MyRouteApp Navigation

I have been using MyRouteApp, and its predecessor Tyre, for about a decade. I use it mostly to create routes for the TomTom 410 that I use on the bikes and have done for many years.

I decided that as an alternative to the Ohrex satnav that we have been using in the motorhome for two years, that I would upgrade to the Navigation add-on in MyRouteApp.

An upgrade a year or so ago means that with Gold membership I can plan routes that take into consideration the overall dimensions on Molly the motorhome to avoid low bridges and narrow roads. That's the theory.  

The Navigation uses Here maps. It was a simple job to sign up and £15.95 later through PayPal the navigation button on routes in the app on my phone lights up.

I have a test route planned that will take me all of two miles into Hythe to the catholic church's car park! I will give that a go.

What has proved far more difficult is to download the offline maps from the app onto the phone. All the buttons seemed to be greyed out. Whether this is by design I have no idea. I have logged a call.  For my use at the moment I only need Spain, France and the UK.

When I click on the France download button it flickers briefly and that's it. I have decided to reboot the phone and see if that makes a difference. I have had to turn off the VPN just in case!  

More to come I guess.

Relay Riders Charity Run 2024

I'll be doing this again for the third year in a row. I think that might be the last as next year I am planning a much longer trip away in the motorhome, starting after the last Arsenal home game of the season and going on and on and on.....

Another change this year is that I have got away with a lunchtime and a late evening ride previously. This time I have to be at Folkestone Fire Station at 0410 in the morning.  Yes. When all sensible people will be fast asleep.  

The leg before mine from Viking Bay near Ramsgate has just been filled as it was vacant. Luckily they haven't had to rejig the entire route to cover it.

For me I will need a very early night and Vera Strom will have to stay on the drive as I won't be home from Assen until about 1900 the day before!  That will be a 350+ mile solo ride after I leave my brother and Phil way up in the north of Gelderland!

So to help, please think about donating to one of this year's charities!

https://relayriders.co.uk/donate/

https://relayriders.co.uk/10-years-of-relay-riders-uk/

Awaycation Summer 2024 - Spain

Planning goes ahead whatever we are doing outside of Motorhoming!!  

Once we are back into France on the way back I might be more relaxed and "go with the flow". In Spain I have been checking places to go and that, to me at least, means getting places to stop booked. We have used the Camping-Car Park network of aires a lot over the last two years and this is something that I will continue to do.

I am amazed at the number of vloggers. bloggers and forum commenters I see that have paid £50000+  for a van, and many more like £100000, and yet begrudge a decent stop that costs about €14 a night and has EHU and all the waste and fresh water services included. I don't mind the idea of "rough camping" or "wild camping", but it does do my head in when they post about free sites and then they look like a layby or a dried muddy field!  I do like tarmac or gravel to park on!  

I am currently awaiting the confirmation from Sandaya at Camping Valencia that the three nights I have booked are all sorted and confirmed. They are a little slow and when I emailed there's a stock reply saying they will get back to me within 72 hours.  It's just coming up to 44 hours since I booked online. 

It does mean there are two nights to fill between Avila and Valencia.  It's not a journey I will relish in one go in the van.  According to Google maps it will take about 11 hours on the road.  I have set the dimensions of the van and set a maximum speed of 100kph into MyRouteApp. I also set "no tolls". A lot of the highways in Spain are free anyway but there are a few AP highways as opposed to A highways. The P means "paying"!

We have been to Toledo before. Back in 2014 on our last big trip together on the Triumph we stayed in a small hotel, Santa Isabel. This was only a few hundred meters from the Cathedral.  The streets were too narrow for a motorhome and cobbled!  Almost too much for a motorcycle!

Alcazar

In a recent vlog they stayed at the campsite across the River Tagus from the city itself.  There seems to be an easy walk there from the campsite to the bridge over the river.  Reggie and roads don't mix too well.

After that? I want to drop in to see the "Don Quixote" windmills in Consuegra before heading east towards Valencia.  It is still a long way to go for one day's driving and so I have been checking Search4sites and found an aire with no ehu, and free (see above!) for one night. It's in Chinchilla de Montearagon. It looks spacious. Google makes it about three hours from Toledo so with a stop to look at the windmills it looks about right.  

It's not a race after all. We have learned from experience that planning stops too far apart only leaves us in a rush and it's not relaxing or enjoyable. Hopefully once Sandaya pull their fingers out we can leave planning there and have a rest.

