Welshish Abroad

When we woke up this morning, we found we were parked right next to a footpath. I took my cup of coffee and went for an explore. Right on the shore line was an abandoned observatory which unfortunately wasn't accessible. We went for a walk along the footpath, and took the litter picker with us. Zigzagging around, we found a number of small sandy bays, some with carrolets on, and some with huge duck traps. A goose in a cage surrounded by plastic ducks littering the shallows attracts the ducks and draws them in with food. This is a practice that's banned in France, but not really enforced. After filling up a bag of rubbish, we headed back. It was starting to get very hot. We double backed on ourselves and headed into Sanguinet for fuel. By chance I noticed a sign celebrating the twinning of the town with Neyland, Wales. Neyland is a small village in South West Wales, not more than 5 miles away from where I grew up. What a small world. We continued onwards to Bastide de Fources, a...

Today we went on a 25 mile cycle tour of all the local vineyards in the area. Turns out vineyards are incredibly boring. We stumbled across Mary in a rock on our way, but that was not the most exciting part of the day. As we rode through Marbuzet, we heard an unfamiliar bird call, one we had heard only once before only a few days ago on Ile d'Oleron. Lauren used birdnet to identify the call as a Hoopoe, but we didn't manage to see it. This time, we managed to get a good look at these flamboyant woodpeckers, flying between tv aerials around the small village sandwiched between vineyards. Before we made it back to Pauillac, we stopped off at a boucherie and picked up some meaty treats for lunch. We obviously picked up a baguette on our way through, but not before spotting a conservatory full of cats. That was Lauren distracted for a while! After peeling her away we headed back to the van and cooked up the best steak baguettes we've ever had. We packed up and hit the road agai...

 A storm had rolled over us the night before and I don't think we got that great a nights sleep. We awoke to find a fisherman setting up 4 rods in the river in front of us. The sky was calm and bright, but the ground was sodden and the river was flowing fast, bring all sorts of storm debris down with it. Breakfast was coffee, watching black kites stoop and scavenge from the waters surface. Incredible behaviour I've not witnessed before. We popped in to Libourne for coffee and lunch, and to send some birthday postcards. Lunch was interesting, our grasp of French still leaves much to be desired, and French cuisine even more so. I'll tell you what's absolutely not missing from an egg and avocado baguette.. crab sticks, that's what. Disgusting. Luckily, we very quickly made up for it with a couple of pastries. Putting that disaster behind us, we headed back out towards the coast to a small town called Pauillac. We made ourselves comfy at a campsite just outside of town ...

We got the gravel bikes out this morning and planned a loop of the island, we aimed for a beach with a good view of Fort Boyard, and kept going from there. There were a couple of bike routes set up by the local tourist board, so we mixed and mashed to stay off the roads as much as we could. The view from Plage des Saumonards was beautiful, with golden soft sand (awful for bike shoes) and turquoise water glimmering in the sun. The beach is covered with mussel farms which were fully visible at low tide. We didn't fancy swimming here so we continued our ride around the island. After leaving the beach, we cycled through the pine forest dunes as far as we could go until the cycle path took us further inland. We stopped at a local market in La Bree-les-Bairns and spied some fresh fruit on sale. It was there we realised that not everyone accepts card. Not a mistake we're willing to make again. Unfortunately it was too far to the nearest cash machine, so we had to pass up on the peache...

Wildlife is very much a theme of our travels, we have our binoculars and bird books within arm's reach most of the time.  Before a wander around L'île Chauvet, we stopped off at a stork hide . Several nesting platforms have been built to give the local population a boost. We spotted three chicks in one nest. Meandering through the wetland, we spotted what we first thought were muskrats. Further investigation carried out by Lauren determined they were actually an invasive American cousin, the Coypu, distinguishable by the bright orange front teeth (I thought Americans were supposed to have better teeth?), and something to do with their whiskers.  So turns out this climate change thing is real, and France is entering into a heat wave! We stopped off a bit further down the coastline at another nature reserve, brewed a cup of tea and took shelter underneath a carrolet to cool off. From there we caught a glimpse of the nostalgia inducing Fort Boyard! We needed to get closer, so we ...

From base camp, we whipped out the gravel bikes and went exploring around La forêt de Brocéillande. A mysterious forest with ties to the Legend of King Arthur, even claiming to have the tomb of Merlin the Magician  and a font of eternal youth .  What was way more impressive though was Le Chêne des Hindrés , a 500 year old Oak, hidden away in the forest. So big, it was pretty difficult to get a good picture of it! We drove south to Guérande, a medieval walled town, where we sat down and ate burgers next to Collégiale Saint-Aubin, a cathedral surrounded by sculptures representing the buried whose graves had been moved from the area during the expansion of the town many moons ago. Just south of the town is an expanse of salt marsh, we drove through as the sun was setting, and spotted all sorts of exotic wildlife. My pick was a black stilt. 46.9244676, -1.9044080

We left Bristol at silly o'clock to catch the 8:30 ferry from Poole to Cherbourg. It was a bit of relief from all the stressing about getting ready, but I was still pretty anxious about the whole idea of living in a van on the continent for 4 months. Especially one that I fitted out to be a weekend van of leisure. I've also never had to drive on the 'wrong' side of the road before either. Luckily, we started off in lands we were already familiar with. We'd cycle toured from Caen to Cherbourg in 2018 and from Cherbourg to Roscoff in 2019. I took the first stint on driving and aimed for Paimpont, a place I'd starred to visit on our next cycle touring leg. On the way, I spotted a sign for Sainte-Mère-Église, a place we'd planned to see on a previous tour but somehow missed it by a country mile. I blamed my Garmin at the time, but it was no doubt human error.. We arrived in Paimpont in the evening not really expecting much, but we were treated with a golden hour...