We were up early to drive Vanumbra to the Iveco depot in Dijon for an inspection by "the expert" as required by GAN Insurance before they would make a payout for the damage and loss from the theft of the campervan. To be honest, we still didn't know what was happening, but here we are! After getting there a little early and waiting for the place to open, we then waited for another hour until someone came to talk to us (I don't think they knew what was supposed to happen either). It turned out that "the expert" had not arrived as promised, so we were asked if we could leave the van with them for a while until he arrived.

So Rita and I walked into town (luckily Iveco was on the same street as the port, so we only had to walk in a straight line for a few km until we recognised where we were). We walked around the port for a little while, and saw that it was pretty weedy, as we had heard.

We then decided to go to the Botanic Gardens and relax there for a while. Along the way we went past the new Cité de la Gastronomie et du Vin, which is now featuring in lots of tourist promotions for Dijon.

We continued on towards the railway station, until we found the entrance to the Gardens. They are not particularly big, but are relaxing and cooling on a hot day like today. We sat for a while in the shade and admired the view and the little vineyard showing a huge number of different grape varieties.

We then wandered through an art exhibit in the gardens and then got some lunch from a Ginguette in the gardens that was run by a Spanish guy who was captivated by the fact we'd come from Australia. He had a fascination with Great White sharks and wanted to talk about them forever. But luckily there was a queue of customers backing up behind us and we were able to make our escape and enjoy the purchased lunch elsewhere in peace in the gardens.

By now it was the early afternoon, so we walked back to Iveco and learned that "the expert" had arrived and done part of the inspection but had to leave because of another appointment, and would have to finish the inspection at another appointment. But we told them we would take the van now because we had a trip planned and committed. Since the van seemed to us to be in perfect condition, we saw no problem with taking it now and coming back on another date. So we headed off in the van, but along the way we stopped at an Apple Store where I wanted to buy some Apple AirTags that could be used to track the location of the van (or anything else). So we went to the Apple Store in the outer Dijon suburb of Toison d'Or. We found the place in a large shopping centre and followed the signs to the parking lot. But every one we found had a 2 metre height restriction with horizonal bars at 2m. Having passed all these parking lots, and now being barred by another 2m restriction barrier, we just stopped and parked the van near an entrance to the shopping centre itself. We figured we may as well go to the Apple Store first and buy the AirTags and then worry about the parking later.

So we went in and bought the AirTags and then looked for an Information Counter to find out how we should have parked and how we could now get out of the centre. The girls at the counter explained that we would have to find the speaker-phone at a goods vehicle entrance and explain our situation. They would then raise the gate to the goods vehicle area, and we could go through there to the goods vehicle exit to get out of the centre. While it sounded all very convoluted, the girls said that this problem occurs lots of times during the day with campervans.

So we went back to the van and found that we had parked it very close to one of the goods vehicle gates. The speaker-phone was easily found, we explained our situation, and we were soon on our way out of the centre. Phew!

It was a relief to get back to Auxonne where we could enjoy some uncomplicated things like a couple of horses being ridden around the edge of the port, and a sparkling sunset.