Tag along days France 7 till 15th september

[Robert OB 33/48]

Hello folks,

We are going on a holiday for a bit more as a week.
We will start in the neighbourhood of Mulhouse on the Friday. And will go in stages up north to Verdun.
This of course all if the weather will be ok. It is our holiday and we need dry weather. Like now. heheh

Good the plan in detail (as far as I can see at this moment)
Friday evening
Cooking on BBQ, Dutch Oven and fire.
Doing some nice recepies from Jase from All for adventure.
Saturday a drive up north and we are settling down at a campsite at Gerardmer
Sunday a medium laning trip. Partly know through Wikiloc, and if needed we will try to find more or better.
Monday resting day. Depending weather, location and more. Maybe visiting La Schlucht. And doing the bobsled track there.
Tuesday up north again towards Schrimeck.
Wednessday we will do again some laning.
Thursday we will drive up to Commercy and start the route towards Verdun.
We hope we arrive there Friday evening.
Saturday we will do sightseeing Verdun.
Sunday it is back home again.

So, if you like to meet up and tag along, just know that its our holiday and that besides the laning part, we like to relax and have some good food, nice chats and being lazy.

See what you can do.

Greetings from Robert

 

[Robert OB 33/48]

Hello folks, especially in the area of Mulhouse/France.
We would like to do a meet and greet on the Friday the seventh of september.
We think we will be at the campsite http://www.camping-lachaumiere.com/
That is in Heimsbrunn near Mulhouse.
So @Chris.n.world, @Smity and all others who live in the neighbourhood. Please join us for the day/evening.

The next meet and greet we could do at Gerardmer. Campsite still unknown. But need to figure that one out soon.

Hope to see you folks around.

Will make two Rally points.

 

[Robert OB 33/48]

Today we arrived at Heimsbrunn near Mulhouse. We went to a campsite we found several years ago. And for the first two nights it is good.
Now we can relax and get some sleep.
Arriving at Mulhouse around half past one, we did some shopping for dinner and got some fuel.
a just a bit further to the campsite.
After setting up camp, Frederique went to bed and I had a good walk with Skai.
After dinner, which was a good grill moment, I went to bed and so the first afternoon was just plain relaxing.
Tomorrow there will be a hunt for someone geocaches and I will explore the direct back roads.
When I had a walk with Skai, I noticed some nice unpaved roads. So they called out for me. And I will go there tomorrow.
Maybe we can combine the hunt for caches and exploring the back roads.
It will not be far or long, but just a relaxed couple of hours.

Day 2

The second day was a lazy one in the morning, kust sleeping in and after a good brunch we headed out for a good drive and finding some geocaches.
So, we found a nice route around Heimsbrunn. Frederique did 10 caches and the tracks we found are just a few from what is possible in this area.
I think the next time we will find even more tracks. And a full day drive should Be possible.
Yes, the tracks were very easy due the weather. But they were promising when wet.
Completely legal? From our point of view yes. But everyone knows we like to bend the rules just a little bit.
Again having a good meal from the grill will conclude the day.
After that it is just relaxing and having a light conversation mixed with meditational thoughts. Hehe falling asleep is the right word for it.

Pictures are to be found here
https://m.facebook.com/Dragonriders-Travel-133426393449687/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1734080290050948&mt_nav=1&ref=page_internal

 

[Robert OB 33/48]

Day 3

After a good night sleep and a decent sleep in, we took down our camp and headed to Gerardmer. A little campsite in the mountains and here we stay for two nights.
Tomorrow we will visit some cascades and we will have a good drive.
The route which I downloaded is not as good as I hoped, so we will go again and find our own track. We will manage.
As we are in the mountains, the temperature is dropping fast, which means campfire!!!!
And the stars are way more to see as in the Netherlands. And this is still a area with lots of small villages.
Hopefully we will see even more stars this week.
The route we took today was a nice one. The voyages are beautiful.
The only thing which is a reason to watch your road ahead are speed cyclists which think the road belongs to them. We almost had one right on the front of our car when he came down hill and wasn't able to stop. He overtook a car, that fast he was. Lucky for me I do have a bullbar. It works for animals, but cyclists will do as well.
The next ones are bikers, which we know well, as we were here with our bikes a long time ago.
Bikers paradise it is here.
Good, tomorrow when in the woods, we won't see much of them and we will be able to enjoy some peace and quietness.

