Two Go To France (2022)

[nicholsong]

Probably thought that an ageing hippy had more aboard than just wine and Brie.

The muttering started when I presented my passport and they asked me where I'd been; when I said I'd been to Portugal as well as Spain and France, that's when the squad was bought over. Perhaps they had been given a tip off, and I just fit the bill.

Even so there are not many items on the 'Banned Exports' list, e.g. rare animals, ivory, masterpieces of art etc. - not often found in laundry bags I would have thought

 

[DBK]

It is the same the other way. There is a shed you have to drive through in Plymouth before boarding the ferry where folk pick random (?) vehicles and give them a thorough search.

Why were French Customs so interested when you were leaving their country?

 

[DBK]

We stopped at the Super U in Cléder this morning to do our laundry in their machines, which take cards so our hoard of coins remained intact.

I then drove onto the Crozon peninsula. Here's the view from a distance, we are under the blue blob. This is the top left corner of France for those unsure where Brittany is.

And zoomed in.

We are staying at the CCP aire in Crozon.

It has a curious design with a gritted area at the top where all the MHs are and a lower tier with tiny parking spaces which would just about fit a typical small VW camper.

There is an old railway nearby which is now a cycle/footpath. A lot of geocaches have been placed along it and we knocked off nine this afternoon. Sadly, they were all very similar so it wasn't the most exciting geocaching hunt. However, we did find our first orchids of the year - there were a few scattered Early purple orchids beside the road near the aire. This was the biggest of them.

We are only going to stay one night here and move tomorrow a little further south to the aire in Morgat. It is beside a beach so Charlie will be happier!

 

[Manic]

Camaret sur mer further out has a good Aire which is close to a nice beach for Charlie and a lot of ww2 gun emplacements

 

[DBK]

Camaret sur mer further out has a good Aire which is close to a nice beach for Charlie and a lot of ww2 gun emplacements

We've stayed there before and might overnight there tomorrow.

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[Lenny HB]

On the way there we spotted a Stand Up Paddleboarder surfing in the waves

Great feeling when you get on top of a wave, in my case it only lasts 2 seconds & I'm in the drink.

Looks like you are having a good trip, some interesting places I've not seen.

What's with all the washing, we have been away a week longer than you not even thought about doing any yet.

 

[DBK]

What's with all the washing, we have been away a week longer than you not even thought about doing any yet.

I'm married to a laundress. I don't think anything we washed today failed my "sniff test" but we washed it anyway!

 

[philann]

It is the same the other way. There is a shed you have to drive through in Plymouth before boarding the ferry where folk pick random (?) vehicles and give them a thorough search.

We got pulled over there in 2017 and it was a very thorough search, even had to open the bonnet. We had to get out and be patted down, but when told the hatch on the side was where the toilet cassette was the officer said, “oh, we won’t want to look there” so if you need to hide your bacon….

 

[nicholsong]

We got pulled over there in 2017 and it was a very thorough search, even had to open the bonnet. We had to get out and be patted down, but when told the hatch on the side was where the toilet cassette was the officer said, “oh, we won’t want to look there” so if you need to hide your bacon….

But I assume this was UK Customs as I believe that it is only at Dover that French Customs operate on Departure.

Or was this just a security check for explosives etc.?

 

[philann]

But I assume this was UK Customs as I believe that it is only at Dover that French Customs operate on Departure.

Or was this just a security check for explosives etc.?

UK customs/ security

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[DBK]

It took us a full ten minutes to drive from Crozon to today's aire. I doubt this is a record but I would be interested in any Funster's stories about shorter moves to a new overnight location - not counting changing pitches on the same aire/site of course.

We are at the CCP aire in Morgat which is an attractive seaside resort with a long beach.

There is no EHU here but my archaeological skills tell me the image below shows signs it is coming.

A Globecar arrived just now and managed to back into the metal barriers. Mrs Globecar was banging on the side of the van to get it to stop but Mr Globecar just kept going backwards as he couldn't see them from his mirror. No visible damage done though, except to pride perhaps.

We went for walk this morning around the headland to the south east of us. It was a pleasant walk through pine trees on well marked paths.

Although we only just spotted this sign.

It just says "path modified, follow new signage". No explanation why but the original path went close to the top of the cliffs below us so my guess is there had been a landslip.

The Fort du Kador is to a curious design.

This plaque explains some of the history.

And yes, most of the French goes over my head too! But it was one of several batterys protecting this bit of coast. Brest, France's major Atlantic Naval base isn't far away so I guess they were wary of invasion around here.

