I headed off to Sisteron on Wednesday morning to get Betty fixed up. I followed Miss SatNav to get there (oh, did I mention that she’s working again now that the battery’s been recharged?). She took me a different way than I took to get to Sisteron and I had to put my faith in her when I arrived at a T junction and a sign said “Toutes Directions” one way and SatNav took me the other way! It ended up just being more of a back road and I did have to navigate through one migrating flock of sheep but all in all it was a cool way to go. Maybe cool isn’t the right word as part way I noticed that Betty’s temperature gauge, which I previously thought didn’t work, was on red hot. Damn, did I spring a radiator leak yesterday on the descent from the hill? I stopped a few times to check her out but everything seemed okay. Nonetheless I took it a bit easy and coasted whenever possible. At one point the temperature gauge rapidly sank down to cold and I was relieved, but only for about a minute as it rocketed back up. I decided to press on but once I got on the main highway where the speed limit is 130 km/hr, I drove at 90 and put my hazards on. Limping into Sisteron, I found the garage and arrived at 11:30am, about an hour and a half later than expected. The super friendly, I assume owner, briefly checked her out and the alternator seemed to be charging the main battery okay but there was obviously a problem with charging the leisure battery. Huh, so in the end it was the weak belt that was preventing the perfectly okay alternator from keeping the main battery from dying four days earlier...damn. Claude told me to return at 2pm (most of France shuts down for lunch from 12-2pm) and they would take a look at her then as there was a problem with some junction box from the alternator to the leisure battery.
Heavy traffic:
I cruised further into town and decided to visit the big citadel situated on a rocky promontory that almost chokes off two valleys. It was a fortress for the French for hundreds of years but was never involved in a major battle. Probably the closest it got was letting Napoleon and his army of 1200 men march by when he was returning from his exile to the island of Elba. I clamoured all over the hill fort and it did have some fantastic views. Some of it had been rebuilt after it was bombed by the Allies in 1944, but you’d never really know it. I spent a little over an hour there and then got a baguette sandwich from a boulangerie which I ate in a park , and then back to the garage.
Entering the citadel:
The view across the river:
Crazy staircase:
Up on top:
The chapel:
A French style cemetary:
Within half an hour, the mechanic replaced a small relay box that was the other culprit to my problems and this time, after only 40 Euros (my best bargain yet), I was on my way back to St. Andre. Just as I arrived, super menacing, dark clouds unleashed their wrath with heavy rain and even hail. While sitting in Betty back at the campsite, I watched as the water gushed out of the holes of a nearby drain and small lakes formed. Unfortunately Betty did leak a bit through the skylight. Not too surprising as she was leaking before Steve and I fixed her hat. I put a few pots out to collect the water and at one point put a few plastic bags on the roof so it wasn’t too big of a deal in the end. I watched some of the World Cup football while snuggled up in my hopefully healthy Betty and hoped for better weather tomorrow.
The storm in St. Andre:
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