the track each day.

Results from Gaia are very good, the tracking is much more detailed than Google Timeline, representation on the map is very detailed, the statistics for the track are more comprehensive too.

I will prepare a more detailed assessment of Gaia for tracking motorhome journeys and post it as a full article here on ourtreks.uk. It will be linked from here when available.