hymermick

We stayed at the aire in Catillon-sur-Sambre in June 2008. At 11-45pm four drunken youths turned up, unplugging a german vans hookup.Then using his lead to power a ghetto blaster blaring rap music. They sat on the picnic bench drinking whisky. After this the four of them pushed two large boulders into the canal. They then climbed into the building site behind stealing two wooden pallets which they placed against the rubbish bin and set fire to the lot. At 2am they left shouting English out and Bosh out only to return minutes later throwing stones at our vans from the bridge and the other side of the canal. An English man confronted them only to have CS gas sprayed into his eyes All four vans then left under a barrage of stones. Two of us stayed on a lorry park 3kms down the road for the remainder of the night. In the morning we reported the incident to the town hall and the local police.

Tony Santara

Who probably said "ce'st la vei " I hope it didn't spoil your trip too much

ourcampersbeentrashed

So sorry to hear about this.

I really do hope your experiences abroad improve xxxxxx

jjwagon

I am very sorry to learn of your horrible experience.

I almost always "wild camp" and always park pointing directly to my "way out".

At the merest hint of trouble, I move out of there and on to calmer tarmac. The ability to "up and off" at short notice is one of the many advantages of motorhoming.

JJ

hymermick

Thanks for your replies. We been travelling abroad in our motorhomes for over twenty years and have stayed on aires for the last five. In all this time we have never had any trouble so I suppose we have become to relaxed and off guard.
We were parked up on blocks with steadies down and plugged into the electric as were all the vans. In the future we will park ready to go at short notice. This has not detered us although we will now look for larger and more populated aires.
I suppose you get druncken youths in all countries we will put it down to experience.
Mike & Jackie.

Jim

This type of thing can be very frightening and If this were someone's first experience of an Aire then they might think again. Great to see that you are taking a sensible approach,that you can see it for what it is a very isolated and uncommon incident and that it will not put you off Aires in the future. Tens of thousands of good nights sleep are had on Aires every year, its an excellent system that we in the UK are rightly jealous of.

Situations like the one you experienced make me wish we could defend our property like they did in the Wild West. Two barrels of buckshot into their ghetto blaster and they would have got the message

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Jim
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Gonewiththewind

Im all for the shotgun aproach, home or away. I have the shotgun at the ready but do not dare to show it as I would lose my certificate.