Holland & France Holiday Trip

[listerdiesel]

Just got back last night from a 2000-mile round trip with our two D2 V8's, mine towing the big 6-wheel drawbar turntable trailer and our son's pulling the conventional 2-axle trailer.

We took two engines to the Nuenen stationary engine show, then left both engines locally and drove down through Belgium and Luxemburg to France, where we got down to Carpentras and Mount Ventoux.

Apart from a dicky ignition coil pack primary connection failure on Philip's V8, and my own D2 suffering with a light switch that was starting to show signs of failure, both cars were fine. Philip got up to the top of Mount Ventoux with us all in it, bit of a cyclists Mecca, but generally we were on local roads and 36 deg C heat (97 Deg F) most of the time.

When the coil pack failed, we were just starting back up country, and we ran on 7 cylinders with the LPG injector coil disconnected for about 400 miles. We had a spare coil pack and leads at the factory, so we got our other son to pack them up and our landlord's girls got the package UPS Express to us the next morning, it was there waiting when we arrived just after lunchtime.

We ran on LP{G for 90% of the trip, just a few places in rural France and a stretch of motorway in Belgium where we couldn't get it so had to run on petrol.

I'll get some pictures of the trip up later.

Peter

 

[listerdiesel]

Heat in the 34-35 deg C range, drove on just a pair of shorts, no shoes or underthings. Liquid consumption fairly high! Philip had the coolbox in the back of his Discovery running off the 12V accessory socket, so we had drinks when we needed it.

Villey Le Sec was a really nice site, well off the beaten track and very quiet, located on the banks of the Moselle river, with an occasional péniche boat burbling by, quite big ones too!

Dijon was OK and the bays were easier to get into for a long rig, Carpentras was a little awkward for a turntable rig as most had to be reversed into and the access roads are narrow.

Driving down the N7 and other non-toll routes was slightly hard work with the trailer, but some of the places we went through were stunning.I'll get some frames off the dash camera later, hopefully the screen isn't too dirty to prevent a decent images.

Rear view camera monitor and the HP Ipaq PDA that we use with a TomTom Navigator 5 satnav.

Peter

 

[listerdiesel]

34+ degrees today with a strong breeze, more like an oven door being opened!

'Bucket List' job for this day was to take Philip's Discovery to the top of Mount Ventoux, the Holy Grail of cyclists the world over.

Having seen the profusion of cyclists in the area, I expected a few on the mountain but was totally unprepared for the numbers. A charity event was being held and there was almost no section of the route that didn't have cyclists on it.

We went up the 'difficult' side and came down the 'easy' side.

Afterwards we drove to Orange and did some retail therapy in the large Carrefour store there.

The fruits of that session are a nice box fan with timer and a reclining canvas chair, which we may buy more of before we go back. We also stocked up on beer (cheap) BBQ meat (expensive) and things like Orange juice, water and some yoghurts.

Selection of Mt Ventoux pictures, note in one of the shots that a cyclist is actually carrying a child on his back, plus a rucksack!

The wifi connection here is excellent first thing but slows to a crawl in the heat of the day, then picks up again in the cooler evening.

The church is in Bedoin, the communication station is huge as you can see, there is a weather radar station off to one side on a golf ball type housing.

Peter

 

[Tugela]

Sounds like a fun trip. But I was wondering one thing...how much did you pay in gas?

gas prices in France are 1.50 euros per liter = 5.65 euros per gallon = $7.75 per gallon.

A V8 D2 towing a trailer gets what, 14mpg? Maybe less. We'll call it an average of 14 mpg between the two Discos. So 143 gallons of gas per Disco. 2,000 miles/ 14mpg = 143 gallons of gas consumed per truck.

143 gallons * $7.75/gallon = $1,108.

So total gas costs for 2 Discos would be about $2,200 for this trip.

Am I close?

 

[listerdiesel]

We run on LPG, which is gas, not petrol.

Cheapest LPG we saw was Euro 0.55 per litre, dearest on the Autoroutes was about Euro 0.97 a litre which we avoided.

Roughly speaking, LPG is about half the price of petrol.

