Boondock Puffins

Tom’s love of motorbiking is hereditary, inherited from his dad, John. We’ve always been looking for an opportunity to go motorbike camping together but work schedules and other commitments never seem to line up. When the chance finally arrived at the beginning of summer, we didn’t hesitate and we were able to head down to Normandy for a couple of days.

Now, Normandy in July… you’d have thought nice summer weather, right?

Wrong.

90% of our days were torrential rain.

Perhaps miraculously, we still had a good time!

The journey to the ferry was, in and of itself, an adventure. We decided against doing main motorways, instead taking back roads. This added on some significant time however, and when this was compounded by some helmet and earplug issues (ultimately resulting in the leaving behind of some fancy new, reusable earplugs when they were left on a pillion seat and forgotten about until we were half a mile down the road…), we nearly missed the boat. Thankfully, we made it with a few minutes to spare and loaded on easily enough.

Once there, we headed to a campsite found by John – and an excellent spot it turned out to be! Perched high above the tiny seaside town(? Maybe village is more apt!) of Yport just down the road from Fecamp, it was ideally positioned and we could walk along the headlands (although some care is needed to do this as they are badly eroded in some patches), as well as saunter down to the Plage d’Yport (the beach!).

We managed to strike a balance that kept us all happy for dinner time – copious amounts of meat (not otherwise specified) at the request of the boys, and vegetables to balance this out at my request! Local cider and beer was available from the campsite reception, as were baguettes, croissants and pain au chocolat to order for the following morning. With full tummies, happy hearts, and a smugness for each of us thinking we had the respective best tent (Tom and I have a LoneRider tent, John has a trusty Decathlon black out one that he stands by), we slept well.

The following morning, we headed out for a jog and an explore before packing up kit and heading further along the coast. Special mention to John’s aero press that is now Tom’s dream luxury item to take with us. Unfortunately when I took a stand to say it was either me or the aero press, Tom happily informed me that if he left me behind, he was pretty certain he could take a whole coffee machine…

A merry day was spent pootling along the coast, stopping for lunch in Honfleur and returning to a staple campsite of our Euro trips back when we had our very un-trusty VW T4, we found ourselves back at L’Hypocamp above Omaha Beach.

After a night of torrential rain, we enjoyed a brief respite in the drizzle and headed out for a run down to and along the beach (ft. some impressive bushwhacking from John and some history tours from Tom).

The rest of the day was spent alternating between taking advantage of moments of lighter rain (the downpour really didn’t stop entirely) to have coffee/a chat between tents, and generally sheltering in our tiny tents, snoozing, reading and laughing about how crap the weather was. Who was it who said there’s no such thing as bad weather, just a bad attitude?

It eventually became apparent that checking different weather apps didn’t make the likelihood of the rain any less.

For dinner, we gave up on getting the stove to work in the continued mizzle. Instead, we thought we’d give the local pizza van a try. Donning all our waterproofs for the 300m or so walk to the van, we made it all in one piece to discover the pizza van only took cash. Back to the drawing board… which ultimately entailed sending John off to the local but very hard to find ATM. Driving over the super soggy, muddy and slippy field was thankfully no difficulty for the trusty Honda and after a miserably damp journey, John returned with money in hand and pizzas were paid for!

We were joined for our supper under the tarpaulin by a lovely French chap who was walking from his home near Lyon in the South of France to Ireland to visit his girlfriend. He’d endured two days of sleeping in torrential rain with a leaky tent and now his lighter on his stove had given up the ghost. When he asked if we might be able to help, Tom was so chuffed to be able to fetch our flint (and to teach this nice man this new term in English!) and we spent an amiable supper time discussing travelling stories and commiserating about the weather.

In the morning, we decided that two nights in the wet and cold was probably more than enough, and headed for an AirBnB – John managed to find a really lovely place, that we’d recommend staying if you ever find yourself in this position (not outside the realms of possibility given the meteorological tendencies of Northern France)! We stayed at a lovely rental in Bons-Tassilly (its listing is handily called “Bright Apartment with Great View”) and it is located within a beautiful 17th century chateau.

After a walk to explore, we headed to the shops on foot – we ought to have predicted this would not have stemmed the enthusiasm of how much stuff we wanted to buy and the boys acted as pack mules on the trudge home again! A highlight was having not one of us with enough adult sense to fight the urge to buy 4-Bic biros with Paris 2024 Olympics branding… so much so that we all bought one!! That said, it’s the one pen I’ve yet to lose so maybe it was worth the exorbitant price.

A relaxed evening followed by a run the next morning and we realised it was time to head back up the coast towards home. With more rain forecast, and some tight schedules to return to, we headed back towards Fecamp. Some admin was completed on the way by me in my helmet using the intercom to ring my French bank who had managed to lock me out my account – speaking in French on the phone is already a test of my school level language skills… add to the the background noise and breaks in signal and this was a super painful progress, but eventually I succeeded in reopening the account AND getting the fines returned which is almost unheard of I feel.

With a feeling of jubilance after this, we stopped for lunch, pausing at a place that we’d earmarked as a potential camping spot for the night. It was, sadly, one of those spots where you arrive and are so unconvinced, you’d rather get back on the bike and push on to somewhere you actually want to be! Nevertheless, we embraced the time for a food stop, taking in the views of the Seine and its constant stream of cargo boats at Arelaune-en-Seine. With happy tummies, we went to get back on the bikes to realise that John had mislaid his keys…

After a search high and low, a concerned inspection of the wall, the drop down into the river and surrounding areas, we were beginning to worry when John produced them, without difficulty, from his jacket pocket!

During lunch, we’d looked around on trusty GoogleMaps for campsites for the night, before deciding we may as well come full circle and return to our first campsite where we’d felt so comfortable. Onwards we went, settling back in Yport, and enjoying a packet of crisps and a drink on the beach wall before one more group supper.

An early start (ft. John losing his keys once more… this time he’d rolled them up in his tent so we had to unpack the ultra-trusty Quecha black out tent again to retrieve them), followed by a rushed trip to the ferry and we made it back to Dieppe with only mildly heightened stress levels.

You’d have thought that would be the end of the chaos of this trip, but you’d be wrong. The 3.5 hour journey home from the port started off promisingly. Then, only half an hour in, the rain started. And didn’t stop. For over three hours, we rode in the freezing cold and ludicrous rain, like two (plus a pillion) very miserable horsemen of the apocalypse. By some miracle, we got home both in tact and dry (thanks to our insanely good Berghaus waterproof trousers and our light weight but very weather-sealed ski jackets).

All that to say, somehow we’d all still recommend a trip to Normandy, only make sure you pack your waterproofs and a positive attitude, oh and probably some spare cash for an emergency stay out the tent, just in case!