We found a nice place to stop for a few days overlooking the Bay of Biscay. I am definitely sick with a lot of snot and aches, but not feeling too bad. Just don’t feel like going anywhere.

We are camped right on the beach and there are some beautiful sunsets. There is also a nice coastal trail, with the Camino markers on it.

We ended up staying here a week to get over my sickness, and basically to have a good rest. I managed to get 2.5 videos edited, and Mike got some special beach time.

There was a cool beach bar a short walk from the camp, where we spent a couple of nights drinking beer beside the sea.

It was a much needed rest.

Today was a bit of a blah day, drizzly and damp. We said goodbye to Wayne, Sue, Jason and Dawn, and started driving south.

Absolutely nothing happened today, except for the drive. We stopped at a nice campground beside a river on a cycle path. I’m sure we cycled along here once, back in 2011.

We were both exhausted after yesterday’s events, and I am feeling quite achy. Hope I’m not getting sick.

We’d found a place to park on the street overnight in St Malo for 80c. What they didn’t tell us was there was a night club opposite! The loud music was ok but then the loud, drunk yelling happened. Thankfully it was pretty short lived and we were able to get some sleep.

Today started good but ended really shit. The plan was to spend the day sightseeing with Wayne and Sue, but Sue was unwell so stayed in her room.

So we went off to explore and vlog st Malo with Wayne. It’s a walled city from the 12th century but 80% of the city was destroyed during the war. It’s still a cool city to walk around and the sun came out and it was really hot.

In the afternoon we went for a late lunch with Wayne’s brother and sister in law. Mike had the moules frites which were delicious and I had a burger which was average.

After lunch things took a turn for the worse but I’m going to keep the details private, but we are all fine.

At 5am I was rudely interrupted by our new Bluetooth speaker yelling at me.

“Low power,” it screeched. And as if I hadn’t heard it, it repeated itself, over and over again! I gave up trying to sleep and threw the thing out the window! Just kidding, we don’t have a window. But I turned it off and shoved it in a cupboard.

Today was a lazy morning as I struggled to finish my video for this week. It’s hard being so far behind, but I don’t want to spend my days editing either. But I got my video finished, now I just need to upload it.

About 2pm we headed to a special beach as Mike wanted to work on his tan. It was a gorgeous sandy beach on a rocky bay, but it was too cold for swimming. Or sunbathing as Mike found out. So we headed for St Malo, where we caught up with Wayne and Sue, the YouTubers from Canada. Yes they are here! They are doing a whirlwind tour of France with Sue’s brother and his wife.

We went out for a delicious meal at a fancy pants seafood restaurant. I had the salmon and it was divine. Mike had the duck. It was actually reasonably priced, but Sue picked up the tab before we could say anything. She is incorrigible!

I think the plan is to mooch around St Malo and possibly do a YouTube collab with Wayne.

We awoke to rain. I looked at the cycle tourists next to us, sheltering in their tent, and my first thought was, glad we’re not cycle touring!

We spent the morning lazing around, trying to get my latest video edited. It will be late this week.

We had to top up our water in the pouring rain and by the end, us and Bertie were drenched. Bertie, if i haven’t mentioned it, is the name of our campervan, named by his original owners.

We had a few things to get for the car, so we headed to a town called Avranches where they had a Decathlon store. It had nothing we wanted. So we found a big supermarket as we needed extra blankets and an extension lead, blue tooth speaker.

There were no freedom camps in the area so we had to head towards mont st Michel. We found a wonderful spot overlooking farmland and about ten steps to view the magical Mont st Michel. We actually cycled past this area two years ago, and again on our cycle tour is 2011z it’s so weird revisiting these places in a campervan!

We watched an amazing sunset over Mont st Michel.

We caught the 8.30am ferry and were in France by 2.15pm. It was a smooth crossing so no seasick tablets required.

We weren’t sure where to head, and we were both tired, so we went to the same campground we cycled to on our first night two years ago!

We spent a bit of time sorting the van out, getting it ready. When it came time to cook we realised we had no gas. So we ate a baguette and some pork pies

I’ve forgotten how annoying it is that French campgrounds don’t have toilet paper. Or hand soap!

We’ve already worked out that we need electric hookup on our van. Mike is gonna be busy when we get back to England!

I’m still trying to work out where my composting toilet is gonna go. It’s the one thing keeping us from being fully off grid.

Last time we camped here we were going to go watch the sunset over the ocean but we were so tired after cycling we fell asleep. So we made up for it tonight and it was the most spectacular sunset!

I’ve been a bit slack with the vlogs so here’s an update. We caught our flight from La to London then picked up a rental car for 3 days and drove down to Bournemouth to catch up with the family .

Then we started looking for campervans. We found one in our price range in Chichester, so we drove 1.5 hours to look at it. We really liked it, but we wanted to think about it and maybe look at a couple more.

Then the Bournemouth air show was on for 3 days so we spent time watching aeroplanes. I tried to look at two other vans locally, but the owners were very hard to get hold of. So we made the decision to buy the one from Chichester.

His name is Bertie (he already had a name) and he’s a 2016 Mercedes Sprinter medium wheel base. It’s a diy conversion but it seems really comfy. we can always modify it to our needs.

Anyway, we’re off to France tomorrow for a shakedown trip.