The phrase "Le crise orientale de 1839-1841" appears at the top of the right-hand column. This event seems to have been the spur for the increase in fortifications here. I had a bit of a search for what "crise orientale" it referred to as the phrase is also used to describe a war in the Balkans a little later. I think it refers to something a little closer to France. During Napoleon's time the French occupied the land up to the Rhine, taking it from Germany, or perhaps more accurately Prussia. Following the defeat at Waterloo Prussia took it back but around 1840 France had a go at recapturing it - but they were defeated. It wasn't until 1919 France, at the end of WW1, regained what is known as Alsace-Lorraine and regained their Rhine border, where it remains today.

There is a geocache in the fort but in modern times the fortification has been repurposed into an ad-hoc toilet, or toilette as they say here. We didn't pursue the geocache.

In the early afternoon I walked back through the centre of the town. The restaurants were doing a good trade.

A short walk took me to the Plage du Kador, just beyond the marina.

As an aside the above image has undergone some "magical" transformation using the mobile app Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. This is the original image.

It was taken into the sun so the rocks and cliffs are in shade. The app has the ability to select areas of the image according to "luminescence" so I just selected a small shaded bit of a cliff and the app found all the other similarly shaded bits automatically. I could then increase the exposure of this selection only. It's far from perfect, the sand has a metallic look but I'm sure that could be corrected.

Below the cliffs were large boulders which at first glance I thought were full of fossil shells.

But are they? I'm beginning to think it may be the remains of somethings else, sponges perhaps?

 

[royandsharont]

We were in Brest in 1992 for a very big Sea Festival, what a fantastic event it was. The docks were so impressive & full of tall ships good memories for an old sea dog

 

[nicholsong]

UK customs/ security

But Customs staff are employed by HMRC and security staff by the Port or private contractors.

I think the jobs are not mixed.

 

[DBK]

But Customs staff are employed by HMRC and security staff by the Port or private contractors.

I think the jobs are not mixed.

From memory they were marked Border Force who are a relatively new outfit I think. Formed in 2012 and part of the Home Office.

 

[DBK]

Another 10 minute drive took us first to the LeClerc in Crozon for a resupply of edibles then to the Lidl next door for booze. Interesting to see not everyone in LeClerc was wearing a face mask. A very few people (I spotted 4) all probably in their twenties were maskless. Otherwise mask wearing seems more or less universal in shops.

After completing our shopping and stocking up for the weekend I drove to the top of the Mènez Hom, which at 330m is the highest hill in Brittany. There are good views to be seen from the summit, which can be reached after a very short walk from the parking area. Except today. The haze has returned and virtually nothing could be seen, just vague ghosts of shapes.

But the reason for coming here wasn't for the view, although the lack of it was disappointing, but to play with my radio.

The Mènez Hom is a class of hill known as a Marilyn, that is it has a prominence of 150m or more from its surroundings. This means it is a SOTA summit and I can add it to my list of activated SOTA summits and of course the first one I've done outside the UK. SOTA means Summits On The Air and "activating" the summit involves me setting up my portable radio and trying to contact other radio hams.

This was my operating spot. The actual summit is on the left. It gets very busy here so I operated a little below the summit.

Things went reasonably well. I started with a voice mode before switching to what is called CW which means operating in Morse Code. Sending Morse means fully engaging my brain. Using voice is like speaking on the telephone. It's easy but working out dots and dashes especially when more than one operator sends at the same time and a few were sending very fast as well is a real grey matter work-out. Just getting my callsign out (F/M0WIV/P) was a struggle!

This is a map of who I contacted today. The sun is on the upward curve of its sun-spot cycle and sun-spots help radio communications at the frequencies I was using today. I was on the south side of the summit which probably explains the pattern. There were a lot of Spanish operators!

We have settled tonight at the campsite at Locranon. There is an aire in the village but the campsite has grass and a swimming pool! It's also nearer to another SOTA summit which can be reached on foot from here. Locranon is one of the French Beautiful Villages. We have visited before but will have a poke about again while we are here. On the map below we are under the blue blob in the bottom right corner.

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[Sue and Rick]

I'm married to a laundress. I don't think anything we washed today failed my "sniff test" but we washed it anyway!

Is that the one in Plympton? I fit that shop out about 20 years ago.

 

[DBK]

Is that the one in Plympton? I fit that shop out about 20 years ago.

Our kitchen is less than 20 years old I think - and its usual occupant is a purely amateur laundress, but a keen one. If I stand still long enough I risk being thrown bodily into a washing machine.

