Western France

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With the Inverter safely installed we left the campsite fully working again and headed for Mont St Michel. With no high tide due, we were able to park just below the Abbey. We looked around the Abbey and lanes during the day, and then wandered back up at night to discover a much more atmospheric place, without the tourists and the gift shops closed; you could really imagine what it would have been like in medieval times.

Following the Brittany coastline, next stop was Brest to go to the Oceanopolis, we both agreed that it wasn't as good as the Aquarium in Lisbon but with the weather still wet, indoor sightseeing was a welcome relief. The following week saw us free camping, moving on every day between small French towns along the Cote Sauvage. Passing through Carnac, we stopped off to look at the Menhirs and added to our growing collection of ornaments for the Van dash. We followed it up with a disappointing afternoon in Nantes - we spent longer trying to find somewhere to park than we did looking around the town - obviously a town with a lot of dogs, many of them on strings.

Better weather saw us stop at La Rochelle and Il-De-Re for the weekend, Il-De-Re is pretty well sewn up for free camping with all the car parks having height barriers (just like being back in England!) but we stumbled across a camperstop tucked away near the Phare des Baleines on the Eastern Point. Being a French Bank Holiday, the local Gendarmerie was enjoying a day off snail shooting so our night's stay was free - having paid 18 Euros just for the privilege of driving onto Il-de-re, we didn't complain.

Next Stop was Bordeaux. With no indicated camperstops, we left the Van at a Carrefour supermarket on the outskirts and headed in on the Tram. We both thought Bordeaux was really nice, definitely enhanced by the warm sunny weather and interrupted only by an appalling curried Mexican lunch in an Argentian restaurant and Corona with no lime - its only redeeming factor was that it was 10 Euros a head. We arrived back at Carrefour to find the police attempting to move on a group of gypsies trying to set up camp in the car park, right next to our Van. Hubcaps intact we move on rapidly.

The next day, we decided to scale the heights of Dune du Pilat in the Aracachon Basin, the one in the First choice holidays advert (with the kids all running down it trying to outdo each other to get to the sea, this I must say is the side that undulates gradually down to the ocean as opposed to the steep forest side that you have to climb to get up it). At 3km long, 500m wide and 117m high, we overdid it and couldn't be bothered to walk back to the steps to climb down, so after the braver of us tries sliding down on his coat, we do a fair impression of hidden tiger, crouching dragon and leap down the steep side of 117m of sand. Walking back through the forest, conversations turn to the Blair Witch project and charging wild boars protecting their young and Christian arms himself with progressively larger sticks the more fanciful the conversation gets.

So currently at Mimizan Plage, we're recharging the batteries, both ours and the Vans before the final run towards the Spanish border.

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Photos

Parking at the Oceanopolis
No we're not towing the boat !!

Comments

[Kate Sweeney]

Fantastic photographs, western France looks brilliant. Am very jealous about your travels. Keep up the blog entry, me and mum love reading about all your adventures. Kate x