France - West Coast (Beaches!!)

Since our last update, we arrived in Les Salles on the West Coast of France.  We pulled Cal up on the side of the beach and thought we had found a perfect spot to camp for the night, however just as we were taking our bikes off, the Police came carrying a fine book and after Andrew assured them he was just "securing" the bikes, they just moved us along.  Apparently towns on the coast don't like campervans!!!  We eventually found a parking area in the middle of town, which was a 5 minute walk to the beach.  We bought some fresh prawns and sat in the sand and went for a walk down to the pier.  We sat at a local bar on the beach and had a beer while we, as Andrew puts it, "people watched".  (He's a little freaky haha).  The beaches are lovely, though nothing compared to our beaches.  They did have sand, but also lots of rocks close to the waters edge.  It was quite strange to be sun-baking at 8pm as the sun goes down so late!!

The next morning, we woke early at 8am (well early for us) and we went for a long bike ride along the beach, and found a lovely cafe to have coffee looking over the ocean.  We went down and sun-baked again for a couple of hours, then had a quick lunch then back on the road, heading for Le Rochelle.

It wasn't so much of a beach town as we were expecting, but this town seemed to have more life.  Great restaurants and cafes which were surrounding a marina guarded from the ocean by a wall and watch tower that must have been hundreds of years old, quite a spectacular site.  At night, they close off the main streets and have local markets and live entertainment.  We walked around the streets and took in the local nightlife then made our 5K bike ride back to our campsite (Jamie with no glasses in the dark!!). We did visit their "beach" the next day, however instead of sand, it was more like white dirt with rocks which made the water look dirty. We left the beach and did some more sightseeing.

Jamie had been complaining for days that the French won't make meat pies for her, so we found a irish pub that had pies on their menu. A VERY excited Jamie sat herself down at the pub, and ordered a beef and onion pie with chips. She was all ready to eat a lovely big Irish style pie, when what looked like a frozen Four & Twenty arrived on her table. Andrew has never seen Jamie more disapointed  then when this microwaved piece of slop (her words exactly) arrived in front of her. All at a price of 10Euro. We should have known better.....

Last night we were going to ride into town again to watch the world cup final, but were warned that a "Huge" storm was on the way and we should stay at the camp site. They even showed us where to evacuate. We watched the football at the camp site with some Dutch and Spanish supporters which was OK, except for the result. The storm wasn't any worse than what we get in QLD every afternoon during summer.

Today we're on our way down to Bordeaux to stay at a couple of Vineyards then after that, down to Spain!

More soon,

A&J xoxo