 

[royandsharont]

Interesting your doing morse code, I learnt it for 4 years, along with semaphore, at school, I even had exams but cannot recall my WPS now. Then as a navigator I had to pass my radio telecommunication certificate to complete my qualifications. Only ever had to use it on one small ship running U.K. to Israel in 1979 that didn’t have a dedicated Radio Officer, as 2nd mate I had the responsibility of the radio as well. I remember contacting Portishead Radio daily with traffic and feeling very nervous about getting the protocols correct

 

[DBK]

Interesting your doing morse code, I learnt it for 4 years, along with semaphore, at school, I even had exams but cannot recall my WPS now. Then as a navigator I had to pass my radio telecommunication certificate to complete my qualifications. Only ever had to use it on one small ship running U.K. to Israel in 1979 that didn’t have a dedicated Radio Officer, as 2nd mate I had the responsibility of the radio as well. I remember contacting Portishead Radio daily with traffic and feeling very nervous about getting the protocols correct

I was amazed to discover morse is alive and well in amateur radio. It is still a very effective means of communicating especially with the low power from a portable rig.

Of course the much more recent digital modes can reach much further but I can't get excited about them, they lack the human touch as it is simply computer talking to computer.

 

[davidbaldam]

I was amazed to discover morse is alive and well in amateur radio. It is still a very effective means of communicating especially with the low power from a portable rig.

Of course the much more recent digital modes can reach much further but I can't get excited about them, they lack the human touch as it is simply computer talking to computer.

Your doing good , I can’t remember any of the Morse I learnt in 20 years in the Navy, it’s like a foreign language tome

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[nicholsong]

Interesting your doing morse code, I learnt it for 4 years, along with semaphore, at school, I even had exams but cannot recall my WPS now. Then as a navigator I had to pass my radio telecommunication certificate to complete my qualifications. Only ever had to use it on one small ship running U.K. to Israel in 1979 that didn’t have a dedicated Radio Officer, as 2nd mate I had the responsibility of the radio as well. I remember contacting Portishead Radio daily with traffic and feeling very nervous about getting the protocols correct

Since we are on thread drift, I had to learn morse code as a pilot, but very slow speed to identify navigation beacons.

Our better use of HF radio, for which we had quite high power, was for example when we were on the ground in Rhodes and were given a 1.5 hour take-off delay 'Due restriction at Ottringham OTR (E. coast of Yorkshire)

We got onto Portishead radio - 'Monarch 421, please patch us through to Monarch Operations(number they had). 'OPs we are delayed on restriction at OTR, see what you can do with Manchester Centre.' [Portishead were always v. helpful]

Five minutes later Rhodes ATC said 'Monarch 421, ATC restriction lifted, clear to start.' But then see what the US Navy can do to connect with their submarines on 2 MHz around the world.

That HF set must have earned its cost many times over.

I was always amazed that the ground wave, not skip distance, could cover that distance - 2200 miles?

 

[Abacist]

It is the same the other way. There is a shed you have to drive through in Plymouth before boarding the ferry where folk pick random (?) vehicles and give them a thorough search.

When we travelled outbound to Santander last Autumn they conducted a cursory search of every vehicle and the same on the way home - its an anti-terrorism search according to the contractors involved on our side. I didn't feel disposed to ask the female Guardia Civil officer coming back as she could have played in the second row and was all dour and businesslike but she came into the motorhome and looked everywhere and then asked to see in the garage!

 

[DBK]

Since we are on thread drift, I had to learn morse code as a pilot, but very slow speed to identify navigation beacons.

Our better use of HF radio, for which we had quite high power, was for example when we were on the ground in Rhodes and were given a 1.5 hour take-off delay 'Due restriction at Ottringham OTR (E. coast of Yorkshire)

We got onto Portishead radio - 'Monarch 421, please patch us through to Monarch Operations(number they had). 'OPs we are delayed on restriction at OTR, see what you can do with Manchester Centre.' [Portishead were always v. helpful]

Five minutes later Rhodes ATC said 'Monarch 421, ATC restriction lifted, clear to start.' But then see what the US Navy can do to connect with their submarines on 2 MHz around the world.

That HF set must have earned its cost many times over.

I was always amazed that the ground wave, not skip distance, could cover that distance - 2200 miles?

Propogation is a very dark art. Conditions are getting better now for HF because of more sunspots. But there are other factors involved especially in higher frequencies. Whole books have been written on this. I just tend to look on various sites and decide a frequency from what they say.

 

[DBK]

When we travelled outbound to Santander last Autumn they conducted a cursory search of every vehicle and the same on the way home - its an anti-terrorism search according to the contractors involved on our side. I didn't feel disposed to ask the female Guardia Civil officer coming back as she could have played in the second row and was all dour and businesslike but she came into the motorhome and looked everywhere and then asked to see in the garage!

They are quite serious at Santander. I've had to dig out the log book and prove it and the vehicle matched.

I'm not sure how many stolen RH vehicles are smuggled into the UK but it must be a rare event.

 

[Shrimp]

Below the cliffs were large boulders which at first glance I thought were full of fossil shells.