Day 4

This morning after again a good sleep in, we went for the hunt of a fit bit charger.
No succes, but we will try that again tomorrow.
So we cruised through Gerardmer which was very touristic. Nice but crowded.
And it wasn'teven the main season.
After that we went to visit the Grande cascades du Tendon near le Tholy. Well, they were nice but due the dry summer they weren't filled much with water.
Still nice place to visit.
Then it was of and up in the mountains. We did combine the search for geocaches with leaning as we do normally. We did find some very nice lanes. Even found two track were we needed a bit more skills, 4 low and power. Superb. We had a good time.
Not all the caches were found, but the spots where they should be where on beautiful places.
Even as we didn't had any difficulties it was great.
Now back at the campsite it is dinner time and with the "about that much" cook book from Jason of All4adventure we did our version of the Zuchinni pie. Did? Actually it is right on the fire the moment I write this part.
In about an half an hour we can have dinner.
We will light up the fire and chat through the evening.
Until now everything is going according to plan.

Pictures still found in the link

 

[Robert OB 33/48]

From Gerardmer to Thonnance les Moulins.
We drove from one campsite to another one. That was the main purples of today. It was just a 155km so no big deal.
We chose this campsite as we will be here in November with friends.
So, it was a combination of having vacation and checking out the campsite and the facilities.
All fine.
After a good chat with some other camping guests we had dinner and now it is time to sleep.
When I checked the maps for tomorrow I was not very happy. Details were not there so I had to check Google maps for more details. Downloaded a map from this area. And that means we will be able to check the nearby forest and area for nice tracks.
So, just made preparations for tomorrow and getting ready to go to bed.

Day 6

Today we got up a bit earlier and I checked the swimming pool. Great one it is. Sometimes luxury is just nice.
After brunch we took of and had a nice drive in the area. This area just didn't have those variety of tracks to drive, so we had to do the little adjustments to routes and we were very careful not to leave any threads that could show we were there.
That wasn't fun, but sometimes you just have to go for 25 meters or so a bit out of line.
After some shopping we went for some caches and found this track that was turned into a motocross track. Those plastic bands were everywhere. Of course we didn't damage them, but Frederique had to walk a lot just to hold them high so I could drive through.
Did we had fun? Yes of course, but stretching our own rules wasn't that much fun. Sometimes it can't be helped, but just as much as needed and with extra care.
The Evening was good with a bbq and good talks with an English couple.
Tomorrow we hit the track towards Verdun. It is just 56km to the start of that route, so, we will manage it in two days instead of three.

 

[Robert OB 33/48]

Day 7

Today we went from the campsite straight to commercy and picked up the route to Verdun as we would have driven last year. But due the fail of the front era it never happened. Until now.
Due the dry weather of this summer almost all of the route was dry, dusty and in good condition.
Still we needed at certain points 4low, mostly for more control as traction.
However at some points it was needed.
When driving lanes with a trailer, things are technical more demanding as without. You have check if the trailer won't get stuck in tree's or is able to have that angle to the left or right.
And again we managed mainly because we did a good job when we designed the trailer.
So narrow lanes and lanes with cross axle slopes or left or right angles are just a bit more demanding.
During this day we found again memorable sites about the first world war.
We visited a graveyard for German soldiers and a fortress. We weren't allowed to go in, but it was never the less very interesting.
At a certain point were we misjudged the route, we had to turn and it was not possible to do so with the trailer attached. So we de-coupled it and turned the car and trailer separate. Then we found out, we couldn't pull the trailer back to the car, so the winch on the trailer came to action.
I was very happy that we had that winch. It made things just easier.
Arrived at the campsite in daylight, so, mission accomplished.
A good dinner and good talks made the day complete.