I still have to activate the MyRouteApp Navigation upgrade to the app.

[MAG NEWS] Camden Council has voted through parking charges for motorcycles

Camden Council has voted through parking charges for motorcycles. They are planning to charge all petrol bikes the same as low emitting car at £150 a year, and charge commuters £600 a year to park. This is outrageous and clear attempt to drive bikers out of London

This may not affect you but if we don’t fight charges like everywhere then it will spread! Stopping parking charges in one Council means every Council is less likely to even consider it.

This is just the first part of the fight.

The next stage will be the final ‘statutory’ consultation - this will be a vital opportunity to force them to make further changes or drop the changes entirely. This will not be a normal consultation, they have to respond to each response individually in writing, if you present evidence they must read it and respond, if you give alternative options they MUST consider them.

When this consultation comes out we will send it over to you, please look out for it, we will need everyone to respond to stop the charges. It should only take five minutes of your time

Three years ago Camden were planning to ban commuting by motorcycle and riders stopped them, if we all pull together we can stop them again or make them make further changes.

Remember if we don’t fight charges wherever they appear they will spread to every Council in England. Motorcycling is under threat in the UK, we have to stand together to save it!

Central Office
The Motorcycle Action Group Limited
Tel: 01926 844064
Fax: 01926 844065

www.mag-uk.org

Meriden Birthday Weekend

It seems a little early but today I had to pay the outstanding balance on the Somers Wood campsite at Meriden.  I had already paid the £20 deposit and so there was the remaining £46 to pay.

That was done easily so we are committed to going!!! 

;)

Awaycation Summer 2024 - Spain

Another update!

I have been relying on the MyRouteApp website to plan where to go and this will tie in with the additional Navigation App when I pay for it.  For the simple A to B trips I can still use the Ohrex  as normal.

Of course I am hoping that the Navigation part of MyRouteapp will work okay and it is supposed to allow the downloading of maps so that it doesn't need to use the internet to work.  I have a 30gb allowance on my mobile phone but don't want to eat that up with the navigation.

At the end of the last update we were in Avila where we are staying for two days in the new aire near to the city walls. I opted for a EHU space and hopefully we can charge everything up.

From here we have a decision to make. We will have 12 nights left before we return to the UK via Eurotunnel Le Shuttle at Calais. So which way back? Do we go north of Madrid or south of Madrid? I still like the idea of heading up through Aragon and taking the Somport Tunnel, with maybe an overnight at the new aire at Canfranc Station. Either way around Madrid will bring us eastwards.

One of the recent vlogs we have watched shows a stop overnight an Consquerga where there is a castle and the Don Quixote windmills of La Mancha. I thought this looked more like a stop off rather than an overnight.  The nearby town of Alcazar de San Juan has a couple of aires that look pretty decent.  It does look a "dead" area for campsites though.

From there? East! I have booked three nights at Camping Valencia. It's owned by Sandaya and I was able to use the credit from last year gained by amassing loyalty points to get 3 for 2 nights. It works out at about €25 a night including the €5 a night for Reggie! I doubt he'll use many of the services or the pool!

From here I think it will be time to look at it nearer the time!

Short Run to Canterbury in Molly

We went to Canterbury for a short rip today to go to Marks & Spencer to look at trousers for me, for the upcoming birthday party for Claire's cousin.  It's not until June but we will be barely back from Spain and France and we go in in about three weeks.

One of the downsides of a Peugeot/Fiat based van is that there is a known problem with the passenger airbag ECU. This is caused when the engine battery gets too low andthe unit fails.  It seems on the face of it that maybe they need to change the ECU to have a fail voltage lower than 11 volts!  But I guess it's an earner with the unit being anything between £300 and £600 to relace, depending on where you get one. #

So I like to make sure that the engine battery is kept topped up.

We have a single solar panel on the roof and this charges the leisure battery and also, via a split charger some of the sun's rays trickle charge the engine battery.  So far so good.  Touch wood and other superstitions etc.

We decided to go to the Park and Ride in Canterbury and take Molly.  

The one at New Dover Road has a dedicated motorhome/campervan area and also an expansion area should it get too busy. It has services such as grey and black water dumps and fresh water.

We went into the city on the bus. It's £4 to park for a day.  The day is 0001 to 0000 or maybe 0000 to 2359... So anyone staying overnight pays £8. It's pretty cheap I think. The charge includes use of the bus into the city centre. 