View attachment 608552

Think they are markings of where Limpets have been sitting.
Limpets sit in one place all their lives, they move to find food but then go back to their spot!

But are they? I'm beginning to think it may be the remains of somethings else, sponges perhaps?

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[Jewellbags]

A puzzling start to the day - we woke up to no Internet! This is of course a First World Problem but it was frustrating not to be able to read the paper or check emails. Temporary fixes were using my phone as a hot-spot and later today digging out the Huawei MiFi and putting the EE sim card into it.

I finally sorted it by doing a factory reset on the Teltonika router, after which all worked fine. Why it was working last night but not this morning given it wasn't switched off remains a mystery. I hope it isn't on the way out.

We went shopping this morning and after paying the bill the checkout lady scribbled on the receipt and said we should take it to the information counter - or that's what we interpreted from her gestures. I'm glad we did because we were handed this!
View attachment 606247

This is a French custom I didn't know about. I think yodeli can explain it better but this, in English, is a King Cake, which is why it came with a crown. Apparently other countries have a similar custom but it originates in France from what I've read.

This is the box it came in, which explains things, or perhaps not!

View attachment 606248

Epipheny is 6 January, also known as 3 Kings Day. So why hand them out now? Was it frozen and after de-frosting they were now giving them away? We had a slice each this afternoon with a cup of tea and it was very nice. It has a layer of frangipani running through it and wasn't too sweet.

A recent discovery has been the Locus map application. I've used Google Maps a lot but Locus has much more detail. I used it this afternoon to take us on a walk using inland tracks and paths to Port Neuf which you can see in the bottom right of this screenshot. We returned along the coastal path. There are of course other apps which do a similar job.

View attachment 606258

Along the way we came across this sign, which was another test of my French language skills.

View attachment 606262

But the answer was obvious when we looked. A "bocage" is a hedge and here they are restoring them.

View attachment 606263

In a previous post I was musing about the rocks around here which have been named from their appearance. One is called the Rooster and a possible candidate was spotted early on in our walk.

Is this a Rooster (cockeral)?

View attachment 606272

A dog/horse/cow licking something I think. So not this rock.

We finally spotted the rock from a distance.


View attachment 606273

It's in the centre of the photo. Zoomed in, with the inevitable loss of quality, it looks like this.

View attachment 606277

I'll put that down as a rooster.

But when you get closer the illusion is lost. From the path below it the rock looks more like a camel!

View attachment 606282

Charlie got a bit hot towards the end and needed a lie down.

View attachment 606283

But he had a paddle later on.




A sea mist has rolled in this evening. This was taken earlier, its thicker now.

View attachment 606285

Blimey one of those rocks looks just like a little dog on a lead ! ;-)

 

[DBK]

Think they are markings of where Limpets have been sitting.
Limpets sit in one place all their lives, they move to find food but then go back to their spot!

You may well be right with marks which are round but some of the shapes are very non-circular.

 

[DBK]

Since we are on thread drift, I had to learn morse code as a pilot, but very slow speed to identify navigation beacons.

Our better use of HF radio, for which we had quite high power, was for example when we were on the ground in Rhodes and were given a 1.5 hour take-off delay 'Due restriction at Ottringham OTR (E. coast of Yorkshire)

We got onto Portishead radio - 'Monarch 421, please patch us through to Monarch Operations(number they had). 'OPs we are delayed on restriction at OTR, see what you can do with Manchester Centre.' [Portishead were always v. helpful]

Five minutes later Rhodes ATC said 'Monarch 421, ATC restriction lifted, clear to start.' But then see what the US Navy can do to connect with their submarines on 2 MHz around the world.

That HF set must have earned its cost many times over.

I was always amazed that the ground wave, not skip distance, could cover that distance - 2200 miles?

Old methods do seem to be still around. I remember being shown around an RAF aircraft many years ago, it might have been a C130, and it had a sextent built into the roof of the cockpit. This was so they could get a sun sighting and fix their position. I don't know if they still have one but given navigation systems could be lost in war and GPS jammed I suspect they still do.

 

[Spriddler]

Old methods do seem to be still around. I remember being shown around an RAF aircraft many years ago, it might have been a C130, and it had a sextent built into the roof of the cockpit. This was so they could get a sun sighting and fix their position. I don't know if they still have one but given navigation systems could be lost in war and GPS jammed I suspect they still do.

In 1960 at RAF Middleton St George I went up in an Avro Anson with other school cadets which had a sextant built into a roof dome.
I can't imagine how it was ever possible to take sights as the plane was rattling, rolling and bucking like riding over ploughed fields in Cpl Jones's van (and oil was pouring continuously out of one engine all across the wing).

 

[Figaro]

How are you finding the CCP sites ?
Do you find them good value and the card / topup easy to use ?

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