Born to Run(Bruce Springsteen)Through the land of vineyards to Bordeaux

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There is a feel of freshness in the air as one expects in spring and again the overhead sky is blue.....another fine spring day is ahead.

A leisurely breakfast and some housework to clean our apartment of the last 3 days and we were on our way further south to Taillon-Medoc a small town about 10km from Bordeaux.

Carole, our host, popped in as we were cleaning and said her goodbyes. ‘Just leave the key in the letterbox’. How trusting all our hosts have beano they have known us for a couple of days we suppose but in NZ would we be so trusting? We are not sure.

The BBA V3 likes to avoid highways as today wasn’t going to be any different.

We could have been in Bordeaux in under 3 hours had we wanted to take a highway but then what would we have seen of the French countryside speeding along at 110kph.

So for us it was a secondary road taking us down towards Royan beside the outlet of the Gironde.

As we got closer to Royan we came across oyster farms set up in canal type stretches of water that were clearly tidal but also not in an open sea as one would expect to find such operations.

Here also Gretchen spotted the first stork we had seen flying overhead and it was just a little later that we saw one perched on its nest on a tall post placed in the field just for its use. So another sign spring was well advanced with storks returning from Africa where they winter over.

At Royan we could have taken a ferry across the Gironde and carried on down to our destination.

However the cost of the ferry was quite expensive and it would not have actually taken much off in distance to be covered to our destination.

With baguette and sweet treats purchased at an Intermarche store we continued on down the eastern side of the Gironde.

We should explain a little about the Gironde, the largest estuary in Western Europe covering an area of 635 sq km.The estuary is roughly 80km long and between 11km wide just along from Royan near the mouth where it opens to the sea and as little as 3 km wide near its start, close to Bordeaux. It is a navigatable stretch of water but with strong currents requiring great care.

We took our lunch stop at Meschers-en-Gironde at a park sited on a cliff with excellent views out over the Gironde. We must have been at the point that was widest as we could barely make out the other side in the haze that often obscures anything that is in the distance. We put this down to the pollution in the European skies despite the fine sky overhead. Not something we are used to coming from New Zealand.

Continuing on we passed through farmland that had been ploughed ready for the new season’s crops or in some cases those seeds already growing into whatever they were going to produce. This gave the rolling countryside as the road rose and fell, a patchwork of verdant green and brown.

From time to time the road came close to the estuary and in most cases there was no beach as such but just mud flats.

The French postal system must be still profitable if the number of yellow Renaults used by the postal service is anything to go by. We seemed to pass at least 4 or 5 in a short distance as we drove the estuary road, all delivering mail up and down the side roads from the road we were driving on.

The villages we passed through that were on or close to the estuary had narrow channels of water where yachts and boats were tied up on both sides of the channel. All the vessels were high and dry on mud as the tide was out.

Then came the challenge for the BBA V3 for the day!

With many of the turns travelling through small towns coming quickly one after another, Gina can be a little slow in getting her instructions out to the driver and navigator.

And so it turned out in the small town of Montagne-sur-Gironde!

We did the same circuit 3 times as the driver wasn’t keen on driving on what was little more than a dirt track with grass growing down the middle.

On the 3^rd circuit we are sure that a man who appeared directly in front of us at the window of a second floor of a building as we took a left hand turn had come out to specifically look at our antics!

The driver decided to reset the GPS for the last town we had programmed in so we would get back to where we started before we entered the town and start the process all over again.

That worked and we got ourselves to the other side of the town with the passenger noting on the outskirts of town the other end of the dirt track with the grass growing up the middle as the last road we passed as we continued on our way!

The outside temperature had now reached 18C, almost time to shed the jersey.

With 260 songs on the USB we get around to the start of the list of songs every 3 or 4 days depending upon the time we spend in Peggy and as yet we haven’t got tired of listening to the same songs.

We had now reached vineyard country with vines taking over from the fields ploughed for crops all around us. The undulating nature of the road hadn’t changed, just the scenery.

The vineyards seem to be all centred on a chateau. Sometimes they are expansive, grand looking buildings with iron fences around them and large concrete pillars and gates through which you need to pass to enter the property down a long driveway to the chateau itself. Other times the chateaus are more modest buildings and surrounds all though they always look more impressive than the run of the mill houses alongside the road we are travelling on.

We were making good progress towards our destination yet the time left to travel on the GPS didn’t ring true with the quickly decreasing number of kilometres,

We should have understood why this was so because the same thing happened in Romania 3 years ago and we were soon to have history repeat itself.

The GPS is programmed to avoid tolls but it is ticked for ferries!

At Blaye, where the Gironde is almost at its narrowest, Gina kept taking us down towards the water. And sure enough there was a ferry waiting to depart for the other side which would have cut quite a few kilometres off the journey although the time taken to reach our destination wouldn’t have changed much.

We opted to re-programme Gina to avoid ferries and continued on the D669 crossing the Dordogne, one of the rivers that empty’s out into the Gironde.

Joining the rocade (ring road) around Bordeaux we were soon at the small town of Taillon-Medoc which is like a suburb of the city of Bordeaux.

Gina took us straight to the house we needed and after some tapping on the front door we were greeted by Wilhelm, the owner of the small apartment we will be staying in for 2 nights.

The apartment is an extension to a garage/store building at the rear of their property and is very well fitted out with everything we could need. There is even a small decked area to have breakfast on in the sun.

A short walk to the Carrefour supermarket and we had our dinner selected in no time.

The walk to the supermarket hadn’t been long enough for us considering the time we spent in the car today.So we checked out where the local chateau was located just a kilometre away and took off for a stroll to check it out before it was back for a brandy and ginger ale before it was time to cook.

We finished off our day with a couple of episodes of Mrs Browns Boys laughing so much that we almost spilt our coffees!

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Comments

[Phyl B]

ouse bus which is at present parked on the empty section!!! Travel safely P