Biaritz!

We cycled 60km to get to Labenne, which is very close to Bayonne.

The campsite we stayed in near Lèon was very cozy and the night we were there they had a bit of a party. We decided to go check it out a bit. They played mostly French music, which sounded like 80's music which we should know but we didn't. Most of it sounded like a French version of Modern Talking :) Since we have been here we have also noticed that the Macarena is still a massive hit - we have heard it so many times! Most of the songs played has some moves associated to it that everyone seemed to know and join in with - so eventually we also joined in even though we struggled to keep up. There were one or two men who were quite extravagent in their dancing, it was loads of fun to watch - strictly come dancing, watch out!

Labenne was about as close to Biaritz that one can find a cheap campsite that will take in cyclists. Its a nice beach town as well. We stayed here for 2 nights at only 12E per night (6 per person!). Very cheap to be so close to such a major holiday destination. To have more time in  Biaritz we took our bicycles on the train (so we can cycle around) and only came back late the evening. We had a perfect beach day. I should also mention that we saw Hossegor on route to Labenne, but I guess "we should have been there yesterday - only a surfer knows the feeling". Biaritz however do seem to have some waves even if the ocean is really flat. It also has warm water and plenty of great beaches. We swam the whole day and also saw some of the town, it is quaint and pretty.

From Lèon onwards we also started noticing that we are in Basque country - the change was much more dramatic than expected! Today we will try to get to St Jean pied de Port so we can start our official Camino tomorrow.

Coffee on La Dune

In the last couple of days we cycled 74km to Dune Pyla (Arcachon), 52km to Parentis en Born and today 82km to Lèon.

Dune Pyla is the highest Dune in Europe, but if you've been to the Namib this may not be at first obvious. We noticed there was 100's of people on the Dune, so I asked why so... and was told: it's the highest in Europe... I must have looked like just another ignorant tourist :) Since we've been up Big Daddy at Sossus Vlei we decided we must conquer this Dune as well - so we woke up at 6am to go up the Dune, we would make coffee on top of the dune as our reward - armed with our stove and all we set out on the climb. Buy halfway up the Dune (110m high) something that looks like a cross between a 'Tor' and a Bee stings Colette - and she is allergic to bees - so I ran down to get her pills. She seemed fine so we started up the dune again... really ready for that coffee. The climb up was actually not that hard, since they placed a ladder on the dune :) At the top Colette, who packed the stove, assembles it carefully... and I get the coffee and pots ready; oops which pot? I forgot the damn pot :( Colette wasn't very impressed but (un)fortunately she broke one of our whiskey tasting glasses carried all the way from Edinburgh the previous day - so she quickly forgave me...

Colette's arm was quite sore and stinging lots plus she took 2 antihistamines so by lunch time she had fallen asleep on her bicycle so we found a campsite next to a beautifull lake and put her in bed :)

Today we had a nice cycle but tonight we are a little sad as tomorrow we are heading towards the border, our time in France is running out - but atleast we have sangria amd tappas to look forward to.

Atlantic Blues

In the last few days we cycled 30km to Rochefort, and we had a restday,  then we cycled 76km to La Palmyre and 117km to Lacanau Ocean.

In Rochefort we arrived nice and early, and it was market day so we did our shopping there. One saleslady made us taste some sausages, but when we wanted to tell her to we want to buy the first one we tasted she couldnt understand us at all, no matter how good our charades were! Finally we got another innocent market goer to translate :) The rest day in Rochefort was fantastic, we slept and slept and ate :) and i finally read the book I have been pickeling along. We stayed at a fantastic camping municipal,  very cheap and clean. One of the other patrons even offered to charge our mobile phones, the French can be really friendly.

