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Published: August 3rd 2006
Well the big kangaroo landed in Frankfurt at 5am on Monday the 24th of July and I waved a big goodbye to my last link to Aussie for a while. I trekked with all of my stuff (and yes I had a lot) to the train station to do the five-hour train trip to Antwerp in Belgium to meet Cara.
The train ride went pretty quickly with three train changes on the way to keep me on my toes (literally with all of my stuff). I realised that a big Aussie smile got you a long way with many nice Germans and Belgians offering to help me carry my big Hobie bag (as there was no lifts in the stations - mental note for next time).
I also felt a bit nostalgic as the train whirled around the German Rhine and old towns like St Goar that I visited in 1997 on my first trip to Europe. I made my first European “friend”…. the train guard from Brussels to Antwerp had a great old chat for the 40 minute trip and then opened some special door for me to get out of the train without having to go up
and down many stairs - god bless him as by the time I arrived in Antwerp I was extremely feverish, tired after being on the run for 30 hours and eager to not have to carry my stuff for a while.
Cara being the good mate she is went out and bought me some great drugs to get the fever down. I must say they were pretty good drugs and got me better in a flash. We chilled out at Cara’s place that night and then made a early start (10.30am) for our drive down to Normandy in France to meet Jen Norman one of my mates who is in France visiting her Grandma for her 80th.
The drive was great, my navigating was pretty poor but we saw some great country side, some big roads, some roads that led to nowhere (A29, N29 - France is really good with signage but sometimes signs stop pointing to the town you want for no reason), some bigger tolls, but all in all “Betsy” (Cara’s car) got us to Le Grandes Vent no problems.
I had been wanting so much to get into the sea as soon as possible
so our first stop after we dropped our stuff at Jen’s grandmothers house was Dieppe. Dieppe is like a big port town with a massive beach so we decided the only thing to do was to get to the ocean as quick as possible and get some sun and have a big swim. So we packed our picnic basket (well our plastic bag’s!) with some great fresh food from the biggest supermarket I have ever seen (including a check out supervisor on roller skates) and headed down to the beach.
It was great, I can’t describe the feeling of being in the sea after such a long Sydney winter and just the feeling of lying warm on hot rocks and soaking in some much needed Vitamin D to bring back some glow to the skin (for those in the southern hemisphere apologies for making you jealous!). We finished off that day with a well-earned 1664 at a café overlooking the beach and a big here’s cheers to being on holidays for a while!
I crashed and burned at about 11pm still a bit feverish, but warm all the same. The next day Jen, Cara and I kicked off
a beautiful Normandy morning with a walk in the forest Domaille De’eawy which was just out the back of Jen’s grandma’s house. After our walk we settled in for a delicious breakfast made from fresh baguettes from the local bakery, home made jam, natural yoghurt accompanied by farm picked red and black currants, I have to say I have missed the simplicity of country European food. Lunch was pretty good too, fresh garden picked tomatoes, Camembert cheese and of course on an obligatory baguette!
After lunch we packed up our stuff and then decided to head on our road trip, we had such a great afternoon exploring a number of French coastal towns between Dieppe and Etretat, a part of France that I have not seen before but now absolutely love.
We had our compulsory beach stop along the way (Fecamp) and then chased this massive front down the coast, it ended up raining so hard that we had to stop the car as Betsy’s wipers were overloaded, we kept ourselves highly entertained by watching the ducks frolick in the rain in the farm yard next to the pull off.
Now I know how fast the temperature
can drop in France from about 30 degrees down to 18 in a matter of 30 minutes. After weathering one storm between after Fecamp another front came through when we arrived at Eteret. We wanted to wait this one out as you can see by the pictures how beautiful the limestone cliffs and the light was for taking photos (did I say all three of us are into our photography so it was a dream to get this kind of light). We also imagined playing golf on the course that stood over the massive limestone cliff’s.
After the rain was gone and we had done some dancing on the promenade we jumped back into Betsy and continued on to Trouville, which is a medium size-fishing village about three hours south of Dieppe. On the way we crossed the world famous bridge the Pont De Normandie - quite a site.
By the time we pulled into Trouville it was like 930pm and leaving things like we do to the last minute we trapsed around town in the rain looking for a hotel, our instincts were spot on and the first hotel we saw we were able to get a
small room for three. After a quick chill out we headed out and had our first French crepe meal (another thing I had been wanting to do in France!). Early to bed as the next day was a very very long funny day.
We awoke at around 10am got up and had a great walk around the Trouville village (and for those of you that like seafood check out this photo), it is the most amazing seafood market I have ever seen, what it did not have in size (i.e. 1000 stalls or anything) it had in amazing seafood that a was so fresh. I was transfixed with it for ages! Our drive out of town was pretty funny as we left and drove for about 30 minutes before realising we had driven ourselves around a ring road (yes were are getting used to the Toutes Directions!) and ended up back where we started. All in good humour though!
Anyways we finally got out of Trouville and headed towards St Marlo, via Bayeux, which has one of the most amazing cathedrals I have ever seen and then we had a quick stop at Le Mont St Michel, which
is one of the Seven Wonders of the World. This was a truly spectacular site and by the time we got there we were famished so we drove the car to what we thought was the optimal view, made our baguettes and then sat on Betsy’s bonnet to just admire the French countryside and the amazing Le Mont St Michel (and yes we did attract a huge amount of attention from the passers by, three crazy Aussie chicks sitting on a car bonnet sunning themselves in the hot French sun).
We filled up our car time with some burnt CD’s we made on Itunes and sang along like crazy girls to our favourite songs! We have two theme songs, both of which are quite fitting for our situation - I wish I was a punk rocker by Sandy Thom and also Let it Be by Xavier Rudd. Both truly great songs that kinda describe firstly the state of my hair by this stage (nearly in dreds - oh how good it is to have messy hair) and the fact that the three of us were so de-stressed and loving each other’s positive uplifting company….