When we had done the shopping we returned to Molly.  Nothing for me as it seems that M&S no longer cater for a the chunkier lad, but did sell pretty decent prawn mayo sandwiches.  

Before eating I got my black rubber gloves on and emptied the cassette into the grid. As we had no solids the plan was simply to pour but when I got to it.... Well.

The black and grey water wastes ae the same grid. It's large and it fitted with two rope handles. Using gloves it's no problem. But it seems a van before didn't bother judging by the paper and "solids" stuck on top of the grid.  There is a hose and a "not drinking water" tap nearby so wash the detritus away. The previous owner was too bloody lazy to use that judging by the evidence. I rinsed the the cassette and managed to clear most of the drain with the water turned full on. There are signs asking people to keep it clean!

It's a positive move by the city council to provide this service, it's a shame that some tossers abuse it.

Once done I degloved and washed my hands and then used a nice blob of hand sanitiser! Ans then ate my sandwich!

The drive home was a retrace of the way we got there via the M20 and Hawkinge to the A2. Not a long drive, maybe 40 miles but it should ensure that the battery has charged up a little.

Awaycation Summer 2024 - Spain

Since the last update I have given up pretty much on looking for raw food for Reggie, and have concentrated on a few more overnight stops and scenic drives around the Basque and Cantabrian mountains.

Distances on the map turn out to be far less when transferred into the satnav app and into the Ohrex satnav.

One thing I am going to look at is using my phone in conjunction with the Navigation app that comes as an extra to the MyRouteApp that I use, and have for years, on the TomTom for bike trips. The TomTom 410 was also used in the car before we got the Nissan with the built in navigation.

I have read that some people have used this app successfully on their Android tablets. 

I had already booked two nights at Plays de Regatón on the coast between Bilbao and Santander. This was basically to recover from 30 hours on the ferry from Portsmouth.

The plan is to try and locate a Tienda Animal store to see if they have any raw food. I have also found a motorhome parking area that should give us a chance to see the Guggenheim and the big flower dog statue (https://www.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/the-collection/works/puppy).

After Regatón? I have mapped out an eastern loop that will bring us to Ramales and so I booked a site overnight there. 

The following day we have a second mountain loop, central mountains, ending on the coast again at Camping Oyambre. Two nights here with EHU. A chance to charge up everything and try out the beach ⛱️. It's allegedly dog friendly.

The next day another loop, this time a longer one around the western Picos d'Europa and then via Potes ending at a small site near Cervera la Pisuerga. One night.

We stayed at the Parador there in August 2014 when we were on the Triumph Explorer and on our way back to Santander and the ferry.

From there to Avíla.  We have been before and it's a place I'd like to see again. There's a relatively new "area autocaravanas" opened near the northern walls. I have booked two nights there. It's €18 per night inc EHU.

That's as far as I have got. I was thinking about simply going and looking for a stop "on the hoof". There are plenty of free aires but the reviews are mixed. Plus I don't mind the idea of an "aire" but some of them seem to be either car parks or from vlogs I have watched just dustbowl dumps with no services.

I am hoping that as we work our way around the loops that there will be places to stop and take in the views and simply enjoy what we are doing and seeing.

Tesco Mobile 📱

Seems we chose right again. Shame it can't work in the US like Three UK  used to do before they started gouging people...

Awaycation Summer 2024 - Spain

Recently I have devoted far too much time looking for stockists for raw dog food in Spain. Reggie has been on the raw diet for a number of years as he was always having stomach problems with tinned/processed food.

I posted on a few FB forums to see if anyone else had solved this problem.  It appears we aren't alone and there were many comments asking for the information.

One guy came on, who apparently lives in Spain, to say its available "everywhere".  But didn't elebaorate!

Another couple said that they had never found any and resorted to using mince from normal supermarkets mixed with some vegetables. That's what we have done but having specific dog food with the added veg and minerals would be nice.

So that's when I embarked on my search of the internet. I found a few "chains" that are something like "Pets At Home" in the UK. A quick email to a few in the Bilbao area resulted in a few replies - all negative. No raw meat for dogs.

The one I haven't had an answer from is Tiende Animal.  They have several branches in the Bilbao area and across the northern coast.  It looks from the website that they might stock raw... I guess we have to wait and see!