Michelle's Song(Elton John from the 1971 movie 'Friends') - Along the Seashore to Beauvoisin - 10th May 2016

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Compared to the last couple of days in Spain the weather here in France has improved. There is still the high overcast but at least the rain is staying way which will make sightseeing tolerable and avoid the need to decide whether to get wet or not when we stop.

Sleep came easily last night and we slept in very well with the shutters down. The sight of a fine sky albeit with some very high overcast raised the spirits as we had breakfast. It wasn’t quite warm enough to have breakfast on the terrace but we are sure that will come soon for us on a regular basis.

We had a Skype with our very good friends Ruth and Owen back in Tauranga and it was good to catch up with them and their news.

It is a relatively straight forward run to Beauvoisin near Arles and so we took a walk along the promenade at the beach before heading off on the D62 which took us along the coast until we had to take a slight left hand turn away from the water to reach Narbonne.

Looking across at the toll road the A9 we were pleased we weren’t driving that with well over half of the vehicles on the busy road being trucks. From the distance we were away from the road they looked like little ants crawling through the countryside.

Over the past couple of weeks as we travelled up the coast of Spain we have noticed the growth of the artichoke crops and here in France they all had impress heads on them. We are not sure how you actually cook them but they look a challenge and Gretchen reckons she might just have to source somewhere out where they are on the menu to have them cooked for her so she can get a taste of them.

Near Coursan we thought we were back in Spain as we spotted a ‘bull ‘of the same design and size that frequent many hills alongside highways we had travelled. Gretchen being the passenger/navigator at this point in time had enough time to study its stature more than me the driver and announced that the ‘bull ‘didn’t have any balls so it must be a ‘cow’!

The D6009 became the D609 as it approached Beziers and we were impressed by a substantial fort that dominated the town as we approached.

We thought it might be worth taking a stop to get a closer a look and decided we might just do that after we got ourselves some lunch. This meant staying on a road that passed through the town and here things got a bit confusing as we had to divert to what seemed like a suburban area to find the supermarket we had plugged into the GPS.

This had taken up extra time so we opted for lunch beside the Canal du Midi that runs alongside the town.

It was warm enough for a boot lunch while we watched people cycle on the path that ran next to the canal and also watched a mother duck tend for her ducklings on the riverbank right next to where we had stopped. How times have changed for ducks bringing up their young in times of so many vehicles on the road and parked in areas like we had, that was previously their domain and free of the dangers of car tyres.

Coming into Beziers I had tried to find a place on the side of the road where I could find a tree to relieve myself as trying to find a toilet in strange towns is never an easy task. We have found that supermarkets now have been easy places to find toilets and sometimes one is willing to pay €0.50c when one is desperate and so it was today.

But down here by the canal while we were having lunch, we were sure a Frenchman who passed the time of day with us as he headed off into the forest of trees with the canal on one side and the road on the other was out to do the same thing without spending any money.

Keeping our coastal theme going we took the D612 along the coast to bypass Montpellier and the cut across the Petite Camargue for a more direct approach to our Air BnB apartment in the small town of Beauvoisin.

We have been to this area before but further east where the Rhone River joins the sea but this time we will be right in the middle of this unique part of the planet.

Chantal and Michael were there to greet us and showed us around the cottage we are staying in behind their home. With a bit of luck we might even get a breakfast or diner on the covered patio over the next 3 days.

Tomorrow we go in search of flamingos again.

PS:the song title is from a 1971 movie about a young couple in a relationship when they run away to the Camargue.Available on Youtube

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