21st September (morning drizzle, cloudy, mild) 61 km

Dreamed about mum last night for the first time since she died. It was only for a moment when she appeared at a door. I opened it and exclaimed “Mum “and as I did, she was gone. I didn’t even get to give her a hug.

It rained during the final few hours of the night and we woke to a lot of water, thankfully, mostly outside although we did have a small puddle on the groundsheet in the vestibule, which was no problem. As Julia said when we woke “It would have to rain when we reach the coast.” The forecast I believe is for bad weather this morning and the clouds are dark grey and full, but then fine for the coming week, so if that’s the case, it’ll be alright. Made a couple of adjustments to the tent just in case we decide to stay another night here. It would annoy me to do that, as the town of Les Sables d’Olonne, is nice and the beach is gorgeous, but the camp is expensive and I didn’t like the owners attitude when we checked in.

Julia went to make a coffee after her shower this morning and the gas has run out, so that means a 5 km trip back into town to a Decathlon store, or no gas for a couple of days. We’ll do it because those cups of tea and coffee really revive you and can kick start your day.

Noticed yesterday that sleeping bags need a good airing as well as the inner liners, otherwise they start to get that damp, yuk feeling. No wifi at this bloody camp either, unless you pay 5 euros an hour….oh yeah… that ain’t happening. If necessary we’ll hit a Mc Donalds for a couple of hours, but it will be interesting to see what power and internet are like in Spain and Portugal. A couple of people we’ve spoken to reckon that there aren’t too many campsites and at this time of year, even fewer. Picked up a brochure at Tourist Info yesterday on camps around here and the ones that haven’t closed, will be by the end of the month.

At 9.30am we left for Decathlon, telling Elizabeth and Phil that hopefully we would hook up during the day. It was a bit of a mission getting to the store, but they had what we needed and we purchased two canisters and a couple of towels, as ours are getting a bit smelly after the last few weeks. Then it was off to find a Mc Donalds for wifi.  Found a lovely quiet one and went in and ordered coffee and food. About a half hour later the lunchtime school rush appeared and the place was packed. We’d hoped for good connection but it was rubbish and by now we’d still heard nothing from Dad and I was getting concerned.

Goodbye Les Sables d'Olonne

Typical house of the area

Left there no better off and none the wiser on the father front. Down to the front where we enjoyed wonderful cycling under cloudy skies, perfect for riding, heading for Talmont St Hiliare. Beautiful scenery again and fantastic surface on road or cycle track. At Jard sur Mer we stopped for lunch and sat watching surfers and a body boarder cut up the waves on offer. The wind which had begun as a light breeze, was now blowing strongly and it was good to begin again, with a tail wind.

A lovely run round the coast with well marked cycle path

This boogieboarder was having a blast

A detour for a toilet found us at another gorgeous beach where there were more surfers and stand up paddle boarders, before we headed off through some lovely forest rides heading for our destination of Tranche sur Mer. We had heard from Elizabeth and Phil that they were at a Super U intermarche there and would let us know what campsite they were at.

The riding was still awesome and we too pulled into the same supermarket some time later. Whilst Julia went in to get supplies, I dry lubed the bikes as they were getting a bit creaky with the dry sand riding.

Lunchtime outlook

Elizabeth at our campground for the night - this was a really good one although you can see, grass is in short supply.

All stocked up and not far up the road we found the site and the guys. After putting up the tent I got straight into washing clothes, even though the chances of them drying was virtually non existent at this time of night.

Drying clothes is a bit of a mission

Then threw myself into the shower, before Julia got stuck into the blog which we haven’t uploaded for three days, I put tea together and …finally managed to contact Dad at Anna’s in Switzerland. He has been trying to contact us, as much as we have, him. He is fine and safe, so the evening ended well. Phil and Elizabeth took a walk into town, while Ju and I carried on with the blog, before bed about ten.