Boondock Puffins

In our very quiet campsite, we slept very well, although Tom didn’t use his sleeping bag again… and he regretted it, again. When he’d then got it out in the middle of the night, we were so sound asleep that we had an accidental lie in.

We are getting better at packing up all our stuff, and after a circuit, making lunch of boiled eggs, chopped cucumber and radishes all packed into our foldable tupperwares and making coffee for the flask, we finally got on the road and headed off towards La Rochelle.

Time on the road today was quite eventful – there were a lot of diversions and Google Maps/Waze took us along some very small tracks between canals as we headed further south in an attempt to miss a massive queue. Ultimately, we still had to deal with 24 mins of stationary traffic but, even with all our luggage, Tom managed to filter through the queues. The unusual drive encompassed lots of different landscapes and different town environments.

We stopped for a break and stretch in Roche-sur-Yon, where there was an impressive statue of Napoleon, a lovely park area and funky mechanical animals that you could control with levers all over the place in the park. We debated going into a cafe but, given we were parked in an uncertain spot and had nuts to hand and coffee in the flask, we decided we didn’t need to splash out.

We headed onwards in the heat, reaching La Rochelle for lunch. Our fleeting impressions of this famed coastal city that’s been a hub of fishing and trade since the 12th century was that it was a really lovely place, but very difficult to find parking! Once we’d eventually found a spot, we wondered around for a little in our full kit (only a little boiling…) and found a very cool (no pun intended) fort by the harbour entrance.

We settled into a nice shady spot under a church wall for lunch, enjoying the respite if looking a bit homeless as we ate our boiled eggs and cucumber. We hugely appreciated the pudding of homemade fudge from my mum that she’d made for us before we left the UK and we’ve been rationing out.

The last leg of the journey took us to our campsite down the coast. The entire day had subjected us to full, unrelenting, slow roasting sunshine. However, once we pulled into the campsite, it immediately clouded over so our solid plans for recharging phones/fan/intercoms with our solar panels were scuppered!

Tom went to do shopping while I set up camp. We went for a walk to the beach to sit and enjoy a glass of lemonade with the sunset. Leftovers plus pork for supper complete with an awesome sauce made by Tom using a fajita mix he found in the shop, followed by oranges and a cup of hot chocolate for pudding – a good meal!

Now we are sitting in our tent, suffering with lots of mosquito bites that have been exacerbated by a day in hot motorbike jeans and so are now super itchy, and listening to the sound of yet more drizzle… how??! Hoping for some better weather tomorrow!