Equipment

Due to using campsites and their electricity upto this trip, I had only put gas into the van on a max of 2 occasions, each time in fear and trepidation, given the heavy duty industrial nature of the whole thing, and the explosion when disconnecting! Add to this the fact that France uses a different attachment to that of Spain and Portugal and indeed the UK. Having very smugly purchased 4 adaptors before leaving, if I wanted to rely on solar and save dosh, I would have to gird my loins and actually use them.

My first efforts involved driving in and out of garages on my non-toll road, hence longer than expected, route from Pau to Carcassone, in increasing frustration until tadah – a supermarket sign indicated the required fuel. Thankfully, the bays were empty, with no-one to observe the activity that then ensued in trying to get the van in the first place alongside the pump, never mind lining up the actual gas inlet; in a nutshell, design of the bays and their approach had patently not envisaged a 7m vehicle even one as narrow as the Sprinter! interspersing minute manoeuvrings with constant in and out of the cab checkings, at one stage I feared that the van had become completely wedged, and that a tyre was going to puncture, the van ‘nose’ was going to get scratched to get it past the pump, and/or the pump would get damaged; sweat dripping, it was also hot, the final manoeuvre to give up on the whole thing but get the van out of the bay, resulted in hearing the sudden escape of water; the outlet pipe had become disconnected from the waste tank, (at least not the full tank of clean water). T(h)ankfully – pun just presented itself – I was able to re-connect it after a fair bit of faff. All this did seem to be done without another human coming anywhere near, so at least my pride was spared. It’s abit difficult to picture if one is not familiar with the real size of one of these vehicles, but causing me lol as I write this, 2 months later.

The story goes on, as this attempt was abandoned, leaving me still in the position of needing to get gas on board. I decided to go to a campsite, connect to electricity and recover from my ordeal in peace and quiet for a couple of days before re-gathering of forces for a new attempt. The day of departure dawned bright and encouraging ready for the assault on the next LPG-supplying garage identified at Carcassone. The pump was easily accessible to drive Monte alongside and the adaptors at the ready. Great. Of the four, only one appeared big enough for the French nozzle – but could not for the life of me work out how to get the two securely connected. Came under further pressure as a small lorry then drew within 2 feet alongside. Fortunately the driver was approachable and pleasant, didn’t want to use the pump, which was unfortunate as my non-correct jargon French established that he also couldn’t really help, although willing. I ran into the service station – do I lock the van and let the man think I didnt trust him? – to ask for help from the only member of staff behind the counter; this resulted in a reasonably kindly but nevertheless gallic shrug of the shoulders and “boff”, and the awaiting constant queue meant he couldn’t come outside to ‘see’; ran back as quick as poss to try again, because the lorry did need Monte to move to enter a building behind the pump. In the meantime, the lorry driver had managed to get a proper connection, but given the lack of motor sound from the pump, no reaction from pressing the big green button, and no instructions beyond what we’d already done, I ran back into the service station, spoke in my best French to the guy again, whereupon I got the key information – in French of course – that the button needs to be continuously depressed; back out to try this – still no motor sound, so called on all my IT support previous experience to do the equivalent switch on/off again, and start from scratch and …….YES; WHAT JUBILATION ensued; the world was mine.

About a month later, being told that at Tarifa a particular service station had LPG, I was over the moon to find that an attendant would put the gas in and I had the correct adaptor for Spain. Success & elation once again.

Fast forward a few weeks, into and out of Portugal, was disappointed to find that the gas pumps at a promising Repsol service station with a helpful attendant, did not seem to have the correct pressure to get gas in. Damn. Not quite depths of despair – as always attempting this when around a third still left.

The fifth repeat of this exercise was even less successful due to failure to get the connection to work, at an unattended station in the Pyrenees.

All that can be said of all this is that practice goes on and confidence remains a long time coming! But the good news? The fridge continues to light, and stay lit, and keep the food cold – see separate post.