Day 29 – La Tranche sur Mer to Esnandes
Wednesday June 1, 2011, 45 km (28 miles) – Total so far: 1,028 km (639 miles)
We ignored the gps followed a cycle path for most of the day.
We saw a giant bunny
we found a campground about 10 kms from La Rochelle for only 9 euros.
Day 28 – Le Village du Bois de saint Jean to Le Tranche sur mer
Tuesday May 31, 2011, 43 km (27 miles) – Total so far: 983 km (611 miles)
Today was another day of expensive camping grounds, most of them 25 euros plus. One campground quoted us 46 euros just to put up our tent for the night. Luckily we managed to find a basic campground for only 12 euros and we had the place to ourselves!
Today was a mostly scenic ride alongside the sea, past some more Surfers Paradise style towns. The camping grounds along this have become very expensive – 20 euros plus! All we want to do is put up our tent for the night and move on the next day.
We found a modestly priced camping ground for 16 euros a night, and it was full of British holiday makers! It is the busiest campground we have come across and everybody was British. Apparently it is school holidays so that explains things a bit.
The one good thing about it being a British holiday resort is that the standard of the facilities are excellent. There are separate ladies and mens toilets and showers, the toilets all have seats and each cubicle has toilet paper! It also had a bar that was actually open.
Today is Sunday, so yesterday we stocked up on food as the shops are shut here on Sundays.
Where in New Zealand can you get all of the following for only NZD $10?
12 cans of beer
bacon
10 eggs
bag of pasta
large bar of chocolate
We made use of our day off to do some washing. Do you like our clothesline?
Day 25 – Notre Dame de Monts to Givrand click link for route
Saturday May 28, 2011
Today was mostly flat riding along the beach. We cycled passed a few hideous Surfers Paradise style towns with semi-high rises right on the beach. We are very glad to be here in the off-season – these places would be heaving in the summer time.
There also seems to be a sudden saturation of camping grounds – a lot of them with English pubs advertising Stella on tap!
“That’s probably the only way the woman can get her bloke out here is if there is an English pub selling stella!” I commented to mike while sipping on my stella in a pub in the camping ground. Well, we didn’t have much choice, and the camping is only 10 euros. Seriously though – we wouldn’t be drinking Stella at the bar, that would be way too expensive for us. We much prefer drinking our 22c lidl beer around our campsite.
Our camping site is a nice grassy pitch rather than the sandy ones we have had recently. The sand campsites seem to be full of little red spiders which were starting to creep me out.
Day 23 – Le Frandiere to Noirmoutier le L’ile (click link for route)
Thursday May 26, 2011
We packed up our stuff and headed further up the island to look around. It was cold, windy and threatened to rain all day. I didn’t think too much of the island – but I guess the weather had a bit to do with that.
Around 4.30pm a big black cloud came across, it got really cold and it started to spit with rain. We headed for the first hotel we could find.It was a very basic hotel and the room was a bit grotty – but it passed the sniff test. I don’t mind roughing it a bit if I have to – but draw the line at a smelly hotel.
We checked in, and when I opened the door to the toilet – it had a strong smell of man wee. You know that disgusting smell you get in toilets that men use? Not that I make a habit of using mens toilets – but the occasional time you have to use the mens loos at a night club ‘cos the queues are too long for the ladies. Service station toilets also have that smell. Also if you stand too close to any wall in France you will also get that smell as french guys will wee anywhere. I can always tell when men are sharing the campground toilets.
Anyway – I just pretended I was backpacking, put up with the smell and we headed out for dinner. We had a wonderful dinner in a cosy restaurant. It is common to have a fixed price menu here so we went for that. We both had smoked salmon for starters. Mike had steak and I had risotto for main. For desert we got a selection of mini deserts. It cost more than our hotel room but we didn’t care – it was delicious.
Day 22 – Pornic to Le Frandiere
Wednesday May 25, 2011
Yet another stunning day. We continued to head south down the coast towards an island which can be reach via a submerged road only when the tide is out.
We arrived at the submerged road with no idea when time the low tide was. There was a sign with a digital display of 18:15 (6.30pm) . We took this to be the low tide. Darn – it’s only 16:30 (4.30pm) now.
We managed to decipher the small print which said you can cross 1.5 hours before low tide and 1.5 hours after high tide. Perfect! We couldn’t have timed it better. We had 15 minutes to wait but we decided to start cycling across anyway to beat all the motorhomes.
If you look really hard you can see Mike ahead, desperate to get across the road before the tide comes in!
We stopped at the first campground we came to and spent an hour trying to decide where to put our tent.
Day 21 – Pornic
Tuesday May 24, 2011
After yesterdays struggle to get here we couldn’t face the idea of packing up and getting on the bikes again – so we checked in to the campground for another night.
We cycled into Pornic for a look around. It’s a picturesque town with many cafes overlooking an estuary and chateau. We refrained from having our lunch in one of the cafes. Instead we bought a fresh baguette which we filled with salami and sat on the edge of the estuary.
We then cycled back to camp via the beaches. We stopped and read our kindles for a bit – but despite the hot weather we weren’t tempted into the cold atlantic water.
Day 20 – carquefou to Pornic
Monday May 23, 2011
We didn’t leave our comfy hotel until midday (check out time). It was another glorious day of sunshine. We cycled into Nantes and had a look around. Just another European city – seen one, seen them all.
It was a bland and industrial ride out of Nantes. I had been hoping for a scenic river cycle but this was not to be.
It was at 7pm we spotted the first camping ground for the day. It was a free campsite at the edge of a village. No showers but a toilet. We knew there was another campground in 20 kms so we decided to push on. It was a very hilly 20 kms and it was hard work pushing to make it to camp before the daylight ended. We made it to the camp by 8.30pm. We were so tired we didnt even bother cooking – just put up the tent and crawled inside.
Day 19 – Blain to Carquefou
Sunday May 22, 2011, 56 km (35 miles) – Total so far: 664 km (413 miles)
We continued along the unpaved path along the canal. We were both starting to get a bit bored with it now. The gravelled path is pretty hard on the bum, and the scenery doesnt change very much.
A couple of times the track ended and we had to backtrack and cross over the to the track on the other side of the canal. The French don’t signpost things very well.
There were no campgrounds on the path so we checked into a nice hotel beside a lake just outside Nantes. It was such a beautiful day and it seemed such a waste checking into a hotel. We much prefer sitting outside cooking our meal in the evenings. But – we took advantage of the free internet, the bath, and the half price Sunday rate!