The solo V8 did much better, Philip got around 150 miles per 48 litres of LPG, I was able to get 110 miles per 48 litres, plus we both have full-size petrol tanks to run on. Thw twin sill tanks give you 48 litres net.

The trailer without the show engine goes around 2.2 tons, plus we had the back of our Disco loaded with spares, tools, mains cables for the campsites etc etc.

Worst we have seen with the engine loaded is 10mpg on LPG, that is on the hilly bits coming across from the ferry port at Harwich. We ran 400 or so miles with the engine loaded, the rest with the back empty apart from the camping stuff.

Peter

 

[jymmiejamz]

It always amazes me how much weight Europeans will tow behind a car or small SUV. Goes to show you that you don't need an F350 to tow a jet ski.

 

[helievacpilot]

It always amazes me how much weight Europeans will tow behind a car or small SUV. Goes to show you that you don't need an F350 to tow a jet ski.

True, but you DO need a F350 to haul a full-size Lance slide-in camper while towing your 7000lb LR/Trailer combo. Just sayin.

 

[p m]

Fantastic trip.
The first photo looked like it was taken in Bridgewater, Virgina!

 

[listerdiesel]

It always amazes me how much weight Europeans will tow behind a car or small SUV. Goes to show you that you don't need an F350 to tow a jet ski.

We don't have the range of high-weight pickups in the UK that you have in the USA, 3500kg or 3.5 tonnes is the maximum allowed with overrun or surge brakes, after that you have to have 'powered' brakes and you're into a small truck.

Driver licencing rules also mitigate against heavy stuff, the most I can tow on my car licence is 8.25 tonnes, so if you have a trailer at 3.5 tonnes that leaves you 4 tonnes for the towing vehicle in theory, but there's another gotcha in that the trailer loaded weight must not exceed the towing vehicle's unladen weight for that class of vehicle and trailer, so you're back to Land Rovers and a few other 4X4 vehicles.

These are 'Grandfather Rights' for my own licence, if I take the appropriate test, I can raise that 8.25 tonne limit to 12.5 tonnes.

Peter

 

[listerdiesel]

Fantastic trip.
The first photo looked like it was taken in Bridgewater, Virgina!

The campsite at Villey Le Sec was right on the banks of the Moselle, and it was absolutely fantastic. There are some more pictures on the laptop, plus I can take some shots off the dashcam when I get a minute. I saved all of the stuff from the return trip on the laptop drive for later editing.

Peter

 

[listerdiesel]

Our dashcam produces high-resolution images of 1280 X 720 from the video tracks on demand, and we saved most of the return trip files to edit after the trip and produce some shots from the trip.

Here I have reduced them to something more manageable for those on slower PC's or who have monitors which won't display that resolution without scrolling.

I've put a line or two of comment so that there is some context, and if they all seem to be of roads, that's because it is a dash cam and not hand held! I'll be posting 15 pictures in this section and will be stopping to check them as I go along.

Philip was in front in his own Discovery, we had CB communications which was a bit limited on coverage but highly useful.

Leaving Villey-Le Sec at 06.30 on Sunday morning, beautiful day in the making, most of the site is still asleep,Moselle river on the left:

On the road, we were doing a very respectable speed, but this Belgian guy with a Discovery 4 and twin-axle caravan came past us like we were going slow:

Sundays, most trucks are banned from the roads in France and elsewhere, and the services on the major roads are jam-packed with them:

Further up the road, a bit of motorway architecture. Time is on the picture, top left hand side, France was an hour difference (ahead) to the dashcam clock:

Typical motorway filling station, GPL is what they called LPG:

Coming out through the cash points, we had to borrow an LPG adaptor to get gas as they used a different one to the three we had! Passport requested as security while you used it:

Overtaking while passing an entrance slip road:

One of the many coach tours that we saw, this company was seen quite frequently:

Typical motorway (non-toll) in France/Belgium/Luxembourg, it just goes on and on....

If you wondered where all the Q8 services in the UK went to, they are all in France:

Driving through the centre of Liège, lovely city with the river running through the middle (on the left of the picture, behind the trees):

Further on through the town, the road dips into tunnels all along the banks of the river at junctions:

Another shot approaching one of the tunnels:

Going down....

Picture showing the river at the north side of the town:

Peter