Day 6 - Over the Pyrenees into France

Friday July 15th 2016

It is a lovely morning up here on the hill at Camping Ain. We enjoy a breakfast of coffee, croissants and boiled eggs cooked up on our camping stoves as a wonderful sunrise does it's thing over the mountain.

Coffee with a view

Then potential disaster as Sean finds his (hydraulic) clutch has decided overnight to lose all pressure. Mick comes to the driving down into the town to find a garage that stocks Dot 4 brake fluid. Sean gets it topped up and pumps the lever. Oh joy, it's working again.

The road to Ainsa is amazing. First a motorway stretch then up into foothills on a new road with tunnels and sweeping curves.
 
sorry to be leaving Spain


We stop for coffee in Fiscal and enjoy the view from the cafe terrace. Then it's uphill all the way as we follow a river up a twisty climb of 1,000 metres to the Tunnel d'Aragnouet-Bielsa.
It burrows through a high peak on the border, one side in Spain and the other in France.
 
The border is in the tunnel

The road down on the French side is newly resurfaced and loops and twist through numerous hairpins down to the little town of Aragnouet.

Through the border and into France

We stop for coffee and a quick back massage for Mick. His back is playing up but Sean is a manipulative little bugger and can sort him out for a few more kilometres. 

We are following a river valley as we drop down from the high Pyrenees. We stop in a pretty little town for a pharmacy and stock up on make-Mick-better stuff. It is a holiday area and there are lots of camp sites and river rafting establishments.
Mick takes it like a man

From here we are running through the gentle foothills of the French Pyrenees region. It is getting progressively hotter as we shed altitude and soon is registering 30C. We are very glad to finally arrive at Camping l'Arize in the small town of La Bastide-de-Serou.

The campsite is on a pleasant spot a little above the village and on the banks of a fast flowing river. We pitch in a lush grassy bay separated from the other bays by hedges and trees.

All is looking good until we go to find some dinner. Although there is a bar/restaurant with a good menu we are told that dinner is not possible because they are catering for a large party who are having a fine old time sat at trestle tables just below the pool.

So Sean takes a hand, telling the boss lady in no uncertain terms that we have ridden a thousand kilometres and chose this place because of the facilities they advertise all over their website. If we had known they would not feed is we would never have come here. Trip Advisor may have been mentioned. It is not pretty.

Pitching camp at Camping l'Arize

Grudgingly the boss lady changes her tune and tells us that they could arrange for us to have some of the mussels and chips that the big party are enjoying. It's a take it or leave it option but actually it is pretty good.

As we are finishing up the lady comes over and says they will now give us all an extra bowl of mussels. Obviously they made too many for the party but we aren't saying no. So finally it all turns out well and full of mussels we retire for a quiet night by the fast flowing river.

Mussels for dinner

and a second helping

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