Today started with an early morning mission: find a toilet in town.

And when we found it, It wasn’t just any ole toilet. It was one of those futuristic self-cleaning boxes. The kind where the door locks behind you, the toilet seat folds itself down, and you just trust the process. I must admit, with my claustrophobia I was a little nervous I might get locked in there.

When you’re done, there’s no flush button or anything. You press the exit button and the entire room gives itself a full clean. Slightly terrifying, and a little creepy.

Our next mission was to find somewhere to dump our wees. I navigated us to a dump station beside a lake, and we both had a flashback to 2011. Mike got a flat tyre in this exact same spot! Funny how random places can unlock memories like that.

After some lunch and a short walk, we headed on again, deciding to find somewhere to camp for the night.

We found a free place to stay for the night. It was one of those campervan-only spots where you can park for 24 hours. It looked perfectly fine. Other people were staying there. But for the first time on this trip, something just felt… off. It didn’t have the vibe.

I didn’t say anything at first because Mike was tired and ready to stop, so we climbed in the back for a nap.

A few minutes later Mike said, “I don’t like this place.”

Instant relief. So it wasn’t just me.

Neither of us could explain why, but the vibe felt weird, so we decided to trust our gut and move on. We figured it was probably time for a proper campground anyway. We needed showers and to do laundry.

We ended up finding a lovely campsite near the beach for only 16 euros, which felt like a bargain. I’ve seen camping car places charge more than that and not even include showers!

So we settled in for the afternoon. The sun finally came out, and so did the awning. After all the cold weather we’ve been having, it felt so good just sitting outside soaking up the warmth.

The beach nearby was long and sandy, but the sea was wild and rough. In the distance we could see the Pyrenees.

We’re only about two hours drive from Spain now… although in campervan time, who really knows how long that means.

I was feeling much better today, but Mike is now a snotty mess. We left our lovely forest camp fairly early and headed towards Europe’s largest sand dune. Somehow, completely by accident, we found the back way in. We ended up on a quiet residential street with a little gate leading straight onto the dune.

We climbed about halfway up and could see a long trail of people marching along the ridge at the top, looking like tiny ants in the distance. We’d already been to the top before, so decided we didn’t need to join the procession this time.

As we drove past the main entrance later, there were hundreds of cars lined up and a huge paid car park packed with people. We were very glad we’d stumbled across the sneaky local entrance instead.

Then I finally found somewhere to have my moules frites (mussels and chips). The restaurant was right by the beach overlooking the ocean, which made it even better. We ordered one pot of moules to share, but when the waiter brought them out, they’d split it into two smaller pots so we could each have our own. I thought that was really sweet. Even then, I still couldn’t finish mine.

After lunch we continued down the coast and eventually stopped in Biscarrosse, where there’s a free car park in town just for RVs.

By tea time we were still full from our late lunch, so dinner ended up being mango and yoghurt.

Today I woke up with a vicious headache. It seems this cold/covid/whatever is taking ages to go away. I’m a bit grumpy as there have been so many gorgeous places to ride our bikes but haven’t been feeling up to it.

I managed to upload my video via our starlink today as we haven’t seen anywhere else. Then we took a drive down to Cape Ferret, which is like a spit. 

At the end was a cool view looking out at the largest sand dunes in Europe which were on the other side of the water. But to get to them you have to drive all the way around. We climbed up them 15 years ago when we cycled here, but we might skip them this time.

The spit was an in and out road, and so we decided to go back to our pine forest free camp for the night. By this time I was feeling much better, so went for an hours walk through the pines.

It was nice to have a relaxing day. 

Today we continued further down the coast and took Bertie on a ferry! We could either drive for 3 hours via Bordeaux or take a 20 minute ferry ride for 50 euros, so we opted for the ferry as we wanted to avoid Bordeaux.

Neither of us are still feeling well and I’m starting to wonder if we have covid. Just when I start to feel right, I go backwards again.

So, we’ll just keep taking it slow, taking in the new sights.

We stopped the night near Lege Cap Ferret, and found a nice freedom camp under the pine trees.

Today the wind dropped enough that we were brave enough to walk some of the coastal walk. There are a lot of structures in the water with nets and we’re not sure whether they are for crabs or flounder.

We tried to go to La Rochelle, but somehow kept getting onto narrow roads, getting stuck in traffic and going around in circles. So we abandoned that plan and headed further down the coast to Fouras Les-Bains. 

We found a nice spot to camp, the beach on one side and a toilet on the other. We took a stroll into town, and it was a wonderful little place. The promenade was lined with beachfront restaurants and I thought I could finally have my moules frites. There was only one problem. We had just eaten lunch and weren’t hungry. And I was starting to feel very achy and fatigued again. So we headed back to the van for a nap with plans to come our again for dinner.