In La Palmyre we stayed at a commercial campsite, fortunately we were squeezed in far away from the Bar and not close to any crazies... commercial campsites are full of crazies.  This campsite had a man made lagoon and we imagined that we were in the Bahamas :) The next day we started seeing some of France's awesome beach brakes, beautifull beaches and a blue-blue ocean, finally the Atlantic we know and love - just much warmer! Lots of the breaks are like Derde Steen! But with the surfing came over crowded and over commercialised towns.Yack! And we couldn't find camping... so we kept cycling, and cycling and cycling. We finally realised we may have to wild camp. So we got some provisions and had a swim in a lake (Lac'd Hourtin, France's biggest lake). By 8:30 pm we stopped looking for official camping and pitched in the woods about 100m from a campsite that turned us away. The location seemed nice and hidden away... well it was not such a great spot, lots of drunk French people couldnt find the campsite and got really close to our tent - so we hardly slept :(

Today we just cycled 17km to the closest campsite we could find and now we did washing and are resting. Lots of cycle tourists came in early to this campsite today... I wonder why... We just met a couple that said the shooting at there campsite of last night stopped at 3am... and we thought Bellville is rof, ne!

(Photos to be added soon as we can charge da camera)

Summer Camping

From St Jean we did 64km to Les Sables, then 50km to La Tranche Sur Mer and yesterday 100km to Chatelailon-Page. We found some goats supporting cycle tourists so we had to do a couple of extra k's ;) Seriously thouh, the reason we are keeping track of our distances and towns is for our own memmories - we hardly can remember where we were last night :)

We didn't mean to do 100km yesterday, only around 70-ish. However at one point close to La Rochelle we got a little lost, and when we came into La Rochelle, which is where we planned to stay, we ran out of data so had to go and look for Orange... La Rochelle seemed like a real tourist trap and was so packed with people that we decided to cycle to the next town - which turned out to be really beautiful. 

The last couple of nights we have been experiencing French summer camping, lots of French 'Arrows' hanging out by the seaside over the summer. Die spul kan ook maar lekker kommen wees! We discovered Chi-chis: deep fried cake sticks (see photo) all the French had some so we had to try :)

We saw some nice beaches and due to lots of campsites being sold out we have needed to stay in some 'better campsites' as well - better here means they have a pool, waterslide and 'animations' which in French means entertainment - we think. Some campsites will always find a spot for tired cyclists - even if its in a sandpit or next to a ping-pong table :) Last night we slept in a 0 star campsite, thank GOD! Peace and Quiet is better than good showers!

Some of the beaches here are realy nice, and we have started seeing small waves appearing, there are lots of islands and yachts - we see lots of kids being taught how to sail.

Today we are heading to Rochefort, where we hope to find a nice campsite and perhaps have a rest day.

Getting into rhythm

After a blissful night in the hotel, we left Nantes on way to the Atlantic. Leaving the big city on bike took some navigation skills but we managed fine and late afternoon after 78km reached Saint Brévin less pins. An impressive bridge was the first sight when reaching our destination. We basically just slept over there and cycled another 75km the next day to St Gervais.On route we had a fabulous lunch break at Pornic, but after that the landscape became a bit boring... flats and oyster farms... We had to sleep over in St Gervais since we wanted to cross the La Gois which you can only do on low tide. Here we slept at the cleanest Camping Municipal in France. The proud lady caretaker is constantly cleaning and she does the management all by herself as well, she was really impressed with us as we were here first Saffers :)

Today we crossed the man made La Gois and cycled through an awesome National Park, pine trees next to the ocean - it made us think of mtb'ing in the cape so it became a bit of a race - the extra weight on the bikes actually seems to help with speed - momentum!!!! We did 42km today and now we are in St Jean de Monts which is a very touristy beach resort.

The magical 100!

As it was still raining the night we spend in Pontivy ,Jo-lene cooked us the most delicious dish consisting of aubergine, chorizo, tamato, pasta and goats cheese and cheap red wine off course! The next morning it was still overcast and decided we will take the train to Nantes only to discover the closest train station is 120km away....So cycle pants on and voila! 102km later we spent the night in Peilac. On route we passed through the most beautiful towns like Malestroit and Josselin, we had goats cheese and a baguette for lunch and had loads of fun. We also realised we must use each other's slipstream to combat the headwind... This increased our average spead with +- 5km/h... why didnt we think of this before, lol.

Today we did 20km to Redon and took the train to Nantes which we are currently exploring. We booked into the local Mercure hotel to avoid camping on the outskirts of town and....because we can!