We don’t really know what we are doing. We’re trying to head down the coast of France, making our way to Spain, but it’s been really cold and windy and I still don’t seem to be over this cold. And neither of us feel up to doing much. So we’re just tootering down the coast, following roads that we have cycled on before, and not making a lot of progress. 

But with the price of fuel here, that’s not a bad thing. It is the equivalent of $4 a litre here for diesel and I think that’s more than nz. And Bertie does like his diesel!

Today I put in a place in the navigation that was 1.5 hours away. But somehow it took us all day to get there. Why? I have no idea. Although we did spend about an hour trying to find a toilet this morning.

We didn’t even go to the shops. Although we did stop and buy a stale baguette. I don’t know what has happened to France, but once upon a time a stale baguette would have been unheard of. But now it seems to be a regular thing. We did get two pain au raisons though and they were delicious.

We eventually made our way to the place I had planned to camp at two nights ago. It’s on a clifftop with beautiful views over the ocean. And it’s free. But, it’s so frikking windy and cold. We tried to do a clifftop walk and almost got blown away. So we scuttled back to the warmth of the van.

Mike is trying his hand at knitting, I am trying to edit a movie.

I decided I was feeling better and we left our little beach spot. But then I felt lousy again, so we stopped early at a park up for campervans at a place where there were oyster farms. You can buy oysters from vending machines here! It’s quite a neat spot, very flat with dykes and drainage ditches. It’s really weird because we cycled along these roads 15 years ago and we remember them.

The next day I was feeling a lot better, although still very snotty for some reason. There is a road which goes to an island but you can only cross it at low tide. We cycled across it 15 years ago and this time we wanted to drive it. But as per us, we got there at high tide and it was quite freaky to see the road disappearing into the sea.

We spent the day following the coast along the little roads, before ending up at a free camping place with a bunch of other motorhomes by the beach. It looks like we might have bad weather for a couple of days.

The last couple of days i’ve been sick, and we’ve basically stayed put by the beach and I’ve slept. Sunday was a really wet and miserable day and I slept all day as I was feeling lousy. But Monday was much nicer and I felt less snotty. It warmed up in the afternoon and we took a stroll down the beach and sat in the sun for a while. There were some gigantic jellyfish washed up on shore, like really really big ones. They were creepy and made us think twice about swimming. I’m hoping to feel better tomorrow and that Mike doesn’t get what i’ve got.

I’m sick. I woke up all snotty and sneezy, and felt a bit achy too, Mike is also feeling a bit achy and we’re worried we’ve picked up something nasty.

We only drove 1.5 hours today before deciding we were too tired to drive any further. I wanted to get a bit further down the coast, but we ended up at the same camping spot we stayed at when we first got Bertie, and coincidentally I was sick then too. This trip is having a lot of deja vu moments.

We slept for a couple of hours before taking a stroll along the beach.

On the positive side, it is hot. Our parking spot overlooks the ocean and we were able to try out our awning for the first time. After our stroll we sat outside, drinking zero Corona, overlooking the atlantic ocean. It was perfect. Apart from the snottiness.

This morning we decided to sanitise our holding tank as it has had water sitting in it over the last 6 months. That involved emptying the water, then refilling it with some stuff dissolved in the tank. No idea what it is, but it’s for cleaning out RV tanks (came with the van). Now we just have to wait 12 hours or so before emptying it again.

Today was a driving day. We stopped at a supermarket and picked up supplies. We thought everytime we stop at the supermarket we should try something new, so we picked up some tins of stuff from the shelf.

When we got back to the van and opened it, it looked suspiciously like cat food. We spread it on some fresh baguette and it was surprisingly tasty. It reminded me of the innards of the pork pie. But I still can’t be certain we didn’t just eat cat food.

We ended up in a little town called St Jeen le Grande and found a free park-up for the night. Then we both just passed out and slept for the afternoon. We are still so tired!

We had a sweet and sour chicken for dinner before heading out to look at the town. It’s actually a really neat old town with quirky buildings but not a lot else happening. So we settled for an early night of monopoly deal, followed by Uno followed by sleep.

We had a really nice first night in France. It was quiet, peaceful, and after all the partying we slept really well.

The next morning we mostly just lazed around until about 2pm before deciding we should probably find a laundromat.

We drove about 40 minutes down the coast to an aire de camping car place Mike had found. But when we got there it was 15 euros to camp, and it didn’t even have toilets! I’m sorry, but if I’m paying 15 euros to sleep in a carpark, I at least expect a toilet.

So I ditched that idea and continued on to the campground I had eyed up earlier. Which turned out to be a very good decision.

It was only one euro more expensive, it was right on the beach, and it even had a swimming pool. Okay , it wasn’t warm enough to use it, but still… A pool! And it was right on the beach! And that wasn’t the most interesting part.

It turns out back in 2022, we cycled here and stayed in this exact campground! That was super weird and it wasn’t planned!

But the best part was, there was laundry on site and our sheets really needed washing. So we spent the afternoon doing laundry and working on a movie. We took a stroll along the beach front to the shops, but the meat looked a bit manky, so we just got some eggs and some garlic.