But when we asked at the information centre, they said we couldn’t park there overnight. Well, we could, but we might get a fine. So we ditched our nap and our moules frites and headed further down the coast. We didn’t have to drive far before we found another pleasant seaside carpark to camp. It was actually right next to a big paid carpark for motorhomes but it looked full. And the app we use assured us we could park here for free overnight. But it was limited to 5m length, which thankfully Bertie fits into.

During the afternoon a few pop-top campervans joined us, so we knew it must be a legit spot. We were both too tired to cook an elaborate dinner, so we had some left over cold pasta, and made ham toasties in the frypan using wraps rather than bread.

And the bad news is, Mike now has my cold.

We don’t really know what we are doing. We’re trying to head down the coast of France, making our way to Spain, but it’s been really cold and windy and I still don’t seem to be over this cold. And neither of us feel up to doing much. So we’re just tootering down the coast, following roads that we have cycled on before, and not making a lot of progress. 

But with the price of fuel here, that’s not a bad thing. It is the equivalent of $4 a litre here for diesel and I think that’s more than nz. And Bertie does like his diesel!

Today I put in a place in the navigation that was 1.5 hours away. But somehow it took us all day to get there. Why? I have no idea. Although we did spend about an hour trying to find a toilet this morning.

We didn’t even go to the shops. Although we did stop and buy a stale baguette. I don’t know what has happened to France, but once upon a time a stale baguette would have been unheard of. But now it seems to be a regular thing. We did get two pain au raisons though and they were delicious.

We eventually made our way to the place I had planned to camp at two nights ago. It’s on a clifftop with beautiful views over the ocean. And it’s free. But, it’s so frikking windy and cold. We tried to do a clifftop walk and almost got blown away. So we scuttled back to the warmth of the van.

Mike is trying his hand at knitting, I am trying to edit a movie.

I decided I was feeling better and we left our little beach spot. But then I felt lousy again, so we stopped early at a park up for campervans at a place where there were oyster farms. You can buy oysters from vending machines here! It’s quite a neat spot, very flat with dykes and drainage ditches. It’s really weird because we cycled along these roads 15 years ago and we remember them.

The next day I was feeling a lot better, although still very snotty for some reason. There is a road which goes to an island but you can only cross it at low tide. We cycled across it 15 years ago and this time we wanted to drive it. But as per us, we got there at high tide and it was quite freaky to see the road disappearing into the sea.

We spent the day following the coast along the little roads, before ending up at a free camping place with a bunch of other motorhomes by the beach. It looks like we might have bad weather for a couple of days.

The last couple of days i’ve been sick, and we’ve basically stayed put by the beach and I’ve slept. Sunday was a really wet and miserable day and I slept all day as I was feeling lousy. But Monday was much nicer and I felt less snotty. It warmed up in the afternoon and we took a stroll down the beach and sat in the sun for a while. There were some gigantic jellyfish washed up on shore, like really really big ones. They were creepy and made us think twice about swimming. I’m hoping to feel better tomorrow and that Mike doesn’t get what i’ve got.

I’m sick. I woke up all snotty and sneezy, and felt a bit achy too, Mike is also feeling a bit achy and we’re worried we’ve picked up something nasty.

We only drove 1.5 hours today before deciding we were too tired to drive any further. I wanted to get a bit further down the coast, but we ended up at the same camping spot we stayed at when we first got Bertie, and coincidentally I was sick then too. This trip is having a lot of deja vu moments.

We slept for a couple of hours before taking a stroll along the beach.

On the positive side, it is hot. Our parking spot overlooks the ocean and we were able to try out our awning for the first time. After our stroll we sat outside, drinking zero Corona, overlooking the atlantic ocean. It was perfect. Apart from the snottiness.

This morning we decided to sanitise our holding tank as it has had water sitting in it over the last 6 months. That involved emptying the water, then refilling it with some stuff dissolved in the tank. No idea what it is, but it’s for cleaning out RV tanks (came with the van). Now we just have to wait 12 hours or so before emptying it again.

Today was a driving day. We stopped at a supermarket and picked up supplies. We thought everytime we stop at the supermarket we should try something new, so we picked up some tins of stuff from the shelf.

When we got back to the van and opened it, it looked suspiciously like cat food. We spread it on some fresh baguette and it was surprisingly tasty. It reminded me of the innards of the pork pie. But I still can’t be certain we didn’t just eat cat food.

We ended up in a little town called St Jeen le Grande and found a free park-up for the night. Then we both just passed out and slept for the afternoon. We are still so tired!

We had a sweet and sour chicken for dinner before heading out to look at the town. It’s actually a really neat old town with quirky buildings but not a lot else happening. So we settled for an early night of monopoly deal, followed by Uno followed by sleep.