The Launder's big adventure

Friday 4th January – Carcassonne, France

Determined to get into France we got up very early to leave the campsite. We surprised ourselves by being ready to go after an hour of being up, but alas the campsite gates were not due to be opened for another hour – ho hum. Anyway we left the campsite at 7.55 – so not bad. We had another long day on the road and arrived in our French campsite at 4pm. The drive through was lovely and we watched the rising sun. We were treated to the views of many castles and fortresses scattered around the countryside and at one point even saw some flamingos in the water.

We went through the French border virtually without stopping and found ourselves in a different country with signs we could understand (as we know a little French!).

Sunday we went to Carcassonne, a restored walled city. This was really fantastic and it was all in very good condition. The place looks like it should belong in a fairytale with many turrets and ramparts. We walked over the drawbridge and Jon made the boys imagine they were coming to defeat the city and see how far they could jump across the drawbridge. After this we walked between the inner and outer wall and circumvented the city, the boys had a great time and on the whole it all looked pretty safe so they were allowed a free reign.

We then went into the city proper, first of all you are greeted with the usual touristy shops. I am sure they are put there just to give parents a hard time, they are a nightmare for anybody with small children who have to pick everything up and whirl it, bounce it or wave it around in a non too gentle fashion. Of course it is difficult to keep 30 little fingers and thumbs out of all the delightfully interesting pots and baskets and inevitably I end up shouting and physically dragging them away from the shops before they can damage anything, accompanied by many disapproving stares. Jon has this particularly annoying habit of when we are in a shop, a market or anywhere else designed to give parents a headache, he is nowhere to be seen or has wandered off further down the aisle and there I am with the 30 fingers trying to keep them all under control whilst simultaneously try and answer their rapid fire questions and point out things of interest. Jon will then appear at the end of the fiasco and calmly take one of the children as we walk out of the danger zone.

We wondered around the city a bit more and found it to be a lovely place and it would be a great place to stay, there are 2 hotels and a youth hostel there. It is definitely a place of fairytales and knights.

On the drive back to the caravan we stopped at an old ruined castle we had spotted previously. We announced to the boys we were going on an adventure to be answered with much moaning and protesting. They were pacified with the opportunity to walk up a mountain (a hill to you and me!) We rambled up to the old castle and walked through it. Max declared this was a good kind of adventure after all. After this we tried to find a route to walk up the mountain, we had to walk on a track around it quite a bit first. We managed to go quite far up, although the terrain was pretty hard going with many spiky bushes, lots of rocks and stones and not much of a path – well no path really. I carried Jory most of the way up the hill as I finally gave in to his cries of “ow they keep spiking me!” and Jon carried Cadan. When we reached the top we were dismayed we could not go down the other side but had to retrace our steps. At this point the sun was getting pretty low and Jon and I were a bit worried we may not make it back to the car before it got dark so we trundled back down this precarious hill, sorry mountain, and practically ran down the track to the car. Max did declare that he would like to walk up another mountain but only if it didn’t have any spikes on it.