For the first time since we left home Sat Nav plonked us in a right royal f***k up!

We left Barcelona and headed back into France, our first stop near Perpignan. We decided to avoid all toll roads on the journey round to Italy as they’d already rinsed us of money on the way down, it seemed like a good idea initially as we were able to take the scenic coastal road from Barcelona which took us smoothly up and over the border. We then turned off in the direction of our next campsite and reached a small town called Thuir which had conveniently, unknown to us and Sat Nav, recently changed it’s road layout. We entered the town over a speed hump and hear a crunch, we carry on thinking not much of it and then find ourselves stuck in a very small one way system wedged between small green bollards either side. We were stuck!!! We had cars all around beeping their horns!! People started appearing from nowhere trying to help us, i jumped out, a bystander pointed out that the jockey wheel had broken… that was the crunch we heard earlier!! And also that the back end corner of the caravan had smacked into one of the stupid bollards. A nice French policeman appears and helps Ben maneuver with about 10 other people, he directs the traffic around us and Ben manages to reverse. The idea of unhitching was now impossible without a jockey wheel! Ben reversed back up the small street and up a side road so we were able to get out and back on to the main road. The policeman told me the directions to where we wanted to go in his very broken English, i said a big ‘merci beaucoup’ to him and we were on our way-phewy!!!!

We arrived safely at our next campsite and have been given an address to a local caravan accessorie place where we can buy a new jockey wheel-so much for saving money not using the tolls!!

*Free wifi at this campsite, we’re here tonight (19th) and tomorrow night if any one fancies a skype session!