Our whole experience in
St Malo was hilarious, arriving for what we thought was a 630pm ferry at 515pm we were shocked when we walked into the terminal to get our tickets that the nice French girl had told us the ferry was leaving in 15 minutes (funny that the terminal was empty by this stage and we still had not clicked). So Cara and I rushed to Betsy, piled in as much stuff as we can into some small bags, parked Betsy in her bay and ran like hell while Jen was paying for the tickets and clearing customs for us. The funniest thing was is that everyone and we mean everyone was on the ferry and it was sitting waiting for us (think huge ferry). It was such a site (see photo) me running down the wharf with so much stuff trying not to hold the ferry up to much longer. We jumped on board and some French guy took our bags and we were off! The first thing someone said to us was, did you girls just get out of jail( as we were laughing so hard that we had received such special treatment) I think that she thought we were
crazy.
The ferry was taking us to a new country (yes Bruce I get a new country count that I was not expecting) being Jersey in the Channel Islands, which is about 1hr by ferry off St Malo in France, it is a British territory and occupied by about 100,000 people most of which are incredibly wealthy. It was a pretty last minute decision to come here as my mate Derwood that I have not seen for about six years posted on my blog that if we had any spare time we should pop across so silly for us to refuse.
Our customs clearance was a bit troublesome (I did warn the girls that I thought I was going to get curry) as I have a UK working visa that I cant activate until August 3. So they were confused and gave me the Spanish inquisition as to why I was there blah blah, they even asked me as I put N/A on my profession what I did, when I said nothing they said well why not, I have to say it was a proud moment when I said I did not want to work for a while
and I was just cruising! The problem was that we did not know Derwood’s address, where he worked blah blah and they are pretty strict here (mental note, know an address of where you are staying!).
I said it was going to be a long day, so when we got to Jersey Patty (Paul) from Ireland one of Derwood’s chef mates picked us up, took us straight to Derwood’s place which is glamour right on the water in Gorey overlooking the ocean and the beautiful castle. That evening we watched the sunset over the castle and had many bottles of wine and some of Jen’s left over Bundy(yes guys Derwood was in heaven).
Our time in Jersey has been fabulous, we have been sailing loads and had a regatta on Sunday. Cara and I beat Derwood in both races (Aussie sailors…. he was not happy about it…lol) and now have become somewhat of Jersey legends (we even got interviewed by the Jersey Post and have an article in the paper). We celebrated winning last weekends summer series heats with Yvonne and Mike who are good friends of Derwood in their spa’s with way to many beers…. we were
also a bit sad as our other wing woman (Jen) had to leave that day.
We have been in Jersey for nearly a week and have really settled into the island lifestyle, getting up late, staying up even later, lots of wine, pub’s, beach, sites(jersey cow, flower and lighthouse spotting - you would know if you have been here) and loads of laughs, sunsets over the water, Derwood’s & Alex’s great food and Dominic’s sense of humour. In short we truly have been spoilt by our new three brothers but loving every minute. The great thing about Jersey is that the lead news story is us being in town(lol - jokes) and also that the local egg farmer has been banned from calling his eggs jumbo egg's (as it may be misleading) he now has to call them extra large eggs, needless to say he is up in arms.
Our last night in Jersey we are spending with our new "brothers" at a family dinner overlooking the boats, beach and the beautiful castle
We are leaving here tommorrow (Friday) and heading back to St Malo and doing the two hour drive (on the Mack 10, what we
call a freeway!) down to Quiberon in France for the Hobie European Championships which start this Saturday.
So to sum up the first week has been fabulous, we have shared lots of special happy times and have enjoyed spending time with many new friends, old friends and for me forming closer bonds with Cara and Jen, and really not having to do anything we don’t want to do and generally just chilling out and enjoying our fun times together.
All experiences have been full of so much joy and I have to say about two years of age have come off my face, I have my glow back and have instantaneously dropped about 3kg in a week just due to being outdoors in the sun and doing exercise again and feeling so happy.
Until after Quiberon, lots of Love Bella, Jen and Cara
Some other useless commentary for those who are interested~
Wildlife count: (thanks Christian and Lara): 1,000 march fly’s, mosquito’s, deer, and one wild pig we thought we saw and in Jersey mad genetically enhanced seagulls & a pheasant and some Jersey cows(not as many as you would think) and geese/ducks which cars
stop here for.
Bless Count: (yes this means blessing others) about 100 between us three girls in four days some to strangers some to friends.
Beers Consumed: Stella, 1664, Heineken, Carling (yes warm beer), Leffe Blonde, Coors Light, Strongbow(not a beer I know)
Wines: Oh lots of them In Jersey our favourite La Vigna an Italian Pinot Grigio , (Alex’s bro in law has a wine importing business so wine has been on the menu heaps).
Fave Tunes we are listening to: I wish I was a punk Rocker - Sandi Thom, Let it Be - Xavier Rudd, Upside Down - Jack Johnson, Hips Don’t Lie - Shakira, Promiscuous Girl - Nelly Furtardo, Seniorita - Justin Timberlake, She Moves in Her Own Way - The Kooks (gr8 new English band), Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol(another great english brands)
New Friends Count: Alex and Dominic (two Jersey boys flatmates of Derwood), Timmy, Paddy(Pauly), Rachel, Timmy & all the chefs at Sumas Derwood’s restaurant, & in Belgium Tom (Cara's flatmate)
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Derwood
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Just like toi make a comment that the photo of me does not do justice for me as i am really better looking xxx