Day 46 - journée d'autoroute 🛣️

Motorway day 🛣️
We have a big punch day today, south east  along the coast as we have somewhere we need to be the next day and it will be 4 years before we get the chance again to see what we want to see. 😯 Its mostly motorway but there are one or two things to look at along the way..
1st : A 5mile tailback
Five miles of stationary or snails pace traffic thanks to Jills friends..."I dont believe it, ###### grass cutters" 😡
2nd : The Saint Nazaire Bridge.
Built in 1975, its the longest bridge in France, a fraction over 2 miles long. It has 3 traffic lanes,  a cycle lane and a pedestrian lane ... you can walk over it 😱 (but not in high wind). In the centre the lanes are 200 feet above the water.
3rd : The Breton Marsh
The Breton marsh extends over 139 square miles and is made up of strips of land and wet meadows separated by canals, hundreds of them ! Its now protected from the sea by dykes, rows of pine trees and sand dunes.
Originally, the area was part of an ancient large bay covered by the ocean. Over hundreds of years it evolved into salt water marsh land and the salt was first exploited by the Romans digging out shallow 'pans' into the clay soil to let the salt water collect and dry out to leave the salt. Over a few hundred years by careful use of flood gates, the salt water was gradually replaced with rain water and now all the canals are fresh water.  The farm land is rich, the water filled with fish and at the edges towards the sea, some canals are still maintained with salt water and oysters cultivated.

We had a CCP site on our radar next to a canal. Yep, the photos were taken before all the hedges grew. No shade and only a couple of vans on we had no option but to just park up in the sun. The fridge side of the van would be in the sun but we had electric so we would just leave it on full all the time. Canopy out, chairs and a beer. We actually did have a bit of a view thru a gap in the the hedge, looking out over the marshes and a bit of water. We never saw them but we could hear fish jumping about either feeding or mating prettymuch till the sun went down.
   It was hot and sticky so Jill put the hot water boiler on for a short while just to take the 'chill' off so she could have a shower. Nothing 🥴. Error code E89H on the panel. A code we had not seen before and guess what: its not in the book 🤨. Internet searching gave videos of people hitting the fan unit with toffee hammers, sometimes it worked sometimes it didn't 😯. Officially the fault is either the fan motor control board or the fan itself  needs replacing. Sometimes it can get stuck with 'fluff' and hitting it free's it up, sometimes. The boiler is 'shoehorned' in and under the seat. Its not easy to work on at all. But, with dainty fingers, a bit of wood and a very long screwdriver I managed to get the fan grill off, get my hand down into the fan and get it turning. Diaster averted 🫡.












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