We had a bacon and garlic pasta for dinner. Diet starts tomorrow!

The alarm woke the whole house at 5.30am. And I couldn’t find my phone to turn the screeching thing off! Sorry Nick and Ems. But we were up and away early to catch the morning ferry to France.

We’re sailing from Poole to Cherbourg. There was hardly anyone in the queue when we arrived, and hardly anyone on board. There were quite a few motorbikes and cycle tourists though (seems we have started a trend!).

It was a beautiful calm crossing, but in our madness of packing up, we forgot to make sandwiches. And we were both so hungry. So we succumbed to the overpriced meals on board.

I just wanted a sandwich but this wasn’t an option, only a meal. And I think we have made this mistake before. The meals were absolutely disgusting.

Mike ordered the beef bourginon for us to share, but it tasted suspiciously like kidney and I couldn’t eat it. So I ordered a burger instead but it was so disgusting I couldn’t eat it either. Only the French could fuck up a burger! So I ate the chips, which were surprisingly ok! We must start eating healthier.

5 hours later we arrived in Cherbourg, and set off down the coast. We stopped at the campground we stayed at last time, as we needed to fill up our water and wash our sheets, but it was a sad old place with rusted caravans and looked more like a scrapyard.

So we ditched that idea and headed further down the coast and found a nice freedom camp overlooking the ocean. We took a short stroll along the beach and watched most of the sun set. Then scurried back to the van before we got too cold. We settled down for a game of Uno (Mike won) then Monopoly Deal (He also won) before deciding I had taken enough abuse and it was time for bed.

We rolled out our sheets, preparing for the worst, having sat around all winter in the van, but they were ok. Just a little bit smelly, but tolerable. We were so tired we didn’t care! We’ll find a laundromat tomorrow!

It’s been a mad week since we got here. Jet lag seems to hit harder every year, and we were so tired for the first few days. Our first task was dropping Bertie in to get his awning fitted and also a bike rack. But when we got there, they said couldn’t fit the bike rack because of the modifications Mike had put in last year (dents). But they did fit the awning, but it’s been too windy to test it out yet.

So Mike decided he would fit the bike rack himself. First we took it to a panelbeater, and they told him how to get the dents out himself. So Mike gave it a go. But he banged on the wrong place and ended up putting more dents in. The problem with the dents was they left a big gap between where the rack would fit, but we figured we could just add more sealant to fill the gap. Brother Paul confirmed this should be ok (although it was hard for him to see properly)

So Mike set about putting up the first brackets for the bike rack, which would take 24 hours to dry. So we left them alone and went to the festival. We had an amazing time and there is a whole video on this, so I won’t say too much here.

So on top of jetlag, we also had 3 days of next to no sleep, and 1 whole day free before our ferry to France. In this time, we had to finish the bike rack, get all our clothes washed and dried, go to storage and pack up our van, and get the festival video edited and uploaded. Usually it takes me about a week to do a video, this one took about 6 hours!

Somehow, amazingly, we got almost everything done. Our sheets from last year haven’t been washed, but they will just have to wait until we find a laundromat.

Next stop. France.

The first leg of our flight was so good, apart from the giant baby in our cabin. I don’t know why it was so large, but it was very grizzly. But I still managed to get a good 5 hours sleep.

We had a shorter flight time to Singapore, although we had a short delay as they had to take 3 peoples bags off. I always wonder about the story of people who check their bags, then don’t get on the plane. Why?

We took off about 12.30am, and by the time they had fed us it was about 2.30am. I’m not sure it was actually worth waiting up for.

We were warned of turbulence across Australia, but I hardly noticed it if there was.

We arrived in Singapore and this airport is just so damn easy. We don’t even need to clear security. Then straight through and onto the next flight! Oh and I have to mention the automated wheel chair, just aimlessly wandering around the airport. It looked really lost, so I tried to sit in it. But it growled and said it was out of service. Then if followed me and made me a little nervous. So we took the escalator and we managed to lose it.

We’re just sitting in the lounge, with only a 2 hour wait for our next flight to London. This one is a long one, 14 hours! Oh well.

It’s that time of year again and we are sitting around at home, chewing on our nails, waiting until it’s time to go to the bus station. But as per normal, we’ve left everything to the last minute and we have to wait for the dryer to complete before we can put Poppy in the garage. Why do we have to wait for the dryer? Because when Poppy is in the garage, there is literally an inch to spare.

Eventually the dryer finished and Mike inched Poppy in and disconnected the battery. Our flatmate had kindly offered to drive us to the bus station.

While we were waiting to board the bus, we got talking to a woman who was going back to Dubai. She got evacuated during the bombing, and she said it was way scarier than the media let on. She really didn’t want to go back, but the fees for getting out of her contract were horrendous. I really felt for her.

Our bus was a double decker one and the seats were in a weird front/back layout. And the only seats available were sitting backwards, which was odd, but strangely kind of cool. I got to see all the people overtaking us, and well, it was as interesting as a bus journey could be.

We had to change buses at Manukau, but it was pretty low stress. We are now at the airport about 6 hours before our flight. I swear, we get worse every year! Now we just have to try and stay awake until midnight.