French Telepass was great, as we were able to drive straight through the Peage, while full size caravans cannot, and others have to queue, but that is old news for those with trailer tents I guess.
Just before leaving I discovered that the Dometic fridge was not working on either 240v or 12v.
Or so I thought.
It turned out that the fridge worked silently on 240v, and took a couple of hours to get cool - I obviously didn't wait long enough.
[ I didn't realise that at the time so removed it and bought an Argos value tabletop fridge on the way to Dover, which served us well for the trip. ]
I subsequently tried running the original fridge from our 110Ah leisure battery, but the fridge flattened the battery very quickly. I subsequently read that absorbtion fridges, whilst silent, use a lot more power.
So it would have been OK if I had dual electrics and wanted to burn more diesel ... but we decided just to use a coolbag with ice for the trip and then connect to mains hookup at the site.
This was our first use of our Outdoor Revolution Movelite Square awning, a motorhome awning which will fit the Trigano:
It either fixes directly to the Trigano Silver rail, or you can attach straps over the top and peg down the other side. Our two children don't want to share, hence the two one person tents from Decathlon.
On our return we suffered a rapid tyre deflation, probably due to terrible potholes in a certain French city.
Fortunately my tyre pressure sensors detected this immediately and I was able to head quickly to a side road and jack up the caravan before the tyre had fully deflated - it only took two minutes to go flat.
I was just using the basic TyrePal TD1000 which I bought for £99, but it did an excellent job informing me as soon as the tyre started to deflate.
I had previously set the tyre pressures using Adrian's guide here
Net result of two weeks in France with the 420CP?
The Trigano performed very well, though with four of us sleeping in it on the long journeys to and from the south of France it was a little cramped. We found two excellent Aires en route for sleeping. Since arriving home I've removed the wardrobe and cupboard opposite the dinette and will be replacing them with a slimline cupboard to create more space, plus making a simple removable bed extension for the second double bed, which is not really full size.
I also discovered a leak in the corner of the pop-up section, due to a failure of the silicone seal above the hinge, but that should be easy to correct.
Hob ignition is still erratic, working sometimes and not others, for no apparent reason. So matches are the solution for now, when needed.
A couple of problems with sticking door latches on the bathroom door and an overhead cupboard, but nothing major.
Saturday driving on the Autoroute was fabulous ... I realised that I had driven for most of the day without needing to overtake anything ... the reason was that HGVs are banned between 7.30am and 7.30pm at weekends. Overall it was much easier driving on the Autoroutes than driving on UK motorways...
We travelled with DFDS ferries, Dover-Calais, £120 return for car+caravan+4.
