It seems like we haven’t been using the van that much this year but when we added it up before we came away on this trip we had managed 18 nights, not as many as we would have hoped but more than we thought!

We have headed down to the Alps for a week of mountain biking and walking after a great week down here last year. This time electing to stay at Les Arcs after a random email from one of the campsite chains we had spent a night with during our “trip”, which now seems a longtime ago.

We are actually camping in Bourg Saint Maurice but there is a funicular up to Arc 1600 which is only a 2 minute ride from the site and once up the mountain there’s an extensive lift system all kitted out for bikes so it is easy to get around the mountain and link up various mtb routes. The camp site is open all year which gives me another idea!

The mountain biking is a good mix of enduro / cross country and downhill and with a lift system that lends itself to cruising around the mountain and which allows you to get up to 2600m which makes a great run down to the campsite at 840m.

Sharon swears that the announcer on the funicular has a Lancashire twang for the English announcements and sure enough if you listen hard you can detect an undertone of Lisa Stansfield!

Could get used to uplifts all day and endless downhill ….