Well…..Where to begin. Last night we rolled into this nice
little camp…Les Echasses . It was on our way south to Mimizan. The lovely girl
on reception was French and told us, in good English, how New Zealand was a
country that she’d always wanted to visit. We set up in the area for tents and
proceeded with our usual post ride rituals, showers, laundry, dinner, drinks,
sleep…….did I just say sleep…?
The camp was like a lot we’ve encountered in France, a
trailer park with nice homes, with space for motor homes and tents. As we were
setting up there was music playing, nothing out of the ordinary, seemed in the
background to what was going on. There was definitely a large Spanish
contingent at this camp, something we haven’t come across at all.
Finished with our bedtime rituals, we could hear an Irish
guy, who I presume was having a meal and conversation with one of the Spanish
families. Not loud, but as with the Irish, there is always that possibility. I
mentioned as much to Julia, just before her nightly death sleep.
“Think this might be a loud one “ I said as she drifted off
to that planet far away, where nothing can reach you and the place is full of
little bunnies, hopping all around, whilst 60’s flower power hippies, smoke
their weed, oblivious of anything else going on.
Whilst she slept peacefully…..I was invited….whether I felt
like it or not, to the noisiest house party
in France….featuring DJ Tapas, who thought he was playing to the Nou
Camp stadium. Loud, is not the word. I was at AC/DC’s last bash at Western
Springs and it rivalled that. Julia, I
kid you not….sleeps on.
The choice of music varies from Abba…..through Gimme Gimme
Gimme a man after midnight….to English house party music, to Celebrate Good
Times, to Mariachi music. Played at volumes beyond belief, we had the occupants
of the Spanish contingent literally screaming outside their homes. Mothers with
young children who couldn’t sleep were going off….in Spanish. One woman even
dragged her poor wide awake kid down to the raucous partiers, in an attempt to
appeal to their better nature. She was back twenty minutes later, still going
off, with a now crying child.
Guys from what I can only imagine, was the camps Spanish
mafia, were being piled into cars, the torment apparent as they spoke faster
than the normal thousand words a minute. It was so disturbing, it actually
became comical. The only thing I was worried about, was how we were going to
pack up the tent and two bikes in the middle of the night and ride through the mob
out front, without being accosted.
It was just on 1am when Julia stirs. “You won’t believe what’s
been going on here” I say, disbelieving of the fact that she could sleep at
all. After relaying the story, she casually says to me, now that she is awake…”Shall
I make a cuppa.” Then she drifted off again……It is now 2am. The music has been
reduced in volume, not that Julia cares…..she hasn’t woken again.
3am saw the end of the “Big Day Out” and the music subsided,
but sleep was not on my agenda. Firstly, the revellers from said music event
had to come home, straight past our door, as is the norm for us. Not content
with speaking at a hundred miles an hour, in a language I don’t understand, I
have to get one with the loudest whiny voice in the camp. Telling, I imagine
her two friends who accompany her, what had happened…..Hello…..they were
there…!!!!
At around 4am an older Spanish woman seemingly drags some
guy into her trailer home right outside our pitch and begins some form of
abusive sex acts on him, where he is physically thrown around the trailer home
and consistently pushed against the walls. The voices got louder and louder.
I’m still not sure it was consensual on his part. Finally after a few noisy
stragglers, I snuggled into Julia, as I was now cold, as well as wide awake and
fell asleep for an hour and a half.
In the words of Victor Meldrew, from the British television
comedy series…”One Foot In The Grave”
I don’t bloody well believe it!
Ju here – poor old Pete.
I knew he was going to suffer as I drifted off to sleep. I’m so glad I can sleep through almost
anything because it was loud. As I went
off the little party going on at the trailer with the Irish guy was loud enough,
but you could hear things revving up in the big party out the front – I think
they even had a DJ.
So we were up about 7.30am and Pete couldn’t wait to get out
of there, forgoing even breakfast! I
made him stay long enough so I could at least have a cup of tea and then we hit
the road in a very cold, thick mist. It
was very lucky we had a bike path following alongside the road as it would have
been dangerous to be on that road in those conditions. We fired along, trying to warm up and realise
we’ll have to drag out our warm gloves if we get any more mornings like this.
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| It was very cold riding through this mist this morning |
On the plus side, when we had been cycling along this road
yesterday afternoon, there had been a serious headwind – this morning there was
nothing. No wind to shift the mist
either so we just had to wait for the sun to get warm enough to pierce it’s way
through it. We had just about reached
Mimizan Plage when we saw a beautiful picnic area by a river, so decided to
stop here for breakfast. It was lovely,
sitting with the sun on our backs, gradually thawing out and the mist departing
for good. We only had muesli and coffee,
but by now it was 10am, so it wouldn’t be too long before we were having lunch.
Unfortunately, the supermarket we had hoped to visit at
Mimizan Plage was closed. However, we
did spy a market by the town square and they had free wifi in the town square
too. So while I uploaded the past two
days blogs, Pete rounded up some tomatoes, nectarines, bananas and baguettes
from the different stalls. We also
managed to facebook call Georgina which was nice as we hadn’t caught up with
her in awhile.
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| Pete blogs at breakfast time - I employ my handlebars as a washing line. |
Set off from here with our supplies, heading along more
pine-forested sealed tracks over sand dunes – very nice. We started off cruising but the speed built
so by the time we reached Contis Plage, we were ready for a swim at yet another
huge expanse of beach. The water was
clearer here than it has been and the waves not so big, so we managed to
bodysurf a couple before going for a warm-up on the soft, white sand.
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| It's not every day you see a lighthouse in a forest |
Went to a nearby park for our lunch and then hit the forest
tracks again for another hour until just south of Saint Girons Plage, where we
emerged onto the road for our final stretch into Messanges. We noticed several camp options but wanted to
get to Messanges as it had a supermarket, however, it too was closed, being
Sunday today. So we camped at the nearby
campground, happy to have found an open one as it sounds like Phil and
Elizabeth have been struggling with this.
At least the supermarket will be open in the morning.
So we got the tent up, had showers and made do with baguette
and tomato for dinner. Forgot to mention
I gave Pete a haircut last night – not too bad a job either considering I had
to use the miniature sewing scissors.
Tomorrow will probably be our last day in France. We have really enjoyed our time here, seen
some amazing sights and had some brilliant riding. It has also been mostly flat - an added
bonus. Campsites have been cheap,
drivers mostly considerate – although we have noticed the further south we go,
this appears to be less so. The weather
has been all around very conducive to bike riding, hardly ever wet and
averaging about 23C. Thanks France –
we’ve enjoyed a fantastic five weeks here!
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