We arrived at our site for the Saturday’s stage of the tour de France about 10 am and set about settling in for a day or so. first thing was to get some washing done, this we have to do in a plastic box, hand washing everything takes time but we have worked out a routine and Ewout is very good at rinsing and squeezing out the water. We had a visit from a local man who asked us for a Flag for his wife who teaches English at a local secondary school. He offered to buy it but we gave it to him and a small kangaroo as well.A little later he returned with the whole family and we had a nice chat with them. The carnival atmosphere here is something to witness, the range of countries represented and the friendliness of the atmosphere really adds to the experience. Saturday was a lovely day for our last Tour de France day, we had a lovely site next to some forest and during the day it filled up with all sorts of people an vehicles. We decided to go for a walk up to the next summit where that part of the hill climb finished. We met a couple of Australian people camped there, Heidi and her German partner and another Australian bloke with his English sister. It is always good to meet other Aussies on the road and have a yarn and especially for me to meet some women to have a chat to. Ewout seems to have no problem finding blokes to chat too, as his Dutch is very good now and there are a lot of Dutch people about he also likes to talk to anyone and has met some nice people from other countries as well. We had a good spot to watch the tour as it came around the bend on a steep hill climb, as they were going slower and the riders were well spaced; it was a good end to our “Tour” experience. We were camped next to some very nice French people, who although they couldn’t speak English and we had no French, we were able to understand some interaction with them.. It’s funny, because at the end, the lady wanted to give us her email address and wanted ours so that we could write to each other. That should be an interesting conversation considering the Language barrier. Thank goodness for Google translator!

Saturday 10th & Sunday 11th

It’s been a kind of frustrating day and night… We left our lovely spot on the side of the road in the hills of France after deciding that to cross over to Switzerland we would have to negotiate the Tour de France route which could make the route we had planned difficult, so after a quick check of the maps we packed up and decided to hit the road to get as far over the “Tour” route before it became mayhem. We worked our way down a small mountain road to get to a main thoroughfare from France to Switzerland. We found a McDonalds about 6.00 pm and thought it would be good to stop and upload some emails and the blog. Macca’s wifi in France is great,, we can stop, open the computer and it is there ready to go. After doing this we headed for Nyon, we knew that they had a Macca’s wifi there and also a camperstop where we had spent a night there last year. We sussed out where the Macca’s was and made sure it had wifi, then headed to what we were sure was a good place to stop for the night. When we got there we found that they had a barrier across the entry that kept out the bigger vehicles, we could have squeezed through by Cm’s but decided it wasn’t worth the risk especially as we would have to get out again when it was getting busy in the morning. I don’t know why they have done this as it is set up for campers to use the area, with a service point especially for campers to empty their toilets, waste water and to fill their water tanks.

We decided to park in a parking bay close by, it seemed to be a commuter area for buses, but as it was Sat night and the next Sunday so it shouldn’t be a problem. It wasn’t luckily as I was dead tired and my eyes hurt. I have come out with a small blood vessel burst on my eyeball which make it a bit sore when it’s tired.

Then the fun started, well it could be worse, we Macca hopped from Nyon across the top of Lake Geneva to find a wifi that would work. We had an appointment with our family on Skype set up and were looking forward to seeing and talking to them. After finding some hard to get to and others that didn’t want to let us get onto the internet we gave up at the last one. We had used this particular one last year on our travels and we didn’t have any trouble then, but we were fed up and ready to go and American man we chatted to said that he wasn’t surprised. Switzerland has been a bit more strict with the internet and it’s providers have been difficult. Switzerland he say’s is not very open to visitors and we have found that facilities have not been so easy to find.

Well we have found a reasonable campsite here and it at least has cheap wifi for now and a pool so it is a good place to have a break for the afternoon and we will head off again about 11. am tomorrow.(Monday) Ewout has just come back from a swim in the pool is has been 32 deg. C and in the distance are snow capped mountains. Seems ironic.

We are surrounded by Dutch people and the Soccer world cup final is on tonight. They have 3 TV’s set up so that people can watch, it should be a interesting evening, could go both ways, either happy drunk Dutch or unhappy drunk Dutch.

Well that’s enough for now until we can find another wifi access point.

Cheers to all. Go the Dutchies!

addition:

Bad luck for the Dutch.

Ewout spent the night at the bar with other Soccer fans. He came back a little drunk and happy. He had a nice night with some Dutch soccer fans who liked to buy him drinks.. Nice for him as he doesn’t do that very often.