We woke up to sunshine on our still lovely, municipal camp ground. It was even warm enough to go for muesli rather than the warm porridge this morning. All in all, it was just a great start.

Our typical morning stop at a bakery yielded apricot croissants this time as well as the usual baguette for lunch. Number 3, who has adjusted to sleeping in a tent now (so much so that mornings start earlier again), was a good sport and fell asleep for about an hour so we could make some distance.

We still didn’t have a grand plan but at least we had a short term one: To make it to Carcassonne on Friday to actually spend some time there and explore the city. Thus, today’s goal was to get a little over halfway there and camp somewhere nice and quiet. Flo and I decided against the Rhone valley as we both had been there in previous holidays, and opted for the hillier and less touristy road towards Carcassonne. Flo’s search on ioverlander showed a lake with a couple of camp grounds which would be lovely for today. However, they were some distance away and it would be a stretch to get there. With Baby sleeping so nicely already, we decided to see how far we would get.

Number 3 woke up shortly before lunch which we used to stretch our legs as well as have food. Surprisingly though, number 3 fell asleep again at about 2pm so it looked like we could make it. We decided to try. As these thinghs tend to do, it didn’t quite work out. After waking up, Number 3 was displeased of still being trapped in a car. In a combined effort with snacks and a book we managed to shush baby for the last bit. The last 10km were pretty bad though.

Happy to finally be at our end destination, we hopped out and….had to hop in again. This camp ground looked abandoned and wasn’t opened for the season. There was no way to get baby back into the car that didn’t involve a lot of screaming and tears.

The next camp ground was just 10min further down the road, we had almost made it! Even though we could park on one of the camping spots,no owner was around and, more importantly, the sanitary facilities were locked. Also closed? Oh man! There were another two camp grounds a bit further and Flo was intended to keep going until we find an open one. I myself, not to speak of Number 3, had had enough though: I actually called the tourism office of the region and tried my horribly rusty French on them to find out which bloody place was open. It turns out that none of the camp grounds were open yet.

The helpful lady directed us towards two different camp grounds on a different lake though so we could see the silver line on the horizon. Another 15 min in the car though. The situation with Number 3 became nightmarish. We stopped one more time on our way there to buy dinner and then arrived. All was well now! Sigh of relief! Wait, why is the barrier down? Wait, what?

This camp ground was also closed and I was close to a screaming fit. One more f***ing try!

Luckily, the final one was literally three minutes down the road and ACTUALLY BLOODY OPEN! And on the lake side. We were still the only guests staying there. While finding a good spot to camp, we realized just how windy it was. Quite windy. With the rooftent, it would be shaky and loud in such a wind.

In the end, we tugged behind one of the cabins for rent (all of them were empty), popped up the tent, had a quick dinner and all went to bed. This day had been long enough and now it also started to get really cold. Number 3 had difficulties falling asleep and was only satisfied when mama AND papa were in the tent and all flaps were shut. I opted for sleep as well while Flo listened to the live stream of his local football team winning to go on to the next round of the europe cup.

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