13th April 2017. Rochefort & Dinant, Belgium.

It would have been so lovely to have been able to stay here for an extra day but we desperately needed to get the washing done.

We planned to visit Rochefort then travel to Dinant where we had programmed in three laundrettes, how come that area has all the laundrettes?

Our lovely SAT NAV detoured us through some teeny little lanes even though we could have stayed on the main road but it was lovely to see the little hamlets and the countryside was very pretty.

We parked at an aire beside the river in Rochefort, a little bridge over the river led us to the road up to the town centre.  We had no idea what was in Rochefort other than it was a pretty town.  We stopped for coffee in a bakery, which in turn became lunch and once again we were given a mini Easter egg (it’s very easy to make me happy), from there we wandered aimlessly round town where we saw a Chateau and the ruins of a castle but they’re now privately owned so we could only admire them from afar.  There were lots of old, pretty buildings in that area of the town.  This was the perfect type of town for us to explore today as our main objective was to do the washing, we were able to see pretty buildings and have lunch without spending a fortune and a lot of time wandering round.

We noticed another motorhome driving out of the car park as we walked back and that another one had pulled up behind us since we’d left.  He followed us out as we drove up the road, it seems that no one was staying very long today.

It became slightly embarrassing then, Darren took the wrong turn off the roundabout (SAT NAV’s fault) which luckily took us to a large turning area outside the fire station, as we arrived back at the roundabout the motorhome that had left after us drove past and we ended up following him to the next aire where he stopped and we filled our tank with water before driving to Dinant.

We were thrilled to find that Primus Wash in Dinant actually still existed and there was plenty of space for us to park the van outside.  It was a very good laundrette, it had large washing machines and tumble dryers and only one was in use by a family.  The husband very kindly explained to us how to use the machines, people have been so helpful to us on this trip.  Unfortunately for us I had misread the sign and assumed there was washing powder included and didn’t realise until we’d set the first machine going!  Luckily I was able to add the powder as it was working.

Another couple of customers came in, one lady asked us (in French) how to use the machines and where she could buy some washing powder, luckily I’d noticed it in the vending machine along with the sweets so I pointed it out to her, she burst out laughing because, like Darren, she had thought it was just full of sweets!

It was great to get all the washing done so quickly, we packed it away and drove the 5 minutes to our stopover.

Unfortunately things stopped going smoothly at that point when the SAT NAV tried to turn us up a little dirt track off the main road, luckily we couldn’t see the turning from the way we were coming so Darren drove straight past it and had to carry on down the hill into town which was fortuitous because we discovered that the turning we would need to take when we left town had been dug up and traffic was being diverted down a road that had a 3.5 tonne limit on it as did the other lane going that way so Darren carried on round the little roundabout and back the way we’d just come this time going up the road that was signposted to the Citadel.  The car park by the War Cemetery was empty and the smaller car park round beside the Citadel only had one motorhome in it.

We had a very peaceful night parked there.